Keith's blog

Love's Labour's Last
We had the understudy run of Hamlet last Monday week (11th August).
 

Just as for A Midsummer Night's Dream, we had a technical rehearsal – for me this meant rehearsing quite a few costume changes for Claudius/Ghost no nightmare ones though some of them pretty swift; but I was well looked after by Yvonne Gilbert (Patrick’s dresser). The actual run was great fun, everyone acquitted themselves very well indeed, we had great feedback and given the mighty colossus that the actual role of Hamlet is, special mention must go to Ed Bennett who was BRILLIANT! It was with excited relief that we all tucked into our tea and buns in the green room afterwards. It’s a funny thing though having worked so closely and intensely particularly with Andrea, Ed and Rod Smith as Polonius that if any of us have to step into the breech it won’t be with the others; in that respect the understudy run is a special one-off experience to be treasured – although we’re hoping to do it again in London.

The very next day post-run we started work on the final play of our part of the season, Love's Labour's Lost. We had the customary first day (remember the drill?) a rallying chat from Greg, a peep at the costume design and model of the set, then slowly started to work through the play. Francis O’Connor’s design is BEAUTIFUL I don’t want to give too much away but the cozzies are sumptuous and the environment a fresh spin on the Dream/Hamlet set. Remarkably we managed to get through the sitting-down-and-putting-it-into-our-own-words stage of rehearsals in just four days … Hamlet took two weeks! I love Love’s Labour’s Lost, I wish it was done more often, but it is pretty tricky. Hamlet is a deep and complex dissection of themes most of us can relate to instantly – love, death, alienation, powerlessness etc. In a way Love’s Labour’s Lost is the opposite, a pastoral comedy of manners, simpler philosophically but the context more remote from us; the Elizabethan court. There are a lot of obscure contemporary references to unpick, not to mention obscure Elizabethan jokes that we must make funny; I sense that with this one the sooner we get on our feet and start playing around the better. My workload for LLL is relatively light, I play Marcade who doesn’t turn up until near the very end, in addition I’m understudying Dull, which is just fine, not too much extra pressure to maintain in addition to Peter Quince and of course Claudius.

Meanwhile band rehearsals continue, we’ve quite a few extra songs now and need to start polishing them and getting them to performance standard; we’re hoping to play at the Love’s Labour’s Lost first night party and maybe a gig in The Dirty Duck at some point. A major addition to our musical armoury is Sam Dutton who has brought his violin up from London.

Last Sunday we went en famille to Ragley Hall Country Fair, which was great fun. The weather held and we spent a good few hours there. I had a go at the archery, watched some falconry, and just had to sample some local real ale. Milly the boxer was in dog heaven – people! other dogs! food! smells! – but she was a little disturbed by the horses, she’s seen them on walks in the country but not so many in full galloping mode in the display area and she was a little alarmed by them. I went round the house itself which is very interesting not least because their family tree criss-crosses some of those aristocratic families Shakespeare wrote about, Edward III, The Plantagenets, Harry ‘Hotspur’ Percy, leading on to Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s third wife and therefore, I suppose, Elizabeth I’s step-mum for a brief moment. The view from the front steps of the house looking out over the fields to Oversley Wood is wonderful, interesting to me as it is the reverse perspective to the one I’m used to, as normally when walking near Oversley I’m looking back over the fields to the house and the very spot I stood that Sunday.

We did 'The Dream' for the first time in a month last Monday. When there’s a gap of 10 days or more in the run of a production, we have to do a line run. This entails all the cast who speak sitting in a circle and simply going through all the lines of the play as quickly as possible thus, in this case, brushing the cobwebs from those of our collective synapses that store our words for 'The Dream'; we also had a song call to refresh our memories music-wise. It was a pleasure to return to our faithful Athenian friend and we slid easily back into the saddle.

Through last week work continued on Love’s Labour’s Lost, I wasn’t called until Friday afternoon for my bit although there were a couple of music rehearsals for the songs at the end of the play and we’ve been given research projects to do on various things germane to the play that’ll help us understand its contemporary significance more fully. Subjects range from the real King of Navarre, to hunting, to owls, to schoolmasters, to the socialites of the day. My project is Arcadia, the name of my character is a play on words meaning to spoil paradise, i.e. mar-arcady, so it seemed quite apt. LLL is a pastoral comedy so my task is to try to find any connections between the pastoral idyll that was the Arcadia of myth and Shakespeare's play.

I’m doing some stuff for Open Day on the 31st August. Open Day is an annual event when the RSC throw open their doors and let the public see what happens behind the scenes and also various other concerts, talks and events. I’m singing and reading in a concert of past RSC music in the church, and also a poetry session the theme of which is gardens. Oh yes and a reading of Fratricide Punished which is a bizarre version of Hamlet. A 1920s English translation of an 18th century German translation of an older play that might be some of the source material for Shakespeare’s Hamlet … erm, I hope that’s clear. Some of us – basically the understudy company directed by Cressida – prepared and read it to the company during Hamlet rehearsals; Greg thought we should do it for Open Day and so we are, in the evening I think. Somehow we’ve got to rehearse all the above this coming week for Sunday!

KO 27/08

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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.