To stage an overlap – The longitudinal, collaborative and embodied process of staging eight lines in a professional theatre rehearsal process

Abstract

The theatrical rehearsal is to date a scarcely investigated institutional setting. This longitudinal, video-ethnographic study follows two actors' work with eight lines in a quarrel scene, from the first day of rehearsals to opening night. The rehearsal is regarded as a transformation process in which the production team laminate (Goodwin, 2018) the script with multimodal resources (Mondada, 2014). The script contains conventional signs for marking overlapping and loudness, and the aim of this study is to document longitudinally how the actors develop, use and coordinate these and other multimodal resources during the rehearsal process. The analysis shows that the actors laminate the script from the first day, and that overlapping and loudness function as mutually developing resources in the performance. Also, different kinds of resources are prominent at different stages of the process: overlap and loudness first increase during the process, but decrease later, as additional embodied resources become more prominent. The transformation process is thus not a linear development. The micro-analysis also shows that the performance on opening night is an emergent interaction, that is, a process. The data and the results challenge dominant theoretical models of participation in fictional discourse.