Keith's blog

Dream on
It's Saturday morning, 24 May and at last we can say that our production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is well and truly on as of yesterday.  
 

Now, you may question that last statement, surely AMND opened over a week ago didn't it? And you'd be right, what I allude to is that following our very successful press night and party, quite a few of us Dreamers had but the morning to nurse our hangovers before starting work on the final piece of the jigsaw ... the understudy rehearsals. There are understudies for nearly every role in every RSC production and there is a very robust system that operates to facilitate this stage of a production. For understudying doesn't only entail learning the principal's lines but mounting a sort of mini-me, parallel-universe, alternative production where every aspect of the main one must be achieved artistically and technically by the understudy actors, stage management and crew; The Understudy Run. This level of thoroughness is crucial because, for instance, in AMND there are some pretty spectacular flying sequences and pity the poor actor, swung around 40 feet in the air in front of, indeed over, 1000 people without trying it out properly first however well he/she knows her lines! So, we have had about five days to re-mount a 10-person version of the full production leading up to an in-house performance of the whole play with all whistles and bells and as many colleagues and friends as can make it to support as audience.

The necessity for understudies stems from the statistical certainty that over the months, sometimes years, of the lifespan of an RSC production someone at some point will be ill or have an urgent family crisis to deal with or be stuck on the M40 which means they are ‘off'. I've been in many shows where an understudy has had to stand in for the principal actor and one doesn't necessarily get a lot of notice. In Cymbeline in 2003 the actor playing Jupiter, who appears in Posthumous' dream in prison, was also a soldier in the Romans v Britons battle scene at the end of which he had to run all the way upstairs to the very top of the Swan gallery, shedding clothes as he went to effect the quickest of quick changes into Jupiter's flowing robes and wig, then lowered in a winged throne suspended in god-like in space above the stage. One fateful night as he hared off stage he tripped and smashed into a door jamb breaking his nose, at which point his understudy, also fresh from battle as an ancient Briton, had barely uttered ‘Is James alri-?' when he was grabbed by the stage manager and told: ‘You're on!', rushed aloft the Swan, dangled 30 feet above the rest of us on stage, his face still covered in woad, from which vantage point, understandably flustered, he came up with a very interesting version of Jupiter's speech; fortunately we mortals were dimly lit so our barely suppressed giggles easily hidden. Even shorter notice of ‘You're on!' occurred more recently in Antony and Cleopatra when the actor playing Pompey had forgotten that there was a Saturday matinee. In addition, through some misunderstanding or other, he had been checked in at the stage door so no one had realised that he was actually 100 miles away in London. When it came to his first scene, the warlike beating of drums struck up, heralding the entrance of the mighty Pompey and his piratic cohorts, Menas and Menecrates but of course only the cohorts appeared. Luckily Menas, played by David Rubin, was Pompey's understudy so he started Pompey's first speech in the third person as Menas expecting that, though late, Pompey would put in an appearance, however as the scene went on and it became clear he wouldn't, Menas metamorphosed into Pompey himself; hopefully the audience took this apparent attack of schizophrenia to be an interesting gloss on the part, an indication of Pompey's troubled state of mind. The other piece of luck was that David's understudy was his co-cohort (Ravi Aujla) so at least he didn't have to talk to himself. It should be said that neither of the above is the norm and usually the state of play understudy-wise is known before curtain up and can be a wonderfully exciting experience as I discovered when I had to go on as Iachimo in the above-mentioned Cymbeline; fortunately I was told at mid-day which was great, I had the afternoon to prepare.

Whenever an understudy goes on there is an inevitable ‘knock on' effect, a bit like the butterfly effect in chaos theory (you know that thing where a butterfly flaps it's wings in Alaska and causes a hurricane in the Caribbean). If an actor is off and an understudy is on usually the understudy's understudy will have to go on too, which means that the understudy's understudy's understudy will have to go on, which means that ... I think you get the idea. For example in our production, if Joe Dixon is off as Bottom then Ricky Champ (who plays Snout) goes on for him, which means that Rob Curtis (playing Theseus) goes on for him which means that Peter de Jersey plays both Theseus and Oberon which means that someone else will have to pick up some of Rob's fairy business such as operating with the puppetry, helping Titania into her bower etc; thus a mechanical off in Athens would cause a hurricane in fairyland! A solution has to be worked out for every possible eventuality, the Herculean task of working out the Rubik's Cubesque logistics of all this falls to the assistant director Cressida Brown who is also responsible for taking the understudy rehearsals. The greatest concentration of rehearsals has been since press night (although we did manage to find some time in London). It's a tricky thing going on for someone for whilst every actor on earth wants to put their own stamp on a particular role, one also has to fulfil the requirements of the production, it's a funny old line to tread but usually eminently achievable, this is a key part of understudy rehearsals. We must enter and leave the stage as our principals do and rough hew their moves, but Shakespeare, divine as he is, does give licence for the understudy to shape their own individual ends in the nuances of a part.

The Understudy Run; it is a strange beast, with only half the company doing the whole play inevitably compromises have to be made in order to fulfil its purpose. The commonest of these is when an actor is understudying two people in the same scene. This can mean that he or she have to speak to themselves, for instance in our AMND Sam Dutton is understudying Flute and Starveling so in the run a dextrous change of hat helped to indicate who was who (which I was very glad of as I'm understudying Quince). Before Michael Boyd's ensemble policy, which means that all company members contribute to the understudy process, understudy companies tended to be even smaller and you could have one actor playing three or more people at once. In one scene in Thomas More in 2005 Peter Bramhill understudied someone who was beaten up as well as the two beater uppers so in the run he had to beat himself up as victim and both assailants; to this day I think he holds the record for the most understudy parts in a season – nearly 30 if my memory serves me right. Of course in AMND if Sam D had to go on the odds are that it would be either as Flute or Starveling not both, in the highly unlikely event of the principal actors for both parts being off we'd have to think again ...

Anyway, after a week of intense, hard work The Run went exceedingly well yesterday, full credit due to all involved. For now understudy rehearsals are over but of course that's not the end of it, we have to maintain the work we've done for the rest of the season. So, next stop Elsinore Castle and the imminent arrival of some new friends ...

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About blogger Keith

         

Likes: Music, cycling, food, theoretical physics

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