"Jane Heeerrrrrrrr!"

Jane Eyre rehearsals this week were few because Out Loud was performing Plank, a collaboration with John Greiner-Ferris. We had a hiatus of four days with no rehearsal, and, man, did I miss everyone!

Four days off provided a little time to work on memorizing and to spend time with the Bouchers--hanging dinner together and hanging out for conversation after dinner. You know, sitting outside after dinner and enjoying the evening while talking is awesome enough to make me want to start decomissioning TV's again. Out with the TV in with the hanging out on the porch. Grab a beer, a water, a lemonade and enjoy the company of others. Boo to watching movies! Yay to conversation!

I also went hiking this week, which was an interesting experience. Mostly, because in California I never would have gone hiking alone. Most hiking trails are far enough out of cell tower range to cause problems if you are injured, lost, or otherwise in need of assistance. But this trail was right close to a main road, fairly gentle in terms of footing, and in totally 3G cell coverage. So, I felt confident enough to tackle it by myself. It was just a couple miles and didn't quite loop all the way around the little lake--pond--thing that it started near. It had some small hills and some interesting features: two gravestones and a plaque with a headless action figure nailed to it. 

The bad news was that in thinking about all the safety, I hadn't recharged my phone. Combined with poorly marked trails, this led to quite a bit of anxiety. There were also way more bugs than I'm used to! There was, for thirty minutes, a fly or flies that kept getting into my hair just on the crown of my head on the left side of my body. I would throw my hand out that direction and the sound would stop, but not for long. It was intensely irritating and caused more trail running than I had planned to do. By the time I got back I was pretty tired because I'd power walked and run a good portion of the trail, but the forests were really gorgeous. 

All together a pretty successful artist date.  If there could be no flies or at least some deet next time. That would be great. 

We go back to rehearsal tomorrow night. We finally ran Act 1 on Saturday and Act 2 on Sunday. I'm pretty proud of us because the flows in these acts are damn good. I do a lot of running and a lot of physical work, which is really satisfying. The actions makes getting to the emotional depths of the character easy because it physicalizes the inner emotional journey that Jane keeps under wraps. Again, I think that this is one of the biggest strengths of theatre--we don't just illustrate the realistic happening, we have the opportunity to enact the emotional journey in a physical way to tell the story.