40 Dei - Wed 1 Thurs 2 April

Marking time now. Don’t want to over cook it. Nerves are jangling. Actors with time on their hands before a big event get too playful! Carpenters working very hard to get the building ready; we’re rigging lights, buying costume, recording sound tracks. We need to act and record a fight in the road at night for the nightmare going on in one of the actor’s heads. And a different actor trots off to the dentist everyday. I think if it weren’t for Easter and the review I would have opened mid month.

And then I realise I’m missing a good opportunity; several scenes could be tightened, could be pushed further. It’s my worst fault as a director (at least of the ones I can see in myself!). I get too carried away in run throughs and forget detail. Wow, that’s powerful I think but will it be that powerful every time? Does the actor have a strong enough base to make it fresh each time? Could it be more powerful still? Are we wallowing in that power and in fact it’s really self -indulgence and what we need is pace. So thankfully I have caught myself this time and we go back to the rehearsal room to explore individual scenes. The actors seem to appreciate it.

We all met with the review team this morning. They are very sympathetic and supportive and full of constructive comments. Given the stress around at the moment we could not have asked for more sensitive reviewers. The local team member said afterwards how the review had opened her eyes about just how much WSB does and how she had had no idea about certain departments-the clinics, the turtle monitors, the youth centre. We could do a lot more PR!

Given our talk yesterday about the current arrangement of the seating and the play itself not being too suitable for young children, I was amused to read in the UK press today about a famous actor in a powerful play who was so fed up with someone in a school party in the front row that he came out of character and said to the student that he would not go on till he, the student, left. The reporter said that most of the audience agreed with him but there was something scary about their 'mob mentality' as they shouted 'out, out, out' until the student plus teacher left.