Sorry!

I am so sorry I haven’t been with you, blog, for such a long time. I have been very busy and by the time I finish rehearsals every day the office is shut where I write you! (Oy - don't blame us! Marketing Dept)

The past two weeks, surprisingly, have just been runs, runs and more runs. I say surprisingly as I don’t think anyone envisioned us doing runs in the fourth week with two more weeks of rehearsal to go, but being a short play, The Comedy of Errors enables this. Thus far it is running at one hour thirty four minutes unlike many Shakespeare plays which are usually cut to shreds to enable a modern day audience to stand it. I feel this is understandable, as I often find it painful to sit through three hours of Shakespeare, and I’m an actor! This means that Comedy of Errors is perfect for a first time Shakespeare-goer. The language is not too cryptic, the plot isn’t too emotionally heavy and you’re not required to use the same amount of brain power as a person sitting a very important exam.

We are now running everyday in the ‘module’ which is an experience in itself without the 750 bodies that will inhabit it next Wednesday. In some ways I can’t believe how quickly it’s gone and in others it feels like I’ve known the people I’ve been working with for years. We are a lucky company as from week one it has really felt like an ensemble. Everyone gets on and is incredibly supportive of one another and I tell you, I have really needed it this week.

This week and the last, I felt like I lost my whole ability to act and this, as you can imagine, is pretty devastating! I didn’t really know which direction I was going in, this time with the Courtesan, whose soliloquy I was having particular trouble with. I forgot the reason why I was saying what I was saying; my objective, this being to get my ring or the chain from Antipholus. I had a few sessions with Roxanna who completely steered me in the right direction and after a couple of sleepless hours a night of my going through the speech in my bed pretending that people were asking me questions, I felt like I was getting a sense of the speech being driven.

Costume fittings are happening regularly now, make-up and hair style is being discussed and the play looks more imminent. Seeing the costume helps with character particularly for the courtesan who is corseted up in an elaborate lacy design. I cannot comprehend how the costume people do what they do as it seems like such intricate work. This blog is probably going to be longer than the play, but it is two weeks of juice I had to dish.

Blog 3

This week has been a goodie in terms of rehearsal and general fun. Mr. Ridgeway never fails to keep me entertained what with his stories from the business and his general life which usually have me in stitches in rehearsal and at the pub. He is famous amongst the cast for his Ridgeway tear which he is able to produce at any given moment any time of day, ‘It’s a gift’ he says. I have been trying for the past 3 weeks to produce the Fanyinka tear. I’ve tried numerous methods, thinking about sad stuff, not blinking and poking myself. The latter was the most effective but I can’t do it with the same level of conviction that he does. On a serious note, I am learning so much from him, he’s a legend.

We are also really beginning to really see the play as a whole and the town of Ephesus where it’s set. We’ve done some fun market scenes where I’ve been strutting my stuff as the courtesan on a sexy leash. The rehearsal room is still such a fun place and I still find myself getting the Dromios mixed up from time to time and that’s three weeks into rehearsal. In some ways I can’t believe we are three weeks in already but I also feel like I’ve done so much in these three weeks. Saw a template for my courtesans costume today which was incredibly exciting. Half way through now.

Thursday 4 March

And here we are in week two, and here is where the work kicks in. We have actually just got through the basic blocking of the whole play now and today has been the first day where we are back at the beginning doing the whole detail part.

I do still love Shakespeare although he has got my brain a bit boggled this week. I am playing Luce now as well as the Courtesan and Luce is responsible for my bogglement! I want to clarify, that Luce and Nell in this production are separate characters. For those of you that don’t know the play Nell is spoken about by Dromio of Syracuse as a ‘beastly creature’ whose forehead is ‘armed and reverted, making a war against her heir’. In short she is pretty disgusting. But in this production Luce is another servant working in the house of Antipholus of Ephesus. The scene in which she first appears is the famous door scene where Antipholus of Ephesus is trying to get into his house which has been locked against him, Luce refuses to open the door to her rightful master as she believes that he is already inside eating dinner with her mistress and therefore believes that the person knocking is a mad stranger claiming to be her master.

The rhythm in this section I have found quite tricky but after a session with Giles the genius (our Shakespeare man) I began to understand what the bard was doing. I spoke to a friend about this section today as well and she described it to me as an Elizabethan version of a freestyle rap battle which was very helpful with deciding what words to stress. I however will not be rapping the part of Luce though; I think she is more of a country and western girl.