In our second week, our focus has shifted to blocking the show. Liberation has ten cast members who are often on-stage all at the same time and, like everything at the Exchange, the play is staged in the round.
These factors present significant compositional challenges, but our director, Monique Touko, is incredibly skilled and able to create scenes that are clear, compelling, and dramatically effective. She’s supported by the cast’s uniformly strong instincts. To play to an audience that fully surrounds you is difficult, but with actors this talented, it’s easy to trust they’ll be able to do so.
The play features several choreographed pieces punctuating the more explicitly political congress scenes. Monique’s work here is complimented by our movement director Kloé Dean, who not only choreographs these sequences, but also works with the actors to develop their character’s unique physicality and ways of moving. Kloé joined us on Monday and her presence added so much to the room. Her work is essential to ensure the show has its own physical language that best communicates the ideas of the play.
Last Friday, we did a standing read-through of the whole play with the actors working in the space. To have a working version of the show so early in our rehearsals was a significant eraser of any doubt. Liberation is a big play and staging anything of that size can be intimidating, but it is immensely reassuring working with such a talented team. Monique’s openness and forwardness is key to her process and has created a room with a lot of trust.
It’s an absolute pleasure watching this show develop and each new scene we work builds elegantly on the last. As I’m writing this, we’ve nearly finished blocking act one and at a pace much faster than any of us expected. I remain excited to see how the show develops as we work on the back half.