We are Going Well!

4.8.08

On Sunday, we had the first full-run of the play. It is looking grand! We found out the running time iss approximately 2 3/4 hours but it is impossible to tell as yet since we have to put in some dances and physical sequences for which we do not have a time-frame as yet. We have the seeds of a production now we just have to focus on getting some more movement in so we are not producing a radio play.

Set Design Goodness...

26.7.08

W00t! W00t! We now have a set! Last night after rehearsal, Ellie Swann and I – together we are Dame Nellie – sat down and had a wee chat about what the set should be. I was adamant that it should be simple. Thus far, we have just been using some steps on a large box with a smaller box providing another step. Indeed, the set hasn't changed much. However, we felt we needed some tabs each side of the stage to make more defined exits. Instead of just putting up blacks, we decided to use calico to provide some contrast – and it looks fantastic. Since we have a lot of action on the steps – which themselves are going to be painted gold, black, and white – the calico makes the space much more intimate and defined. We also thought we would put large columns at the end of each tab. After all, we have said columns upstairs and it seems a shame not to use them!

We even came up with a new term: Pollocking. A lot of productions seem to take the theme of winter into the set by either painting frost or snowflakes onto the set. I wanted to do something similar, yet simpler, and Pollocking was the answer. What we will do is splatter the set in gold paint mimicking the paintings of Jackson Pollock. This adds visual interest yet keeps with the simplicity of the set.

The set not only mimics the minimalist nature of our production but, I think, also cites the way Shakespeare productions were originally staged. Since the tabs demarcate part of the stage, behind them becomes the tiring house. Which, I believe, used to have doors that opened to reveal another scene – I could be mixing it up with the scene of Greek theatre. We have blacks at the back of the space which effectively split the stage halfway. After intermission, these blacks will be drawn back to reveal a new set for the second-half. But I am not going to tell you what it is – otherwise there would be no surprise!

The next challenge is to design and rig the lights...

Another Day Closer to Dying...

22.7.08

Well, one full week (and a bit) of rehearsals are down. And I am really happy the way that things are turning out. Our Leontes, who has only been in one play before - and it wasn't Shakespeare - is coming along in leaps and bounds. In the first read-through he was having trouble with the language. Now, he is speaking more naturally and is freeing up his body much more. We also have a 10 year old playing Mamillius and they work really well together on-stage. The actors playing Hermione and Mamillius knew each other from before the show and have brought this into rehearsals well.

We have also had the first rehearsal with Camillo and Polixenes. These two actors are fantastic and willing to push the envelope; I really am quite glad that they are willing to be romantic together on-stage. And, as an aside, their stage business really is hot! It is fantastic the way the two work together to bring out Polixenes's flirty nature as well as Camillo's desire to be loved. Tomorrow night we will run the first scene (I.ii) in its entirety. This is going to be fun as we have just been running it piecemeal up until now an so to see it flowing together is going to be great.

For this production, we are going to be using most of the Globe's entrances. We will have people coming and going from all sides; you will never know where to look to next. I am inspired by the traditional practice of having an entry and exit door. In this style, the actors came in one door, came down-stage to deliver their lines, and then left via the other door. Winter's Tale seems very much written for this style since there are very few scenes where more than two actors are the centre of attention. However, this poses some challenges as the Mezzanine is quite hard to access from backstage but this just means getting things sorted so the actors have time to practice with everything in place so they don't hurt themselves.

We are planning to rig lights and get the set in order this weekend - watch this space for developments.

So far, we have avoided the taint of naturalism very well. There are still parts where the actors want to fall back into this style of acting but this is, I hope, mainly due to not knowing their lines yet. Hopefully, learning lines will fix a multitude of things which, at the moment, are not looking as good as they could.

The costumes are going to look fantastic! We have very different styles for the Bohemians and Sicilians. With the latter being very formal - at least of the beginning of the play - and the former being very free in mixing the time-periods of their costume pieces and layering lots of items over one another. We are also going to have lots of makeup for the Bohemians. Lets face it, one of the great things about theatre is the ability to put on makeup!

First Rehearsal

15.7.08

Last night, we had the first rehearsal for Winter's Tale. And I have to say we have a great cast and a fantastic script! The script is just dripping with juicy sexual innuendo - some of which I never realised when I was editing the script! I think we are in for a really fun rehearsal period and even more exciting show.

I have previously - for this production and other assessments based on Winter's Tale - utilised the New Cambridge edition of the script for its prefatory material. Last night in rehearsal, Barbara Walsh (our Hermione) stumbled on a way of playing Hermione that seems to run counter to the New Cambridge scholarly material. You see Snyder and Curren-Aquino, the Cambridge editors, focus greatly on a feminist reading of the play. In this reading, Hermione is always a strong, powerful woman with great agency. I agree that Hermione should be strong and powerful but we have to balance this with upholding the heteronormative values that a feminist reading can invoke. For instance, if Hermione is flirty - which her speech usually is and sometimes verges on the overtly sexual - the feminist reading will disclaim her for upholding the traditional view of women as sexually loose. However, I think a flirty Hermione works in the realms of sexuality - and here I use the term in a queer theoretical framework which focuses on sexual acts rather than identity since identity is not a fixed "essential" but rather a fluid construction that is liable to constant change.

Indeed, focusing on sexual acts also helps reading Leontes's jealousy. There is absolutely no reason why having sex with someone who is not your "love" mitigates that loving relationship; the two need not necessarily have any intersection at all. Further, you need not have a sexual relationship with the person you love at all. Of course, I concede that Leontes and Hermione must have had sex at some stage to create Perdita - since she is the true daughter of the two - but this sex may have had no emotional bond attached.

We also realised that the play's contemporary - to when the play was written - world and our are interestingly counterpointed in our production. There are some things in the text that are just plain foreign to contemporary audiences: breeching, the way royals act, and social conventions generally. There are others that do not seem to fit with our world: the need to have a male heir, the need for a male to deposit his sperm directly into a woman to get said heir, and the fact that a woman's infidelity can cause her husband to react with such a violent panegyric against women in general - "inch-thick, knee-deep..." is a fantastic piece of masculine, women-hating, drivel. Moreover, there were things which would have been out of place to Shakespeare's contemporary audience: that "rustics" seem to have a court-like society, and that the play swings from high tragedy to high comedy. All these points seem to allow me to pick and choose which aspects of time we utilise in our production.

It seems ridiculous that we would stage a Shakespeare production as Shakespeare would have - using the so-called Original Practices. All but few of today's audience would find it a boring endeavour indeed. Not to mention that it is a futile practice since we can never know exactly how Shakespeare productions were staged. Similarly, it would be silly to stage his productions as pieces of naturalism - naturalism is an acting style best done on film, which does it so well, so why present such a powerful, fantastic script in a weak way? Having said this however, these modes of acting can offer us options if we selectively choose which ones to use. For example, most of the play is a series of duologues - even if they are said with many people in the background. It seems helpful to think of the original practice, if it is an original practice, of having the two speakers come downstage from the melee to have their time in the spot-light and then drift back to allow the next speakers to have the stage.

Now, that is some grist for the mill no?