Rehearsal notes, Wednesday 27th February 2008, 6.30-9.30.
Present: Sarah, Kimberley, Jonathan, Andy, Alice, Simon, Synne.
We’ve decided to explore the meta-theatrical and the theatrical process of
transformation. Simon’s example of Svankmajer’s ‘Faust’ where we gradually see the
actor becoming the character (Faust) partly inspires today’s workshop.
Last workshop Simon asked the performers to develop physical gestures for the
characters. This gestural work forms the basis for the work for today’s workshop.
We pursue two ideas in the workshop; 1) Physical subtext. some of the characters
might be shadows or the mirror image of another character within the play. What
happens if we see Caliban/Ferdinand as two sides of the same character? Could
Caliban be the shadow of Ferdinand? What about Ariel and Miranda? Thinking about
Cornelia Parker’s suggestion that in art we could ‘unleash the subconscious in the
material’ we want to look at how people sometimes reveal interesting ‘sub texts’; not
necessarily because of what they say, but because of what their body language
reveals. We’re not so interested in the performers miming the characters as finding
something ‘revealing’ about the character. What is actually driving Prospero and how
do you show that through gesture, face and body? 2) Theatrical Transformation;
the process of transforming from actor-character1-character 2-actor again.
The performers work for 20 min. on devising physical scores for two characters.
Andy and Kymberley both have Caliban and Ferdinand; Sarah and Alice work on
Ariel and Miranda. Jonathan is Prospero.
Showing: Jonathan, as Prospero, sets the scene, he puts chairs out and prepares
the stage, so to speak. He also puts a table out on which he places several copies of
Shakespeare’s The Tempest. He 'commands' the other performers to take their
places. Jonathan/Prospero then returns to the audience and watches the action from
afar. Synne asks the performers, who are now sitting on chairs on the stage, to oneby-one show their two characters, and to find a way of creating a transition from one
to the other. The transformations are subtle and reveal interesting contradictions and
similarities between the characters. Andy, in particular, finds interesting parallels
between Ferdinand’s ‘play boy’ and the more grotesque Caliban.
We explore the real-time quality of the performers transformation from one character
into the other. The real-time feeling is reinforced by the fact that the other performers
watch each other’s transformations in silence (no acting)
Small exercise before the break:
Each performer gets up from chair, walks to the front of the stage, addresses the
audience by saying ‘this is my Caliban’ (or ‘this is my Miranda’); they then transform
into the character. Goes back to neutral and says ‘this is my Ferdinand’ (or ‘this is my
Ariel); transforms into the character. Goes back to neutral and walks back to chair.
BREAK
30 min. ensemble improvisation: We pursue the meta-theatrical theme and the
theme of actors transforming into characters. We're interested in how the rehearsal
space and the world of the play become enmeshed; we ask the performers to
imagine that this is their first day of rehearsal. They come into the rehearsal space.
Where and how do they begin?
What ensues is a very funny discussion about the play itself. Rather than being
excited about the play, they seem a bit daunted. They make comments about it being
difficult to understand. Quite frankly one gets the sense that they're not quite sure
what to do with it (and all that text!!). This is quite funny because it reflects the
struggle we can have with Shakespeare in a contemporary context.
Andy gradually takes on the role as leader and suggests that perhaps they should
start by warming up. A warm-up game gradually begins to resemble the storm at the
beginning of the play. Interestingly, there's here an overlap between Andy, the
performer, and Prospero (Prospero engineers the storm - Andy engineers the warmup game). After the intense storm/warm-up the performers are out of breath and rest
on the floor (like the sleeping mariners in the play!) Simon observes that one could
imagine that as they're enacting the storm scene, a lighting engineer might begin to
set the lights and gradually the lighting would become part of the fictional storm, etc.
They try out other ideas, for example they start reading from the beginning of the
play, deliberately trying to sound 'Shakespearean', and playfully mocking each
other's attempts at putting on 'an actor voice', etc.
Simon suggests that this read-through could be a helpful way into the text, different
key sentences could be repeated, etc.
Next workshop is 5th March. Here we'll focus on music and sound. Bring your
instruments!