Man, working with good actors on a fun project is just the absolute best.

Day 3 of Jacob Marley rehearsals, and I’m really enjoying this process. It’s such an interesting animal, this play – we’re just beginning to really explore some of the staging and storytelling opportunities we’ve got with this one, but I’m very excited about it.

It would be very easy to overdo this show. Overcostume, overprop, or overstage. I’ll know SO much more in 5 or 6 days than I know now, and that’s a very exciting prospect.

The THING about this play: There’s so much narration as they do things. It’s descriptive narration, self-descriptions as they become some of the many characters they each play, or as they set up who the other characters are and where they’ve gone.

OR it’s letting us know what’s going on. Rather than just DOING the action, it describes a lot of it.

(If it’s in quotes, it’s dialogue directed at another character, if it’s not in quotes, it’s dialogue as narration):

MARLEY: (snatching the contract) We’ll soon get to the bottom of this! (starts to read) He read for quite some time, and as he read, the paper began to shake a bit in his hand. His face dropped its mask of disdain, and became solemn, even a little sad. “Why, wasn’t I made aware of this?”

RECORD KEEPER: “You were, my dear sir, many times, on many occasions. But, you chose to ignore them.”

MARLEY: “I thought we were to be forgiven our debts – ”

RECORD KEEPER: “Not my department, my dear sir. Here, all is paid to the last farthing.”

MARLEY: Suddenly marley felt his arms pulled down and a great weight upon his legs. He looked down and saw great iron chains hanging from his hands, his arms, his ankles, his neck. Fastened to the chains were leases and contracts, ledger-books and cash boxes, and most of all, locks, steel and iron, rusty and new – “What are these?!”

RECORD KEEPER: “You wear the chains you forged in life, Mr. Marley. Is their pattern strange to you? Know that you made them, link by link, yard by yard, cashbox by cashbox.”

MARLEY: “Mercy! Please, please, kind sir, I beg of you – have some mercy!”

RECORD KEEPER: (a bit sadly) From the Record Keeper, only smiling silence.

So, it’s marvelously descriptive, but so interesting in that instead of just DOING IT, which is often what plays are all about, we’re DOING IT AND DESCRIBING IT…what this lets us do is make the audience use their imagination a bit more – we don’t need to cover him in chains, we tell them, and they imagine it. Instead of doing a million dollars worth of Hollywood special effects, we describe it as we see it appearing, and let the audience picture it in their own minds.

It’s fun. It’s a challenge. I think it’s gonna be moving, entertaining, and theatrical as hell. What more could I want?!