The Rehearsal
Finding authenticity through repetition
“You’re a great scene partner “, said one of the child actors playing Adam, as he brakes character to answer Nathan Fielder's question about if he was a believable father. Adam didn't say yes…
If you have HBO and haven’t watched The Rehearsal then you should. And if you don’t have HBO you should get it for a month and watch The Rehearsal. It’s, at times, a minding bending show brought to you by Nathan Fielder of Nathan for You fame. That’s also another show on HBO you should watch.
Anywho, The Rehearsal is one freaking onion of a show. I just finished it. The premise is that behavior is predictable. And if you are able to rehearse the experience you will be more skilled at influencing the outcome and handling the emotional fallout. The pilot episode follows this man who wants to expose a lie that he’s been keeping for several years from his trivia night friends. Nathan and his team go so far as to recreate, inside of a warehouse, the exact bar where he does trivia. Actors are brought in to play bar patrons and one woman is there to play the female friend he plans to come clean with. But the show's main focus is from episode 2 onward. Those eps are about a woman who wants to experience parenthood. As well as meeting a husband to help raise her fake son, Adam. Child actors are brought in to play Adam at various stages in the aging process. Seasons change with snow machines. Crops are grown, planted over night by crew members, to simulate the gardening process. Occasionally Adam goes back to a younger version of the character when they want to redo a situation. Sound confusing? It’s not. Actually, the show is portrayed in a coherent and simple fashion. It’s a little Truman Show and a lot of Charlie Kaufman's Synecdpche; New York, but all Nathan Fielder.
My only worry is about the show's ethics as it pertains to the child actors. Hell, any show for that matter. A portion of the final episode delves into the potential mind fuck a child actor could experience. So that’s fun. However, I don’t know shit about the in and outs of the child acting industry. But, we’ve all heard their stories when they’ve grown up.
Overall, it's a bizarre and entertaining watch. And now that I’ve been having my Adventures in Babysitting, I’m even more cognizant on how my actions are perceived by these kids. I want to make sure that if any of my goofball behavior is soaked up by these spongy kids that it's a positive influence. Not like a person acting as an actor who is acting as someone in the nesting doll sort of way that you kind of see in The Rehearsal. That’s a wee exaggeration on my part. But you get it right? Haha!
Huzzah!
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/overthinking-tv/202207/the-rehearsal-is-brilliant-look-behavior-manipulation