A Text Session Part 2

Welcome back!  As we move along with this scene, I will not include the massive blocks of definitions for variant spellings, capitalized or unfamiliar words.  Just remember that those words require special attention.  For the sake of these blog entrees, I will make some choices, but these are by no means the only choices to be made.

So let’s get back to work.  Moving along to the next block of text:

…………………………………………………….your Honestie?

I trulie:  for the power of Beautie, will sooner

transforme Honestie from what it is, to a Bawd, then the

force of Honestie can translate Beautie into his likenesse.

This was sometime a Paradox, but now the time gives it

proofe.  I did love you once.

Hamlet’s cue repeats his word ‘Honesty’ that he used earlier – don’t worry that it’s capitalized in the cue, that’s not his line, but it is significant that ‘Honesty” is being repeated.  The word is obviously an important one, and it should be used, maybe as a weapon, maybe as something being bonded over, but attention must be paid. 

‘I trulie.’  ‘I’ could be the first person singular pronoun, meaning ‘Truly me.’  It could be an abbreviation for ‘ay’ meaning ‘yes,’ or ‘aye’ meaning ‘forever.’  Pick one, the play does not hinge on these two words.  Throughout this block, Honesty and Beauty are repeated, always capitalized.  Pay attention.  ‘Bawd,’ a false woman, is set in opposition to ‘Honesty.’  It is a difference that can be physicalized, so physicalize it.  ‘Paradox,’ is another capitalized word, and is set against ‘proofe.’ 

‘I did love you once,’ uses ‘you,’ and being impersonal, gives the line blocking that backs up the meaning of the line.

The following block of text does not contain any capitalized words, but there is some tricky stuff.  Again, Hamlet is repeating a word in his cue.  (Repeated words do not always appear in the cue line, so always pay attention.)  ‘Innoculate’ and ‘relish’ are words that we don’t use very often, so be familiar with their meanings.  ‘Vertue’ is spelled differently than we are used to.  ‘I loved you not.’  Here is a change, since Hamlet is contradicting what he last said.  Play the change.

Now we get to the meat of this section.  ‘Get thee to a Nunnerie.’ 

First of all, this is such a famous line, beware the baggage.  In all performance it is important to come to it fresh as if it is the first time, but there is an added danger with classical theatre, especially Shakespeare.  So much of what he wrote has become catch phrases and buzzwords in today’s society, and that meaning creeps in no matter what we, as performers, do.  It is important to minimize that impact on your interpretation, and make the line yours. 

Hamlet’s biggest shift in the scene appears in this line.  ‘Get THEE to a Nunnerie.’  For the first time, he says ‘thee’ which means he is invading someone’s personal space.  Any time there is a shift in the mode of address, this signals something is changing in the character and the actor should play this change.  Physicalize it and make it as big as possible.  Maybe Hamlet is speaking to someone new on the scene.  Maybe not.  How this shift is made is up to the actor in the moment, because until the moment of performance, he is unaware of the situation. 

In this block of text ‘Nunerie,’ Sinners,’ ‘Mother,’ ‘Ambitious,’ ‘Fellowes,’ ‘Heaven,’ ‘Earth,’ ‘Knaves,’ ‘Nunnery’ and ‘Father’ are all capitalized.  These words are important to the sense of the speech and should be given weight in their delivery and physicality.  Hamlet has a list of attributes: ‘prowd (notice the spelling), revengefull, Ambitious,’ all which should be physicailzed.  There is also a bit of stage direction for himself: ‘…with more offences at my becke, then I have thoughts to put them in imagination, to givethem shape, or time to acte them in.’ What are these offences? That’s the actor’s choice, but it is evident that there is some attempt to show us what they are.

In that last line, notice the placement of the comma in the list after ‘imagination’ and not before.  Logically, it should be set up so that the thoughts run:

            thoughts to put them in,

            imagination to give them shape,

            or time to acte them in.

Instead, it runs:

            thoughts to put them in imagination,

            to give them shape,

            or time to acte them in.

Could this be a mis-print? Possibly.  But play the comma, the inflection that it invokes on ‘imagination’ and see what happens.  Hamlet doesn’t sound logical.  Something, literally, will not sound right if the punctuation is followed.  Follow it.

Also of note is that the word ‘nunnery’ appears twice in this block, and is spelled differently both times.  Why?  Was there some typographical confusion in these 10 lines at the printing house?  Did they need to conserve I’s and E’s at these points on the page?  Maybe.  Or it’s a clue.  Treat it as a clue and see what turns up. Nunnery becomes a very important word, and should be looked up.

Also note that Hamlet uses ‘we’ and plurals of  ‘Fellowes’ and ‘Knaves.’ ‘Beleeve none of us.’  Even if there is an army on stage, this is a wonderful time to include the audience.  Include the audience in the performance.

We will leave it here for today, and pick up with the rest next time.  I hope that it is becoming apparent just how much is in the text – not for the scholars, although they, too, have an embarrassment of riches – but for the actors performing the role in the way of stage directions and clues to the characters.

-Andy Kirtland

Works Cited

Shakespeare, William, Neil Freeman, and Paul Sugarman. The Applause First Folio of Shakespeare in Modern Type. New York: Applause, 2001. Print.

A Text Session Part 1

We talk a lot about text sessions as an integral part of the way we work, but what exactly do we mean by that, and what does it entail?  Well, to give you a taste, below you will find a section of Hamlet Act 1, scene 3: the famous ‘get thee to a nunnery’ scene.  We will go point through point how one of these sessions runs.  Enjoy!

…………………………………………………….many a day?

I humbly thanke you: well, well, well.

…………………………………………………….receive them.

No, no, I never gave you ought.

…………………………………………………….There my Lord.

Ha, ha: Are you honest?

…………………………………………………….My Lord.

Are you faire?

…………………………………………………….your Lordship?

That if you be honest and faire, your Honesty

should admit no discourse to your Beauty.

…………………………………………………….your Honestie?

I trulie:  for the power of Beautie, will sooner

transforme Honestie from what it is, to a Bawd, then the

force of Honestie can translate Beautie into his likenesse.

This was sometime a Paradox, but now the time gives it

proofe.  I did love you once.

…………………………………………………….beleeve so.

You should not have believed me.  For vertue

cannot so innocculate our old stocke, but we shall relish

of it.  I loved you not.

…………………………………………………….more deceived.

Get thee to a Nunnerie.  Why would’st thou

be a breeder of Sinners?  I am my selfe indifferent honest,

but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were bet-

ter my Mother had not borne me.  I am very prowd, re-

vengefull, Ambitious, with more offences at my becke,

then I have thoughts to put them in imagination, to give

them shape, or time to acte them in.  What should such

Fellowes as I do, crawling between Heaven and Earth.

We are arrant Knaves all, beleeve none of us.  Goe thy

wayes to a Nunnery.  Where’s your Father?

…………………………………………………….At home, my Lord.

Let the doores be shut upon him, that he may

play the Foole no way, but in’s owne house.  Farewell.

…………………………………………………….sweet Heavens.

If thou doest Marry, Ile give thee this Plague

for thy Dowrie.  Be thou as chast as Ice, as pure as Snow,

thou shalt not escape Calumny.  Get thee to a Nunnery.

Go, Farewell.  Or if thou wilt needs Marry, marry a fool:

for Wise men know well enough, what monsters you

make of them.  To a Nunnery go, and quickly too.  Far-

well.

…………………………………………………….restore him.

I have heard of your pratlings too wel enough.

God has given you one pace, and you make your selfe an-

other: you gidge, you amble, and you lispe, and nickname

Gods creatures, and make your Wantonnesse, your Ig-

norance.  Go too, Ile no more on’t, it hath made me mad.

I say, we will have no more Marriages.  Those that are

married already, all but one shall live, the rest shall keep

as they are. To a Nunnery, go.

EXIT HAMLET*

The first thing that we notice is that all of Hamlet’s lines are written in prose.  In Hamlet’s cue script, this follows ‘To be or not to be,’ which is written in verse.  That means between the end of that block of speech and this section, there is a major playable (actable) shift in the character. 

How do we know that the first lines are in prose?  They are all short lines that do not complete their cues.  That means that if this is meant to be verse, there is a lot of pausing here – and there very well may be.  The question then arises: what effect does that have?  A good rule of thumb when it comes to pauses is: when in doubt, leave it out.  An audience can follow dialogue that keeps moving, and important information in Shakespeare is often repeated, so should they miss it here, it will come up again.  What an audience will not forgive is lots… of… unnecessary… pausing.  Usually if there is to be a pause between the lines, Shakespeare makes it pretty obvious.  In these lines in particular, the punctuation offers opportunity for pauses and action within the lines on ‘;’s and ‘Ha.’  The determining factor on whether the actor should pause in the words is whether or not the actor can find a way to play the pause. 

The first four lines are pretty straight forward, no variant spellings, capitalization or archaic words.  We encourage every actor to look up any word, familiar or unfamiliar that is capitalized or spelled in an odd way.  Don’t use an American dictionary.  There are many dictionaries available that offer good, playable alternate definitions for words we think we know.  The fact that the text calls attention to these words demands special attention.  However, sometimes a variant spelling is just a variant spelling and is not accorded any special treatment.

Hamlet’s second cue to speak is a stage direction: ‘…receive them.’  Someone is trying to give someone something.  This line may be spoken to another character on stage.  What that something is, and who is supposed to receive them, will be made evident in the lines of the other character(s).  However, Hamlet has his own direction in his following line: ‘No, no, I never gave you ought.’  Obviously the something is supposed to be delivered to Hamlet who rejects whatever is being offered, and he uses the pronoun ‘you,’ which means he is not invading the personal space of whoever gave him this cue.  He is not taking the prop.

Also, in the first four lines, Hamlet is addressed as ‘My Lord,’ and ‘Lord.’  These are clues as to the relationship between the speakers.  In all honesty, this is a famous scene, and we know that Hamlet is speaking to Ophelia.  They are not treating each other as one expects lovers to.  She is calling him ‘Lord.’  He uses the impersonal ‘you.’  By playing these clues, which are giving the actors the relationship to play, the actors are relieved of having to come up with one. 

The fifth line is obviously in prose, as it contains 2 lines, the second of which is not capitalized:

…………………………………………………….your Lordship?

That if you be honest and faire, your Honesty

should admit no discourse to your Beauty.

Hamlet is answering a question from someone who addresses him as ‘Lordship,’ so that is a clue as to the relationship with the person he is talking to.  He uses the pronoun ‘you’ which means that he crosses to whomever he is speaking with, but is keeping a respectable distance.  Honesty and Beauty are important words since they both appear at the end of the lines and are capitalized.  Yes, they appear at the end of lines of prose, but the typesetting could have placed them elsewhere.  The first lines could end with ‘should admit,’ there is enough space, but it does not.  Honesty and Beauty are important words to the sense of the line.  What do they mean?  ‘Faire’ is spelled differently than we are used to, so let’s look that word up as well.

faire (adj): beautiful, handsome (things and people); clear, fine, unspotted, pure; of white complexion; becoming, honorable, equitable; being as a thing ought to be; favorable, auspicious; kind, good, accomplished; good looking; pale; fine, pleasing, splendid, excellent; appropriate, courteous, pleasing; plausible, flattering, seductive; virtuous, honorable, upright; favorable, unobstructed, clear; legitimate, lawful, proper; healthy, sound, fit; unsoiled

Honesty (n): virtue, chastity; honor, integrity, uprightness; generosity, liberality, hospitality; decency, decorum, good manners; sexual honesty; love of truth, upright conduct; honorableness, just claim to be respected; decency, love of what is noble and becoming

Beauty (n): assemblage of graces to please the eye and mind; a beautiful person*

As is evident from the (over) abundance of definitions above, there are a few different ways the line can be spoken.  Which one is settled upon is up to the actor, but attention needs to be paid to what is actable, and that the sense of the line, if not the exact meaning, is clear to the audience.  They may not pick up on the exact meaning the actor chooses to play, but at least the intention, given by the line and played by the actor, will be.

At this point, we’ll take a break, and continue the session in another entree, but notice that these sessions look at the text – the words – and not the internal struggle, intentions or psychology of the character.  Everything that is needed to play Hamlet’s part is printed on the page.  The actor should listen and react to the lines from the other characters when he hears them.  There is no need to pretend that it is the first time, it very well may be the first time that these actors are having this conversation.  Stage directions are pointed out, important words are pointed out and different definitions given, but no solutions are settled upon by the person preparing the script or the director.  All the signs are highlighted for the actor, and the how’s are up to them.

- Andy Kirtland

*Works Cited

Crystal, David, and Ben Crystal. Shakespeare's Words: A Glossary and Language Companion. London: Penguin, 2002. Print.

Partridge, Eric. Shakespeare's Bawdy. London: Routledge, 1990. Print.

Schmidt, Alexander, and Gregor Sarrazin. Shakespeare Lexicon; a Complete Dictionary of All the English Words, Phrases and Constructions in the Works of the Poet. New York: B. Blom, 1968. Print.

Shakespeare, William, Neil Freeman, and Paul Sugarman. The Applause First Folio of Shakespeare in Modern Type. New York: Applause, 2001. Print.

What Our Actors Can Expect

We get a lot of questions about rehearsal schedules when casting a show.  Being so familiar with this style of performance, sometimes we think that ‘unrehearsed’ is self-explanatory.  We remember the first time that we encountered this approach to Shakespeare, not knowing what to expect.  There are other methods that are huddled under the umbrella of original practices, so today we are taking the time to outline what our cast for The Comedie of Errors can look forward to.

After the play has been cast, the actors, prompter, director and stage manager all take part in a weekend workshop where the performers learn the technique.  We learned from Demitra Papadinis at the New England Shakespeare Festival where she had developed The Ten Commandments of Staging Unrehearsed Shakespeare.  We follow this outline as we walk everyone through the process.  The workshops start with everyone getting to know each other before we explain the why’s and wherefore’s of what we are doing.  This is when we begin putting everyone on the same page. 

Then we start going through scenes.  Actors are given sides resembling what they will see in performance containing only their lines, their cues, entrances, exits and important stage directions.  Any and every scene that Shakespeare wrote is up for grabs – except for scenes from the play we will perform.  The scenes are gone through several times with everyone commenting on what effect they felt (the actors and audience), what was missed, what was learned and how to include these findings in the performance.  We work through every commandment until everyone has a thorough understanding of everything that the actors will need to pay attention to when they are in front of an audience.  The workshop ends with us showing some video examples of good versus bad prompting, which allows everyone to see what they have learned in a practical manner.  At this time, they are given their cues and the materials and directions to make their scrolls.  They do not receive the entire script, nor at any time are they allowed to read the entire script, see a production or film of the play or read about it.  They are to come to the performance as fresh and void of baggage as possible.

The next step for our actors is the text sessions.  The number of these and their formats can vary between actor, but the easy explanation is that the actors sit down with the director for several hours to go over their lines word by word.  Every word, line, beat, pause and punctuation mark are gone over in detail: 

“Is this a short line?  Why?  Is it a pause or an action.” 

“This is a stage direction, so make sure that you are throwing it so that whoever you are talking to catches it.” 

“You enter this scene, and you exit without speaking: Make sure you’re listening for stage directions.” 

“This will be a fight, so you must be off-book for these lines.”

“You go from verse to prose.  There is a shift, make sure you play it.”

Notice there is no direction given in the sense that we are used to as actors.  The director does not necessarily give answers of what the stage business should be.  Those choices belong to the actor.  What the director does at this point is make the performers aware of places that they need to pay particular attention.  Sometimes only one text session is enough.  Sometimes more, but that is determined on a case by case basis.  During this part of the process, the actors do not meet together.  There is no group rehearsal at this point.  Everyone is looking to their own roles.

Except the prompter.  The prompter will have the entire script, and will meet with the director to go over the placement of any sound cues, where fights occur, where long pauses appear and ideas for covering disturbances such as passing trucks, airplanes, trains or biker rallies that my be rumbling by during the performance.

Depending on the amount of fights, quick changes dancing and music, there will be ‘fight rehearsals’ where all of this is gone over in detail with any and every actor that is on stage.  Since the actors are playing multiple tracks of different characters, everyone needs to know what is going on.  These are the only bits that are gone over before the performance to make sure that the choreography is done correctly and the fights are performed safely.  Before each performance, the cast members who are engaging in these bits that day will have a fight call.

After that, the cast shows up at the performance venue, listens to a curtain speech outlining everything for the audience, the prompter blows a whistle, and whoever has the first lines of the play steps on stage and starts talking.  Actors enter when they hear their cue, and execute the rules that they learned in the workshop using their scrolls in front of the audience.  This is the first time that the entire cast has been together since the workshop which can be as far as a couple of months behind them.

Scary, isn’t it?  The actor’s nightmare: walking out onto the stage without knowing the scene, who you’re talking to or what you are going to do.  At least here you aren’t naked, and you have your lines on your scroll.  No matter how long the first performances last, it is the fastest show an actor will ever do.  The adrenaline obliterates the clock and the attention that must be paid to your fellow actors completely absorbs you.  Frightening? Yes.  Exhilerating? Absolutely.  It’s a feeling you will never have any other way on stage, and it will cure you of any fear you may have about performing.

-Andy Kirtland

Inspirations

While shopping in a local book shop earlier this week, I came across a small volume of Shakespeare, printed in 1901, that contains Titus Andronicus, Pericles and Much Ado About Nothing.  How could I pass this up?  In complete honesty, I only saw Titus and Much Ado printed on the spine.  My wife, with her superior eyesight pointed out the inclusion of Pericles, which only added to my curiosity.

Why include these plays together?  There is no underlying theme announced in a forward or editor’s notes.  In fact, the blurbs introducing each play seem to be taken from different sources.  All in all, this combination of works leads me examine the breadth and variation of Shakespeare’s works.  I can think of no other juxtaposition that would better illustrate all the worlds that occupied Shakespeare’s head and his stage.

At the same time, I was reading The Quality of Mercy by Peter Brook who ponders in several short essays different aspects of Shakespeare’s works and his own (Brook’s) productions.  There was absolutely nothing scholarly about this collection of thoughts, but its power to inspire different ways of approaching Shakespeare is unmistakable.

My thoughts continually go our unrehearsed practice, and what it adds to the thoughts of this master theatre-maker and how it can illuminate such diverse worlds as Titus’ bloody, ritual Rome and the soft, warm air that permeate Benedick and Beatrice’s romance.  That is what our work does: it adds and illuminates.  It should never detract or distract.  Of course that is the aim of any method or system of acting: to disappear.  One of the worst things an actor can do is get caught acting. 

These experiences are only connected by time, really.  A germ of something has been planted, but what the flower will be, I do not know.  Something awakened by this 1901 collection, stimulated by Peter Brook’s words, fed by our technique and seasoned by the music of Morphine is dividing and growing somewhere in the ether around me.

I write this to dispel any thoughts or criticism that what we do is driven by the technique.  Although we do seek to use it and teach it and spread it, we do so because it serves the craft.  It is not the only ingredient we use, but it is the main spice that informs the flavor of what we do.  

Let us know who and what inspires you.

-Andy Kirtland

Things Left Unsaid

With Shakespeare, we focus on the words.  That is all we have, and as actors, our words are our character.  But what sometimes gets my attention are the things that characters do not say, or at least what is not written down.  The words that Shakespeare chooses are just as important as the words he does not.  My favorite example comes from Macbeth.  When Lady Macbeth enters, she is reading a letter from her husband telling her of his news and the prophesy of the three witches.  When she finishes the letter, her first words are:

Glamys thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be

What thou art promis’d:

Lady Macbeth’s first, personal words in the play make a short line, only 9 beats, denoting an unfinished thought, or some action.  In this case, the thought is finished in the next line, but why this pause?  There is a one-syllable word that will fill this line and finish this thought: king.  That would give Lady Macbeth’s first thought a simple full line of pentameter:

Glamys thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be king.

Instead, Shakespeare gives her a pause, and substitutes for what could be a simple, one-syllable word, four words that take half a line of pentameter.  What does it say about the character?  She cannot even say the word king.  Why?

Another example, also from Macbeth is much more conjecture on my part.  The Porter, as he stumbles to open the door for MacDuff and Lenox before they discover the death of the king, likens his job to manning the door to hell.  He asks who is at the door, guessing who it may be and why they are in hell.  My theory is that these comments are not directed to unseen characters off stage, but to the audience.  Rather than ending the list, the litany can go on and on in a back-and-forth between the Porter and the audience for as long as it is funny and can find different professions to mock while MacDuff and Lennox continue knocking at the door.  ‘What are you? Oh, a teacher? This is why you’re going to hell.  And you?’  Knock, knock, knock.  ‘A writer?  See you soon.’ Knock, knock, knock.  ‘How about you?  An architect?  Ha!’ Knock, knock, knock. ‘I’m coming! I’m coming!’

Why isn’t it written down?  My theory is that Shakespeare knew his clowns and their ability to get on with the audience.  While there was a good mix of people in the audience, there was no guarantee of who would be there watching.  Let the actors work the crowd.  The more humor that can be gotten here and the better rapport that can be generated between the Porter and the audience, the funnier the next bit becomes with litany of affects of alcohol.  It also gives the audience a bigger relief of tension between the murder and its discovery.  While there is not necessarily textual evidence for this, the familiarity that Shakespeare had with his company would allow for the possibility of this type of freedom in performance.

When examining the texts as closely as one must when employing original practices, as much importance must be placed on the spaces and pauses between the words as on the words themselves.  Even these can be used to find significant clues to characters. 

Have you encountered this before, finding that the pauses or avoidance of certain words in a line is a signal about a character?  Has anyone else found a place where it may appear that Shakespeare left something open for his actors to riff on or extemporize?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts and experiences.

-Andy Kirtland

Looks Aren't Everything?

A recent question has spurred today's blog post: How did you handle the doubling in A Midsummer Night's Dream?

I directed that show in 2012 using the Unrehearsed Cue Script Technique, and that is always the number one question I'm asked.  Because large casts mean larger budgets in order to pay for them, many theatre companies understandably try to figure out clever ways to double up on roles to keep costs down.  Since my partner, Andy Kirtland, was directing The Two Gentlemen of Verona in rep with my Midsummer, we narrowed the casting down to nine actors to use for both shows.  Nine versatile actors.  We also added the extra challenge of giving each actor, at least, two different tracks (one track of characters for one performance and another track of different characters for the next one) each.  Some actors had three tracks.

Here's my answer to the doubling question:
Hippolyta/Titania
Theseus/Oberon
Puck/Philostrate
Egeus/Quince
Demetrius/Snout/Mustard Seed
Lysander/Flute/Peaseblossom
Hermia/Snug/Cobweb
Helena/Starveling/Moth
Bottom

The first four tracks are obvious and each character in the track are similar.  For instance: Theseus and Oberon are both kings, so any actor playing that track would need to be able to carry a sense of regalness throughout.  However, finding actors who can play romantic love interests, obedient fairies, and slapstick comedic mechanicals all in the same show can be difficult.

Since MSND and TGV are comedies, the first aspect we looked for in casting was: Is this person funny?  Obviously, because of the variety of roles we needed each and every actor to be comedic, including the 'lovers.'  As an actress myself, I always try to find a moment in every part I play that has a comic element, and romantic lead characters can tend to be a bit boring if they're constantly being 'romantic' and never find funny moments.  We needed actors who could speak Shakespeare's words well, be funny, be versatile, have great attitudes, and could perform in the Unrehearsed technique.

Doubling the lovers with the mechanicals and the fairies was a risk because it would mean many quick changes as well as being extremely physically demanding.  These particular tracks were the most physical ones with the actors either being incredibly active on stage or backstage changing with no rest.  The Unrehearsed Technique doesn't allow for characters to just stand on stage speaking.  "Suit the action to the word" is one of the cornerstones on which this technique is based.  Even if you're not the one speaking on stage, there's an incredibly good chance you're following stage directions that another character is giving you in his/her text.

After the shows, I had many audience members tell me they had never found the lovers scenes funny before until now, and that they so enjoyed seeing the lovers as the ridiculous fairies and as the fun mechanicals.  That's what is so wonderful about Unrehearsed shows: they take the stuffiness out of the shows.  The lovers ARE funny.  They're insane.  One example: in Act II, Scene II when Hermia and Lysander decide to go to sleep in the woods, Lysander is trying to get into Hermia's pants but Hermia keeps telling him to lie further away from her.  Frustrated, but consenting he finally says:

Lys: Amen, amen, to that faire prayer, say I, 
And then end life, when I end loyalty:
Heere is my bed, sleepe give thee all his rest. 

Following the 'action to the word' rule, Lysander is far away on his bed for "Heere is my bed".  However, following the "thee/you" rule of being closer to the person for 'thee/thou', Lysander flies to Hermia for "sleepe give thee all his rest."  The back and forth leading up to that line as well as the physical gymnastics required for Lysander to fly from one side of the stage to the other in the incredibly short amount of time to say this one line is hilarious!

We were blessed with an awesome turnout of wonderful actors for our auditions, and as any director knows: casting is so difficult, especially when you're trying to get a blend of different types/characteristics.  I, personally, love to see beautiful actors and actresses not be afraid to be funny.  Being funny doesn't make someone less attractive or less of a leading character.  In fact, I think it makes them more interesting.  You don't have to make weird faces or do toilet humor to be funny.  You just need to find the ridiculousness in life sometimes and not worry about how it makes you look.  Taking yourself too seriously is unhealthy, and frankly boring.  Having a sense of humor lasts forever.  Can we honestly say that about outward appearances?

-Elizabeth Ruelas

Code Breaking

There is a documentary in the works claiming to have found a geometric cipher in the text of Shakespeare’s First Folio that lead to some sort of treasure.  I really don’t know what to make of this, if it is intended in anyway to be taken seriously.  As an entertainment and a distraction it could be fun.

This idea has occurred to me in the past as a great idea for a thriller à la The DaVinci Code.  Somewhere embedded in the different printings of the 1623 First Folio, there is a code that connects the true author of Shakespeare’s plays, the English crown, the money pit in Eastern Canada, the secret identity of Prospero’s island and the secret society stemming from the medieval theater guilds dedicating their lives to protecting the knowledge that would completely unsettle the governments of Europe et cetera, et cetera, et cetera…

In an online discussion, someone compared the kind of work that Unrehearsed Shakespeare Project (USP) does to breaking a code that Shakespeare embedded in his text.  That is not quite the case.  When we say that Shakespeare left clues in the text, we are not speaking about those kinds of clues.  There isn’t anything hidden in the text, it is rather a method of identifying what stares everyone in the face as acting cues for the actors and not as grammatical errors.

For example: end stops.  In the Folio, end stops mark the end of a rhetorical thought, not necessarily (but not excluding) the grammatical end of a sentence.  A period is not a question mark is not an exclamation point; these all denote a differing tone on which a thought ends.  This does not mean that each tone is always the same specific tone for each period, question mark and exclamation point in the canon, but they are to be treated differently from each other.  Yet, depending on an editor’s interpretation – or on an interpretation that an editor has seen on stage – these can be changed quite frequently from one edition of a play to another.  Does the original period that became an exclamation point tell us some hidden secret about the deeper truth of the play? No, but it does tell us that the line was intended to have less emphasis than its improvement. 

That I just wrote ‘that the line was intended…’ does not mean that the intention was attributed directly to Shakespeare.  What I mean is that it was a period, and any change from that was imposed for any number of reasons –some of which may be good and valid- from the intended, the original (or the closest-to original) punctuation.  Any changes occurring between Shakespeare’s pen and the printing press were made by contemporary professionals with a vested interest in the production of the work and who had an ear for the spoken language of the time.  This is why I give them more weight than changes made by a modern editor.

This is also not to say that we can tell exactly what was intended by these punctuations, spellings, and lineation.  Patrick Tucker, when confronted with questions from his actors about what to do with the pauses, changes in thoughts and specific changes in the way a character’s text is written responds that he doesn’t know the answer, making the choice is the actor’s job.  The fact is that the signposts are there for the actors to interpret in the moment, in reaction to what is happening between everyone in the space and the space itself without the interference of a director, editor or someone else removed from the actual performance. 

To give an idea of the kind of acting clues I am referring to, let’s compare Orlando’s opening words to As You Like It, first from the First Folio* and then from Arden.

Orlando:

As I remember Adam, it was upon this fashion

bequeathed me by will, but poore a thousand

Crownes, and as thou saist, charged my bro-

ther on his blessing to breed mee well: and

there begins my sadnesse: My brother Jacques he keepes                        5

at schoole, and report speakes goldenly of his profit:

for my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or (to speak

more properly) stais me heere at home unkept: for call

you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that dif-

fers not from the stalling of an Oxe?                                                            10

……….

As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion

bequeathed my by will but poor a thousand crowns,

and, as thou sayst, charged my brother on his bless-

ing to breed me well; and there begins my sadness.

My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and report                                    5

speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part he keeps

me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly,

stays me here at home unkept; for call you that

keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that differs

not from the stalling of an ox?                                                                        10

In the Folio, Orlando’s first thought runs for 10 lines.  The punctuation frames the journey this rather long idea takes, and helps the actor to breathe while driving through Orlando’s lament.  This thought changes direction and runs together the separate ideas concerning money, Orlando’s situation and the comparison to his brother’s.  It ends with a question.  The spelling and capitalization give some indication of stresses that help both the actor and the audience follow what is being said.  An actor can interpret these as notes on the character written into the lines.  The evidence that this is the case, and not a jumble of erratic mistakes collected between the pen and the printing house is that in performance these clues work.

In the Arden, the punctuation and spelling is much more regular.  The period in line 4 comes at a logical and grammatically appropriate place.  This frames Orlando’s thoughts in a different way.  That is not to say incorrectly, only differently.  It is an imposition to the text put there by someone far removed from the performance of the piece.  This needs to be taken into consideration by the actor.  This cleaning up removes a suggestion, which could be ignored by the actor, but it takes away the choice and a possible source of inspiration and influence.

In performance, should an actor choose to use the punctuation from the Arden text in the same manner as he would treat the punctuation from the Folio, it will still work to help frame the thoughts.  The result would be a slower and less dynamic performance since the purpose of the punctuation is to drive to the end stops, and colons and semi-colons demark different ‘gear-shifts’ in thinking which are to be externalized by the actor.  The more end stops, the more potential for longer pauses.  The less ‘;’ and ‘:’ the more measured the performance becomes.  Again, not incorrect, only different.

When a character’s lines are seen in cue script form, there are other clues that can be seen more clearly and quickly interpreted by actors than in a standardized full-text script.  A shift from measured, full lines of poetry to erratic lineation with lots of short or long lines or mixtures of them says something about a character’s state of mind, and that shift in speech patterns informs the actor that something is happening.   The actress playing Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing will notice that although very witty and verbose for the first half of her cue script, she is suddenly faced with short lines for the rest of the play.  Something important happens.  It turns out this shift occurs after Beatrice and Benedick admit that they love each other.  Simple enough.  The Beatrice at the beginning of the play is not the same as the Beatrice at the end, and the fact that the change is shown in the lines tells the actress that this change must be externalized as well.

These are the kind of ‘clues’ original practices seek out.  There is nothing that is not there for the casual reader to see, nor for an actor to use to advantage in performance, should they choose.  And that choice is the important thing for actors.  In unrehearsed performances USP exploits these cues across the board so that the production is unified, with all the actors in the same play.  Four hundred years of productions across the globe have shown us that there are other valid, successful ways of putting Shakespeare on the stage and screen.  Knowing how to read a script using these cues and clues offer the actor another tool in her toolbox.  To remove the possibilities offered by the Folio by cleaning up the texts removes this option from her preparation and interpretation of a role.

While the idea of some hidden code in the text is intriguing, that’s not what we are trying to get at.  In all honesty, I’m looking forward to this documentary.  It promises to be an entertaining afternoon of television.  The ‘code’ that USP and other OP proponents look for promises an entertaining afternoon of theatre.  Please experience the difference.

*I am comparing The Applause First Folio of Shakespeare Comedies, Histories & Tragedies in Modern Type, ed. Neil Freeman with Arden’s 1975 As You Like It, ed. Agnes Latham.

-Andy Kirtland