Three Sisters is a very great play, but the devil to rehearse. It is written like a piece of music, the equivalent of string quartet, but for twelve players, so imagine trying to practise a double string sextet with parts missing.
Happily, the cast are mostly OVO regulars, so they are used to rehearsal absences (being themselves people with lives full to bursting) , but there are days when the director gets a little frustrated shunting the nob
le stand-ins around the stage. “You’re over there now.” “You sat down a while ago.” “According to my blocking diagram, you’re off stage.”
Mind you, I make those kind of remarks to the regular actors too, whose marginal scribblings frequently disagree with my diagrams, if they have actually made note of their moves, and not left their script in some pub. But surely such things don’t happen in our disciplined environment?
Imogen