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  • Tom Mason is our guest blogger!
    This is my first Yew Tree blog and I really don't know what to write…so here goes nothing.
    Eclipse is turning out to be a lot of firsts for me: my first time being double cast, my first time performing (and trying to be sociable) with this many people I've spent minimal or no time with in the past, my first time playing weird and wonderful games that Gemma won't allow into Crimson for some reason...
    But I guess that all just comes with this being my first connections. In fact, as far as I can remember I may be the first person from Crimson to do a Connections (or a Yew Tree blog...eek). The first thing to strike me about Connections is how hands-on the process is; regular 5-7 rehearsals on a Saturday night in which we work tremendously hard for most of, if not all. I couldn't have prepared myself for how strange it is to be double cast either, creating your own character and then watching someone take it in a completely different direction simply because that's how they see it and how they've interpreted the character. But honestly, I think this allows us to learn from each other: showing each other different possible ways to do a scene, react to a specific character, or even something as small as a momentary reaction to something another character says. It also makes catching up easier, for example last week I had to miss the rehearsal due to a party and in that session scenes 1 and 2 were staged without me. Having Declan play the scene in the same character as me allowed me to watch the scene and catch up quicker than if I had to be directed into it.
    In my opinion, the hardest part of Connections is that I have to play a blind person and i need to find a way to show that without making it comical and stupid when it shouldn't be.
    That is why I find myself sitting, playing FIFA, waiting for next saturday where…rehearsals have been called off for a week!

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