Here is the continuation of my accounting of the Capital Fringe Festival. If I forget to mention anyone I met or who saw my show I apologize. It was a busy couple of weeks!
Sunday, July 17
This morning started off with volunteering. I believe I was originally scheduled to work in the bar, but when I arrived they asked if I would mind doing box office instead. Um, no, not at all! I ran box office for two shows, Pinoy: A'merican Tale at the Apothecary and then since I have my car I ran over to Spooky Universe for Sanyasi. The latter is one of the many shows on the “Ooo I want to see this but I can't” List. But by running box office I at least get to say hi to Betsy Rosen and Nora Achrati, two of the performers.
At 4pm I made my way to the Apothecary to take in Stephen Spotswood's The Sisters of Ellery Hollow. Stephen is a DC playwright, and one of the many delightful theatre people on twitter. Ellery Hollow was performed by Rachel Holt and Melissa Hmelnicky. It was a lovely piece, about two sisters who were story tellers, revealing the magical circumstances of their birth and life. The script made use of beautiful imagery, and the two actresses performed with charm and spunk.
Then I rested for a short time before my second performance at 6:45pm. I felt really good about this performance. The nerves from the first performance seemed to settle, and the piece felt like it had a lot more flow. I felt like I was able to just go along for the ride of what was happening in my piece, and in the Juliet scenes, rather than worrying about whether I would forget my lines. I was blessed every performance to have friends in the audience, and this night were Jeremy, Joshua, Brett, Renee, and Richard.
After the show ended, Victoria and I ran over to the Warehouse to snag standing room only tickets for Illuminate: A Martial Arts Experience, as it was sold out. We are successful and run back to the tent to grab a little dinner. Time for the Apple and Cheddar Panini once again! While scarfing down the food we talk to the gentlemen performing Glengary Glen Ross. They are charming, in their own way, and we have a few hearty laughs before we have to leave.
Illuminate is fantastic, even before it begins. The packed house affords some memorable people-watching, and we'll just leave it at that. There is a loose story to Illuminate, basically a put-upon man learns martial arts to defend himself and masters the skill. The story is told through a series of martial arts demonstrations. Most of them are performed in blackout. The performers wear all black, and glow sticks on their hands and feet that reveal the moves. The hero of the story wears the color green, and that allows us to track who he is, even though the individual performing the role changes.
Victoria knows one of the performers, John Shyrock, and he performs my favorite part of the piece. In Illuminate, John showcases Chinese rope dart techniques. Again, the theatre is in blackout, and there are lights attached to the end of John's rope. He flings it out into the audience, whipping it back and forth. Every time you swear the rope is going to hit someone, yet it never does. Every time you flinch, and every time everyone is safe. It was remarkable.
Monday, July 18
On Monday, a second review, this one from MD Theatre Guide appears. It is extremely favorable, and, which I almost appreciate more, very well written. Positive notes aside, the review accurately represents the piece I was trying to create, describing the play as “part shakespearean performance piece, part memoir, and part literary discourse.” It seems disingenuous to praise a positive review, but it is truly a relief to find out that your performance goals have come across to a member of the audience. We in the theatre can spend a lot of time talking about good reviews and bad reviews and whether to ignore them or not, but I've always had an interest in dramatic criticism, and the thing you can learn from a review is what a specific audience member got from the production. And when that is exactly what you were hoping to portray, it's encouraging.
Tuesday, July 19
On Tuesday I head to Shrewing of the Tamed at the Shop. This production involves William and Mary students, so I run into a couple of former professors. I had gotten to meet a few of the students during the Fringe festival as well. I think it's fabulous that William and Mary is using the Capital Fringe Festival as a resource and learning experience and wish they had done so when I was a student there.
The marketing materials for the play asked the question “Can a woman be as funny as a man?” For some reason in my head I got the idea that this meant they were going to gender flip Kate and Petruchio. This isn't what happened at all. The main change was an increased emphasis on the frame narrative. It harkened back to the time when women were not allowed on stage, and so the actress-who-would-be-Kate had to prove that she could play the role as well as a man. The play then started from a point of competition that paralleled Kate and Petruchio's competition.
Wednesday, July 20
I start off by volunteering for A Year of Living Dangerously at the Redrum (more fun decorating rocks with Terry and Robert). Then I have to prep for my third performance. I'm nervous about this one because very important people will be in the audience. Beforehand I was talking to Kimleigh Smith, the force of nature behind the show TOTALLY. She's fantastic, and I think I met her one night while talking to Seth. She says simply and calmly, “Hey. Just tell the story.” She is right, and my nerves are settled. Just tell the story.
Jim Gagne, a dear friend of mine, and a brilliant teacher attends, as does George Grant, another brilliant teacher, and a man who knows a vast amount about Shakespeare and how to perform it. Just tell the story. Jim tells me afterwards that it's the first time he's seen scholarship used theatrically in a successful manner.
Thursday, July 21
Thursday is play night for me. No being a volunteer, just being an audience member. First up is Brett Abelman's The Magical Marriage Computer and other plays. Brett is another local playwright producing work at the Fringe festival. This set of plays explores love in different circumstances amongst different types of people. My friend Rachel Manteuffel is in the show, one of her parts being, of all things, Johnny Depp.
After that is the biker King Lear at the Apothecary. The piece is directed by Kelli Biggs, and starring one of my best friends, Katie Wanschura, as a gender flipped Edmund. Everyone is drinking beers, flashing knives, playing pool, talking on cell phones, wearing leather.
One Shakespeare play is never enough for Charlene, so after King Lear I'm scheduled to attend Hamlet: Reframed at the Shop. There's a little bit of downtown in between, so I hang out in the tent and talk to friends. Everybody is there that night, many to see Hamlet. Allison, Katy, Lee, Mark, Bess, just to name a few. I had been joking with some Fringers earlier in the week that the Festival and the Helen Hayes are the two times of year where we in the theatre are liable to run into any number of exes and past indiscretions. I chalk up the second one of the festival that night. I'm feeling spunky, so I command him to bring me water from the bar! I figured I could get away with it since it's the least he could do for me, and it's over 100 degrees that day, so Fringe is providing it for free. He humors me and graciously complies.
It's a good thing I have water because the heat in the Shop is oppressive. Audience and actors alike are dripping with sweat. Impromptu fans are being waved back and forth. Despite the distractions, the actors hold the attention of the audience. Hamlet: Reframed was a modern telling of the famous play, with one catch: all the soliloquies are cut. What do we get in this version? An unstable Hamlet, with unexplained behavior, and a King and Queen desperately trying to keep a country running. We don't get the ghost in this version, which prevents us from immediately siding against Claudius. The cut shed a different light on the characters. I thought Carl's objective for the production was clear, and that he successfully achieved it.
Friday, July 22
On this day I went into town just for one volunteer shift. I was scheduled from 5-8pm at the Free Store, which as Nyree, the Volunteer Coordinator, told me, is where volunteers go to die. Basically it's an extremely boring shift, in an hot and stuffy room without chairs. You sit on the floor and greet people as they come in, answer questions, lay out donations, and do your best not to sweat too much. And, true to reputation, the shift was rather boring, at least from 5-7pm.
For the last hour of the shift some performers came into the Free Store, and getting to know them made the end of the shift far more enjoyable than the beginning. First I met Drew and Sam, and later Nate and Nate came in as well. These four guys were half of OneBodyWorks, the group performing I See You. They had spent six weeks working on a farm in North Carolina, with limited access to technology, and developed a theatrical piece in response to their time there. The fellows were cute and charming, and became known around Fringe as “the farm boys.” At least that's what I called them, and everyone always knew who I was talking about. Apparently the guys found this amusing, since on the farm, they were the city boys. I hear great things about their show, but alas, I don't get to see it.
Saturday, July 23
At noon I show up in the side room at Fort Fringe to find out about that One Year Theatre project, whose postcards I had seen around the festival. But that story isn't for this blog – in short, I am involved, I designed the webpage, and you can learn more there and at the blog.
I scramble over to Spooky Universe for When ET Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Unpredictable bus schedules mean I slide in there right at curtain time and sheepishly ask if I can still get in. Luckily they hadn't started yet. This rock musical tells the story of Joan who gets contacted by aliens that dig her music and want her to be the leader of their intergalactic band. It's starring fellow standardized patient and all around awesome lady Emily Webbe, whose fantastic voice I get to hear for the first time.
Time for the fourth performance of What, Lamb! What, Ladybird! There are several friendly faces in the audience for this one. Catherine and Terrance Aselford are there. So is Kavita Mudan, one of my favorite female Shakespeare Geeks. Matthew Pauli, one-third of Clown Cabaret attends and we get to talk shop about Shakespeare afterwards.We talk about what's missing when there is one performer – the reaction of characters. A great deal of acting comes when you aren't speaking. So when performing multiple roles, especially in Shakespeare, how do you find the balance between letting some of those reactions in, and keeping the text driving forward? Two of my former co-workers, Jennifer and Krystal, whom I don't get to see nearly enough, come as well.
This is possibly my best performance. I feel very free in the moment, and I am able to explore moments in the text in a way I hadn't been before. It feels very fluid. It feels great. Until. Disaster. I am on the very last page of the script. Right in the middle of what is a very scary and emotional confession for me. And I completely blank. I know where I'm going, but I can't remember the very next line. Words stumble out of my mouth as my brain frantically searches for the sentences that have escaped my memory. I can't find them, so I move ahead to the next moment, leaving out about three lines of text. Well, it happens. You move on. But everything was so perfect up until that moment. But I almost wonder if being more connected to what I was saying is what actually made me forget what I was saying. To be truly living in the moment of what I was confessing and finding myself unable to say the words due to the nerves and the terror of admitting was I was admitting. It's a possibility, but still, Perfectionist Charlene is not pleased!
Several of us head to Busboys and Poets for dinner afterwards, along with Karen and Jim who were at the Festival that night as well.
After dinner and after socializing at the tent Jim and I head to the Mountain for Faction of Fools' Fool For All. We are joined by Hannah, who is a co-worker and friend of Jim's, and on the staff at the Festival. The Fool for All is comprised of nine scenes and over 40 artists. Not every scene is performed every night, so it's always a different show. The production also serves as a learning experience for the artists, as they vary in experience and skill level. Some are professional clowns, others have just taken a class or two with Faction. I know next to nothing about Commedia dell'Arte, but while watching it becomes clear that there are three levels of skill to mask work. The first level: actors who are wearing the mask. Second: actors whose faces match the mask. And the third level, the level of the uber talented Matthew Wilson, are actors for whom the mask becomes a natural part of their face. It's fun to note how this works, and also to see so many friends on stage, like Gwen Grasdorf, Karen Beriss, Steve Attix, Paul Reisman, Grant Cloyd, and Sarah Olmsted Thomas.
The show is followed by more socializing at the tent, with some of the aforementioned persons, and also audience member extraordinaire and extremely intelligent guy, David Tannous. He tries to convince me to join him for Meagan & David's Original Low-Cost Creativity Workshop, but it's midnight, and I'm exhausted. I try to convince him to see my show on Sunday instead of the one he's already got a ticket to. Neither of us succeeds. Nevertheless, it's lovely to talk to him, and I've already run into him at another theatre event since Fringe.
Sunday, July 24
Here it is. The final day of Fringe. I start of at the Goethe Institute seeing John Hefner's The Road to Nowhere. Hefner is a friend of mine, and an accomplished solo artist who has toured his shows to several Fringe Festivals. He had given me advice throughout the process. I'm glad that I could make it to his show, especially as it's been quite a while since I saw him in person. He was pretty busy. As the title of his show implies, he went on a long road trip that kept him away from DC. Then he fell in love, got engaged, oh yeah, and just had a baby. Busy guy.
My final performance is in the afternoon. Friends Kelli, Katie, and Rachel are in the audience. The fact that it is over doesn't seem quite real.
We pack up my car with the set pieces. Then I have one last play to see, Belle Parricide, directed by Catherine Aselford and Nick Allen. Catherine and the playwrights have been working on this piece for something like two years. I saw a staged reading of one version of the script quite some time ago, and it has grown and improved immensely. Five female playwrights wrote short pieces about Beatrice Cenci, portraying the girl and the murder of her father in different lights. After the show I head into the tent for some final socializing and to say goodbye to everyone.
The Capital Fringe Festival was an amazing experience for me this year. I did things I had never done before. I wrote and performed a one-woman show! I went places that terrified me, and survived, nay, grew as an artist. I made a piece that was about me and about the kind of theatre I love, and infused with the kind of thinking I do. And though it was made from a very specific standpoint, audiences responded positively. It was so rewarding to discover that this dual approach that I have spent so much time talking about, so much time thinking about, this actor-scholar path, could have a tangible existence.
Will this have an after-life? I'm not sure yet. I know that if I were to perform it again, there are a couple more things I want to look up, a couple places I want to cut, and a couple places I want to add. Three people commented on the educational possibilities of the piece.
Two different people told me I should present this play at the Blackfriars Conference that the American Shakespeare Center hosts every two years. And indeed, working on this play is the very thing that confirms that I am making the right decision in attending the MFA program at Mary Baldwin this fall. The program explores the two pillars of scholarship and stagecraft, and that is exactly what my play turned out to be. And it wasn't my intent to make it that; the play came to this status naturally, simply by virtue of what I find interesting.
But the most dear compliment of the experience was relayed to me by Victoria. An actress she has worked with came to the play along with one or two other actresses, all who had played Juliet. They told Victoria that afterwards they found themselves talking about the piece and how exciting it was because I did things with Juliet they had all been told they weren't allowed to do.
And that's the point, really, I think. Let's get this false idea of Juliet as the willowy ingenue out of our heads. Let's not play what we think she is. Play instead what Shakespeare gives you in the text. Let a young actress bring all the charm and all the tempestuousness and all the lust and all the strength that she can. For that is what Juliet is: mercurial and strong, logical and loyal, curious and giving. There has never been a 14-year-old like Juliet, nor will there never be. And that is the magic of this play, this character, and Shakespeare's writing.
Showing posts with label performance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label performance. Show all posts
Friday, August 5, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Titus Androgynous, Second Performance
The second performance was less frantic, and a little more polished, in terms of lines, entrances and exits, props, etc. Still, there were surprises and there were many moments that were different from the night before.
One of the results of not having a rehearsal process with a tech week is that costume problems don't get discovered before the show is in front of an audience. Shannon, our Titus, had to adjust her costume for the Sunday matinee, for she discovered last night that her wooden dagger kept falling out of her sash. Saturday night it actually happened in the final banquet scene when Saturninus and Tamora had sat down to eat. Shannon played it off great: she picked the dagger back up and smiled with sheepish innocence as if to say "how did that get there??"
On Sunday it was another person's sash that caused some live theatre magic. This was near the opening of the play after Titus has declared Saturninus the emperor. Sarah was speechifying and her sash had come off her shoulder. As she moved and strode around the stage it slowly slipped down her body, and the rest of us stood on stage wondering how to help her. It finally started tangling around her ankles, and there was this moment we all had -- will this make her trip?? So Shannon said "Madam--" (again, interesting gender coloring -- the ad lib was automatically feminine, though in the text we keep all masculine pronouns). This brought the sash to Sarah's attention. Sarah stayed 100% in character, laughed it off, and said something along the lines of "Oh! I am embarrassing myself in front of the tribunes! One gets so excepted with you are made Emperor of Rome!" And she sold the ad lib so well that there were members of the cast that did not realize the lines weren't part of the text.
We also had a great moment of an actor impulse creating "accidental" blocking that turned out to be oh-so-right. In a moment I'll talk about another choice of JJ's (our Tamora) that I got to ask him about, but I did not remember to ask whether he meant for this moment to happen the way it did, or if it just occurred (what I'm about to describe did not happen during the Saturday performance).
It is the scene after Bassianus has stolen Lavinia from Saturninus. Titus has slain one of his sons in the fight. They are all met before the Emperor, and Tamora pleads with the Emperor to be merciful and forgive Titus. Tamora says:
Then at my suit look graciously on him,
My Lord, be ruled by me, be won at last,
Yield at intreats, and then let me alone:
I'll find a day to massacre them all,
And ‘rase their faction, and their family,
The cruel Father, and his traitorous sons,
To whom I sued for my dear son's life.
And make them know what 'tis to let a Queen
Kneel in the streetes, and beg for grace in vain.
Come, come, sweet Emperor, come Andronicus.
At some point during this speech, JJ walked over to Shannon, put his hand on her shoulder, and forced her to kneel. Titus's sons then had to follow suit. I found this fascinating: a) due to the reverse gender, our Tamora is taller than our Titus, and so it is believable that Tamora could have some amount of physical power over Titus; and b) because of what the text brings next.
Saturninus. Rise Titus, rise, my Empress hath prevailed.
So Titus and his sons stand back up. The scene continues:
Titus. I thank your Majesty, and her, my Lord.
These words, these looks, infuse new life in me.
Tamora. Titus, I am incorporate in Rome,
A Roman now adopted happily.
And must advise the Emperor for his good,
This day all quarrels die Andronicus.
Sweet Emperor, we must all be friends,
The Tribune and his Nephews kneel for grace.
Instead of this line becoming a description of what was happening, JJ played it as a command. Titus and his sons were forced to kneel twice in a very short amount of time, a humiliating action. In the scene playing out this way, it became very clear how much Tamora was toying with the Andronici.
My final lines changed as well. Sara had mentioned when we were working out fights on Saturday that when Saturninus is killed her crown fell off her head and made a huge thump. She pointed out that it may be on the floor for someone to give to Lucius. I said I may be able to, but it depended on where the blocking fell at that moment. On Saturday night I couldn't do anything with the crown because it fell behind Sara, and close to her body. I couldn't really see where it was, and it would have been awkward to try and get it.
When Saturninus died at the Sunday matinee, however, the crown slid off her head, and the momentum caused it to slide along the floor towards me. It was close to me, and very much in my character's awareness. From my point of view, Lucius seemed to notice the crown as well. It certainly gave me a "how can I turn this situation to my advantage?" feeling.
So when it came to my line, I was able to pick up the crown, stride to the center of the playing space, and kneel before Lucius, presenting the crown. Now that the crown's been picked up, the issue is created of where does it go - does it end up on Lucius's head? If so, who puts it there? Elizabeth told me that when this happened, she had a moment of "how do I deal with this crown before me?" but then her text gives her the answer. Lucius says:
Thanks gentle Romanes, may I govern so,
To heal Rome's harms, and wipe away her woe.
But gentle people, give me time awhile,
For Nature puts me to a heavy task:
Stand all aloof.
So she/he was able to waive off the crown with "give me time awhile."
We had a great talkback after the Sunday matinee with our audience. We spent a while discussing gender, and what the swapping did. Some audience members said they got used to it pretty quickly, and it didn't matter; some said they never quite got used to it. We discussed whether it made the play even darker to have feminine bodies performing these acts of violence.
There was also a discussion about why Titus Andronicus was chosen. Many audience members seemed less familiar with it, and Cyndi, our Bassianus, pointed out that at one point in Philadelphia, over 100 years passed between productions of this play. Felipe, our Lavinia, pointed out that theatres find extremely violent plays difficult to pull off. We live in a movie society, and movies have vast technology that can make anything seem real. In a very violent play you have to work harder to convince the audience, because if they see the holes in the combat or the blood work, it no longer seems real. I pointed out that the play also has a reputation as "lesser Shakespeare" and that attributes to it being done less often.
We also talked about the nature of the Bare Bard and whether they are as successful with tragedies as they are with comedies. One of our audience members said that he prefers seeing comedies on the Saturday night, because the frantic energy and the mistakes add to the fun, but he likes seeing the tragedies on the Sunday matinee, because they are well served by the extra bit of polish.
Speaking about the spin the changed gender put on the play reminded me that I had a specific moment I wanted to ask JJ about. In Tamora's scene with Aaron, Tamora has a line comparing the two of them to the Prince and Dido. JJ gestured to himself on the word "prince" when normally Dido, the Queen of Carthage, would be the equivalent one in the story to Tamora. I asked him if that was a conscious choice, or did he do it automatically because of inherent male identification with the word "prince?" JJ said it was a conscious choice because he decided that in this version, his Tamora, being male, was the Prince in the story. The choice certainly worked in the context, the moment passes so quickly, and the word "prince" highlights Tamora's status as royalty, particularly with an audience not immediately familiar with the background of such classical allusions.
It was a fascinating weekend, as a Shakespearean, and as an actor, and I certainly hope they will have me back again in the future!
One of the results of not having a rehearsal process with a tech week is that costume problems don't get discovered before the show is in front of an audience. Shannon, our Titus, had to adjust her costume for the Sunday matinee, for she discovered last night that her wooden dagger kept falling out of her sash. Saturday night it actually happened in the final banquet scene when Saturninus and Tamora had sat down to eat. Shannon played it off great: she picked the dagger back up and smiled with sheepish innocence as if to say "how did that get there??"
On Sunday it was another person's sash that caused some live theatre magic. This was near the opening of the play after Titus has declared Saturninus the emperor. Sarah was speechifying and her sash had come off her shoulder. As she moved and strode around the stage it slowly slipped down her body, and the rest of us stood on stage wondering how to help her. It finally started tangling around her ankles, and there was this moment we all had -- will this make her trip?? So Shannon said "Madam--" (again, interesting gender coloring -- the ad lib was automatically feminine, though in the text we keep all masculine pronouns). This brought the sash to Sarah's attention. Sarah stayed 100% in character, laughed it off, and said something along the lines of "Oh! I am embarrassing myself in front of the tribunes! One gets so excepted with you are made Emperor of Rome!" And she sold the ad lib so well that there were members of the cast that did not realize the lines weren't part of the text.
We also had a great moment of an actor impulse creating "accidental" blocking that turned out to be oh-so-right. In a moment I'll talk about another choice of JJ's (our Tamora) that I got to ask him about, but I did not remember to ask whether he meant for this moment to happen the way it did, or if it just occurred (what I'm about to describe did not happen during the Saturday performance).
It is the scene after Bassianus has stolen Lavinia from Saturninus. Titus has slain one of his sons in the fight. They are all met before the Emperor, and Tamora pleads with the Emperor to be merciful and forgive Titus. Tamora says:
Then at my suit look graciously on him,
My Lord, be ruled by me, be won at last,
Yield at intreats, and then let me alone:
I'll find a day to massacre them all,
And ‘rase their faction, and their family,
The cruel Father, and his traitorous sons,
To whom I sued for my dear son's life.
And make them know what 'tis to let a Queen
Kneel in the streetes, and beg for grace in vain.
Come, come, sweet Emperor, come Andronicus.
At some point during this speech, JJ walked over to Shannon, put his hand on her shoulder, and forced her to kneel. Titus's sons then had to follow suit. I found this fascinating: a) due to the reverse gender, our Tamora is taller than our Titus, and so it is believable that Tamora could have some amount of physical power over Titus; and b) because of what the text brings next.
Saturninus. Rise Titus, rise, my Empress hath prevailed.
So Titus and his sons stand back up. The scene continues:
Titus. I thank your Majesty, and her, my Lord.
These words, these looks, infuse new life in me.
Tamora. Titus, I am incorporate in Rome,
A Roman now adopted happily.
And must advise the Emperor for his good,
This day all quarrels die Andronicus.
Sweet Emperor, we must all be friends,
The Tribune and his Nephews kneel for grace.
Instead of this line becoming a description of what was happening, JJ played it as a command. Titus and his sons were forced to kneel twice in a very short amount of time, a humiliating action. In the scene playing out this way, it became very clear how much Tamora was toying with the Andronici.
My final lines changed as well. Sara had mentioned when we were working out fights on Saturday that when Saturninus is killed her crown fell off her head and made a huge thump. She pointed out that it may be on the floor for someone to give to Lucius. I said I may be able to, but it depended on where the blocking fell at that moment. On Saturday night I couldn't do anything with the crown because it fell behind Sara, and close to her body. I couldn't really see where it was, and it would have been awkward to try and get it.
When Saturninus died at the Sunday matinee, however, the crown slid off her head, and the momentum caused it to slide along the floor towards me. It was close to me, and very much in my character's awareness. From my point of view, Lucius seemed to notice the crown as well. It certainly gave me a "how can I turn this situation to my advantage?" feeling.
So when it came to my line, I was able to pick up the crown, stride to the center of the playing space, and kneel before Lucius, presenting the crown. Now that the crown's been picked up, the issue is created of where does it go - does it end up on Lucius's head? If so, who puts it there? Elizabeth told me that when this happened, she had a moment of "how do I deal with this crown before me?" but then her text gives her the answer. Lucius says:
Thanks gentle Romanes, may I govern so,
To heal Rome's harms, and wipe away her woe.
But gentle people, give me time awhile,
For Nature puts me to a heavy task:
Stand all aloof.
So she/he was able to waive off the crown with "give me time awhile."
We had a great talkback after the Sunday matinee with our audience. We spent a while discussing gender, and what the swapping did. Some audience members said they got used to it pretty quickly, and it didn't matter; some said they never quite got used to it. We discussed whether it made the play even darker to have feminine bodies performing these acts of violence.
There was also a discussion about why Titus Andronicus was chosen. Many audience members seemed less familiar with it, and Cyndi, our Bassianus, pointed out that at one point in Philadelphia, over 100 years passed between productions of this play. Felipe, our Lavinia, pointed out that theatres find extremely violent plays difficult to pull off. We live in a movie society, and movies have vast technology that can make anything seem real. In a very violent play you have to work harder to convince the audience, because if they see the holes in the combat or the blood work, it no longer seems real. I pointed out that the play also has a reputation as "lesser Shakespeare" and that attributes to it being done less often.
We also talked about the nature of the Bare Bard and whether they are as successful with tragedies as they are with comedies. One of our audience members said that he prefers seeing comedies on the Saturday night, because the frantic energy and the mistakes add to the fun, but he likes seeing the tragedies on the Sunday matinee, because they are well served by the extra bit of polish.
Speaking about the spin the changed gender put on the play reminded me that I had a specific moment I wanted to ask JJ about. In Tamora's scene with Aaron, Tamora has a line comparing the two of them to the Prince and Dido. JJ gestured to himself on the word "prince" when normally Dido, the Queen of Carthage, would be the equivalent one in the story to Tamora. I asked him if that was a conscious choice, or did he do it automatically because of inherent male identification with the word "prince?" JJ said it was a conscious choice because he decided that in this version, his Tamora, being male, was the Prince in the story. The choice certainly worked in the context, the moment passes so quickly, and the word "prince" highlights Tamora's status as royalty, particularly with an audience not immediately familiar with the background of such classical allusions.
It was a fascinating weekend, as a Shakespearean, and as an actor, and I certainly hope they will have me back again in the future!
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Titus Androgynous, First Performance
I have survived my first Bare Bard at Maryland Shakespeare Festival. This one certainly had a lot going on: violence, no rehearsal, large cast, plus the reverse gender cast. Things certainly went wrong on Saturday night: people of course had to call line, entrances and exits were flubbed, props were forgotten, but in the end, we did the play. The story happened. That was what I found remarkable.
The moment that I had mentioned before was near the end of the play. All the deaths have occurred and Marcus and Lucius have speeches explaining what has occurred and asking for pardon from the Roman people. Aemilius, who up to now is really just a messenger with a name, steps forward and declares Lucius to be emperor. Aemilius takes the reins and what he says happens. “Lucius our Emperor, for well I know / The common voice do cry it shall be so.” My joke is that I am Aemilius the Emperor Maker, as opposed to Warwick the King Maker. (Oh nerdy obscure Shakespeare jokes!)
I was curious about this moment because Maryland Shakespeare had sent all the actors a packet of information and staging and rhetoric and language, to help us prepare for this Bare Bard. Part of the packet dealt with status, and how what words you use to refer to someone should dictate the physical action – “Sir” vs “Lord” vs “Emperor.” Due to that information, I know that when I proclaim Lucius emperor, I should kneel. And if the people onstage are listening to my line “the common voice do cry it shall be so” they should follow suit and kneel as well. In the original text of Titus Andronicus, there is a crowd line that follows Aemilius’s line, concurring with what he has proclaimed. But that line was cut in our script, meaning that very few people would have had any reason to read that particular moment and to know what was about to happen. Without the crowd line, there was nothing to point the other actors to what they should do, and it would just be up to them to listen and act appropriately. And they did. Everyone on stage followed suit. Yay!
Part of this was due to this moment occurring at the end of the play, after we had collectively had a couple moments already of “oh… should we all respond…????” and so I think we were all more aware of moments like that and more comfortable in responding to them. At the beginning of the play, Saturninus is proclaimed emperor, and we didn’t have a crowd response. We had a meeting this morning and that was a moment that was brought up – how we all really wanted to say something, but were nervous about vocalizing something that wasn’t in the text. I think we’ll all be more comfortable with that sort of ad lib in today’s matinee.
I think the most useful aspect of these Bare Bards is the sense of freshness, of things unfolding for the first time before you, because that is exactly what is happening. Without four to six weeks of rehearsal, the story isn’t drilled into your head. Even though we know the story, the details are all hazy for us, and that’s what allows the surprises to happen.
I had two specific moments where I felt the magic of events occurring right in front of me, or receiving information for the very first time.
The first was when I run in to tell Saturninus that Lucius has gathered an army and is on his way to attack Rome. All I knew in my head was that Saturninus and Tamora had some lines and then Saturninus says something like, “Aemilius do this message honorably.” And I respond, “Your bidding shall I do effectually” and exit. So I go on stage, deliver my message, and then I am waiting for my cue line, waiting for Saturninus to tell me what to do. What happens in the scene is that Tamora comes up with the entire plan. I’m standing there listening to Tamora’s ideas, but I’m not going to do anything until The Emperor tells me to. It was a interesting, and unexpected, dynamic, particularly because Sarah, playing Saturninus, was playing this scene a little frantic and like she/he didn’t know what to do, and she/he took a moment before playing, “Yes! We will do that plan!” It was a very cool moment to live through with my fellow actors.
The other thing I noticed had to do with the ending of the play – living through the story, I don’t think you feel that Rome’s troubles are over. It seems like a rough, violent society, and one that will stay that way. I know Elizabeth feels that Lucius is very honorable, and that she/he puts Rome first, but that doesn’t change the fact that the way we put Rome first is through immediate retributive violence. Lucius calls his son up to say goodbye to the dead Titus (the young boy’s grandfather). There is this sense of Lucius telling is son to take the scene of carnage in and learn from it. And there is this tenderness to the Andronicuses saying their farewells to Titus.
Then Lucius flips on a dime and has his speech about Aaron the Moor’s punishment. And it’s mean. And cruel.
Set him beast deep in earth, and famish him.
There let him stand, and rave, and cry for food:
If any one relieves him, or pities him,
For the offence, he dies.
It’s two very different colors, and says a lot about the character, and the world of Titus Andronicus.
Now it’s time to warmup and get ready for the matinee!
The moment that I had mentioned before was near the end of the play. All the deaths have occurred and Marcus and Lucius have speeches explaining what has occurred and asking for pardon from the Roman people. Aemilius, who up to now is really just a messenger with a name, steps forward and declares Lucius to be emperor. Aemilius takes the reins and what he says happens. “Lucius our Emperor, for well I know / The common voice do cry it shall be so.” My joke is that I am Aemilius the Emperor Maker, as opposed to Warwick the King Maker. (Oh nerdy obscure Shakespeare jokes!)
I was curious about this moment because Maryland Shakespeare had sent all the actors a packet of information and staging and rhetoric and language, to help us prepare for this Bare Bard. Part of the packet dealt with status, and how what words you use to refer to someone should dictate the physical action – “Sir” vs “Lord” vs “Emperor.” Due to that information, I know that when I proclaim Lucius emperor, I should kneel. And if the people onstage are listening to my line “the common voice do cry it shall be so” they should follow suit and kneel as well. In the original text of Titus Andronicus, there is a crowd line that follows Aemilius’s line, concurring with what he has proclaimed. But that line was cut in our script, meaning that very few people would have had any reason to read that particular moment and to know what was about to happen. Without the crowd line, there was nothing to point the other actors to what they should do, and it would just be up to them to listen and act appropriately. And they did. Everyone on stage followed suit. Yay!
Part of this was due to this moment occurring at the end of the play, after we had collectively had a couple moments already of “oh… should we all respond…????” and so I think we were all more aware of moments like that and more comfortable in responding to them. At the beginning of the play, Saturninus is proclaimed emperor, and we didn’t have a crowd response. We had a meeting this morning and that was a moment that was brought up – how we all really wanted to say something, but were nervous about vocalizing something that wasn’t in the text. I think we’ll all be more comfortable with that sort of ad lib in today’s matinee.
I think the most useful aspect of these Bare Bards is the sense of freshness, of things unfolding for the first time before you, because that is exactly what is happening. Without four to six weeks of rehearsal, the story isn’t drilled into your head. Even though we know the story, the details are all hazy for us, and that’s what allows the surprises to happen.
I had two specific moments where I felt the magic of events occurring right in front of me, or receiving information for the very first time.
The first was when I run in to tell Saturninus that Lucius has gathered an army and is on his way to attack Rome. All I knew in my head was that Saturninus and Tamora had some lines and then Saturninus says something like, “Aemilius do this message honorably.” And I respond, “Your bidding shall I do effectually” and exit. So I go on stage, deliver my message, and then I am waiting for my cue line, waiting for Saturninus to tell me what to do. What happens in the scene is that Tamora comes up with the entire plan. I’m standing there listening to Tamora’s ideas, but I’m not going to do anything until The Emperor tells me to. It was a interesting, and unexpected, dynamic, particularly because Sarah, playing Saturninus, was playing this scene a little frantic and like she/he didn’t know what to do, and she/he took a moment before playing, “Yes! We will do that plan!” It was a very cool moment to live through with my fellow actors.
The other thing I noticed had to do with the ending of the play – living through the story, I don’t think you feel that Rome’s troubles are over. It seems like a rough, violent society, and one that will stay that way. I know Elizabeth feels that Lucius is very honorable, and that she/he puts Rome first, but that doesn’t change the fact that the way we put Rome first is through immediate retributive violence. Lucius calls his son up to say goodbye to the dead Titus (the young boy’s grandfather). There is this sense of Lucius telling is son to take the scene of carnage in and learn from it. And there is this tenderness to the Andronicuses saying their farewells to Titus.
Then Lucius flips on a dime and has his speech about Aaron the Moor’s punishment. And it’s mean. And cruel.
Set him beast deep in earth, and famish him.
There let him stand, and rave, and cry for food:
If any one relieves him, or pities him,
For the offence, he dies.
It’s two very different colors, and says a lot about the character, and the world of Titus Andronicus.
Now it’s time to warmup and get ready for the matinee!
Friday, March 18, 2011
Titus Androgynous
Right now I am packing a suitcase and getting ready to head to Frederick, MD for the weekend. Once there I will be packed in with a group of actors who together will put on a production of Titus Adronicus with barely any rehearsal. It's one of Maryland Shakespeare Festival's Bare Bards, and my first time participating. The play was cast and scripts were sent out about a month ago. We all arrive (hopefully) completely off book. We get together for dinner and a workshop on Friday night. We rehearse (mostly exits, entrances, and fights) on Saturday. We perform Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. We drink.
Hopefully somewhere in the middle of all that craziness I'll find time to blog and tweet about the experience. I've been wanting to take part in one of these projects for a long time, so I'm very excited to see first hand how it all works, or doesn't. There are already a couple moments that I am curious about.
And if that isn't enough wackiness, this Titus Andronicus is reversed gender! I'll be playing Aemilius. The cast also includes Shannon Parks, JJ Area, Maya Jackson, Sarah Thomas, Lindsey Mitchell, Cyndi Rose, Liz Hostetter, Elizabeth Jernigan, Erin Brannigan, Emily Karol, Felipe Cabezas, Christina Frank, Anne Nottage, Colby Codding, and Corey Mullen. The production is facilitated by Abbie Isaac.
March 19 -- 8pm
March 20 -- 2pm
Sunday’s performance will be followed by a spirited post-show discussion. No two performances are ever the same, so come twice! $15 suggested donation at the door. Seats fill quickly, so reserve in advance by emailing Karen@mdshakes.org or by calling (301) 668-4090.
Performances located at:
All Saints Episcopal Church
21 North Court Street
Frederick, MD 21701
Hopefully somewhere in the middle of all that craziness I'll find time to blog and tweet about the experience. I've been wanting to take part in one of these projects for a long time, so I'm very excited to see first hand how it all works, or doesn't. There are already a couple moments that I am curious about.
And if that isn't enough wackiness, this Titus Andronicus is reversed gender! I'll be playing Aemilius. The cast also includes Shannon Parks, JJ Area, Maya Jackson, Sarah Thomas, Lindsey Mitchell, Cyndi Rose, Liz Hostetter, Elizabeth Jernigan, Erin Brannigan, Emily Karol, Felipe Cabezas, Christina Frank, Anne Nottage, Colby Codding, and Corey Mullen. The production is facilitated by Abbie Isaac.
March 19 -- 8pm
March 20 -- 2pm
Sunday’s performance will be followed by a spirited post-show discussion. No two performances are ever the same, so come twice! $15 suggested donation at the door. Seats fill quickly, so reserve in advance by emailing Karen@mdshakes.org or by calling (301) 668-4090.
Performances located at:
All Saints Episcopal Church
21 North Court Street
Frederick, MD 21701
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Swan Day 2011
Once again this year I have been working with some other wonderful women to organize DC's Swan Day. SWAN Day/Support Women Artists Now Day is a new international holiday that celebrates women artists. It is an annual event taking place on the last Saturday of March (Women’s History Month). You can find out more about this event, by visiting the website, http://www.womenarts.org/swan/.
In DC, Swan Day is produced by Catherine Aselford and the Georgetown Theatre Company. It will take place on March 26 from Noon to 6pm at various locations in Georgetown. Events include films, storytelling, visual art, and a short play reading festival. It is the latter that I am most involved with. So on Saturday the 26th you can find me at Grace Church (1041 Wisconsin Ave, NW), for much of the day, helping to run the staged reading festival. I am also directly involved with three of the works.
Woman at Bat
by Heather Meyer
I will be directing the reading of this short play about three women and their love of baseball. I'm thrilled to have actresses Katie Culligan, Lisa Hill-Corley, and Melissa Robinson on board.
Tiger Lilies
by Victoria Z. Daly
directed by Jessica Aimone
In this lovely play that jumps around in time showing key moments in the relationship between a mother and a daughter, I will be playing the part of Vanessa.
The Body Washer
by Rosemary Frisino Toohey
directed by Catherine Aselford
I will be playing Amy, a journalist reporting on the murder of a young woman at a military checkpoint.
Right before the Staged Reading Marathon, at noon at the Georgetown Barnes and Noble, I will be taking part in Dishing with the Girls, an open discussion between a panel of women artists and the community.
But Swan Day events have already kicked off! Today I took part in Soar with The Swans, a sneak peek event at the National Museum of Women in the Arts between 2:00 – 3:30 p.m.
The afternoon included poetry; storytelling; the screening of SIS, an award-winning short film about the relationship between sisters; & a staged reading of 10 Page Drama, a short play about playwriting. Between performances, attendees can test their knowledge and win SWAN cookies by playing Name That Woman Artist.
For this pre-Swan Day event, I played Julia in the staged reading of 10 Page Drama by Samantha Kuperberg, directed by Catherine Aselford. The cast also included Jonathan Lee Taylor, Heather Benjamin, Terence Aselford, Jacinda Bronaugh, Frank O'Donnell, Stefan Aleksander, and Krista Cowen.
In DC, Swan Day is produced by Catherine Aselford and the Georgetown Theatre Company. It will take place on March 26 from Noon to 6pm at various locations in Georgetown. Events include films, storytelling, visual art, and a short play reading festival. It is the latter that I am most involved with. So on Saturday the 26th you can find me at Grace Church (1041 Wisconsin Ave, NW), for much of the day, helping to run the staged reading festival. I am also directly involved with three of the works.
Woman at Bat
by Heather Meyer
I will be directing the reading of this short play about three women and their love of baseball. I'm thrilled to have actresses Katie Culligan, Lisa Hill-Corley, and Melissa Robinson on board.
Tiger Lilies
by Victoria Z. Daly
directed by Jessica Aimone
In this lovely play that jumps around in time showing key moments in the relationship between a mother and a daughter, I will be playing the part of Vanessa.
The Body Washer
by Rosemary Frisino Toohey
directed by Catherine Aselford
I will be playing Amy, a journalist reporting on the murder of a young woman at a military checkpoint.
Right before the Staged Reading Marathon, at noon at the Georgetown Barnes and Noble, I will be taking part in Dishing with the Girls, an open discussion between a panel of women artists and the community.
But Swan Day events have already kicked off! Today I took part in Soar with The Swans, a sneak peek event at the National Museum of Women in the Arts between 2:00 – 3:30 p.m.
The afternoon included poetry; storytelling; the screening of SIS, an award-winning short film about the relationship between sisters; & a staged reading of 10 Page Drama, a short play about playwriting. Between performances, attendees can test their knowledge and win SWAN cookies by playing Name That Woman Artist.
For this pre-Swan Day event, I played Julia in the staged reading of 10 Page Drama by Samantha Kuperberg, directed by Catherine Aselford. The cast also included Jonathan Lee Taylor, Heather Benjamin, Terence Aselford, Jacinda Bronaugh, Frank O'Donnell, Stefan Aleksander, and Krista Cowen.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
On Playing Beatrice
During August and September I was playing Beatrice in an outdoor production of Much Ado About Nothing with The Shakespeare Factory, an original practices troupe. I meant to be a better blogger through the process, but the road to hell yada yada yada. Still there were several thoughts and topics swarming around in my head as we rehearsed and performed that I knew I wanted to write about.
First of all, it is of course a great privilege to play the role. There’s a reason all Shakespeare actresses want to add this role to their resumes. I was excited to have the opportunity because it was this year that I really felt ready for the role. Or ready for my first stab at the role. I’m sure I’ll play her again, and I’m sure I’ll play her better, but I felt emotionally and mentally prepared to take a crack at the role for the first time.
Beatrice is glorious. It’s clear from reading the play, or seeing the play, that she is a great character. But when you play her, you can’t help being in love with her. I am also incredibly envious of her. She is everything I want to be. She is all my best parts, with none of my faults. The woman is smart, smarter than anyone else around her, including Benedick. This is a very frustrating position to hold – when no one seems able to keep up. Add to this the fact that she is in a world where her power and autonomy are limited. Where she can resist the traditional roles of male and female only to a certain degree. She has been hurt and disappointed in love and yet she never gives way to the kind of bitterness and negatively that I feel. Sure, it would be possible for an actress to take all of Beatrice’s witty comments and give them a bitter edge, but I think to do this too much is to miss part of the character – for I think many of her lines feel very light and I have to believe Leonato when he says, “she is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then.” Sure, she is accused of being curst, but Don Pedro also says she has a “merry heart.”
Her heart is so open and so generous and so loyal. Beatrice never doubts Hero’s fidelity and she puts everything on the line to save her cousin. I think she is fully aware of the fact that she could lose Benedick’s affection forever when she asks him to kill Claudio.
People may want to accuse Beatrice of the fault of pride. Hero certainly does in the duping scene. But Hero is playing a trick on Beatrice, so how much she really means what she says is open to interpretation. Beatrice may be scared of relationships, scared of marriage, scared of losing power to a husband, scared of being hurt again by Benedick, but when she hears that he loves her, she conquers her fears and commits fully. She delivers a soliloquy, one of the few times in the play that she speaks in verse, and the only time she refers to Benedick with the more intimate “thee/thy/thou.”
What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?
Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much?
Contempt, farewell; and maiden pride, adieu;
No glory lives behind the back of such.
And Benedick, love on, I will requite thee,
Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.
If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee
To bind our loves up in a holy band.
For others say thou dost deserve, and I
Believe it better than reportingly.
This actually brings me to the first of three topics that I wanted to address. This moment was to me the most difficult moment in the show, and preceded by the most difficult scene. And I think many people have difficulty with the Beatrice Duped scene. Shakespeare’s not doing the female characters any favors. The Benedick Duped scene comes first and it’s funnier. All we are doing is repeating a joke that has already been made. The scene is redundant. And for an actor such as myself, the scene has additional difficulties. I don’t believe in the actor being funny. I believe in the writer being funny and the actor playing the scene. But in this (comic) scene, where I was supposed to be funny, I had no lines. And then I had to end the scene with ten lines where Beatrice does a complete 180. She hears criticisms about herself and decides to change immediately. How many people can do something like that? Her courage is astounding.
So just think about everything an actress has to pull together in this moment:
1. Speaking verse – a change for Beatrice
2. Direct audience contact
3. The extreme pain of hearing someone you love say terrible things about you
4. The immediate decision to change behaviors
5. The extreme joy of hearing that Benedick loves her
6. Talking to Benedick who isn’t there
7. A final line that sounds awkward to modern ears
Then you have to take all that and still strike the right tone and level of levity considering the fact that you are in the middle of a comedy, and the end of a comic scene, and the heavy stuff comes later. Conversely, it’s also really possibly to underplay this speech. So basically I was never satisfied with how I played this speech. In the end, I had to just trust the vision of the director, who wanted to keep this moment on the lighter side. But there’s a lot to explore there, and I don’t think I got it all.
The difficulty of that moment did not surprise me. It’s a speech that has always given me pause whenever seeing the play or reading it. But the second topic I wanted to talk about was what did surprise me about Beatrice. The play is a delightful comedy, but when I was playing Beatrice I did not feel like I was in a comedy. The wedding scene, where you have nothing to say, followed by the Kill Claudio scene, where emotions and rage and words pour out of you, is incredibly taxing. After this she has a short scene with Benedick and then the final, wrap up scene where love finally wins. It all ends happily, but in terms of time, it happens very quickly after those raw emotional scenes. I found myself as worn out and drained by Beatrice and I was by Isabella in Measure for Measure. Isabella is practically raped and led to believe that her brother is dead. It’s a rough character journey to go through, and Beatrice’s journey was as much a rollercoaster, and as exhausting. And that really surprised me. Of course the side-by-side existence of witty comedy and terrible tragedy is what makes Much Ado About Nothing so brilliant.
Thirdly, I want to address one specific moment. at the end of the play “Peace, I will stop your mouth.” This line is famous amongst Shakespeare scholars. Every time you see this play, Benedick says this line. The only version of this play we have is the Quarto from 1600. In this text, this line is marked as Leonato’s. It was a later editor (Theobald) that assigned the line to Benedick, and most editions after have followed suit. The Arden edition notes the line as Leonato’s. The Folger gives it to Benedick, despite its insistence on following Quarto notes in other locations, such as claiming that Leonato has two brothers and not one.
I was quite excited to learn on the first day of rehearsal that we were following the Quarto and giving the line to Leonato. After all, I had never seen it performed this way. And naturally, as a Shakespeare scholar, one has to be interested in how choices like this change a play or scene.
The Arden buys into Leonato saying this line because it “is in keeping with his characteristic attempts to stage-manage this scene, and his role as Beatrice’s guardian; it also provides for a more egalitarian accommodation between the lovers than would Benedick’s own declaration of intent to silence Beatrice” (emphasis mine). And it was really for that second reason that our director liked the choice, and it is also the reason I was interested in it. After all, when Leonato delivers the line it can be said to both Benedick and Beatrice, instead of just to Beatrice.
In the course of my research I consulted the RSC edition of this play. If you have not seen this series, which is relatively new, I highly recommend it. The editions include interviews with RSC actors and directors that are quite enlightening and thought-provoking. When asked about this moment, director Nicholas Hynter said, “There are all sorts of reasons to give the line to Leonato that look good in the study. … But in the theater, it’s blindingly obvious that the line is Benedick’s.”
I immediately rejected Hynter’s statement because he seemed to be concretely denying the viability of the choice to give the line to Leonato. Nonsense, I thought, surely it can be made to work. You can’t just categorically deny that.
Hynter was right; I was wrong. When you are living the play and the characters it just has to be Benedick’s line. This was something else that really surprised me – that something with clear possibilities intellectually turned out to be so obviously wrong theatrically. Harriet Walter says in the RSC edition exactly what I discovered in my rehearsal process: “I am convinced that it is better to give the line to Benedick, and I don’t find it is a sinister suffocation at all. Rather, it seems to be a restoration of their usual banter but with love behind it now.”
I discovered that it actually felt more suffocating, more sexist, to have Leonato say the line, especially having lived through what Beatrice lived through. She saw her uncle immediately side with the men against Hero, and react in an incredibly vitriolic way. He is horrible to Hero in the wedding scene. This man then arranges to have Hero marry Claudio despite what he has done. Then to have that man tell you to get married and then control how it happens – it does not feel good.
And it turns out not to be a suffocation when Benedick says it. Beatrice is smarter than Benedick. Every encounter they have, she wins. Like Berowne, Benedick always has to duck out of the witty banter when he finds himself at a loss for a response. If he says, “Peace, I will stop your mouth” it is simply a continuation of this relationship, full of love and deference to her wit.
My production kept the line as Leonato’s since that was the choice that had been made. And I think the difficulty of the moment was diffused due to the fact that Leonato was played by a female actor (still as a male role though). But I still appreciated the fact that we were exploring and discussing the moment. We all talked about it in a conversation close to opening and the director agreed that is probably was always meant to be Benedick’s line. But it was certainly fascinating to get to discover that fact for myself.
Oh, I lied. There is a fourth topic I want to discuss. And that is the magic of original practices. In an original practices production, the goal is to involve the audience, and we as actors work to let them know that they are allowed to respond however they see fit. During Much Ado About Nothing we had a couple of audiences that were with us at every moment, and they let us know it. It was thrilling. When Beatrice and Benedick are face to face for the first time after the duping scene and they final admit their love, the audiences loved it. I would say, “I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protect” and then run into his arms and we would kiss for the first time. As we were kissing, audiences would cheer. It was magical. It was exhilarating. An experience like that reminds you just how rewarding acting can be.
(Photos 1 and 2 by Kelly Dowling. Photos 3 and 4 by Kevin Hollenbeck)
First of all, it is of course a great privilege to play the role. There’s a reason all Shakespeare actresses want to add this role to their resumes. I was excited to have the opportunity because it was this year that I really felt ready for the role. Or ready for my first stab at the role. I’m sure I’ll play her again, and I’m sure I’ll play her better, but I felt emotionally and mentally prepared to take a crack at the role for the first time.
Beatrice is glorious. It’s clear from reading the play, or seeing the play, that she is a great character. But when you play her, you can’t help being in love with her. I am also incredibly envious of her. She is everything I want to be. She is all my best parts, with none of my faults. The woman is smart, smarter than anyone else around her, including Benedick. This is a very frustrating position to hold – when no one seems able to keep up. Add to this the fact that she is in a world where her power and autonomy are limited. Where she can resist the traditional roles of male and female only to a certain degree. She has been hurt and disappointed in love and yet she never gives way to the kind of bitterness and negatively that I feel. Sure, it would be possible for an actress to take all of Beatrice’s witty comments and give them a bitter edge, but I think to do this too much is to miss part of the character – for I think many of her lines feel very light and I have to believe Leonato when he says, “she is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then.” Sure, she is accused of being curst, but Don Pedro also says she has a “merry heart.”
Her heart is so open and so generous and so loyal. Beatrice never doubts Hero’s fidelity and she puts everything on the line to save her cousin. I think she is fully aware of the fact that she could lose Benedick’s affection forever when she asks him to kill Claudio.
People may want to accuse Beatrice of the fault of pride. Hero certainly does in the duping scene. But Hero is playing a trick on Beatrice, so how much she really means what she says is open to interpretation. Beatrice may be scared of relationships, scared of marriage, scared of losing power to a husband, scared of being hurt again by Benedick, but when she hears that he loves her, she conquers her fears and commits fully. She delivers a soliloquy, one of the few times in the play that she speaks in verse, and the only time she refers to Benedick with the more intimate “thee/thy/thou.”
What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?
Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much?
Contempt, farewell; and maiden pride, adieu;
No glory lives behind the back of such.
And Benedick, love on, I will requite thee,
Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.
If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee
To bind our loves up in a holy band.
For others say thou dost deserve, and I
Believe it better than reportingly.
This actually brings me to the first of three topics that I wanted to address. This moment was to me the most difficult moment in the show, and preceded by the most difficult scene. And I think many people have difficulty with the Beatrice Duped scene. Shakespeare’s not doing the female characters any favors. The Benedick Duped scene comes first and it’s funnier. All we are doing is repeating a joke that has already been made. The scene is redundant. And for an actor such as myself, the scene has additional difficulties. I don’t believe in the actor being funny. I believe in the writer being funny and the actor playing the scene. But in this (comic) scene, where I was supposed to be funny, I had no lines. And then I had to end the scene with ten lines where Beatrice does a complete 180. She hears criticisms about herself and decides to change immediately. How many people can do something like that? Her courage is astounding.
So just think about everything an actress has to pull together in this moment:
1. Speaking verse – a change for Beatrice
2. Direct audience contact
3. The extreme pain of hearing someone you love say terrible things about you
4. The immediate decision to change behaviors
5. The extreme joy of hearing that Benedick loves her
6. Talking to Benedick who isn’t there
7. A final line that sounds awkward to modern ears
Then you have to take all that and still strike the right tone and level of levity considering the fact that you are in the middle of a comedy, and the end of a comic scene, and the heavy stuff comes later. Conversely, it’s also really possibly to underplay this speech. So basically I was never satisfied with how I played this speech. In the end, I had to just trust the vision of the director, who wanted to keep this moment on the lighter side. But there’s a lot to explore there, and I don’t think I got it all.
The difficulty of that moment did not surprise me. It’s a speech that has always given me pause whenever seeing the play or reading it. But the second topic I wanted to talk about was what did surprise me about Beatrice. The play is a delightful comedy, but when I was playing Beatrice I did not feel like I was in a comedy. The wedding scene, where you have nothing to say, followed by the Kill Claudio scene, where emotions and rage and words pour out of you, is incredibly taxing. After this she has a short scene with Benedick and then the final, wrap up scene where love finally wins. It all ends happily, but in terms of time, it happens very quickly after those raw emotional scenes. I found myself as worn out and drained by Beatrice and I was by Isabella in Measure for Measure. Isabella is practically raped and led to believe that her brother is dead. It’s a rough character journey to go through, and Beatrice’s journey was as much a rollercoaster, and as exhausting. And that really surprised me. Of course the side-by-side existence of witty comedy and terrible tragedy is what makes Much Ado About Nothing so brilliant.
Thirdly, I want to address one specific moment. at the end of the play “Peace, I will stop your mouth.” This line is famous amongst Shakespeare scholars. Every time you see this play, Benedick says this line. The only version of this play we have is the Quarto from 1600. In this text, this line is marked as Leonato’s. It was a later editor (Theobald) that assigned the line to Benedick, and most editions after have followed suit. The Arden edition notes the line as Leonato’s. The Folger gives it to Benedick, despite its insistence on following Quarto notes in other locations, such as claiming that Leonato has two brothers and not one.
I was quite excited to learn on the first day of rehearsal that we were following the Quarto and giving the line to Leonato. After all, I had never seen it performed this way. And naturally, as a Shakespeare scholar, one has to be interested in how choices like this change a play or scene.
The Arden buys into Leonato saying this line because it “is in keeping with his characteristic attempts to stage-manage this scene, and his role as Beatrice’s guardian; it also provides for a more egalitarian accommodation between the lovers than would Benedick’s own declaration of intent to silence Beatrice” (emphasis mine). And it was really for that second reason that our director liked the choice, and it is also the reason I was interested in it. After all, when Leonato delivers the line it can be said to both Benedick and Beatrice, instead of just to Beatrice.
In the course of my research I consulted the RSC edition of this play. If you have not seen this series, which is relatively new, I highly recommend it. The editions include interviews with RSC actors and directors that are quite enlightening and thought-provoking. When asked about this moment, director Nicholas Hynter said, “There are all sorts of reasons to give the line to Leonato that look good in the study. … But in the theater, it’s blindingly obvious that the line is Benedick’s.”
I immediately rejected Hynter’s statement because he seemed to be concretely denying the viability of the choice to give the line to Leonato. Nonsense, I thought, surely it can be made to work. You can’t just categorically deny that.
Hynter was right; I was wrong. When you are living the play and the characters it just has to be Benedick’s line. This was something else that really surprised me – that something with clear possibilities intellectually turned out to be so obviously wrong theatrically. Harriet Walter says in the RSC edition exactly what I discovered in my rehearsal process: “I am convinced that it is better to give the line to Benedick, and I don’t find it is a sinister suffocation at all. Rather, it seems to be a restoration of their usual banter but with love behind it now.”
I discovered that it actually felt more suffocating, more sexist, to have Leonato say the line, especially having lived through what Beatrice lived through. She saw her uncle immediately side with the men against Hero, and react in an incredibly vitriolic way. He is horrible to Hero in the wedding scene. This man then arranges to have Hero marry Claudio despite what he has done. Then to have that man tell you to get married and then control how it happens – it does not feel good.
And it turns out not to be a suffocation when Benedick says it. Beatrice is smarter than Benedick. Every encounter they have, she wins. Like Berowne, Benedick always has to duck out of the witty banter when he finds himself at a loss for a response. If he says, “Peace, I will stop your mouth” it is simply a continuation of this relationship, full of love and deference to her wit.
My production kept the line as Leonato’s since that was the choice that had been made. And I think the difficulty of the moment was diffused due to the fact that Leonato was played by a female actor (still as a male role though). But I still appreciated the fact that we were exploring and discussing the moment. We all talked about it in a conversation close to opening and the director agreed that is probably was always meant to be Benedick’s line. But it was certainly fascinating to get to discover that fact for myself.
Oh, I lied. There is a fourth topic I want to discuss. And that is the magic of original practices. In an original practices production, the goal is to involve the audience, and we as actors work to let them know that they are allowed to respond however they see fit. During Much Ado About Nothing we had a couple of audiences that were with us at every moment, and they let us know it. It was thrilling. When Beatrice and Benedick are face to face for the first time after the duping scene and they final admit their love, the audiences loved it. I would say, “I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protect” and then run into his arms and we would kiss for the first time. As we were kissing, audiences would cheer. It was magical. It was exhilarating. An experience like that reminds you just how rewarding acting can be.
(Photos 1 and 2 by Kelly Dowling. Photos 3 and 4 by Kevin Hollenbeck)
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Fringe - Not Quite Over
This is the final week of Fringe, but it's still not too late to see BOTH of my shows.
A Thing for Redheads has two final performances:
Friday July 23 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 24 @ 3:30pm
DC Theatre Scene just posted a four star review of this show. Reviewer Caitlin DeMerlis calls the play "witty, quirky, entertaining." Demerlis praises all four actors, and writes, "With a touch of Miley Cyrus and a dash of Britney Spears, Charlene V. Smith as pop star Jessie Morgan is poppin’ and lockin’ it ... Smith adds a terrifyingly realistic embodiment of the vapid stars that currently grace the covers of entertainment rags."
Macbeth sold out four of our five performances at the Capital Fringe Festival. Many people had to be turned away. Bummed because you missed this awesome production? Never fear, we are remounting it for two weekends in August at 1st Stage in Tyson's Corner.
The remount will run on the following dates:
Friday, August 6, at 8pm
Saturday, August 7, at 8pm
Sunday, August 8, at 7pm
Friday, August 13, at 8pm
Saturday, August 14, at 8pm
Sunday, August 15, at 7pm
Don't miss out, get your tickets now at Brown Paper Tickets.
A Thing for Redheads has two final performances:
Friday July 23 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 24 @ 3:30pm
DC Theatre Scene just posted a four star review of this show. Reviewer Caitlin DeMerlis calls the play "witty, quirky, entertaining." Demerlis praises all four actors, and writes, "With a touch of Miley Cyrus and a dash of Britney Spears, Charlene V. Smith as pop star Jessie Morgan is poppin’ and lockin’ it ... Smith adds a terrifyingly realistic embodiment of the vapid stars that currently grace the covers of entertainment rags."
Macbeth sold out four of our five performances at the Capital Fringe Festival. Many people had to be turned away. Bummed because you missed this awesome production? Never fear, we are remounting it for two weekends in August at 1st Stage in Tyson's Corner.
The remount will run on the following dates:
Friday, August 6, at 8pm
Saturday, August 7, at 8pm
Sunday, August 8, at 7pm
Friday, August 13, at 8pm
Saturday, August 14, at 8pm
Sunday, August 15, at 7pm
Don't miss out, get your tickets now at Brown Paper Tickets.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Good Press for Macbeth
Macbeth is getting lots of buzz at the Capital Fringe Festival:
--We received a five-star "Pick of the Fringe" rating from DC Theatre Scene. Reviewer Kate Mattingly singled out the three witches, calling us "creepy and conniving."
--We are an Editor's Pick on the Washington Post's Going Out Guide. Critic Rebecca J. Ritzel described the production as "clever, lightning-quick and all about taking risks."
--Finally, the Washington City Paper reports on what happened opening night. A patron was so determined to see our show, he ripped the door off of its hinges.
Only three performances left!
Redrum @ Fort Fringe, 612 L Street, NW
Thursday July 15 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 17 @ 7pm
Sunday July 18 @ 9:30pm
--We received a five-star "Pick of the Fringe" rating from DC Theatre Scene. Reviewer Kate Mattingly singled out the three witches, calling us "creepy and conniving."
--We are an Editor's Pick on the Washington Post's Going Out Guide. Critic Rebecca J. Ritzel described the production as "clever, lightning-quick and all about taking risks."
--Finally, the Washington City Paper reports on what happened opening night. A patron was so determined to see our show, he ripped the door off of its hinges.
Only three performances left!
Redrum @ Fort Fringe, 612 L Street, NW
Thursday July 15 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 17 @ 7pm
Sunday July 18 @ 9:30pm
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Macbeth Opens Tonight!
Macbeth opens tonight at the Capital Fringe Festival. The show is at 8pm.
The Redrum at Fort Fringe: 612 L Street NW, Washington, DC 20001
Closest metro stations: Mt. Vernon Square - Convention Center (Green/Yellow) or Chinatown - Gallery Place (Red).
Here's a sneak peak:
The Redrum at Fort Fringe: 612 L Street NW, Washington, DC 20001
Closest metro stations: Mt. Vernon Square - Convention Center (Green/Yellow) or Chinatown - Gallery Place (Red).
Here's a sneak peak:
photos by Lee Liebeskind
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Fringe Marketing
We are a week and a half away from the opening of the 2010 Capital Fringe Festival. So posters and postcards have appeared for my two shows. I thought I would share the images with you.
And here are some publicity photos from A Thing For Redheads, photographer Paul Oberle.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Macbeth
This past week we've delved into rehearsals for my second Fringe project, a production of Macbeth. It is the inaugural production of PushPull Theatre Company and directed by Jessica Aimone. I cannot express how excited I am to be working on this project. First of all the director is bright, open, and has an infectious enthusiasm about the project. And what a project. This isn't your granddaddy's Macbeth! Though Macbeth is a short text (Shakespeare's shortest tragedy), our production is still substantially cut in order to fit into the time confines of a Fringe production. Furthermore this isn't just Macbeth -- it's Capoeira Macbeth!
Capoeira is a Brazilian art form that seems to be very "in" right now. It mixes dance, martial arts, and music. We are using it as our stage combat and also to inform a musical score. The idea is that we are doing theatre and we are being up front about it so why not use the more theatrical kind of fighting, capoeira, which is much more of a dance, or a game, than a fight. I've been taking classes for a couple of weeks now, and I love it. Don't get me wrong, I'm terrible at it. It's probably the hardest physical activity I've ever done. It's exhausting and it works every muscle you can think of. But it's great. And watching people who know what they are doing, well, stunning is the only word for it.
I described Jessica as being an open director. She truly is interested in what the actor thinks and wants us to be as involved as possible. She has many moments where she wants some sort of musicalization or a certain effect but has nothing set in stone. So those of us not working a scene she sends off into another room to figure it out on our own. We've only just started this process, but working this way gives us all, even those of us in smaller roles, a true sense of community and ownership of the piece. I am personally very thankful for this. I am playing the first witch, but haven't done any scene work yet because our third witch is out of town until the middle of the week. But because of Jessica's method, I still get to feel like I am contributing and doing things as rehearsal.
The cast of Macbeth includes Jeremy Brown, Courtney Weber, Sallie Willows, David Winkler, Anna Brungardt, Ryan Tumulty, Katy Carkuff, Lee Liebeskind, Tony Strowd, Austin Johnson, Carl Long, Ty Hallmark, Vince Eisenson, JB Tadena, Charlene V. Smith, Kristen Garaffo, Alex Mandell, Christina Frank, Michelle Polera. Tickets go on sale June 21.
Macbeth will be performed at Fort Fringe, 612 L Street NW, on the following dates:
Saturday July 10 @ 8pm
Sunday July 11 @ 4pm
Thursday July 15 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 17 @ 7pm
Sunday July 18 @ 9:30pm
Capoeira is a Brazilian art form that seems to be very "in" right now. It mixes dance, martial arts, and music. We are using it as our stage combat and also to inform a musical score. The idea is that we are doing theatre and we are being up front about it so why not use the more theatrical kind of fighting, capoeira, which is much more of a dance, or a game, than a fight. I've been taking classes for a couple of weeks now, and I love it. Don't get me wrong, I'm terrible at it. It's probably the hardest physical activity I've ever done. It's exhausting and it works every muscle you can think of. But it's great. And watching people who know what they are doing, well, stunning is the only word for it.
I described Jessica as being an open director. She truly is interested in what the actor thinks and wants us to be as involved as possible. She has many moments where she wants some sort of musicalization or a certain effect but has nothing set in stone. So those of us not working a scene she sends off into another room to figure it out on our own. We've only just started this process, but working this way gives us all, even those of us in smaller roles, a true sense of community and ownership of the piece. I am personally very thankful for this. I am playing the first witch, but haven't done any scene work yet because our third witch is out of town until the middle of the week. But because of Jessica's method, I still get to feel like I am contributing and doing things as rehearsal.
The cast of Macbeth includes Jeremy Brown, Courtney Weber, Sallie Willows, David Winkler, Anna Brungardt, Ryan Tumulty, Katy Carkuff, Lee Liebeskind, Tony Strowd, Austin Johnson, Carl Long, Ty Hallmark, Vince Eisenson, JB Tadena, Charlene V. Smith, Kristen Garaffo, Alex Mandell, Christina Frank, Michelle Polera. Tickets go on sale June 21.
Macbeth will be performed at Fort Fringe, 612 L Street NW, on the following dates:
Saturday July 10 @ 8pm
Sunday July 11 @ 4pm
Thursday July 15 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 17 @ 7pm
Sunday July 18 @ 9:30pm
Saturday, May 29, 2010
A Thing For Redheads
I will be quite busy this summer, performing in two shows at the Capital Fringe Festival. The first one is a dark, brooding comedy called A Thing for Redheads (how did I get cast, right?). It is by local playwright John Morogiello, author of last year's fringe hits Jack the Ticket Ripper and Irish Authors Held Hostage. John also recently enjoyed great success with his off-Broadway debut of Engaging Shaw at the Abingdon Theatre. The New York Times called Shaw "a charming romantic comedy featuring four razor-sharp tongues."
Last summer I was part of the cast of Jack the Ticket Ripper and had a wonderful experience with cast, script, and director. It's a thrill to be able to work on another Morogiello script, especially since this cast reunites many of us from Jack the Ticket Ripper. In A Thing for Redheads are Jim Gagne, who was the eponymous Jack, and Ian Blackwell Rogers, who played the Playwright. The cast is rounded out by Lori Boyd, who is no stranger to Morogiello, having been in Irish Authors Held Hostage last summer, and also wrote the tune for the song I sang in Jack.
We've been rehearsing for a couple weeks now, led by our director Juliana Avery, who also happens to be a redhead. Since we have all worked together before or at least know each other, it's been a lot of fun so far, and I am looking forward to continuing the work.
I'm also enjoying the process because the part is not within my comfort zone. I'm playing a 19-year-old pop star sensation. I love being able to play someone so different from me, but it can also be a challenge. I'm doing my best to do lots of research, but there are only so many Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift music videos I can watch before my head threatens to explode. My lack of pop culture knowledge has become a running joke with the cast already, which is even funnier because Jim Gagne, though he doesn't look it, is a pop culture guru. Someone will mention a song, and I will have no idea what it is, and he will be able to sing it on the spot. With dance moves and everything.
Jack the Ticket Ripper and Irish Authors Held Hostage both sold out quickly, so I have to encourage you to buy tickets ahead of time for A Thing for Redheads. Tickets will go on sale June 21.
A Thing for Redheads will be playing at the Warehouse Theatre, 1019 7th Street NW, on the following dates:
Sunday July 11 @ 11am
Sunday July 18 @ 4:15pm
Wednesday July 21 @ 8pm
Friday July 23 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 24 @ 3:30pm
Last summer I was part of the cast of Jack the Ticket Ripper and had a wonderful experience with cast, script, and director. It's a thrill to be able to work on another Morogiello script, especially since this cast reunites many of us from Jack the Ticket Ripper. In A Thing for Redheads are Jim Gagne, who was the eponymous Jack, and Ian Blackwell Rogers, who played the Playwright. The cast is rounded out by Lori Boyd, who is no stranger to Morogiello, having been in Irish Authors Held Hostage last summer, and also wrote the tune for the song I sang in Jack.
We've been rehearsing for a couple weeks now, led by our director Juliana Avery, who also happens to be a redhead. Since we have all worked together before or at least know each other, it's been a lot of fun so far, and I am looking forward to continuing the work.
I'm also enjoying the process because the part is not within my comfort zone. I'm playing a 19-year-old pop star sensation. I love being able to play someone so different from me, but it can also be a challenge. I'm doing my best to do lots of research, but there are only so many Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift music videos I can watch before my head threatens to explode. My lack of pop culture knowledge has become a running joke with the cast already, which is even funnier because Jim Gagne, though he doesn't look it, is a pop culture guru. Someone will mention a song, and I will have no idea what it is, and he will be able to sing it on the spot. With dance moves and everything.
Jack the Ticket Ripper and Irish Authors Held Hostage both sold out quickly, so I have to encourage you to buy tickets ahead of time for A Thing for Redheads. Tickets will go on sale June 21.
A Thing for Redheads will be playing at the Warehouse Theatre, 1019 7th Street NW, on the following dates:
Sunday July 11 @ 11am
Sunday July 18 @ 4:15pm
Wednesday July 21 @ 8pm
Friday July 23 @ 10:30pm
Saturday July 24 @ 3:30pm
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Comedy of Errors Snow Schedule
The weather in DC has been reeking havoc with every theatre's performance schedule, and it is no different for the Shakespeare Factory.
Our first performance on Thursday, February 9, at the Carroll Arts Center has been canceled. We will now be performing at that location on Sunday, February 21, at 8pm.
Our first performance on Thursday, February 9, at the Carroll Arts Center has been canceled. We will now be performing at that location on Sunday, February 21, at 8pm.
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