Saturday. 11/18

Arrived at today’s rehearsal to find we were going to run the first scene musically before staging. All I have to sing is an “ah” on a high A and run off.

Hmmm… I sat with everyone even though I was not really needed. Tan Dun, in his sweet manner, pointed out to everyone that my part was very necessary and important. Had a good time. Michelle, who is playing the Shaman, already has to sing low Gs and Tan Dun wants her to then go even lower after each note, sort of like a growl. She was trying and Zhang Yimou and his assistants were totally cracking up. They look so serious and then it is such fun when someone can crack them up and we see these huge smiles. While the singing was going on, a translator would read off where we were in the score and Tan Dun had an opportunity to talk about the dramatic reasons for certain accents and changes.

There was an awful lot of Chinese being spoken this morning. At times we thought we were losing it because Tan Dun would speak to us in Chinese accidentally and I swear we sort of understood, but that was absolutely impossible. Everyone was a little tired. Saturdays always feel different than other days and most everyone dresses more casually.

We started staging, putting on the kimono rejects from the costume shop- mine is pinned beyond its life- and Zhang Yimou’s assistant, Wang Chao Ge, began staging. She is a powerhouse. She keeps Kerry, the translator, on his toes because she talks really fast and he might be just finishing translating and she is already across the room talking to different singer. She is extremely lithe and able to do many types of characters. I would love to have her metabolism.

There is a scene in which the Shaman tells us the daughter has been murdered and Gao (Paul) runs off stage on a high “AH”, and I am written to do the same. (my previously mentioned high A)
Two problems. It looks like we are running off together which would never happen and, as Paul said, it looks like I am running off because I remembered that a pot as on the stove. Well, that totally cracked up Zhang Yimou and his compatriots. Very good moment.
I asked if perhaps I could just faint and they will think about it.

This entry was posted by Susanne Mentzer on Saturday, November 18th, 2006 at 3:28 am and is filed under The First Emperor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.