I feel like I have gone through the most dreadful time in my life today and I hope I will never come to it again! I must jot it down in case I forget what I’ve experienced today.
I’m directing a play called ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’. Childish! Right? I chose this title simply because we had a fat boy in our team (but I told them I randomly picked this). Sh! Let it be a secret forever.
So yesterday I held the first rehearsal for the play. I remembered that I sent the script to my ‘dear’ actors and actresses early this month and asked them to recite the lines by heart. But still, they couldn’t utter a complete sentence. OMG! I had no choice but to give them some time to memorize them. It wasn’t a good start. Sigh!
I sat there and had waited for nearly two hours before we finally could start practicing. In one of the scenes, two liars had to knit an invisible garment. I thought it was quite easy, but the two guys kept on stepping on the machines. It seemed like they were playing the piano. Worse still, those ministers just took a glimpse of the liars and then walked away. I couldn’t stop myself shouting and asked if they really knew what they should do and how to act.
I decided to watch the whole play to see if there were some parts that were performed well. Sadly, no! When the king was having a royal procession, I found that the king was shivering and lost his nerve. I told him to be arrogant, but he replied me, ‘I’m not arrogant at all.’ What silly answer! I know you are not arrogant, but you are an actor! You should treat yourself as the king! Roar! I was outrageous and dismissed the team in the afternoon.
I feel really sad and disappointed. The rehearsal seems to have marked a dismal failure. My friends told me that it was very good already, but I didn’t think that it was a success.
Still I had to admit that I was too concerned about the performance and didn’t care much about my teammates’ feelings. I just wanted to make the play perfect and missed out some important things such as giving time to the actors and actresses to experiment with different expressions, teaching them what they should do, searching the information to help them have a deeper understanding of the story. I shouldn’t just keep on blaming them or shirking the responsibility.
I’ll try my best tomorrow. God, help me please!