Chapter 7
The next day, Kim stopped off in the office early, around eight-fifteen, before rehearsal, to check for any messages or updates. Santi was already there. He came out of his office beaming when he heard Kim arrive.
“Hello, Kim! It is a huge pleasure to finally meet you in person.”
“The pleasure’s all mine! I so hate Zoom calls. You’re right: it makes all the difference to see each other face to face.”
Though shorter than Kim had imagined, standing not much over five feet, Santi Puig wasn’t as portly as he’d appeared on-screen.
They say TV makes you look fat. The producer had a bubbly, infectious energy that belied their argument of the day before, when Santi had read him the riot act about sacking Dídac.
“Are you ready for rehearsal? Is there anything you need that we can get you? Laia should be here soon. She normally gets in quite early.
“No nothing at all. Laia’s been fabulous. I really just wanted to come in slightly earlier to try a few things before the actors get here.”
“Well, you’re not quick enough unfortunately. Dídac’s been here for most of an hour already. He’s down in the Rehearsal Room warming up.”
“Oh.”
The news floored him, undoing all the carefully laid psychological snares he’d devised the night before to stay on top of today.
He’d wanted to be the first one in, well warmed up and ready to dive into the very physical rehearsals that The Swan demanded, partly as a way of policing Dídac, insisting by example on the standard he required.
Now he didn’t know what to expect. Would he still be drunk from a night out, or worse?
He was about to go down, when hearing their conversation, Jordi Veràs, the theater director popped his head out of his office to welcome Kim to the team.
He was a slim, genial, talkative man, tall as Santi was short, with whom he seemed to have a natural affinity, so that when the two got going, they seemed to flow on together like a bubbling brook, a close-knit conversational duo.
It took Kim a full five minutes to extricate himself.
Afterwards, walking downstairs, his head remained full of Santi’s and Jordi’s banter.
Without really thinking about how he got there, or what his approach to Amat would now be, abruptly he was standing outside the Rehearsal Room, grasping the door handle, and quietly opening it.
This corner of the room, by the door, was comparatively in shadow, since it was from the far end of the room that morning light spilled in, through three large windows giving onto Hospital Street.
So Kim stood in silence, watching Dídac, who was thoroughly absorbed in what he was doing.
Dressed in a black leotard, a close-fitting charcoal-colored tee that was now thoroughly soaked with sweat, and black ballet pumps, the Catalan actor was transformed.
Engaged in some form of private dance with himself, it was his own breath and body—feet stamping or dragging, palms slapping the floor, jagged panting, the occasional cry of exertion, his muscular torso rolling and twisting—that beat their own percussive rhythm to his dance.
He was like a wild animal possessed, at war with itself, struggling to escape from a snare set in its own mind, ready to gnaw off its own foot to be free.
Yet it also felt like a dance celebrating the very freedom of his soul.
The lack of any music but for the sounds of his own body making contact with the floor, and his breath, made it doubly powerful.
This was the true essence of The Swan. Kim could not have directed any actor to embody the play more powerfully, or more rightly.
At some point, Dídac must have become aware of him, but he continued to dance, if that was the name for his frenetic, physical wrestling with his soul.
Kim quietly dropped his things in a corner, never taking his eyes off Dídac as he changed into sweat pants, and a tee-shirt, and began to warm up too.
After about five minutes, Dídac stopped, walked over to where his towel was hanging over a chair close to Kim, and began to towel himself off.
Kim wanted to say something, felt he should, but was also wary about filling the presumptuous actor’s head with hubris right at the start of the rehearsal process.
“That was… seemed… very heartfelt, sincere.”
There was a pause, while Dídac considered this less-than-gushing praise.
“Thank you,” was all he finally said. Getting out his script, he sat down, and bent his head over his lines.
Kim focussed on his own warm-up. Well, that went down like a ton of bricks, but he wasn’t about to start lavishing praise upon this problematic, undisciplined actor until the guy had truly earned it.
Getting the best out of his actors occasionally meant treating them quite harshly at times.
But it was all for the good of the production.
An actor’s ego will generally bounce back, however hard you bruise it.
For several minutes, there was only the sound of Kim’s physical warming up, and the barely audible murmur of Dídac going over and memorizing his lines.
Soon other actors appeared but, perceiving the mood in the room, offered just muted greetings, and quickly got stuck straight into their individual warm-up routines.
At ten o’clock sharp, Kim called the group together and took them over the exercises he had planned.
These were some communication games that focussed on certain themes running throughout the play: true love, jealousy, self-sacrifice.
He wanted everybody to have a clear idea of what the play was about before they got into the detailed blocking of each scene.
Observing the actors, he was surprised to find that Dídac was initially a muted presence among the others.
He had expected to see the star’s need to dominate the stage immediately.
When faced with the choice between grabbing an idea and developing it to show off his own brilliance, or offering the initiative to one of his fellow actors, more often than not he would step back, relegating himself almost to a choral role within the improvisation.
Yet even then, his natural talent easily shone through.
For this first rehearsal, Kim had asked all ten cast members to attend.
After working through the improvisation exercises as a united group, he split them into three: the puppeteers, the older couple, and the five younger cast members, giving each subgroup an improvisation task to complete from the perspective of their characters.
Half an hour later, they played back their creations to each other, and discussed the work.
Then, after a short coffee break, it was time to tackle the script.
Kim was clear that rather than proceeding in chronological order, that first day he wanted to work on each actor’s entrance on stage.
A character’s first appearance is their most powerful moment, and should resonate strongly with their identity.
Finding that identity is an ongoing process throughout the rehearsal period, but Kim believed it should be started as early as possible so it has time to develop.
Therefore, for the rest of the morning, the cast improvised around their opening scene, sometimes alone, at others as part of a group.
When they broke for lunch, there was a general feeling that they had made good progress.
Although the challenge of working one on one with Dídac remained a future black box that Kim was loath to open, he no longer saw the Catalan actor as quite such a liability.
Compared to the darkness of their first two encounters, today felt quite light in color.
But was this a true turning over of a new leaf, or simply the impulsive last-ditch effort of an undisciplined actor who somehow knew that he was in danger of being sacked?
Theater is at best an extremely leaky boat, and Laia had been muted and circumspect to the point of suspicion this morning.
Whatever, if she had said something to Amat, the arrow seemed to have found its mark, for Kim couldn’t fault his work as an actor this morning.
As soon as Kim called the break, Dídac disappeared, and the other actors invited Kim to have lunch with them at a local restaurant.
He went, keen for the chance to get to know them better.
Laia claimed a prior engagement and disappeared in another direction.