Restoration Rehearsal Blog - 1

We have been rehearsing The Double Dealer by William Congreve, after reading through the play as a group and began to understand the complicated language of the play we were cast, I was cast as one of two people playing Cynthia, Alicia is the other person in our group playing the same role. All the female roles were double cast as there are more girls than boys in our cast and as our last production everyone needed a large enough role to get the grades we all want. Rehearsals began mainly when we had cast and finished going through the play and understood the plot and era that the play is based in. We blocked all of the scenes before learning the lines so that it would be easier to learn them because we would know where we come in with lines, even though we did this a lot of us and myself included found the line learning for restoration very difficult because unlike shakespeare there isn't a set rhythm to the language, so memorising my lines has been a challenge for me but it is one that I am somewhat enjoying.

I have found that getting into character with Cynthia has been a balanced outcome, the character and her emotions and mannerisms I have come to find a lot more easily than the stances and ways that the restoration characters move, such as the bowing and the very peculiar walking and sitting styles that they took on to look good. The relationships that Cynthia has with the other characters are rather interesting in the sense that she is not as innocent as everyone thinks she is which gives her the upper hand, she understands everything that everyone says and knows just how to get around people and the only other person who is similar to her is Mellefont which is one of the reasons she loves him because they are two similar souls and they are marrying for love and not for social standing or money.