Dress Rehearsal

We are just out of the theatre after a very successful dress rehearsal.  The cast have been suffering from various illnesses these last few days but have soldiered on regardless, in the end the show was still as vibrant and emotionally engaging as ever.

It has been extremely exciting to see the production come to life, with the combination of costume, lights, sound and all the many, many props that are required to tell the story.  We are extremely proud of the work and hope that people will be interested enough to come along next week to the Tron to see it.

Of course if you can't make it then, you can always catch it on the 8th of September in the Cockpit, London or the 15th and 17th at The Traverse in Edinburgh.

If you'd like to see more photos from the show then click here to go to our Facebook photo album.

Deadly run-through

Well.. deadly may be overstating it a little...  We had our first run-through with the course-leader, stage management, sound and lighting and design all present.  All was going well until halfway through the play Kevin, in a desperate attempt to peel a potato whilst playing the scene, sliced his finger and had to go to hospital.  Luckily it didn't need any stitches.

It was a bad ending to what has been a great week.  The play is really coming together with the actors developing real detail in their performances.  There is still another week and a bit to go before opening night at the Tron on the 31st of August - so plenty of time for Kevin's wound to heal.  And for him to learn how to peel vegetables!

Costumes

We have spent most of this week at the Fringe checking out some shows but we have also managed to squeeze in a couple of rehearsals and also a costume fitting.

Andy as Daniel

The play starts in Paris in the mid-1930s.  We follow the relationship between Liza and her husband Daniel, both refugees from Russia.

Pola as Sasha

We meet Liza's sister, Sasha and her son Yuri - as well as their young daughter Gaiana - they are all living together in a small flat, with little money but many options as to where their futures will take them.

Kevin as Yuri

The play takes on many twists and turns as we follow the turbulent life of Liza, we see her transformation into Mother Maria and learn of her new life working in the monastries outside of the city.  She later moves into the heart of Paris and works alongside other nuns, including the much put-upon Sister Veronica.

Pamela as Sister Veronica

From there-on-in the play moves into much darker territory as the turbulent world-shattering events explode around Mother Maria and her family, with catastrophic results.

A day trip...

Andrew, India and Pola had a wee day trip to Govan today to speak to Father Georgy Zavershinsky, a Russian Orthodox priest.

The church is right in the heart of Govan but is hidden away in a wonderfully tranquil environment, with a small graveyard in front of it. The building inside was beautiful and it was hard to believe we were still in the middle of Glasgow! We sat down by various icons to talk about Mother Maria with Father George.

He was extremely interesting and open with the group and helped us to understand a little bit more about the religion that Mother Maria dedicated her life to. It is similar to Catholicism in many ways, but subtly different in many others. We can only scratch the surface in the time we have to work on the play but Father George was unbelievably well-read and has pointed us in the right direction for further study.

We have the playwright, Ann Marie Di Mambro coming in tomorrow to see how things are going and to tweak the script. Next week is Edinburgh fringe so rehearsals are a little more stilted than usual, but everything is going well so far and we can't wait to get further into the play.

End of week 2

Yesterday was the last day that we had in the large movement room at the RSAMD so it was one of our final chances to really get stuck into these three big boxes that we have and the different possibilities that they present.  This little video shows some of the movement sequences in their basic forms as we work through them, the first is attempting to show the train that takes Mother Maria, and hundred of others, to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp and the second one is a rough draft of a sequence where Mother Maria is smothered by attempting to 'mother the whole world'.  These are still in development and will of course change over time (we still have another 4 weeks of rehearsal left) but are indicative or where we are just now.



We found some really interesting information about the ceremony that Mother Maria undertook to become a nun and we have tried to bring an element of that to the piece:

Next week we shall really be focusing on the text and bringing out the different challenges that Mother Maria faces, for a woman who helped so many people it is striking how she really struggles to keep her own family together, her battles with husband Daniel are the most striking:

But for a play based in such a miserable time and place we have really been working on bringing out the joy in a number of scenes.  Maria's sister, Sasha is a very optimistic person and always brings a ray of sunshine to the stage, until things get so bad that even she can't cope anymore.

Saint of the Open Door - Music.

Today we tried some of our movement sequences based on music written by our director Andrew McGregor, it's pretty bombastic sounding but really seems to capture the mood we're after. The music depicts Mother Maria trying to help those affected y the German occupation of Paris, but she struggles and is simply overwhelmed by the needy, and though she never gives up she decides that she needs to rest just for a couple of days, and this brings her back to her ex-husband Daniel's farm.

  Saint of the Open Door by A R McGregor

New Video

That's week on of rehearsals finished, here's a little video about the play: