We began by looking at the trick by which Oppression manages to get Common Thift to take his place in the stocks.  Once again, the theme of rehearsals, ensuring that the actors stuck to the regular meter and rhyme of the verse, proved key to the scene.   The dialogue was thus run repeatedly until the rhythm began to ‘stick’, and then the action was mapped on top of this.

We had moved into a massive hall at the Pearce Institute and were able to mark it up to show exactly how big the platea, the field, and the various loci of the playing space were.   The actors began the afternoon by exploring this space.  They then read from the opening of the parliament through to the reading of the acts – to get a sense of how this whole section is going to work.  We worked through the characters’ response to the new laws, with Greg saying that the members of the parliament should be waiting to hear whether what they’ve asked for will happen, so that they have to be engaged in an “active listening” during Diligence’s proclamations. The third law about setting the lands in feu seems to be the really radical one, although many are years ahead of their time – such as priests being able to marry, and nunneries being abolished.  The rest of the afternoon was devoted to staging the parliament.