We had a very useful and interesting discussion about what has become the Issue of the Game (Act 4) after this show. I have thought about it a lot since... at the moment I think this: if you look at the script everyone is very, very familiar with the game - even the actress indicates she has played it since childhood and it is a predictable house-routine. The Bailiff's daughter leads it but it is not a dominant element of the scene - what dominates is the conversation that surrounds the game - so the game frames that conversation - most of which is about the Son. We are still losing a lot of the points made because they are many and economic, I think we are also allowing the game to dominate the conversation, perhaps because that is easier. In the versions I have they can play this game with their eyes shut - and that is what they do in this scene.

I also now think the gunshot at the end is a key prop and has not yet been solved. Without that one sensory element we are trying to play a Mahler symphony on kazoos, everywhere else - the kazoos work fine.

And finally the point about actions: we have graduated quickly from the early stages of doing this play SERIOUSLY not knowing if it would work - and utterly prepared for either failure OR a miracle. Perhaps we are getting used to working a miracle - the devil is in and the first thing to wither is our need to get That Vital Thing from the Other Guy - because that Need is all we have. In Hamlet, the poetry/text held us and our actions aloft, in this the actions are all we have.
We have to return to that simple state of not-knowing every time we play or the audience, quite rightly, have time to think: why are we here? Why are they doing this and why am I watching? Which, to me, is what Laura's friend was saying. (cont)

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