On Saturday 15th March, we held our tech rehearsal – the first occasion the actors worked on the play as a group. We didn’t run scenes in full, but instead, ran only the tricky stage business – entrances and exits, music cues, fights, use of stage blood, props, and the jig at the end. It was a nerve-wracking experience for the actors, who found themselves trying to remember cue-lines without knowing what other actors were going to say or do. However, it all came together on Sunday the 16th March, at the dress rehearsal: we ran the play in full, and the actors did astonishingly well at remembering there lines while acting together for the first time, navigating the stage space, and making sense of character relationships, imagined place and plot developments. Although I was onstage throughout as the prompter, I was only needed a couple of times in each scene – for a first rehearsal, this was incredible! I can’t wait to see how the play works in performance on Friday – in the mean-time, here is a sneak peak of our dress rehearsal, from our lovely photographer, Niina Tamura.
Merry, played by Freyja Cox Jensen, contemplates his crime…
Rachel, played by Eleanor Rushton, cleans up the blood
A scene of convivial drinking, with Brian McMahon and Mike Waters. Our lutenist, Sam Brown, sits to the side of the stage space, ready to play.
A boy, played by James Phillips, with a hammer ‘sticking in his head’
Kit Spink plays a man with a fearful secret; Jack Blackburn is a friend who must persuade him to tell.
Two Watermen, Charlie Howitt and Becky Moore, have made a discovery.
Elspeth North, playing the Salter, must recognise a killer
Brian McMahon, as constable, prepares to make an arrest, wit the help of the Watermen.
Things will not end well for Merry and Rachel…
I am holding the prompt script – an essential part of the process!
Staging Two Lamentable Tragedies 
