Friday, January 28, 2011

Actor-Scholar Council 1/21/11

According to Dr. Ralph, the Actor-Scholar Council has two purposes: one, to give students the opportunity to ask about the Actors' Renaissance Season (ARS) and its rehearsal process, and two, to give actors the opportunity to ask any questions that they have about the shows. Today’s council focused on The Comedy of Errors and, to a lesser extent, The Malcontent. Actors in attendance included Tyler Moss, Sarah Fallon, Jeremiah Davis, Greg Phelps, Chris Johnston, and John Harrell.

We were lucky to have both Dromios and one Antipholus from The Comedy of Errors, allowing us to discuss how the actors played twins. Tyler and Greg (the Dromios) are both experienced clowns and went for a classic clown look. They used a lot of broad gestures, each one mirroring those the other used in other scenes, to get laughs and to establish their relationship. The ARS affords so little rehearsal time that actors who aren’t on stage together seldom get to see each others’ work. Both Dromios, however, even went to see the other’s rehearsals so they could play off what the other did.. While establishing their similarities as twins, the two maintained their individualities. Tyler’s Dromio was more of a clown, while Greg’s was a fool. By happy accident, John was cast as the Antipholus with the clown Dromio, and John claims to love beating on Tyler. This pairing led to a memorable scene in which Antipholus beats Dromio with a rope during Dromio’s monologue.

While the Dromios played up their similarity, the Antipholi played up their difference, relying chiefly on matching costumes to identify them as twins. One moment that struck John came when he realized that one twin is having the best day of his life, while the other is having the worst day. The Dromios had more extensive conversations about their relationship than either the Antipholi or the two sisters, based on what John and Sarah said about these latter pairs.
The council spent a lot of time discussing men playing women. Dr. Menzer wanted to know if there was any ethical consideration of casting plays thus in view of the shortage of female roles. Sarah pointed out that women can play men’s roles. The repertory system seems conducive to this cross-gender casting. Jeremiah pointed out also that men are generally only given small female roles. Tyler, wondering what would happen if men received female leads, mentioned how interesting it would be to have a man play Lady Macbeth, and one participant commented that that would lead to “a lot of pissed off actresses.”

Men playing women often disturbs audiences. Jeremiah, who plays Emelia in The Malcontent, found that men from the audience wouldn’t look him in the eye after the show. The ASC has taught by sufficient examples, one person argued, that it is okay for women to play men, but not the other way around, and a man playing a woman almost always gets a laugh. This rule is less universal in a tragedy, such as the current ASC touring production of Macbeth, in which (at least at one show) nobody laughed when a male Hecate entered. An interesting sidebar came up in the discussion of non-traditional casting: boys playing women in Shakespeare’s day struck audiences as erotic.

Jeremiah plays a theatrical rather than realistic woman in The Malcontent. He has few lines, so voice proved less important that physicality. Some of his decisions resulted from his costume, there being only one dress in our stock that fit him. He uses a fan either to hide or to accentuate his beard. Chris, on the other hand, plays the courtesan in The Comedy of Errors as a geisha, making it clear that he is really a guy, which Antipholus apparently doesn’t realize. At one point he takes off his wig and delivers a speech as a man. The choice proves interesting, and although men have played the courtesan in other productions, the geisha characterization is without precedent.

Tyler asked if the ARS is less stressful than the Summer and Fall seasons, which have a director. Opinions divided over this. Some actors thought it is. Sarah said it’s a different kind of stress. Chris finds it stressful, but enjoys the stress relief of the ARS. The rehearsal process for the ARS is so short, the first show opening after two to three days. If something doesn’t work in the rehearsal process, the actors must quickly change it, leading to stress relief when it turns out right. In comedies, it’s especially obvious when something doesn’t work because it doesn’t get a laugh..

Owing to the minimal rehearsal time, a Shakespeare play must open in the first slot. The ASC does this because the actors already know them and more of their speech is in our vernacular compared to the plays of his contemporaries. Also (scholars argued), Shakespeare was a superior crafter of plays. They also said that Marlowe and Jonson, were more skilled than, say, Massinger, so their plays, like Shakespeare’s, are easier to stage. Although Shakespeare’s characters are three-dimensional, character typing is especially useful, say the actors.

One last question which we addressed at the session was which scenes in The Comedy of Errors took the most time. Act 5 and “the door scene” (with one Dromio inside and the other out) took the most time. The actors blocked both early on in an effort to get group scenes out of the way. In contrast, last year the actors worked their first play in order. This turned out the better method, as this year they had to go back and reblock the two scenes once all the characters were established. These were the main points of last Friday’s productive and informative actor-scholar council, our first of 2011. If you would like to hear the entire session, it will be available as a podcast on the ASC site.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

"O this learning, what a thing it is!"

This past Monday, January 17th, I had the chance to attend another Education event at the ASC. Guest lecturer Ryan Nelson, Digital Manager for Globe Education in London, was in Staunton to talk about some of his recent work. He discussed the importance of creating an interesting and entertaining education website for a place like the Globe Theatre, as well as the multitude of ways he went about coming up with and designing digital resources for teaching and research. “Participation through engagement” is the goal, as Nelson put it. And, as someone new to working in the realm of education, only just discovering the various ways of making the past relevant and, well, as cool to everyone else as it is to me, all of these projects struck me as ridiculously exciting.


The Globe Theatre, London

As part of his talk, Nelson walked through some elements of the Globe Education website. These ranged from the more scholarly to the more entertaining; from the basic to the fantastic, and all of which can be found at http://www.globe-education.org/. On the more scholarly end of things, you can browse through an archive of conference and lecture papers, like those from the 2006 Theatre History Seminar on the use of blood on the stage, where you can learn the history behind the nifty trick, “To cut off ones head, and to laie it in a platter” (always useful). Or you can peruse research bulletins, which act essentially as production diaries for some of the first shows staged at the new Globe and which also include some wonderful detail on the historical research and rehearsal processes of a play, as well as actor interviews (one actor from a 2002 production of The Golden Ass notes: if you’re a man playing a woman, it’s more than just “put on a funny voice and get on with it” – never walk in straight lines or show your thumbs).

On the more purely entertainment end of things, you can “adopt an actor,” which does not, as Nelson was quick to point out, mean that a member of the Globe’s company comes and lives at your house. Instead, it means that students can sign up to access exclusive blogs and podcasts from certain actors during a season. It’s a great way to get a close look at all the behind-the-scenes action of a Shakespearean-era playhouse (for example, Lady Macbeth likes to unwind with a glass of bubbly after a show). Probably my favorite site, however, was that for “Playing Shakespeare.” Although aimed at young people in London schools, it was a shameless blast for me as well. This section is all about interaction, featuring several of the Globe’s recent productions, including Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Much Ado about Nothing. There are audio and video clips, and interactive texts with an automatic, pop-up glossary. You can also alternately view these select scenes as the original script or as the director’s edit. Nelson spoke about his hopes to expand this part of the Education website in particular, ideally to a point where different groups could edit and manipulate play texts for different purposes. He referred to it as creating “a modern prompt book.” This stuck with me, since part of my ASC research has included researching cue scripts and prompt books. Listening to Nelson, I found myself thinking that it is a strange and wonderful thing to compare this idea of a contemporary prompt book, able to be created digitally through instantaneous re-crafting of these centuries-old written words, to the original, carefully copied and compiled prompt books of early modern theatre. They are two so entirely different methods for accomplishing the same purpose, and it is tempting to imagine the original members of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men or the Admiral’s Men loving and thoroughly appreciating this concept.

Also within “Playing Shakespeare” is a “social network” mock-up (otherwise known as that word starts with “face” and ends with “book”), where characters from the plays have their own profiles, complete with “O wall, o sweet, o lovely wall.” Finally, students can post their own opinions on themes and issues of the different plays, where, Nelson joked, the students often discuss the weighty topics more civilly than adults. Browsing through this section of the website myself, it was satisfying to see the high number of posts under each category and to picture these youngsters voluntarily engaging in discussion and getting excited about the ideas presented. And they had some insightful things to say, too. About Much Ado about Nothing, one student stated, “I enjoyed the book even more because the type of things that occur in the play happen a lot in my age group or high school. So many emotions such as love, hate, jealousy, and justice occur at my school so therefore many people can relate.” Another student’s advice is rather more straightforward: “Watch the DVD.”

The main page of the Globe Education website claims to provide “Resources for people passionate about learning and engaging with Shakespeare’s plays.” What jumped out to me in this statement were the words “engaging with.” Before coming to work here, I had never made that unlikely connection between Shakespeare and the internet, and how critical the latter could be in promoting the former. As I continue to plug away at my own project, that oft-mentioned “Rehearsal Tools of the ASC,” I’m discovering that what makes this process so satisfying for me is that I am creating an educational resource for others while, at the same time, learning new things myself on a daily basis. And that’s not just new things about Shakespeare and early modern theatre, but new things about the role of an Education Department in places like this and the Globe. I left this talk feeling enthused and inspired to persevere with my own small contribution to the ASC’s website.

“I am weak with toil, yet strong in appetite” (Cymbeline, 3.7.10).

Natalie A.

P.S. Two other organizations which Nelson referenced as being at the cutting edge of digital education were the Royal Opera House and the Tate Gallery – I leave you to check out these websites for yourself, as the wealth of material to peruse at each is astounding and beyond the scope of this entry.

Friday, January 7, 2011

New Year, Old Shakespeare

Happy New Year to one and all! Here’s to that renewed spirit and energy which comes with each new January, and which may be inspiring you to proclaim, “The day shall not be up so soon as I / To try the fair adventure of tomorrow” (King John, 5.5.21-22). Of course, with the new year also comes the customary resolutions to be healthier, happier, more productive, more successful, smarter, more well-read, etc. etc. But don’t get overwhelmed by such lists. Instead, why not get started on the latter two of those goals, at least, by learning some more about Shakespeare? And don’t be intimidated! You could start with something light and fun, for instance, like clothes.

I’ve lately been writing about the use of costumes in Shakespeare’s plays. One of the most interesting elements of this process has been the discovery that early modern plays were costumed with early modern clothing; there was little attempt to recreate an elaborate look and feel of the past. Instead, Julius Caesar, Timon of Athens, and King John alike all wore fashionable, 16th century garb. This means that, in the process of researching Elizabethan theatrical costumes, I’ve had to learn a lot about everyday Elizabethan dress. One fun way to get the basics of women’s dress of the time is to have a look at Cecily, the Elizabethan online paper doll at ElizabethanCostume.net, which has a plethora of other interesting info on Renaissance clothing. This is an entertaining way to keep your “farthingales,” “petticoats,” “kirtles,” and “bumrolls,” straight. Try to dress her inaccurately, though, and you’ll get a message like this: “My fitted kirtle looks passing strange when worn over a gathered petticoat; it doth not fit smoothly and evenly over so much petticoat fabric. Remove my petticoat ere dressing me in a kirtle.” This is serious business.

This past summer, I had my own up close and personal experience with early modern clothing, when I volunteered at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Ontario. Their special exhibition at the time was entitled “On a Pedestal: From Renaissance Chopines to Baroque Heels,” and the stars of the exhibit were several pairs of these wildest of Renaissance shoes. If you think today’s high heels are brutal, imagine wearing a pair of these! They were especially popular in Italy, where women would wear them hidden beneath their gowns to elongate their figures and display their social status. As you might imagine, the women also needed servants to accompany them everywhere they went in order to make sure they didn’t take an embarrassing tumble.

Shakespeare himself provides a testament to just how tall these shoes were in Hamlet, when Hamlet exclaims, “By’r Lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last by the altitude of a chopine” (2.2.424-426). In this case, Hamlet is addressing a member of the troupe of players who have come to Elsinore – a boy whose recent growth spurt is, apparently, equivalent to the height of a chopine (a fact which could prove problematic should he be needed to play a “ladyship”).

And while you may think the clothing of Shakespeare limited to crazy footwear and ridiculous ruffs, there are several ways in which he can still be quite fashion forward today. I recently stumbled across a blog entitled Mad Shakespeare, which offers some possible fashionable ensembles inspired by Shakespeare’s works, including Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, and Othello.

The author of this blog mentioned that she used a site called Polyvore to create these outfits; this piqued my curiosity and inspired me to check out Polyvore myself, where I couldn’t resist creating my own Shakespeare-inspired look.
Macbeth
This one is my visual interpretation of Macbeth, with a distinct nod to the famous lady of that play. It had to, naturally, include some plaid, and I wanted to create a strong, empowered look with the high boots and wide belt. Some fur, in this case on the bag, seemed essential for the wild northern reaches of Scotland. And there was no way I could pass up those knife earrings. So, whether it be through fashion of the 16th or 21st century, the imagery of Shakespeare’s texts may be understood and interpreted in a variety of ways. (I’d love to see some other people’s outfit creations!)

See, you’ve already achieved a New Year’s goal; Shakespeare is a terrific resource for learning all sorts of new things. Now, you should probably make some cookies to celebrate (that whole “healthier” resolution can wait, right?).

Natalie A.