Download A CTING WITH THE RSC by Jamie Ballard

ACTING WITH THE RSC by Jamie Ballard
Extracted from Scene 2007- 08 December Issue 2
Acting with the
RSC
by Jamie Ballard
Over the past two years, I have
worked with six different directors on
six plays in Stratford. Each one,
naturally, has their own individual style
and approach to working, and it has
been a thrilling and enlightening
experience moving from one rehearsal
room to another, constantly learning
new techniques and angles on tackling
a piece of text.
It began with Greg Doran and A
Midsummer Night’s Dream. I was
playing one of the mechanicals, Francis
Flute the bellows-mender, and so was
part of a collaborative group of
individuals whose purpose was to put
on a play. The rehearsal process began
with sitting round a table with Greg and
the rest of the cast reading the play and
working out what it all meant. At this
point, though, you weren’t allowed to
read your own part or make any
comments about your character. This
took any pressure off the actor to deliver
a performance at such an early stage of
the process. Once we’d worked through
the entire play thoroughly, we set about
reading it again, but this time taking our
own parts.
What Greg is fantastic at, among
other things, is creating the world of the
play. This can be seen in his approach
to examining the lives and loves of the
mechanicals. In the play, this group of
craftsmen put on a production of
Pyramus and Thisbe. In Shakespeare’s
day, to avoid plagiarism, actors didn’t
receive the entire play, but only their
own lines and their cues on a role of
paper – hence our modern usage of
the term ‘an actor’s role’. Also,
because the turnover of productions
was so fast, the actors only had a day
or so to learn their entire part. That is
one reason, among many, why plays
were written in a metric style (eg.
iambic pentameter), because it is easier
to learn. In order to discover what this
14 | Scene | 2007-8 December Issue 2
must have been like, Greg had us put
on a production of Robin Hood, giving
us our ‘roles’ the night before. We,
therefore, had just one night to try and
learn our parts and our cues, just as
the mechanicals in A Midsummer
Night’s Dream. I was to take on the role
of Robin. A daunting prospect! So the
next day arrived all too quickly and we
all got up to perform. What the
experience showed us was how little
you do in such a scenario. All we did
was stand still and listen for our cue,
because it could come at any time. At
one point an actor inadvertently cut out
a huge chunk of the play because he
thought he’d heard his cue, but in fact
it was a different line that sounded very
similar. It was a hilarious afternoon that
informed our eventual playing of the
mechanicals final production of
Pyramus and Thisbe in front of
Theseus.
This is just one example of the
meticulous approach that Greg brings
to his work. If we hadn’t done that
exercise, we would simply have
imagined putting on a play and would
probably never have thought of how it
actually would have been at the time.
Greg also got all the mechanicals to
learn brass instruments, as he felt they
had this wonderful team feel about
them like a Yorkshire colliery brassband. Once again the results were
hilarious and many a night I struggled
to get through our opening number
with Snug and Starveling behind me
making a fabulous cacophony.
Throughout the rehearsal process
for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the
entire cast, along with that of Twelfth
Night, had ‘lessons’ in the mornings –
be it verse-speaking, movement, mask
work, puppetry workshops or
improvisation. This set-up not only
enabled us to get to know the other
actors in the company, but it was also
a great leveller. Some people were
better at one thing than another and
so you had the older, more
experienced actors helping the
younger ones and vice-versa.
Once we had opened A
Midsummer Night’s Dream at The
Royal Shakespeare Theatre in
Stratford, we began rehearsals on As
You Like It with Dominic Cooke,
another wonderful director who is
passionate about creating the world of
the play. We were joined by some of
the Twelfth Night cast to do As You
Like It, while some of our cast went off
to do Comedy of Errors. It was nice at
that stage to work with different actors
with different energies and
approaches. Once we had done the
read-through and discussed what it all
meant, we got up on our feet and
improvised scenarios at ‘The Court’
and in the ‘Forest of Arden’. The
rehearsal room was full of clothes rails
with all sorts of costumes on them for
us to put on and play dressing-up. The
concept was to have the play begin at
Christmas time at The Court then
move through to summer in The
Forest, so we also experimented with
temperature and how that affects
movement, thought and emotions. As
with Greg, it was a tremendously
happy rehearsal room, and after ten
weeks or so we opened As You Like It
at The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in
Stratford running it alongside A
Midsummer Night’s Dream in repertory
– that is to say a few nights of As You
Like It, then a few nights of Dream.
In the January of the following year
we took both shows to the West End
in London for two months. At the
same time I started working on Romeo
and Juliet and Much Ado About
Nothing for the next season. During
the day I would oscillate between
working with Nancy Meckler on
Romeo in one room and Marianne
Elliott on Much Ado in another. In the
evenings I would then head off to the
theatre to perform. It was a very fullon, busy time, which was absolutely
knackering, but, paradoxically,
probably one of the most fruitful and
exciting rehearsals periods I’ve
experienced. As my time was limited, I
was either in one rehearsal room or the
other, never having a free moment. As
a result, I was very receptive to any
ideas the directors would have, and,
conversely, the directors would be very
open to my playing around with
thoughts I had brought in with me.
In Romeo and Juliet, I was playing
the part of Mercutio. This for me was a
dream role – the mercurial friend of
Romeo, who has a fabulous death
scene half way through the play. When I
auditioned for the part, I knew that
Nancy would probably get me to read
the ‘Queen Mab speech’, so I thought I
would learn it. Mercutio always seems
to be portrayed as this very funny,
wacky character, but on reading the
speech, I began to see a darker side to
him. The end of the speech is littered
with derogatory references to women –
eg. ‘pricked from the lazy finger of a
maid’, ‘O’er ladies’ lips... Which oft the
angry Mab with blisters
plagues/Because their breaths with
sweetmeats tainted are.’, ‘And bakes
the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs’. Why
has he such a profound problem with
women? What is his attitude to them?
He seems to be a very funny, witty man,
who is the life-and-soul of the party, but
with a deep sadness to him. A few
people I know who are like that are
alcoholics, and so I wanted to explore
that possibility. I went into the audition,
therefore, with these thoughts and ideas
going around in my head. On getting
the part, I was really excited about
taking them further, and that is what
Nancy is brilliant at. She is great at
helping you get into the psyche of a
character, offering up psychological
reasons for certain kinds of behaviour.
Unlike Romeo, who tells you why he is
feeling the way he is (e.g. He’s in love
with Rosaline, but it is unrequited),
Mercutio never explains why he says
the things he says. Nancy and I,
therefore, built up a history for Mercutio
together, examining his relationship with
his mother, his father and, subsequently,
his friends, notably Romeo and
Benvolio. To make Mercutio opinions
work for me, I had his mother run off
with another man, abandoning him in
the process. This helped to explain why
he has such anger towards women and
love. He wants to love, he wants to get
close to someone, but whenever he
does, he pushes them away, because
in the end ‘life is sh**’. For me, Mercutio
was a nihilist.
Marianne is similar to Nancy in
wanting to get to the root of why a
character is the way he/she is – it’s all
about motive and intention. So when I
went into the audition for Borachio in
Much Ado About Nothing, one of the
first things she said was, ‘I think
Borachio is in love with Hero’. That
was brilliant for me. Instantly there was
a reason for having such hatred
towards Claudio, but also for having
such a sudden, open confession at the
end of the play. Marianne doesn’t let
you off the hook for a second. If your
motive and intention aren’t razor sharp
she’s onto you. We would do a lot of
improvisation to free-up the scenes,
but also to bring these intentions into
clear focus.
That is just a taster of what I
experienced in my two years at The
RSC. I learnt more than I could
possibly imagine from all the directors
and my fellow actors. It was a huge
learning curve that I hope will continue
to grow. I am about to work with
Marianne again at The National Theatre
in May for ten months, and I
can’t wait!
Review
Recommended to ISTA, by Bruce McDonald, from Graded School, Brazil
Text taken from University of Hawaii Press
Beijing Opera Costumes:
The Visual Communication of
Character and Culture
by Alexandra B. Bonds
Beijing Opera Costumes is
the first in-depth Englishlanguage book focused
exclusively on the costumes of
Jingju, the nationally dominant
form of indigenous theatre in
China. Meticulously researched
in Honolulu, Taipei and Beijing, this
comprehensive volume provides the
theory of the conventionalized style of
the costumes, and analysis of the
design aesthetics as well as
performance practices. A survey of the
rich and complex history of Beijing
opera and significant developments in
design over the past millennium
explains the development of
standardized costumes to
communicate the roles to the
audience. Derived from historical
dress, the costumes were modified for
the stage to enhance the actors’
performance and the
audience’s enjoyment.
Extensive
descriptions illuminate
the details of the
costumes, the system
of colour meanings,
and symbolism in the
embroidered imagery
and how these
design
elements
transmit details
about the
characters, as
well as contribute to the overall beauty
of the stage picture. Details on
makeup, hairstyles, headdresses and
footwear present a complete view of
the Jingju performer from head to toe.
The intricacies of selecting costumes
and dressing the actors for a
production is also included, along with
pattern drafts for most frequently worn
garments.
Lavishly illustrated with over 250
color and black-and-white
photographs and pattern drafts, Beijing
Opera Costumes is an indispensable
record of and resource for Jingju as it
is performed in China today. Textile
artists will appreciate the beauty of the
colors and designs as well the
information on embroidery techniques
and symbolism of the images. China
scholars will value the contextual
analysis and theater specialists the
explication of costumes in relation to
performance. Finally, costume
designers will relish the opportunity to
examine in detail their art in another
cultural setting and theatrical style.
Alexandra B. Bonds is professor of
costume design at the University of
Oregon and Vice President for
International Activities of the United
States Institute for Theater Technology.
Publication date: Spring 2008
ISBN: 987-0-8248-2956-5
Available from
www.uhpress.hawaii.edu
Scene | 2007-8 December Issue 2 | 15