Document Type
Article
Abstract
In a large rented room in Sydney, Australia, on hot January days, a small group of practitioners have only three weeks to rehearse for a large production. 'Let's run that scene again. Let's just push through,” I hear them say over and over. As metaphors, ‘running' and ‘pushing' are not only articulated verbally, but the movement within the space and the presence of the Realpolitik of production create an adrenaline-like pulse. The director spends rehearsals barefoot with an unlit cigarette in his hand, which he might use as a bookmark or he shoves it behind his ear or plays with it in his hands. When actors rehearse a scene on the taped-out set, the director watches, perched on a corner of a chair, with his bodyweight suspended between a full sit and a stand, ready to leap up at any moment.
This excerpt documents the frantic pace of a professional theatre rehearsal. Taken from my field notes, it is part of an enquiry into practitioners' engagement with, and experience of, performance-making practices. Drawing on a decade of case studies, this essay maps out the ways in which fieldwork approaches – and critical ethnography in particular – can be put to use to better understand the rehearsal work of professional performers, directors and production teams.
Repository Citation
Rossmanith, Kate. "Making Theatre-Making: Fieldwork, Rehearsal and Performance-Preparation." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 9, no. 1, 2009, pp. 1–29. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol9/iss1/10
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