In the begining.....

Yay...the first rehearsal went really well. Was great to work one on one with the girls before we start the dreaded restaurant scene.

Having spent time with Caroline and Paula tonight - I feel really positive.

My time with Caroline was spent working on the contrasts and similarities between Kit and Shona.We also discussed briefly which characters in the Restaurant scene she- as the waitress would moslty interact with.

My time spent with Paula, I felt was extremely valuable, as we had discovered that we had very differeny interpretations of Pope Joan.

I remember distinctly that when i offered Paula that part of Joan, she seemed at the time a little dubious - I discovered tonight that her pre conceptions were that Joan was; Older than she was and supposed to look like a boy. No wonder she must have taken it as a bit of an insult!

She also felt ( as i did) that at times some of what Joan say is very difficult to understand. Her intellect is clearly above any othe woman around the table, and it takes her a while to adjust her language to suit the tone of the conversation.

I explained that as Joan makes a joke about her tragic public pregnancy, and her emotions very much stifled when talking about anything traumatic, I wanted Paula to play Joan in a more laid back casual way.

I see Joan as a character that leads the conversation throughout the restaurant scene - She is self assured, confident and doesnt feel that she has to prove herself like Nijo and sometimes Isabella.

Questions that we addressed:

Is Pope Joan really unaffected by the loss of her child? or does she just see it as one of the inconveniences of being born a woman?

We decided that as she gets terribly drunk following the revelation that she was stoned to death as a result of an unexpected childbirth - she was affected but not nessecarily for the death of the baby. More for the memory of being stoned to death and falling from grace.

Who does Joan address the majority of her speech to? and who does she identify with?

Marlene - she has the most in common with Marlene who has sacrificed woman hood for playing the role of a male in a still predominatley male world.

We discussed that the other women in the room were very different to her and had different ideals. Isabella Bird and Nijo talk about thier love of clothes and looking feminine - as does Griselda. Joan has never dressed like a lady and expresses her joy at being able to dress as a boy and get away with it.

The ladies all discuss what they did for men - the sacrifices they made and hardships they went through out of loyalty and love for thier men. Joan makes a trivial joke that she shared beds with men and clearly had secretive romantic relations, however, she was never made to sacrifice anything for a man, as she was supposed to be one.

At the end i felt very positive that all the jigsaw puzzle pieces are falling into place before Sunday - when the Restaurant scene kicks off!