Wallowa - the Second Rehearsal

Don brought in a written draft of the scene we had improvised from before and I was so relieved to have a SCRIPT.  I guess I never realized how much I like knowing where "the edges of my box" are with regards to the text.  Improvising throughout this process is going to be a fantastic challenge and opportunity for me to stretch an obviously saggy muscle. I'm also enjoying the freedom I have with character development since I'm not really cast in the role and Sarah and I so far have had the chance to create a character based on both of our choices and ideas.  It's such a freeing way to approach the work.  I'm getting a sense of how much actor baggage I bring to the first rehearsal of a show.  It's like I'm all up in my character's grill.... We spent the evening exploring the moment Howard and Ora separate in the woods and in that exploration learned so much about the characters and their relationship.  Ora is very dramatic - her language in this draft colorful.  I think she is the kind of woman who lets Howard have the first crack at solving a problem then comes in and sorts it out after he has bungled it a bit. In this draft, Howard is really hard on himself.  He engages in some "beating himself up" about how the events of the last 24 hours have played out. I feel even more strongly that when they split up, they really have no idea just how lost they will become.  No one plans on getting lost.  People plan on getting out, getting found.  The realization of how lost you really are lags behind the reality of how lost you are.  I guess you could also think of that from the perspective of the person who is seconds away from being "found" is probably feeling the most "lost."  Your experience of your "lostness" isn't necessarily equivalent to the nature of your "lostness." When are you lost?  Is it when YOU feel lost?  What if you don't feel lost but everyone is freaking out because they can't find you?  You are lost to them but not to yourself.   Are you still "lost"?  And then Ora returns home and her memory is "lost."  So in a sense she is still lost to her family and friends.  While physically back from the mountains, she is mentally absent.  At what point do you mourn that?  Will her memory return or do you give up the hope of it and focus on creating new memories?  And how disappointing it must have been for her family to find her, but only a part of her.  Where did she go?