Tag Archives: Shakespeare at Notre Dame

Much Ado Actor Blog: Utah Saints

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On a sweltering Tuesday morning, myself and Jack Whitam trundled up to the campus at Brigham Young University to tech into the outdoor space. The first thing we had to do was get them to move all the seats about four foot closer to the stage, as they were laid out as if we were there to play a pop concert. That done, I wandered off into the campus to get myself a coffee. Two hours later, shaking with deprivation, it finally occurred to me that the Mormons don’t touch caffeine and this being a Mormon campus there was no coffee to be had. A campus without coffee. Hard to imagine, but there it is.

Our first night was sold out and we played in the calm warm evening to a lovely generous crowd. The second night they had brought in loads more chairs, and without any warning we found ourselves playing more or less completely in the round. Lovely to feel sought after like that. And fascinating to be forced to take in such a wide audience having built the show with an end on crowd in mind. The clouds were louring upon us though, and sure enough as the first half drew to a close the opening drops of a full on downpour were just beginning to pitterpatter onto our noses. The floodlights they had rented for us were the kind that explode when wet, so it made sense to move indoors. We were thrown into the second half end on in an unfamiliar theatre, contemplating a completely full house and a different acoustic. Of course we smashed it, and for the first time in America they forced us back on for an extra bow. All this enthusiasm is too much for our English brains to compute. But it’s certainly delightful. And by the time we had finished the last matinee on Saturday, sold out again, we were all a little bit in love with the Mormons.

Owing to the magic of social media, a man who I occasionally geek out about Homer with on twitter invited me to speak to his class about Shakespeare. So I found myself at Karl G Maeser prep school, talking to a class full of smart and enthusiastic kids. At the end one of the teachers said “Show us some of your quality.” A little confrontational, I thought, but ok. Fine. Being a geek and fond of adrenaline I said “Which play do you want me to do a bit from then?” DangerAl. He could’ve stitched me up by saying Timon of Athens. But he said Merchant of Venice. SCORE. I could then cheekily ask, “Do you want a prose speech or a verse speech?” He said prose. I did about half of the old Shylock “if you prick us”, although I forgot a chunk. Then full of adrenaline I said “I’ll do a verse one too from the same play, and then smashed Shylock’s long response to Antonio on the Rialto. Being a geek is handy sometimes. Here we all are after the lesson. I disguised myself as an academic.

Karl G Maeser

The teacher that put me on the spot is so fond of Shakespeare he had a Shakespeare tie, a Shakespeare shirt, and an array of Shakespeare badges. Another academic I met later at Brigham Young said “I like to call him Bill.” I almost responded with ” I think the evidence points to him preferring to be called Will, actually, hem hem”. I managed to stop myself by the skin of my teeth, so am saying it here instead. But generally, they love Shakespeare in Utah. There’s a Shakespeare festival, a replica Elizabethan theatre down south, and someone even thrusting some copies of their play “Much Ado About Love” into my hands after a show. It calls itself “A romantic comedy in Shakespeare’s verse.” A Frankenspeare’s monster of a play. We are going to read it later. Actually it seems rather lovely. (Edit: Having read it now, it is an extraordinary labour of love.)

I did the bulk of my teaching on the final day, running some voice classes with the acting students, and trying to give them a simple basis of connection with the breath through text use. They were smart and responsive, and brave. This is the first time AFTLS has been to Brigham Young, but if this visit is anything to go by, it won’t be the last. And it’s been the perfect friendly start to our touring section. Next week, University of Texas, San Antonio, October the 1st, 3rd and 4th at 7.30 in the Recital Hall.

(And because I grew up in the nineties, I give you the hilarious mawkish dance track that has been on my mind the whole week, by Utah Saints. Who are from Harrogate, Yorkshire: http://youtu.be/XF4EJvfNQcs )

Much Ado Actor Blog: Run at Notre Dame

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Paul and the ghost light.

Our opening nights at Notre Dame take place in Washington Hall. The Hall is an old building, with bats in the rafters, but it was modernised in the 1950s. The stage is more recent than that I think and the lighting rig is good. The interior of the theatre itself is a little sparse. When I comment on that, Kathleen, who works front of house, tells me that there used to be some lovely murals of George Washington, Shakespeare, Molière, Mozart, Beethoven etc. Semi randomised great artists and the president. They were whitewashed in the 50’s, when everyone was so zealous about being austere. I ask out of curiosity if perhaps they were grotesquely badly painted. “Perhaps it’s a mercy that we are spared them”. Kathleen insists that they were quite lovely. In which case, what a shame.

And our run begins in earnest. Three nights only, and a packed house on the third, with good audiences on the first two. The show is still breathing, moments are changing, landing differently. We are surprising each other. It feels right. Specific where it needs to be and free where it needs to be. The Notre Dame audiences are reactive and vocal, and despite being a little further away from them we still feel able to include them in our world, and play to, for and with them. On the first night a small child is laughing throughout the show. On every night, the upper and lower floors stand at the end. American audiences are generous like that. Scott encourages us to hold our hands out wide to, essentially, imitate Fonzy as we take the bow. “You’re all so humble and … English.” We attempt to allow ourselves such indulgence.

On the final night, a bat comes out in the interval, and panics at all the people panicking at it. As it circles the hall, we are drawn to the monitor just in time to see it fly right onto the stage accompanied by an audible gasp, and shoot up into the rafters above the playing space. It remains there for the rest of the show, and I find myself wondering how / if we might have been able to incorporate it had it done that while we had been on stage. And also whether or not it is going to bring guano into Messina, and make Messina that little bit messier. Thankfully that’s he last we see of it.

Since we have arrived in America, we have cut over 200 lines of dialogue. It feels leaner for it, and we wonder why we ever tried to do it complete. As a group we are coming together more and more, learning to trust each other and play off each other. It’s only going to tighten and deepen over time. Notre Dame has been a delightful place to start our run. A family. A home. As we all head to Chicago in a taxi full of bags, we realise that now the tour begins in earnest. Our friends in the room, in the lighting box, in O’Rourkes afterwards, on and around the campus, they all stay there. Hereafter it’s just the five of us and the friends we make on the way. Next stop Utah. But first, a weekend in CHICAGO!

(By Al Barclay)

Much Ado Actors Blog: Settling In

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Notre Dame campus is like a little village. Deb met us in the morning and took us on a working tour of the area. We started with some admin, in a building with a dome. Upstairs there were huge murals of Columbus, and vast panelled hallways, gigantic crowns in display cases, and mosaic flooring. I was curious. “How old is this place?” “Oh, it’s really old. Maybe the 1860’s.” Victoria was on the throne in England. Dickens was publishing Great Expectations. It doesn’t feel so long ago somehow if you’re in England, but here there is a short, intensive period of history and growth, and somehow it does conspire to make something from the 1800’s feel old.

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We then got tax sorted out, by Becky and Lindsay. I was smitten. Anyone that can do numbers is a source of wonder and amazement to me generally, so when they said “Hi, we do tax,” I had no choice but to say “cooooool.” For which they quite rightly laughed at me. “People usually have a very different reaction when we say that.”

Then off to get American Bank accounts opened, at a Credit Union. I’ve not done a great deal of research, but Credit Unions look like a good idea. More idealistic than building societies. And they seem to be working.

Then to rehearsing. We have a new companion in the room. Ryan. Lovely Ryan. Not used to having anyone who can help us out we are still banging our heads against prop issues. Ryan is very wry. “You know, guys, your life would be so much easier if you just let me do stuff for you.” He has a point. We let him. Now we have props.

The room is good, despite some annoying pillars in the playing space, but as far as I’m concerned it’s useful to get used to playing in all sorts of different places, and dealing with all sorts of obstructions, since we’ll be moving around a great deal over the course of this job. With the deadline approaching there is a little more tension in the room, but the work is getting done, and we end the days having moved forward, and made discoveries. Members of the faculty are able to come in and out and see what we’re up to, and their feedback is pretty much universally helpful. These guys know their Shakespeare and are happy to express what they have witnessed and what they didn’t understand, in order to help us clarify and tighten the show we are creating. Talking with them after the showing was terrifically valuable, as I certainly don’t know exactly what this tour will entail, as yet. The idea that they imparted to me was that we might be the first Shakespeare that many of the audience have witnessed, and almost certainly the first pro Shakespeare. We can’t afford to lose them, or bore them. So I certainly started thinking about cuts. We have been very complete in our approach but that’s fine because now we know what we can drop, and we know, when it’s gone, whether or not we miss it. The issue around excessive cutting is diplomacy, but I think as a company we are both close enough and robust enough to put up with it. After all, here we all are companionably squinting while sipping beer together from the same flight at The Evil Czech Brewery.
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Yep, that’s right. Evil Czech Brewery. It was Taco Tuesday. How could anyone resist? All the actors, lots of the faculty. Huge amounts of food. Beer. All of us have been up every morning to run since. Oh, the food. This is no country for celiacs. But that’s for another post.

Much Ado Actors Blog: Arrival

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After an eight hour flight, we all bundled out of the plane with a massive shot of adrenaline. “Here we are! In America! Let’s GO! All we have to do is get through passport control. A formality. No more than that, surely. Oh look, a queue. We have those in England.”

Maybe they were trying to make us feel at home. Yes, of course, nothing makes an Englishman feel at home so much as a good long queue. But THREE HOURS. A THREE HOUR QUEUE?! Even the most ardent of queue fanciers would balk at such a prospect.

Being the diligent (obsessive) people we all are, we spent a large amount of our queue time discussing the play, Much Ado About Nothing, most likely to the chagrin of all the people around us, who just wanted to stand in a nice queue and not have people excitedly jabbering about Shakespeare while they did it.

Nonetheless, we finally emerged blinking and a little bit better informed into the bright early evening sunshine, all the while ignoring the frantic howling of our body clock “IT’S MIDNIGHT! HOW CAN IT BE LIGHT? THE WORLD IS ENDING!!!” And our transportation was before us. The final leg of the journey. And what a leg. It made up for all the queuing. A stretch limo! I have never been in one before. Here we all are:

Inside the limo

Paul O’Mahony closest. He’s Benedick, Dogberry and more. Then me, Al Barclay, I’m Don Pedro, Friar Francis and more. Then Georgina Strawson, she’s Beatrice, Don John and more. Then Jack Whitam, he’s Claudio, Antonio and more, and finally Claire Redcliffe, she’s Leonato, Hero and more. This was taken around the moment that Claire realised she had packed nothing but 100 cardigans.

2 hours of luxury, cheesy eighties power ballads, iced soft drinks, slightly delirious conversations about sunsets and trucks, games of guess the eighties tune and “I spy”, sporadic unexpected bursts of sleep or laughter, and general hilarity, before finally we were in Notre Dame. Debra met us all as we emerged blinking from the vast car, five mildly hysterical zombies. She welcomed us, and told us we’d do all the important talking the next morning, for which we were grateful. So, we all grabbed the nearest burger, shoved it into our mouths, and fell into deep deep luxurious sleep.

(Posted by Al Barclay)

Much Ado rehearsal blog: The London leg

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Every actor loves the phrase “You got the part!” I was in a coffee shop on The Kings Road, getting ready to go to Yorkshire when my agent said that to me. But he sounded confused. Concerned, even. “They want you to go to America to play Don Pedro. And Friar Francis. And Ursula. And a watchman. And a messenger. AND there’s no director. There are only five actors. So… Well… I don’t know how that’s all going to work.” Sounds great, I replied. “You only get four weeks rehearsal.” He continued. “And they pay you direct.” Lovely, I said, entirely honestly. You’ll have to invoice for your commission, I continued through gritted teeth.

“Only” four weeks, he had said. Yeah I know they get 8 or 9 at the RSC, but I was about to go to Yorkshire for the 6th year running to rehearse multiple parts in a very involved promenade Shakespeare at Sprite Productions and we never get more than 3 weeks there. So 4 weeks, surely that’s luxury, even without a director. Or a costume designer. Or a huge team of skilled Stage Managers and ASMs. Or a dedicated Musical Director and Composer. Or an on site producer constantly troubleshooting. Hmmmm.

On second thoughts four weeks is nothing. This is a play by one of the densest theatre writers ever, written in language and social morays that were current 500 years ago. And we have four weeks to do the work of a whole team, while playing multiple parts across gender and class. And singing songs. Maybe this is going to be a heck of a challenge. Bring it!

The Karibu centre in Brixton is a delightful place to rehearse. It’s a very lively community centre with a big upstairs room. We always had a load of space and air around us as we worked, which helped consolidate an atmosphere of freedom in the company. We ended up roping out a stage area in this vast room with, at first, empty cans, then string, and finally, hessian. Karibu is right next to a lively mosque where they frequently broadcast prayer through loudspeakers enthusiastically at lunchtimes. It can get pretty noisy. The centre itself forms a big part of the local community, dealing with young offenders on their community service, holding meetings for AA etc, and managing big groups of hilarious precocious kids who get dragged off en masse to do activities in the park, and to exhaust themselves running around in circles while mum and dad are at work. And since it is rooted in the Caribbean community, they want to cook for you. “Do you want some jerk chicken with rice and peas darling?” became a frequently overheard phrase. And then they would insist on serving you so much on the plate that you feel fit for bursting, because if you don’t finish it THEY WILL MAKE YOU, before trying to peddle mangoes for dessert in such an efficient and determined fashion that you end up eating three of them and taking a melon with you “in case you need a snack for after, lovely.” Fuel though. And we needed it.

5 actors. No director. Many parts. How to begin? Consensus in the group was instant on day one. “Let’s just do the whole play, on it’s feet, now.” So that was the first thing we did. Many confused moments as people went “oh hang on wait I’m talking to myself here for ages,” but also much joy. Instantly it was clear that this was a creative bunch of people. And a diverse bunch. We very quickly improvised props or costume that would stand for characters who were in the scene but currently having to be someone else. In fact, this satsuma was Hero for the whole of the first day:Hero the satsuma

The rest of the process followed a similar vein. “If someone has an idea, say yes to it and try it out.” And we did. And we stayed ahead of it, exhausting ourselves all day speaking crunchy text before going home to work on lines, or music, or costume, or dance, or physicality. While taking a little time out to live life. A frequently expressed thought from everyone was “everyone is so good, I need to work harder.”

Patsy Rodenburg, my old voice teacher, would frequently say “You’ve got to be fit to do Shakespeare. It’s a physical, vocal and emotional workout.” This is true. Carolyn Lyle, my old English lecturer, used to say “If you look at the structure of the plays, if one of the actors has a big hard emotional scene, then Shakespeare sends in the clowns and lets the poor guy have a breather.” This doesn’t apply when five people are playing all the parts. So yeah, we thought we were fit. But every Friday evening we were knackered. But also inspired.

One of the effects of no director is that we all have to take ownership of the whole piece of work. You can’t cop off when you’re not in that scene to get a coffee, because the only person they’ve got for an outside eye is you. I have known Much Ado for years. I was in it at University, generalising and shouting my way through one of the parts (thankfully not one I’m playing now) with bleached spiked blonde hair and an achingly and effortlessly gained six pack. I’ve seen countless productions of it since, but I’ve never loved it or understood it like I love and understand it now. The thing about good writing is the deeper you go the richer it turns out to be. And Shakespeare really is one of the best.

It’s quite a short play, compared to some. At first we tried to do it complete, and uncut, and it was only after we showed it to some members of the company that we felt we had permission to make a couple of snips. We took some unnecessary entrances that would have made for more trouble than they were worth “Here comes signor Leonato, and the Sexton” Became “Here comes signor Leonato.” Because the Sexton says nothing in the scene, and is played by the same actor as Leonato. Sometimes we chose to make a virtue out of the difficulty of the changes, but in that instance it was too fussy.

The only other major cut we have made so far is all the stuff about Deformed. The cultural references are all long dead, so it just smells a bit funny, and Borachio’s long tirade about  fashion felt like it inevitably dropped the pace without dong anything for the plot. But we have kept Imogen, the ghost character, silent wife to Leonato, who is seen in the first scene, never speaks, and is forgotten shortly after. Perhaps once we get to the states, we’ll cut more, or perhaps we’ll find we miss things and put them back. But four weeks on and it still feels like a creative, living, generative group of five weird, passionate and lovely craftspersons. I suppose I should introduce us all, since I’ll be blogging for the whole time we are in America. I’ll do that in the next post. Right now I’m going to have a gin and tonic and watch some of the inflight entertainment. Ahh British airways. Luxury.

(Posted by Al Barclay)