Invention ...

Yesterday - 'Day 9' - was perhaps the most inventive day in the rehearsal room since we started.

But just 1 more to go!

There were four scenes remaining in Act II to develop and there was a superb amount of time to do this.

The instincts, ideas, inspirations and fluidity of the work meshed together and allowed for some truly comic - hysterically funny! - moments.

Characters were further defined, relationships developed, and the sense of an ensemble, and of a troupe of actors (in the context of the play-within-a-play) really started to crystallise.

There was even the opportunity to run Act II, up to the finale, a couple of times before lunch.

I laughed a lot in rehearsal today because an actor developed a character so uniquely, thoughtfully and honestly, but without any sense of ego or any obvious awareness of the craft of it (though there was tremendous craft), that you actually believe that this larger-than-life character is real and that you are watching human behaviour at its most observed / heightened / ridiculous.

If this is what making theatre is about then I don't mind doing - in fact, I want to be doing - theatre-in-eduction pieces, youtheatre productions, christmas shows or something a little more cutting-edge / fringe / experimental as apollo/dionysus.

The variety is what develops the versatility: the versatility is what makes for invention.

And there are now, in just the 9 days we have been rehearsing, two projects that just didn't exist 9 days ago.

It is incredible what inspires what...