Keith's blog

A Pressing Engagement
It's Press Night at last! Having had the luxury of 10 previews the show is in very good nick.
 

Over the last week and a half Greg has tended to call us late in the afternoon for just a few notes, which means that Cressida has managed to steal extra time for understudy rehearsals. These have been going really well, Claudius is finally cemented in my brain - more or less! - and we've been able to do some detailed work on what makes him tick. A major feature in his emotional landscape is his love for the queen. Andrea Harris is understudying Gertrude and we've done some good work together on their relationship, how they love each other, whether they had an affair while old Hamlet was still alive, how they deal with the difficulty of their 'o'erhasty marriage', how they cope with young Hamlet - understudied brilliantly by Ed Bennett - and what happens when things start to fall apart; we have the understudy run on Monday 11th and we're all very excited about it. The other major work for me over the preview period was getting up to speed on the sublime Miserere I've been given to sing by Paul Englishby, our composer. This has been tough but very satisfying, as mentioned in the blog before last I've been working hard on the particular mode of my voice needed to perform the song and as a result have extended my upper range by several notes. This means that the sound I make has become less effortful and hopefully more heavenly! The other thing is getting used to singing in this unusual way in situ. We all know its one thing singing in the bath and quite another singing in front of 1000 people! In the first couple of previews I tended to have a bit of a wobble on the first note as even the slightest tension adversely affected the accuracy of the crucial placing of the falsetto voice; something I've never experienced before singing in my normal 'chest' voice. Thankfully it's settled down now; I can hear the band better and come in with confidence so hopefully I'm doing the song justice now. I was quite daunted when my son Laurence came to see the show on the Thursday preview, he's a fantastic musician and I was convinced he'd say I was flat, or out of time or something; but to my relief I passed the filial acid test; I should add that he loved the show, he's been studying Hamlet for A-levels and had been looking forward to seeing it very much.

Anyway, it's press day; in fact quite a few critics came yesterday on Monday, but this is the official day on which we declare ourselves up and running, all preparation done and, as far as is meaningful for something that is different every night, the finished article. We meet at four o'clock for an hour for a pep talk with Greg and some voice and text work with Lyn Darnley and living legend Cis Berry. Greg reminds us that despite the presence of the press it is OUR Hamlet and not theirs so we should forget they're there and just do what we normally do. 'Don't carry the baggage!' is his final note to us, by which he means: if something goes wrong forget it and move on, don't let it effect the whole evening! Lyn takes us through some vocal exercises on stage to get us to fill the space with sound. With Cis we each take a line from a section of a poem by Lorca (Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías) and share it in various ways that gets us to speak the text so that we can be heard without pushing the volume, this involves a balancing act of emphasising the consonants without sounding clipped and artificial. Cis usually distributes whatever text we are to work on by casually throwing the sheets of paper on the floor, which we scoop up like hungry seagulls fish from the sea. We stand in a circle, take a line each and read the whole poem round.

This exercise is akin to a relay race where each runner takes the baton cleanly and passes it on without dropping it, keeping the words alive and full of energy. We do this a couple of times until Cis is satisfied that we're doing the business and then she tells us to break up and recite the poem line by line whilst running around the entire auditorium. We each listen for our cue and when we speak our line we have to jump in the air or stand on a seat or make an extravagant gesture to feed the energy of the language. In the final exercise we get as far away as possible as we can from each other on all levels of the theatre from stage to gallery and speak the poem as quietly as we dare, whilst still communicating audibly with the person furthest away from us. Our final rehearsal call done, united and ready for the rollercoaster ride ahead, the company disperses, each actor now to spend the remaining precious pre-performance time in their own way, some quiet time, a meal in the green room, completing the writing and distribution of good luck cards etc.

Because of the HUGE amount of attention this production has attracted there is a particularly excited atmosphere pervading the theatre and a feeling of great anticipation. The table in the dressing room corridor is groaning with champagne bottles, flowers and cards. The company exchange cards or little presents with each other with good luck wishes for the night and the run, these offerings often quirky and witty. We each get a personalised bottle of champagne from David T (very lovely, very generous!), a personalised rap-poem from Ricky Champ written in felt pen on blue shiny card, Danish pastries from John Woodvine, bottles of beer from Patrick (very Danish, very Claudian!), Peter de Jersey always draws individual cards for people (he's a fantastic artist) and Greg gives cards that sport a print of a Tony Sher original cartoon based on the production; in addition there is a salad of flowers, chocolates sweeties etc to enjoy.

The inexorable countdown continues with the compulsory pre-performance calls, a flying call for the aerial work, the fight call and a song call for me. It is now The Half (in fact 35 minutes before curtain-up) we start to get into costume. Everyone is in high spirits and the dressing room banter flows freely with its customary good-natured ruthlessness. Suddenly Greg bursts in to take a breather from the hurly-burly of the press-night crowd, TV crews and general noise to wish us good luck once again. Beginners are called and Ewen and I troop along the corridor, through the old Michel Saint-Denis rehearsal room (now the main backstage area where the crew sit, where we pick up our props, do quick changes etc) and into the wings where we hear the buzz of the full house live. We wait until final clearance from front of house, when that's given Suzi Blakey (our Stage Manager), hands over control via her radio to the Deputy Stage Manager (Klare Roger way up in the glass box at the back of the gallery) and we're off! Rob Curtis enters as Francisco with the house lights up, the audience hush, the house lights dim. Ewen, Peter and I are ushered through the pass door by Katie Hutcheson (our Assistant Stage Manager) where we creep to our starting positions behind the audience, all the lights snap out and the first line cracks through the darkness like a starting pistol ... 'Who's there?'

The next three-and-a-half hours fly by and we've done it! The audience have been very responsive and applaud enthusiastically at the end; Press Night audiences are usually atypical and include a combination of critics making notes, loved ones worrying that things go well and people in the business who've come along for the occasion. Back to Dressing Room D, its glasses of bubbly to celebrate and we get into our glad rags for the party. People do the rounds backstage with their congratulations. My agent (Sarah Barnfield of Price Gardner who also represents one of my dressing room buddies Rod Smith) has come up from London with a casting director (Louise Cross) so I emerge as quickly as I can to say hello, she's as supportive as ever and Louise is very complimentary - fingers crossed for some TV work when I'm free next February - before they leave to get back on the motorway to London. Finally I leave the theatre to the hotel where the party is and it's RAMMED full, almost immediately I give up any hope of locating Zoë (my mrs). After about an hour enough people have left so that the venue isn't quite so suffocating but I still haven't found Z and am enticed on to the dance floor where, aided by two large glasses of red wine and a beer, and therefore perhaps a little too enthusiastically, I throw some moves ... well what the hell, its Press Night! Finally I locate Zoë in the garden where I've gone to cool down and we catch up. Naturally she thinks I'm marvellous, and loves the production too. More excited chatter and another beer it's 2.00 a.m. and the bar is closing, so it's back to The Ferry House for a nightcap; this is an RSC residence comprising several bedsits and a common refuge for those whose Press Night is not quite complete. Back there its one more glass of wine, a few more laughs until finally fatigue wins over excitement, and it's a taxi home, I'm greeted by Milly the dog who is sleepy and mystified by my tardy arrival home, and I finally hit the hay at about 4.30 just before 'the dawn in russet mantle clad walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill' ... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ...

Needless to say most of the next day is a write-off. I finally surface about midday with a SCREAMING hangover and spend most of the day horizontal on the sofa repeating that well-known universal mantra: 'Never again!' ... yeah right!

KO 10/08

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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.