Reading, sleeping and learning lines
January 3, 2012
Last year's season was a bit full on so, having dived straight into this one, the few days off after Christmas were extremely welcome. I escaped to Satis House, a wonderful hotel in Suffolk, for a bit of self-indulgent chillaxation. I took all three scripts on my trusty iPad, and spent my time reading, sleeping and learning lines - with nine holes of golf tucked into the last of my three days. It was the perfect break. So now a big part of the job is to be off the book for every rehearsal. Hmmm. Watch this space! First day back we'll be doing scenes from Twelfth Night upstairs and the tricky opening scene of Comedy downstairs.
We did some productive work on the latter before the Christmas break. I told you before about the huge chunks of blank verse, didn't I? It was useful in our last rehearsal to look at an exercise that Cis Berry is fond of throwing at actors in her workshops, where everybody except the actor doing the speaking does their very best to avoid being spoken to. I've seen colleagues being chased all over the theatre by actors desperately trying to make some sort of effective contact. It's simple but revelatory because it forces the actor to find the will, the desire, the energy, the urgency and necessity of communicating the lines written for them. The sheer need to speak that results in the speaker surprising himself, as much as anyone else, with what he's saying becomes pretty key (or 'herself' and 'she', of course!). I'm holding hostages to fortune a bit here, because the ultimate test will be in March when we stand this up in front of you in the RST, but I think we're finding a way to get that urgency.
I really look forward to getting back into the rehearsal room with a bunch of people that are already good friends. We're laughing with and at each other a lot - which is a good sign. First requirement for an actor: an amused realisation of one's own acute and painful absurdity.
Photo: Director David Farr planning a complex call with Stage Manager Heidi Lennard.
(The What Country Friends is This? plays are; The Tempest, Twelfth Night and The Comedy of Errors, and are part of the RSC's World Shakespeare Festival)
by Nick Day
| 2 comments
Share this