I love this description of the evolution of production in the last days of work when, suddenly, everything becomes a force awaited with patience. The following words are Olivier Besson appeared in an article Nodes, fragments in the always interesting number 52-54 of Alternative Theatre specifically devoted to rehearsals:
In the first few days a show, and yet nothing is done in the best case everything seems to have been said, repeated, worked in doubt. [...] The Fear rises - but not panic - because we approach the meeting with the public, but also because the team is waiting for an event still elusive, and whose perception is probably very subjective when the show will take - if it takes. Take as one would say a mayonnaise. The ingredients arranged in the order with the utmost care not enough to make a show. [...] [...]
It always happens in the last days of work before the first, and always without warning. Until then all elements had been placed side by side and patiently interconnected to start with the people. Through words, through shared experiences. And then the actors and space through movement, the actors and objects, actors and the text, thinking, emotions, the decorations and lights, with pictures, etc.. The director made sure the floor to ensure the cohesion of the progressive work patiently multiplying connections, link after link up to form the network, the densest possible, the most consistent and most intricate possible. But suddenly saw everything as if we moved to a different scale of relations: the connections become countless. A new entity, dreamed, expected, sought, invented: the show as a living body, self, exceeding all violent forms which were previously, creating an organic fabric of relations between its components, no relation to previously established connections between elements now indistinguishable, comes to life. [...]
In the first few days a show, and yet nothing is done in the best case everything seems to have been said, repeated, worked in doubt. [...] The Fear rises - but not panic - because we approach the meeting with the public, but also because the team is waiting for an event still elusive, and whose perception is probably very subjective when the show will take - if it takes. Take as one would say a mayonnaise. The ingredients arranged in the order with the utmost care not enough to make a show. [...] [...]
It always happens in the last days of work before the first, and always without warning. Until then all elements had been placed side by side and patiently interconnected to start with the people. Through words, through shared experiences. And then the actors and space through movement, the actors and objects, actors and the text, thinking, emotions, the decorations and lights, with pictures, etc.. The director made sure the floor to ensure the cohesion of the progressive work patiently multiplying connections, link after link up to form the network, the densest possible, the most consistent and most intricate possible. But suddenly saw everything as if we moved to a different scale of relations: the connections become countless. A new entity, dreamed, expected, sought, invented: the show as a living body, self, exceeding all violent forms which were previously, creating an organic fabric of relations between its components, no relation to previously established connections between elements now indistinguishable, comes to life. [...]
