Messing around with the Doubtful Guest

Posted by: Sara Green (Marketing & Admin Assistant, Hoipolloi)

Today’s rehearsal seemed to be a little more experimental. I think that Shon must have spent some time thinking about last week over the weekend before coming in today with a few ideas in mind. This was quite refreshing as the actors were able to try out some new things without being restricted by what they did last week. This meant that some of the material that was generated today was totally crazy and wacky but it has a real energy to it and a different focus than on Friday.

We started with a warm up again, trying desperately to avoid the newly assemble dolls house, and generally warmed up our muscles after being out in the arctic London temperatures.

A brief vocal warm up followed, led by the composer and this then fuelled the next exercise which involved eerily, siren-like moans suggesting crying and weeping. Like Friday the exercise developed with the actors using their initiative and before long a little piece was emerging.

The Doubtful Guest featured this time and the characters were getting increasingly agitated by its presence. It was really interesting to explore this idea of control and disorder and the way the actors experimented with it was really incredible- contorting their bodies and using their voices and facial expressions to demonstrate their hatred for ‘it.’

The day also included a short sequence in which the family were searching for ‘it.’ This was quite military-like in style, with accompanying music to create a mood of order and control. The family searched systematically through the house and a strong rhythm was formed along with rigid movements to suggest a rigorous search. This was really interesting to watch and was the first thing that was extremely similar to Gorey’s original story.

Another successful improvisation was one centred around the Doubtful Guest as it “stared.” A little song emerged in which the chorus were extremely ensemble like, standing in a tight clump and repeating “it stared at it all.” This was textured with Ben’s constant description of what it was staring at “the floor, the door…” and was a really effective moment.

The day ended with an improvisation around the phrase “sometimes it would tear out whole chapters from books.” The actors were given complete freedom to create this moment and a total mess unfolded with people tearing and ripping through the space. Soon it became a bit more ordered and by placing Ben in a chair and him sitting extremely statically, staring and the invisible creature down stage a focal point was introduced.

The disorder and chaos around him was manic and disturbing, the actors were scraping their nails across the chairs, screaming and moving in a grotesque and horrible manner but Ben remained completely still. At last the others left, leaving Jill sitting down stage, slowly ripping up paper as the doubtful guest. This was a really poignant moment and I began to see bits of the show creeping in to the process.

I had a really enjoyable day again today, although I feel slightly more disturbed than before!