His Dark Materials Part Two Dress Rehearsal

It is past 10.00 p.m. on Wednesday, the eve before His Dark Materials opens tomorrow with a full house it seems. I prefer to have a break on the Monday after the day long get in on the Sunday. There are two reasons for this: it enables the technical and backastage crew to complete their preparations before the actual dress rehearsals; and the dress rehearsals run straight into the performances. I find the Wednesday evening break intrusive usually but have enjoyed this evening though. I really felt out of it last night during the dress rehearsal for Part Two. This is mainly due to my contributions to Part Two being small and widely spaced. I appear as a cleric in the consistorial court in the first scene that opens Part Two. It is another hour before I appear for all of ten seconds as part of the Church Forces in a battle with Lord Asriel's troops. I quite enjoyed this as Neil and I had eventually got the hang of a punch that began our fight sequence. Well it did begin our fight sequence but was cut in a reworking of the scene after the Part One Dress rehearsal. Now I am reduced to coming on, grabbing Ingrid's elbows (she, naturally, is on the opposing side) before being chased off USR by Iorek the polar bear. This is more than a little anticlimactic after being dressed in uniform for an hour. After the interval for about another hour I have to wait to reappear as the Welsh Jeptha Jones (or at least I made him Welsh to keep my own interest up) and then I have a fairly quick change to become a ghost in the Land of the Dead sequence.
I don't want to overplay it but theatrically Part Two is not very absorbing for me and I quite envy the fact that Alice my younger daughter opted to be in the first play and not the second. Also I don't think Part Two is as good as Part One. I am much more interested in the characters of Lyra and Will (and Lyra's truly dysfunctional parents) than I am in the Republic of Heaven stuff (even though I am a republican rather than a royalist). Part Two reminds me of the swirling banners and alarums of a Shakesperian History Play as performed by the old RSC when I knew not and cared not on whose side Lord Whatever was fighting. Added to the fact that I was out of sorts yesterday and had work to do for school, the dress rehearsal was a very unsatisfying experience.
The out of sorts is because I was tired after the exertions of the Monday dress rehearsal - this is a very out of condition older man involved in strutting about the stage and doing quite elaborate stage fights - and because the manner of my departure at the end of the fight (to which I alluded in an earlier posting) was unsatisfactory. It is also tied up with the sense of dislocation from school and the catching up with paperwork as required by my Maths Manager was something of a final straw.
Megan was her usual delightful self and had brought camouflage cream for everyone to use for the Land of the Dead sequence. She also brought her lovely young daughter Sian who has the same striking eyes as her mother - very disconcerting. Sian has been a great help with Play Two during rehearsals and seems to have taken an interest in its performance as well. I kept stumbling over her - one scene operating the smoke machine under the set ( I think I heard her say "Shit!") and, on the exit from the Land of the Dead out of the back of the auditorium, I found her operating the spot and enquiring if I was the last one out.
During the Director's notes, I found I was being criticised by Sean who is the puppeteer for Lyra's daemon and the two "deaths" played by Megan and Charlotte. They couldn't get past me because I was filling too much space under the recess at the back of the set. This scene has a problem because if I stand in front of them to let them have space upstage of me (something I must admit I am reluctant to let any actor have at the best of times)I will be blocking them from downstage because I have nowhere else to go. But to hell with it I will get out of their way and I will also willing forego my chance to appear on top of the set as part of the protracted departure or exit scenes from the Land of the Dead.
I change back into my actor's black outfit for the curtain call because I don't feel I want to reappear as the ghost from the Land of the Dead having to hang around until the end and after the curtain call we have to empty the studio and move everything(props and costume) back into the theatre. For the Part One curtain call I also appear in actor's black because I don't want my contribution to Play One to be remembered for my American tourist. I like John Faa and I like playing the tyrant bear up until his dead body has to be removed.
Finally to round off this very rambling posting I would like to record my thanks to Sharman who insisted during the interval for Play Two on collecting together the bears involved in the fight sequence and the carrying off bit. She wouldn't let us go until we had worked out a more practicable way of removing me but it is quite scarey that we won't see if this really works until the first night.