Present: Dale, Greg, Dan, Jeff B, Kevin. (Marc @ previous engagement; Matthew working; Jeff A?)
We began by reading through IV.6, the scene in which the smug Tribunes are aghast to learn that Coriolanus has joined forces with Aufidius and is marching against Rome.
Dale isolated the bit where the Citizens come in, breathless with rumor, and immediately begin backtracking on their decision to banish Cor. His concern was that it was too easy to play them for laughs, as clueless yokels. He wanted to see if we could maintain the increasing disquiet of the scene.
After memorizing the three or four lines, we gave it a shot and were actually successful. Rather than fickle idiots, their cries of “We didn’t mean it” became dangerous accusations against the Tribunes.
Then we backed up and tackled the part of the scene between the Tribunes and Menenius. After one time through, we sat them at a cafe and did the scene again. Very nice—it gave the Trib’s self-satisfaction a nice, relaxed tone that gets shot down with the entrance of the first Messenger. By the time Cominius comes raging in, the Tribs are thoroughly rattled.
However, as Kevin pointed out, it’s not necessarily because they believe what they’re hearing. Rather, they understand that whether the rumors are true or not, they have a situation on their hands. (Which we see is true when the Citizens come in…)
At some point, we discussed the schedule—we have nine weeks until the first performance, 54 hours of rehearsal left. We can actually keep playing without casting for another week before things start to get tight.
We looked at I.3, Volumnia’s first scene. We had a lot to say about Volumnia, which I’ll let people either fill in in comments for this post or for the actual I.3 post.
Dale suggested at one point that Volumnia could actually physically abuse Virgilia, but that was generally discouraged: Volumnia is abusive enough without hitting, which Dale went on to prove with an absolutely relentless reading of her.
Throughout the evening, every time we ran through a scene, we shifted roles, which was nice, because everyone brought something different to each role.
Next session is Saturday, August 23, 10:00 a.m., Newnan School of Dance; we’ll look at the war scenes, I.4 through I.10. We want to look at the battles and see how we can make them look like something.
And we still need three or four more men.
Guys, I think it would be very useful in the next two months if we actually go record our thoughts about the scenes and characters with the actual scene posts. That way, once we cast, people can go look back at what we had to say in the scenes as we worked.
To that end, here are the links for