{"id":1457,"date":"2019-08-05T09:40:40","date_gmt":"2019-08-05T13:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/shakespeare\/?p=1457"},"modified":"2019-08-07T11:57:41","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T15:57:41","slug":"twelfth-night-fall-2019-tour-entry-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/shakespeare\/twelfth-night-fall-2019-tour-entry-1\/","title":{"rendered":"“Twelfth Night” Fall 2019 Tour: Entry #1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Week One: 29th of July to 3rd August<\/strong>
\nBy Kaffe Keating<\/p>\n

\u201cI will not give my part in this sport for a pension of thousands to be paid from the Sophy.\u201d<\/em>
\nFabian, Act 2 Scene 5.<\/p>\n

One of the best lessons I\u2019ve learnt about acting, especially in theatre, is to approach it like it\u2019s a game. Maybe even a sport, depending on the show.<\/p>\n

Games have rules, and some have more than others. Football (or maybe soccer depending on where you\u2019re from) is a sport with relatively few rules, at least compared to rugby; which if you don\u2019t know has bloody loads. Both are great fun to watch and to play and the joy comes from the fact that the players are forced create things within the boundaries of the rules of the game they\u2019re playing. It\u2019s not much fun to watch people playing a game where you don\u2019t know the rules \u2013 I\u2019m looking at you, cricket \u2013 and equally a game without rules at all, without form, is no fun for anyone. That\u2019s just some people standing around in a field.<\/p>\n

Not unlike the feeling on the first day of rehearsals when your task is to create a performance of Twelfth Night<\/em> without a director\u2026<\/p>\n

Luckily, we\u2019ve been provided with a few rules to get us going.<\/p>\n

First things first, there are only five of us. The dramatis personae (or \u2018cast list\u2019 if you\u2019re not as fancy as me) for Twelfth Night<\/em> features at least eighteen speaking parts. Thankfully the roles we\u2019ll be playing have been decided already, sparing us from having to fight to the death over who gets to say all the famous bits. Inevitably, there are points where two or even three of one actor’s characters are on stage at the same time, having a full-blown conversation with each other. So there\u2019s that.<\/p>\n

We are also required to mark out our playing space, our pitch or court, where we\u2019ll tell the story. The auditoria we\u2019ll be playing once we arrive in the States will vary in size and shape and so we need to maintain a level of consistency. Pitch sizes need to be standardised, after all. When an actor is not in the scene, they\u2019re sat on a chair outside of this space, but still in full view of the audience. So no retreating to the dressing room for a cup of tea and the crossword between soliloquies\u2026<\/p>\n

Our props and our costume must all fit into a suitcase. Which will have a weight allowance. That means simplicity and clarity is the name of the game and the doublets, hoes and ruffs will need to be left at home where they belong.<\/p>\n

Finally, and most importantly, we\u2019ve got the words of the play. This is what we\u2019re here to serve. Our job is to dig down into what\u2019s written here and bring up what we\u2019ve found to show an audience.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s the beginning of a game then. That\u2019s something to start with.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the week began with some sad news. Anna Wright, who was set to play our Olivia and Maria, and who had lent those characters such energy and gusto in the read-through back in June, has had to pull out of the show due to health reasons. She\u2019ll be sadly missed but her heroic replacement, seasoned AFTLS veteran Claire Redcliffe, has joined our team as a super sub.<\/p>\n

This first week has been all about testing out rules for the game we\u2019re all going to play together. Are they fun? Are they clear? Will an audience be able to learn them quickly enough?<\/p>\n

After some slight tentativeness (it\u2019s hard when you\u2019re used to having a director set the tone and tell you what to do), we crack on with the first scene.<\/p>\n

Just to see what happens. You know, no pressure. Just try something. \u2018Fail better\u2019 and all that.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t know, Twelfth Night<\/em> begins with one of those lines that would make it onto a Shakespeare\u2019s Greatest Hits<\/em> album, no question: \u2018If music be the food of love, play on\u2019. Maybe in a slight panic, I offer the possibility that Orsino himself is the one playing the music and grab a guitar to hide behind. I mean, he\u2019s talking about music, right? This yields a suggestion that maybe Orsino fancies himself as a bit of a songwriter himself and that the men of his court, Curio and Valentine, have been corralled into his band. It\u2019s a mad choice, and one that may not survive, but it led to more ideas later on \u2013 which is what rehearsal is all about.<\/p>\n

We carry on in this fashion, working our way scene by scene through the play, eventually falling into a rhythm with each other.<\/p>\n

First, we\u2019d just have a crack at the scene on its feet, with no real idea of performance or worrying too much about an audience. Just hearing it. Seeing what it does. Checking what bit of you it tickles. If you\u2019re in the scene, you\u2019re an actor; if you\u2019re not, you\u2019re a director. The directors would give the actors notes and then we\u2019d try the scene again.<\/p>\n

It was like starting with a lump of clay and moulding it a little each time to see what kind of pot it might end up looking like. There\u2019s every chance that you\u2019ll get so far with one design and then chuck it out before it even makes it to the kiln, but the time invested in becoming a better potter is valuable nonetheless.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s full on, jumping between roles like this: being an actor one minute, a director the next, then switching to view things as a designer, then as a stage manager and in my case, as the person who made a big statement on the first day by showing up with a guitar under his arm, a composer. \u2018Composer\u2019. Honestly. Katherine Newman, our Viola and Sebastian, managed to capture a candid moment where I was \u2018recovering my energy,\u2019 shall we say.<\/p>\n

But then went on to prove herself that a bit of a lull can happen to the best of us\u2026<\/p>\n

We crack on on Monday, figuring out the rules to our game \u2013 testing them, improving them, and making sure they\u2019re actually fun.<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Week One: 29th of July to 3rd August By Kaffe Keating \u201cI will not give my part in this sport for a pension of thousands to be paid from the Sophy.\u201d Fabian, Act 2 Scene 5. One of the best … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2812,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47489,361299],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actors-from-the-london-stage","category-twelfth-night-fall-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1457"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1461,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions\/1461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}