Speak the speech

We have a set for Twelfth Night now. We are performing in a school hall so we had to wait for the school holidays before we could create anything semi-permanent. The set construction people have been busily beavering away all weekend to create us a space to strut our stuff. I called them the set fairies yesterday, which I’m not sure was taken the right way – construction angels might be a better description.

I love it when you first step onto the stage you will inhabit every night for the foreseeable future. As you become accustomed to renegotiating entrances and exits, squeezing past set furniture in multiple layers of skirts and tripping (hopefully not literally) up split-levels in high heels, the play begins to come alive, and you can explore the physical as well as the verbal presentation of character.

I have been reading Will & Me: How Shakespeare Took over My Life by Dominic Dromgoole. He is, among other things, the artistic director of the Globe Theatre and he has a particular hatred for people trying to impose a ‘concept’ onto Shakespeare’s plays, which I entirely share.

He believes that Shakespeare wrote of amazingly intricate and messy characters – their strength is in their words and they should not descend into stereotype, cipher, or imagined subconscious motivation. Why invent an interior monologue for a character when Shakespeare has already given you a soliloquy?

Dromgoole eschews elaborate and unnecessary stage business to let the poetry of the text paint its own pictures. In fact, he advises Shakespearean directors and actors to do just as Hamlet tells the players: speak the speech clearly and suit the word to the action.

I really appreciate what directors Mark Da Vanzo and Kathi George are doing in our rehearsals by respecting the value of character and textual analysis. What do you think he means? Who do you think she’s referring to? These are frequent questions in rehearsals, and I really do think they are open to discussion. Of course, the final decision comes down to the director, but there is a place for trying out different approaches, and this place is in rehearsal.

Him Outdoors loves training more than the race. In a way, I almost prefer rehearsals to the performance. By the time you get there, everything should be fixed and constant. You know where you are. I like getting there. I’ve always enjoyed anticipation. After all, ‘It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive’ as someone once said. Probably British Rail.

For details on the production and to book tickets, visit the Khandallah Arts Theatre website.