Rehearsals are fundamental to the making of a performance. One primary role of rehearsals is to create an ensemble, nurturing feelings of ease, creativity, self-confidence and mutual trust, although the substance of rehearsals is primarily contingent on the various requirements made of actors: to learn lines; to enter into their roles; to establish their movements and interactions (also known as blocking); to create the ‘world of a play’ or its aesthetic, according to details like mood, the period setting, unity of time and space. In British theatres where the focus is on producing plays quickly, rehearsals typically last for three or four weeks. In countries where there has historically been substantial state subsidy of the theatre, they might last a year or more. With recent growing interest in devised work, rehearsals have become more directed toward group-led creative exploration, balanced with the director’s vision and/or the requirement to deliver a ‘show’ by the opening date.
Rehearsals cannot replicate the experience of performance, only prepare for it. They should provide a familiar structure in which the actors are more or less free to respond within a production’s particular parameters. There are very few commonly recognized and utilized rehearsal systems. One that has recently come to prominence is the RSVP (Resources, Scores, Valuaction, Performance) cycles, developed by Anna Halprin and utilized by Robert Lepage. RSVP offers a collaborative model of group work, useful also for companies rehearsing without a director figure, who would normally be the outside eye and final authority. Anne Bogart’s ‘Viewpoints’ is another dance-derived approach that provides both a vocabulary and a clear creative methodology for group work. Such methods help formalize the process of editing and eliminating discovered material. This leads to a concentrated distillation – a crucial function of rehearsals, especially if a work is devised. Rehearsal, as various as the performances it precedes, is often a serendipitous process where fixed methods or systems may be inappropriate. From the RCTP
Image: Pre-rehearsal workshop for Six Characters in Search of an Author with the actors of the Miklos Tompa Theatre, Trgu Mures, Romania. January 2010