Two

Feel utterly bloody trapped.

After Hamlet collapsed I agreed to do Ruth's project. Two. However, every rehearsal we have now we just spend argueing. Some of it is my fault and some of it is her fault. She has a very set idea of how this play should be, yet she has given me equal directorial responsibility. So every single thing I come up with leads to an argument. If it was just her directing, I'd be fine, do as I am told. Not paricularly well, but I could do it. She says I argue for the sake of arguing and simply because she has an idea, I do argue for the sake of arguing but I do worry with how she talks about certain things, that she is going on decisions taken from previous performances of the show, rather than coming to the text fresh and allowing me to make my own decisions about the characters. Now I feel utterly trapped. Rehearsals are hell to get through. I do my utmost to be amenable but I feel now that my style of acting, of getting to grips with the character, which involves trying out new things is being impeded, that anything I try and suggest will be taken as a pretext for an argument because it goes against what Ruth has in her head. Even things I thought I'd successfully argued for have disappeared. Yesterday I said that at least some part of the set needs to be on rostra because I have to do a backwards pratfall over a chair. If this is not on a rostra I will blow my head open on the concrete theatre floor. Yet today when I was talking about where I thought we had agreed there would be rostra she did not seem to know what I was talking about.

We had an argument about whether we should charge for entry. She had already decided it should be free in. I said I thought we should charge. At least that one I won, I can't afford to pay £50 quid into the budget and not get anything back.

Now she expects us to learn about four pages of dialogue by tomorrow. I'm not sure I can be bothered any more. What seemed like a fun, little play to do at the start, now seems like a horrendous great piece of monolithic junk. I feel like I want to quit but that if I do I might as well just call off mine and Ruth's friendship, it would be a terrible betrayal. Especially considering what has gone on before. So do I carry on as I always do and put someone else's feelings before mine, allow myself to do a crap job because I will not feel that I am acting true to the character but being railroaded into someone else's vision of it. Or do I just walk out. Destroy Ruth's dream as mine was destroyed. Leave her in the shit. She's done nothing to deserve that. Yet this is why I am always depressed, I always give in. I always put myself out for someone else. Never think of oneself above another. This time, I truly feel like I would be heaping stupidity upon stupidity by carrying on like this, the way I'm being asked to rehearse.

I would argue with any director, Ruth thinks it's just her but I will argue with any director if I believe they are trying to push a charcter in a way they should not go. Especially seeing as I am supposed to be equal to her in directing. To then find that things are already set short of actual blocking, and any suggestion or attempt to discover the reason just sets of an argument. I don't doubt that I am an argumentative person and that some of this is my fault, Ruth accepts that some of it is her fault, but she gets so het up and it turns into an argument when I mean it just to be a discussion, I wouldn't bother if I did not have a good reason.

She feels that she is giving in every time, and I feel exactly the same way. We are intractable. Our ways of working are so completely different, I felt I was criticised for how I act, well, however she would like me to act, I must work how I work, otherwise I might as well quit now. Ruth works completely different to me, she has to have everything in performance exactly the way it is in rehearsal otherwise she will lose it. I can't work like that. The rehearsals are a guide they are the blueprint for the spontaneity of the performance, because otherwise I might as well be a puppet. The rehearsals are there for me to try out everything possible, to vary each time until you get a perfect fit. They are a process of creation, not simply to mould the cogs to a certain size to fit the machine which is how I see Ruth working the rehearsals. She says that all directors need actors to work in this way, yet I've never had a problem before. Georgia's show, I was experimenting with accents right up until the opening night. I simply couldn't get what I wanted, but I had to try, Georgia and Elle had no problem, they simply trusted me. As did Stefan, Leachy and John. David did try and control me. I don't think he succeeded though. It was my first real piece of acting. I think eventually he just let me carry on as I had to. I feel why can't Ruth just trust me on these characters. I don't think she will be as flexible as David, she can't let me carry on as I have to because she will see it as giving in to me, letting me win on her project.

She said I disregard the director and go off on my own on the night. I agree that yes sometimes I do that, in fact I do it quite a bit, but when you have an audience you allow them to carry you. Case in point, her last show. The first night, the audience were quiet and I performed, as I had rehearsed. I felt like it was a dreadful performance. I simply wasn't in it. The second night was brilliant, the audience were responsive and that allowed me to respond, I took it further, higher, gave one of the best performances of my life. Ruth had told me not to show emotion, that second night I ignored that completely and for that it was a better show, I feel sure that Ruth would agree, between the two nights the second was better, even if it wasn't what she wanted. To blindly follow, to ignore the opportunities the audience affords you, to be unable to vary even a slight movement of the hand is what causes performances to die, to drag. This was made very clear to me over the summer. It is what Ruth is asking me to do. It's only two nights but I cannot perform like that. I know that that is how she works. I cannot.

Looking at that last bit I feel that carrying on as we are, even beyond all the arguments, our different ways of working will end up leaving us with a mess. I honestly don't know how we can get beyond it, short of bringing in a seperate director which Ruth is loathe to do, or seceeding everything to her and just getting on with it as best I can, which she would also hate because that would seem like leaving all the work to her and I would hate because, like in Debbie's play, I'd feel like I had no access to the things that make me a performer. I'd just be saying lines, moving where I had to move. Ideally I would like to call the whole thing off right now, go back to writing my monologue. I honestly feel straitjacketed by Ruth's style and she obviously feels like I am trying to control everything. Even if we did both completely understand each other, I don't see that either of us would be able to adapt well enough to alleviate the situation.

Rehearsals are bad, I find myself being trapped at such an early stage, where I want to experiment, thus I find I can't work on the character, thus she thinks I'm not trying, which makes things worse.

I cannot act in a straitjacket. At the same time, I cannot do to her what was done to me. How in God's name did I find myself in this situation. My degree or my friend.

Thing is, if I fail to do as well as I can do in this show, it's not just my degree that suffers but also Ruth's. If I do pull out, she may need to cut a bit more but she can find a good actor, someone who can work well with her. She would have five weeks to get them up to speed. It's not as if I've made much progress. Of course, she may be unable to do that, the third years all have projects they need to work on, the first and second years all have classes.

How can I possibly pull out, how can I possibly stay?

I need to make a decision tonight, she asked me how I felt about doing the play today, I said I was fine.

Shit shit shit shit.
John's probably gone home so I can't even talk to him for advice.


So ruddy tired.

Went to see The Good, The Bad and The Ugly at the cinema yesterday. Turned up five minutes late. Had no one to go with and felt alone. Nearly didn't go. Glad I did. The print was awful, scenes disappeared. and then from the shoot out in the deserted town, to the shoot out at the graveyard it was perfect.

Two incredible pieces of acting, Eli Wallech as Tuco. A petty bandit who goes to see his brother, the friar of a monastery. His brother tells him of the death of his parents, how they longed for him to be there. Tuco falls against a wall hiding his emotion, then snaps back, now anger, they blame each other. Blows, then Tuco leaves and is back to his old self making jokes to Blondey, but you can still see the pain in his eyes.

Then Blondey and Tuco roll up to a battlefield, the North and South, both fighting for control of a bridge. The drunkard Captain of the North sees his men killed, day in, day out. All he wants is to see the bridge destroyed. It haunts him. In the last attack he is fatally wounded. Blondey and Tuco see him and you can see the compassion in Clint Eastwood's eyes, usually steel and unemotional. With barely a word, Blondey and Tuco take hold of a box of explosives and head out into pitched cannon fire to blow the bridge.

And of course Morricone's score. Surely the greatest composer of the twentieth century. A bit I had forgotten, where Tuco runs around the graveyard, the score was magnificent. Must get hold of it.

Must ring Linz tonight. Might have to go round, don't want to, am so tired, haven't really wanted to speak to anyone in such a long time; Addy, Pam, Glen, Gavin, Neil, Mooney, Naomi. All people I need to ring, stay in contact with and I haven't.

Invited Sabs round this evening. Will have to ring her, she has no credit. Hope she does, but knowing her she won't, she's like me. She's about the only person I feel I can talk to at the moment, even tho I mostly listen. Her and Mike for some reason. But I barely ever see him.

He gave me some Dr. Zeus CD's, I tried to pay him for them but he wouldn't hear of it. Must listen to them.

Felt like crap this morning. Will feel like crap tomorrow morning too. Hate waking up late. I've started falling asleep in the early evenings and then being wide awake throughout the night. Not good.

Begun to dream again as well, sleeping on the floor, I tend to stir when my alarms go off and so when I do wake up I remember my dreams. Haven't had any for so many years it's a novelty. Cand remember any of them except that in one, a silver merry go round music box thing with the inscription Comic Relief 2001 was the most emotional thing I had ever witnessed, this dream being set in the year 2500 or something, after some terrible war or something like that. I woke up in tears. All I wanted was this merry go round with Comic Relief etched on it, it meant so much, world peace or something.

Need to ring Samuel French. Too late now, have to do it tomorrow morning.