Keith's blog

Labouring On
Following my 'Bottoms Up' blog there's been a flurry of understudies over the last few weeks, fortunately with far less chaotic consequences.
 

We were sorry when Jim Hooper was poorly for a performance of Dream and Sam Dutton had to go on for him as Starveling, but delighted when Ewen Cummins was unable to make a performance of Hamlet and had to make way for his understudy David Ajala! Why was this? Are the cracks starting to appear in the company's camaraderie? Is the ensemble fragmenting and a corrosive enmity creeping in? What deed had Ewen done to deserve our glee at his indisposal? Well … he became a daddy for the second time!!!!!!! His partner Dids gave birth to a little girl on August 31st so he duly took time off to tend to this beautiful little addition to his family; thus there was a reason to celebrate his absence. Subsequent to the arrival of ‘Peanut' as she was initially dubbed, Ewen has for obvious reasons suffered a fair bit of sleep deprivation so has built a nest in the dressing room, which we call Sleepy Hollow, where he makes up for his slumber deficit. As his co-member of the Danish security services in Hamlet we do nearly all our scenes together, I am thus charged with being his alarm clock while he gets his 40 winks whenever he can during the performance, waking him up when his services are required onstage!

September 6th
Some unwelcome excitement and a terrible sense of déjà vu as the rain poured and poured over Warwickshire. Last year we were badly flooded and were out of our new home for over six months, our hearts were in our mouths that this might happen again as the Arrow and Alne rivers were put on flood watch; they join about 100 metres from our house. I spent my moments offstage in the Hamlet Saturday matinee checking the Environment Agency website for developments and while onstage struggled to put the possibility of our lovely house being overwhelmed by cold murky floodwaters to the back of my mind. I didn't have an evening show so went straight home after the matinee. The Arrow was swollen and running fast full-brim to its banks. Through the afternoon Zoë, like me, had been glued to the news and praying for the rain to stop. Our confidence in the situation not helped by the fact that it has been publicly acknowledged for some time that Alcester need three new pumping stations and the process for their installation is bewilderingly slow. The evening passed, Zoë cooked a cottage pie, and in escapist-mode we watched Saturday telly, ate food, drank wine and crossed our fingers. Sunday morning the crisis was over, we were in the clear and very relieved, and thought of the poor souls who'd become victims this time round.

Love's Labour's Lost has been a strange show for me as I only appear at the very end, so haven't been in rehearsals very much at all. However my involvement in the show has increased recently in that, to help create a sense of the wider community of Navarre, there will be an interval interlude of Navarrian villagers singing rounds and country dancing. Some of the songs are contemporary with Shakespeare, some a little later; appropriately enough they tell of love lost and won, and of country life. We've been getting to grips with how to weave them and the dances into a narrative and how we might achieve this practically. In fine weather we'll start outside The Courtyard and move to the foyer then into the theatre itself, if it's rainy we'll need to be flexible as the foyer'll be very crowded … hmmm … we probably won't know how it'll work until we do it in public, if we get it right it should be a lot of fun.

I had a costume fitting for Marcade a couple of weeks ago. My costume is being specially made for me and was half finished, so I was in tailor's dummy mode while the merits of different fabrics, ruff sizes etc were compared and discussed and different patterns were chalked or pinned about my person. It'll look amazing, whilst I think that Shakespeare works perfectly well in modern dress if the aesthetic is carefully conceived, I do love wearing period clothes, being unusual habiliments they are powerful to wear, ignite your imagination and you get into the feel of the play very quickly.

Walking the dog t'other day, the harvested fields lie brown beneath a milky autumn sky, and the leaves are starting to turn their colour and drop, thus heralding the end of summer. I feel a slight melancholy to think that our season here only has a few weeks to run before we go to London for the winter. Inevitably my thoughts turn to next year's big ensemble project, which of course I'd love to be part of, as I know quite a few of us do, there'll be much competition to get in on it; I plot my triumphant return as Milly snuffles around the edge of the woods and scampers along the path. As she does so I contemplate on how nice it must be to be a dog and have no concept of the future, to enjoy the moment simply concerned with doggy things, smells, food, chasing rabbits and birds, with no need to worry about work, careers or money.

29th September
Oh dear, I seem to've got a little behind with this blog, and it's the first day of the Love's Labour's Lost technical rehearsal already! We've had three runs of the play, last Friday week, one last Wednesday and the final on last Friday. Each successive run was an improvement on the one before as confidence with the complex and occasionally obscure language has grown. Much earlier in rehearsal Cis Berry had said that the humour and wit of the play lies not only in the precise meanings of the language but its raw sounds and rhythms, for the last run it crackled along and I think we've got a very witty, elegant show on our hands and I can't wait for us to put it in front of an audience for the first time.

KO 29/09

   Respond to Keith's blog

Responses to Keith's blog

"Keith! I read with excitement your latest blog - in fact I've been very sad and checking for an update from you on LLL! We came to see Hamlet on the 5th September and I'm glad that your house escaped any damaging flooding, we really enjoyed the Post Show talk and were truly inspired by the ensembles love of their work... Just sending you all best wishes for the production, I can't wait to come and see it on the 14th November - we have limited view seats apparantly - but purely being in The Courtyard is enough for me as I sniff in the air and take in the total atmosphere of the place... The interval sounds fascinating - so good luck with that too! Very best wishes and I hope that many of you are able to be part of next years exciting productions too - where I will look forward to seeing some of you again!

Warmest wishes,
Genette "

"Keith, I'm really excited to see you in Love's Labour's Lost next week when I come back to Stratford! I thought you were fantastic as Marcellus, and luckily got to see Hamlet twice last week while I was there. I was really hoping your band might be doing a show at the Duck or anywhere else that week. What's the latest on that? You mentioned in a previous blog that you might play at the LLL opening night party. Does it look like you'll be doing it? Thanks very much for taking the time to write such detailed and entertaining blogs for us! See you next week.

Lisa"

"Dear Keith, I’m very glad to hear that you weren’t flooded out on that terrible wet weekend – what a worry that must have been for you. And a new baby in the ensemble, how exciting for everyone – maybe a future Ophelia or Rosaline? I send all my best wishes for the first preview night of LLL tonight. I am sure that it will be a roaring success. I look forward to reading your thoughts on how it goes on a future blog. Love to all the cast.

Janine"

"Hi there, Good luck to all with Love's Labour's Lost. I shall be in the audience on October 25th. Looking forward to my first visit to Stratford.

Regards,
Carole Johnston......a Shakespeare virgin."

"I do hope you'll be all right with the flooding - more torrential rain forecast today for the Midlands. I've managed to sneak away to Statford for a few unexpected days next week so I'll try my luck at getting a return for LLL. Would love to see it - I went to the Globe production last year and the contrast would be fascinating.

Ruth"

"We saw it last night and loved it. Such life and colour, but then that darkness, especially at the end. Uplifting and moving. Well done all!!

Best,
Linda and Andy"

Latest blog posts

- Autumn anarchy 
- Another opening 
- Labouring on 
- Open Day 
- Bottom up! 
- Love's Labour's Last
- A pressing engagement
- Sunday lovely Sunday
- It's the Final Countdown!
- Bits and bobs
- Walking before we can run
- Words, words, words
- Up and Down
- Athens to Elsinore 
- A bit of a break
- Dream on 

About blogger Keith

         

Likes: Music, cycling, food, theoretical physics

Dislikes: Queuing, flying, mice (and creatures of similar size), smoking

Keith plays Marcellus in Hamlet, Egeus in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Marcade in Love's Labour's Lost as part of the ensemble.