Long way to go

Rehearsal was painful.  Got a lot out of it, but hadn't made strong enough choices; part of that was that my previous critiques regarding "pushing" were in my head, so I was trying not to, which resulted in my being flat; partly it was getting a new version of the script, with a few major changes half-an-hour before rehearsal, and I have trouble finding the lines in the midst of all the stage directions (and if I'd had time, I'd have rewritten them out, but I get you won't always get that luxury of time and you just have to make it work, which I didn't tonight, which caused my reactions and delivery to be too slow); and partially, I hadn't given enough thought to how I feel about what was being said to me by the person trying to break me, and also, not enough thought to why I'm doing this, and why I need to be a leader right now, and what it means to be successful, and what it means to fail...how much of my identity is invested in the outcome, and how much am I willing to fight to make things go as I want them to?  (And the rehearsal was good for bringing to my attention all the details I need to think about.)

A lot to think about.  Probably not rehearsing again until next week, so I have time to figure out how the character feels about everything...to learn more about what these ideals are, and why she uses the examples that she does.  (Which are considerably different from the ones used on previous version of script, and from each other.)

We had an understudy for one of the roles today, I kinda' hope the director keeps him.  He wants the part, and the other actor hasn't shown up for the last three of the four past rehearsals/shoots.  On Sunday, he cancelled at the last minute, so one actor had to play two parts again.  Makes it hard to do the wide shots.  He's a good actor, seemed right for the part, but perhaps it's not a priority.  In the end, it is a four-person scene, not a three-person scene.