We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea Sarah Hunt

Week 1 of rehearsals.

I arrive at the first day of rehearsals with that typical feeling, a mix of excitement, nerves and that all too familiar sinking feeling created by a vivid imagination and professional paranoia; I walk in the room the director takes one look at me before his face drops and he makes a quick aside "We sent the letter to the wrong actress, I meant to cast the other girl!" Luckily for me this was not the case.

I was the only one out of the four of us who had been in a different callback group so I really was the newbie. This meant that the first read through that we did together was really interesting for me as I had no idea of their takes on their characters and vice versa. Initial amusement at ourselves was ever present as we embraced the fact that for the next eight weeks we would live most of our time being 14, 12, 10 and 8 years old collectively.

As the week progressed we engaged ourselves willingly in trying to learn the ropes, literally, of sailing, as well as the knots, the tides, the geography of East Anglia etc. I think we all regressed quite naturally back to our childhood and that guilty feeling as your teacher desperately tries to help you with that ever increasingly difficult sum...Ivan ( Director) and Nick (Writer) would catch little more that utter puzzlement on our faces!

The first week was also the real introduction to our characters. Each of us plays two different parts, one of the Walker children and an older outside influence. This means that the challenges we face are two or three fold. We have to convincingly, without parody, be children with their own hierarchy dependant on age and experience. This is really important as it informs the relationships between them. However, we also play adults and to make things even more challenging we have to play them across gender! I have a feeling this process is going to be a lot of fun and a massive challenge!

Week 2

We are our characters! I don't mean that in week two we have all whizzed through the rehearsal process and developed our characters to perfection. We actually are our characters and the relationships developing within the cast are almost identical to the ones in the play. Ivan really has done a fantastic job in casting this play!

With my character, Titty, it's like looking back in time and seeing myself aged 10. It's not often that you get to play a character that you love but I really do love Titty. Of course playing a ten year old with such a provocative name has it's interesting moments and the double-entendre switch has well and truly been switched on this week! It also doesn't help that with myself being a small but "curvaceous" girl. Titty is not only Titty by name but also by nature! She also has some quite innocently flirtatious and coquettish lines that I have to be careful to play age appropriately.

The Dutch Pilot came alive this week. He is my other character and about as opposite from Titty or myself that you can get. I have to spring seamlessly from being an innocent 10 year old girl to become a 50 year old, fat, Dutch man. At this stage I am still a little unsure of my Dutch accent, falling somewhere in between French and German and he seems to be turning into a bit of a grubby father Christmas character but I'm hoping he will be quite amusing.... We'll see!

Week 3

This has been quite a difficult week. I think we are all aware of the rehearsal process evermore drawing to a close and the panic is starting to seep in.

The ironic thing about this play is that although it may not appear very complex e.g in its narrative thread etc it is such a complicated play to rehearse. We have so many things to remember, our lines (obviously helps), our movements (nothing unusual) our character motivation (to be expected) the names of the ropes (?), the direction of the tide (?) which way the wind is blowing and as a result where the sail is on the boat which deciphers which way the tiller should be which informs us of where the jib is and therefore which side of the boat we should be sitting on (? ? ? ) .

Characters are really starting to show now and relationships are being played out a lot more easily. I'm excited about next week and really sinking our teeth into character work and playing around with new ideas. I'm also really keen to get into my costume so that I can experiment a little more with child like physicality and movement (whilst swaying from side to side on a boat).....