From the Rehearsal Room: The Boys

13.12.11

It’s a summer, Saturday morning and the noise of a lawn mower is coming in through the window. It’s a fitting sound, even here in a rehearsal studio in the middle of UNSW, where we are bringing to life the suburban backyard world of the Sprague family for Griffin Theatre’s upcoming production of The Boys.

We’ve just reached the end of the second week of rehearsals and the work in the room is gripping and very exciting.

Week one was spent exploring and dissecting Gordon Graham’s newly revised script – an updated copy of the play is being published by Currency Press to coincide with the opening of this production in January. The Boys definitely hasn’t lost any of its power or relevance over the last 21 years and is as confronting and engaging as ever.

The Boys (and girls) have been let out to play too! The cast and crew all jumped on a train and ventured out into the heartland of suburban Sydney to explore the real world of these characters and the actual locations from the horrific events that inspired the play.

It’s a complex beast and our director Sam has been guiding the actors through it all by extracting the facts from the script, developing rich and detailed character relationships through improvisations and laying solid foundations for discoveries on the floor, building the action of the play from the ground up with a dynamic physical shape.

The elements of the set are beginning to arrive, costumes are being fitted and fights choreographed. We’ve just done our first stumble-through of the entire piece and now continue to build the play layer-by-layer, moment by chilling moment. The actors are all approaching it with an unflinching bravery and it’s a thrill to watch.

The beer can prop count is currently sitting at about a full case of beer, so that’s a pretty good indication of the charged energy you can expect to see on stage in January. Oh…and if you think the Stables Theatre is already an up-close and in-your-face space, people sitting in the front row for this production of The Boys – you haven’t seen anything yet!

More soon…

For more info and tickets click here.