Week 12: Bad news
April 25, 2012
22 January 2012
In The Comedy of Errors I play the Messenger, who crashes into Act V with some very bad news. He has just witnessed Antipholus of Ephesus (played by Stephen Hagan) in a state of madness.
'O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself;
My master and his man are both broke loose,
Beaten the maids a-row, and bound the doctor,
Whose beard they have sing'd off with brands of fire,
And ever as it blaz'd, they threw on him
Great pails of puddle mire to quench the hair.
My master preaches patience to him, and the while
His man with scissors nicks him like a fool,
And sure (unless you send some present help)
Between them they will kill the conjurer.'
(V. i. 168-177.)
It's Shakespeare's nod to his classical predecessors: introduce a messenger to update the characters and the audience on the offstage action. Academic types have filled volumes with analysis of messenger speeches, and it is my pleasure/burden to play such a speech on the RSC stage.
The messenger in The Comedy of Errors has some of the most violent language in the play, and his ten-line speech could easily be turned into an entire scene.
I spoke to Actor Kevin McMonagle about the speech, and his thought was I must approach the speech technically. He said, 'The Messenger's primary intention is to deliver the message; their physical and mental state and sometimes the dreadful news conveyed are obstacles that must be secondary.' The text achieves the emotion.
To make the speech work, Director Nizar Zuabi's main note is to keep it 'concrete.' Give the speech urgency, but make the delivery clear.
In rehearsal, Nizar reminded me to deliver the information as if I were running into a theatre to tell everyone there is a fire. If I yell and scream like a crazy person, two problems arise: first people might not believe or understand me; second I will set off a panicked frenzy.
It helps that Nizar has set a bodyguard with a Kalashnikov behind me. Feeling the cold steel of a gun against the nape of your neck clarifies the task at hand.
Vocal Coach Michael Corbidge worked with me to emphasize the verbs: shift, save, are, broke, beaten, bound, have, sing'd, blaz'd, threw, quench, preaches, nicks, send, will, and kill - sixteen beautiful verbs in ten lines without a repeat. These verbs carry the severity of the danger in the Messenger's warning.
In his next set of lines, the Messenger implores, 'I have not breathed almost since I did see it' (V. i. 181). Actor Nick Day suggested I look at the punctuation and line endings in the First Folio, which are sometimes different from those in modern editions. The Messenger has run through town seeking Adriana (played by Kirsty Bushell); using the line endings and punctuation as Shakespeare's breathing instructions makes the Messenger hyperventilate—appropriately.
Photo: From left to right, actors Stephen Hagan, Kirsty Bushell, and Kevin McMonagle.
by Ankur Bahl
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