First week back after a three week gap started with a chat and discussion about how the project was to go forward, and Alex's ideas for staging. Then back to work.

We looked at the section starting with Tom's entrance on pg 31 up to his joke at the end of page 32. Each of the scenes were played in a small square, making use of the people on the outside for lines addressed to the police behind the mirror.

First off, Alex 'Let's explore the possibility of not playing anything until it arrives.' So, playing the scene without bringing in any previous circumstances, but taking whatever is said as the truth, trying to stay attentive to each other at all times, and to each of the changes of thought. Everyone is implored to watch the scene carefully.

Next, actors had to swap in and recreate the scene in their own words.

Then the scene was run with different actors, using the text but needing to overlap every line. If a line started late we had to go back.

Then another three were asked to play the scene allowed three pauses. This was fascinating for me considering, like most scripts, my original was littered with markings of 'beat', 'silence' or 'pause' - all of which I've take out. It takes a real bravery find these pauses when they aren't marked, as was clear by the fact the actors who were up only used two of their three.

In the next game we were allowed a hiatus, a 15 second pause and a minute long pause.

Then the piece was repeated again from memory - great to see how much went it.

The next exercise produced some beautiful moments. Each of the actors were non-english speakers, and none of them shared the same language. So, in accents, they had to use their very limited english words to communicate their thoughts. Another great game forcing the actors to make sense of and personalise the thoughts, finding the argument. I was particularly a fan of Paul's description of the man he used to see on the bus 'World Dead...world dead...world dead.' And Ben's beautiful mime of the fruitless struggle of being an activist.

Then the scene was played with character obstructions. Alan had a fat tongue, Damian had a pronounced stutter, Tristan had terets which, as Jehtro pointed out meant not only swearing but struggling to control volume and unable to avoid saying the most inappropriate things that come into his head. After this, rather manic, very difficult exercise the same actors played the scene from the top. I loved the relaxation that was found here. Later there was some discussion about these obstacles/obstructions which Alex redefined better as 'dual tasks.' 'Dual' because they require the actor to do the task and still pay attention to the other actors, play forward actions, solve the problems of the scene, pick up on the other offers etc.

Alex: "In these rehearsals lets explore the idea that we do not refer to things outside of the room apart from when talking to the audience/police behind the mirror. Also we don't point/refer to ourselves when we talk about 'me' or 'I', put it always on the other person." We were reminded to continually explore the relationships, without making decisions about what is 'good' or, worse still, 'right.' We have no need to settle on anything. We were also pushed to try and explore the space, the distances between each other, how the physical relationship between the people on stage informs the relationships. Trying not to always to get too close. We spoke about the economy of always acting for the other person, having a supreme awareness of everyone else in the scenes and how you are affecting them - like the level of attention to the other you get when breaking up with a girlfriend for example.

We looked at the scene again, with tasks to explore Mark's silence in the early part of it. Jethro was asked to hum continually until the point where he begins speaking, Ben was asked to count the hairs on his head individually whilst making the sound of a guinea pig!

Afterwards we talked about this method of rehearsing. Getting to know the scenes, getting to connect to them individually and specifically, exploring many different emotions and energy levels, differences in pace, allowing scenes to be different every time, and practising responding and attending to the other people in the scenes afresh at every moment. The task is huge. Can a company really learn to share out the responsibilities a director normally assumes for controling, say, the pace of a play, the movement, the emotional level and to be alive and affecting each other at every moment throughout an hour and a half long play? I'm sure we can.