Just a bit behind

With the lost morning, and the fact that there was a Bank Holiday last week, I feel we're just a little bit behind where we should be at this stage of rehearsals. Usually I like to run the lay most days during the final week of Studio rehearsals. But Monday is going to be devoted to recording voice-overs, and on Tuesday I'll still be putting together the overall staging. So there won't be a run till Wednesday morning: the last possible time for us to show the piece to Mark Doubleday and give him time to get his plan done ready for the get-in on the 11th.

Still, the play is now emerging in something like a performable shape. The styles seem to be melding, and the character lines are making sense. Several huge shifts from the first version, all of them positive. There are still swathes of it which make no sense to the cast - and won't until the technical things are in place. Ieng Un asks me how the audience will know that he is playing Mme. Mao in the Peace Hotel scene. He's quite right to ask, of course - how's he to know that there's a projected text? These are the areas where I have to rely on my imagination to envision it as a whole.

Some positive developments in admin too. William Wong, my assistant director, has managed to bring the International Herald Tribune on board as a media partner: which is an in-kind equivalent of about £20K worth of advertising. On the other hand, I feel we need it: there's not been much in the press yet. Guy points out that all the arts journalists and critics are still in Edinburgh, which is true..... I just hope they don't all decide to take a holiday before they come back. We've got so far - now we need this to be seen.