Friday 27th

Different bar. It’s 11pm and already been a longish afternoon/ evening/ night; wherever the distinctions lie in this culture. We rehearsed in V’s parents house, a rather lovely space in Parque Rodo (not Pocitos). Her father is an architect and the house had been refurbished. Felt very inhabitable.

We started by reading the whole of Scene 2. It’s the last time we’re going to work on it for a week. It ran at 40 minutes. Be interesting to see if it goes down or not. (Q: Is Spanish more direct than English? I always thought so but I’m not so sure now.) Whatever, it’s a monstrous scene, riddled with complexity. Afterwards we talked a bit about the text, something which, with the first week’s assiduous exploration of text, we haven’t done that much of. Next we did some writing exercises. Again about the respective characters’ day after the scene; then CG’s patient who died (about which V wrote several pages)/ a typical day in the café for JR. Finally I asked F to write about his first morning as a therapist/ V to write about CG’s realisation, as a teenager, of what it might mean to be a therapist. The exercise is entirely for the actor’s benefit. Some actors, as A did last night when we chatted after rehearsal, like to discuss it. But F&V are wonderfully taciturn, keeping it all close to their chests. I asked them for one piece of information each from the exercise: F told me JR’s father had a lot to do with the decision to become a therapist; V that CG has a cat.

We had a pause, then went outside. I asked them to do the scene standing up, approaching one another when they felt the characters were getting closer, moving away when distanced; the idea being to see the act as a kind of dance.

[Have just been brought an enormous piece of steak, with chips, my bargain basement supper.]

We worked in the small back garden. Both embraced the exercise; a relief after a week trapped at the table. I sat back and watched them make decisions. At the end, F was exhausted, as he had been after the earlier reading. Sometimes it seems as though the greatest potential obstacle we face is the actors’ desire to work too hard. Not the worst problem for a director to have. The last thing we did was talk costume again. I attempted to give a brief description of cricket; with which we left Scene 2 behind.

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I walked to Parque Rodo with V. Her partner, Ramiro, has directed a group participating in Carneval tonight. 17 people were preparing for the show, strumming guitars and smoking as their faces were painstakingly made up, transformed into a collection of Harlequins. Ramiro and I got to know one another a little, whilst he kept one eye on the troupe and another on Tiago, their one year old, before V took over maternal duties, giving him a big drum to bash. I drank some beer, hung out for a while, then left and walked back along the Rambla, the last of the day dying in the sky.

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Edie Brickell and The New Bohemians – remember them – are playing in the background.

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