Building up a Picture

Rehearsal. While Tracy is working with others, our group retires to run through the extracts from The Odd Couple that we are performing. Imaginary curtain up on four of us sitting around an non-existent table playing virtual poker, while trading insults and occasionally shouting questions at Oscar offstage. Script in hand, the four of us bumble through the words and movements. It's not that we haven't learnt our lines; it's that we don't trust ourselves to remember lines, cues and blocking without those precious pages in our hands. And with all that responsibility, focusing on a New York accent and getting the right emotion into the words come far down on my list of priorities.

The first run through is not so much a mess as a flop. We run through it again. I sit on my script and leave it behind at the point where I have to get up and inspect the garbage. With nothing to look at, I have to concentrate, but I get most of the words right and in the right place. As do the others. So we do it again, and again, and again. We're all gradually coming off book and although each of us misses a cue or fluffs lines from time to time, we can feel the play coming together.

I'm still not quite sure of my character, Roy, but he has a nice interaction with Oscar that I can work with and I'm getting a clearer idea of what kind of person he is. It's not just my character that is coming into focus; as I watch the others interact and become aware of my own movements, there's no longer a blank space between each of my lines. As a writer I had never appreciated how abstract words are, but now I can see from the inside how acting builds up a picture, three-dimensional and in colour, that printed words cannot convey. It's not just me, of course; the other actors are equally good or better. Sean's exaggerated accent,  facial expressions and gestures are just right for comedy; Brendan contributes a laid-back, likable Oscar; Matt easily gives Speed presence and Francis is getting the hang of dumb Vinnie.

As the play comes together around me, my accent begins to improve and my other main concern - what do to with myself when the focus is elsewhere and I have nothing to say - begins to fade. I know my performance is a long way from perfect, but I'm no longer worrying about whether I have any right to be on that stage.