Gorgeous Avatar by Jules Horne

Set Up

I get lost on the way to Leith for Week 3 of rehearsals and end up down at the docks staring at the Firth of Forth. By the time I find the upstairs room at the Raj restaurant - home for the next two weeks - m so strooshed that I fail to notice an almighty wooden structure taking up most of the space.

The set has arrived. The production team have been busy at their construction base, building the elements that will spend two weeks at the Traverse and then head off to venues as far apart as Lewis and Dumfries - which, in Scottish terms, is almost as far as it goes. We already had a good idea of the concept from the set model brought in by Mark Leese, the designer. But this does really seem pretty huge. It's designed to fit the larger Traverse I stage, which rules out some of the smaller tour venues this time round.

For the moment, the set is still in its raw state - unpainted, unpapered, unearthed (don't ask). But it's great for the actors to be working with the real structure at this early stage. And props are appearing: logs, an umbrella, a poker. It feels like a massive shift towards production, especially as the actors are now raised on a platform, at a remove from the rest of the team.

And then there's the door. It's a beautiful door. I won't hear a word against it. However, it does have a life of its own. Or even two. Gemma Smith, the deputy stage manager, puts in a call for action in the daily rehearsal notes that are emailed to the production team:

1) Can the catch / bolt which hold the two halves together be accessed from both sides of the door, so they can be separated from the on stage and off stage sides?

Email also speeds up communication between writer and editor: Matt Applewhite at Nick Hern Books settles a few final queries, and the proofing drawbridge finally goes up. But that doesn't mean the script won't change before the performance.

posted by Jules Horne @ 4/18/2006 10:58:00 PM