Rehearsal Notes

Sorry, I assumed you were awake anyway.

Let's try it without the heavy breathing

toward the end of the scene in the garden.

It distracts, somehow. Just speak the words, there

and elsewhere, as loudly

or as quietly as they need to be spoken.

Need in this context is vague, but do your best.

Don't get me wrong, subtlety is not the goal,

not on our budget, but an untested intensity

will flounder somewhere between the prompter

and the first row of the audience.

They know the story too, after all,

and it will be late by the time you face them.

Don't gaze into the distance when the

future is referred to. Don't hope

when you speak of hope.

Presumably it's not easy being us

but consider the alternatives.

Have you looked around recently?

In scene four you are passing an empty bowl around

that must seem heavy, but overdo

the heaviness and its emptiness is the final

lingering effect. Do you see what I mean?

I mean use the sharp knives carefully.

I mean real tears

don't mean you're acting well, just that you've lost

yourself in yourself again,

and where the script says scream

a step to the side and possibly a finger

touched to the mouth will do.

Source: In a Language That You Know (University of Nebraska Press, 2017)