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This is the second bulletin from Duke Senior (Philip Bird), where Philip discusses his initial impressions of Duke Senior, his research into the role, and what he's been doing in the first week.

Initial impressions of Duke Senior

On the surface he seems to be embracing his new life in the forest. I can definitely relate to that; I like being outside and I like the smell of fresh air first thing in the morning. Duke Senior never has a scene where he is really miserable, or even one where he lets on that he might be. As an actor you don’t want to invent or impose anything that isn’t in the text – that’s just fooling around. But I’m still open to looking for places where he wishes that he was back in his soft bed.

I don’t know how brave he is being yet, how much he has had to cover up for the sake of the happy band. They’ve all followed him voluntarily. He was banished, but they didn’t have to come. It’s suddenly quite a responsibility to have these guys out in the woods with him.

First day of rehearsals

The first day of rehearsals varies from director to director. This time we all read the play out loud. I know that some people think that that is either old-fashioned or unnecessary, but more often than not, you start off with a read-through. Most people there are strangers and everyone is nervous, but I think it’s a lovely way of hearing everyone else’s voice. You aren’t trying to give a performance; you’re just trying to get the play out and the director can time it roughly to see if we’ve got to make cuts.

We plunged into talking about families, daughters, nieces and nephews. Also, we looked at who is in the court, who lives in the woods and what the woods mean to everyone. For shepherds, it’s not particularly special – it’s just where they live – whereas for the Duke it’s absolutely extraordinary. Then for other people it’s horrible, cold and uncomfortable. It’s whatever you bring to it.

It’s a pleasure just being in each other’s company, since we’re all relative strangers and only a few of us know each other. We’re also off-site rehearsing in the Menier Chocolate Factory at the moment. We’re like a little band over there on tour, but we’re back in the main Globe building next week.

Costume

In the first week, you meet the designer and you’re told what you’re going to wear and get to have a quick look at your clothes, which is nice. They measure you up, to decide if they’re going to have to make them or can get them from somewhere. I’m sure the designer has been preparing for a good while, doing his research and all his paintings and drawings. I’m not quite sure if it’s exactly Elizabethan / Jacobean period, but it is definitely going to be in that style.

Dancing: the jig

We’ve met the choreographer [Finn Walker] twice and we’ve had a couple of fantastic dance sessions, which are can be very scary to actors who don’t claim to have dance on their CV … but she is absolutely wonderful. I haven’t worked with her before, but she’s a contemporary dancer and she is very non-critical. Sometimes when you’re being choreographed, you really feel like you’ve got to do it right and pass some kind of test. Finn gives the impression that she’s making it up as she goes, so she claims she’s getting ideas from us but I can’t believe she’s doing that!

A lot of the stuff is done with eyes shut so the actors aren’t too self-conscious. No one is allowed to film it on their cameras either. We don’t want the Deputy Stage Manager putting that on YouTube! It’s not that the dancing sessions aren’t undisciplined, it’s just that they aren’t dictatorial, which is a joy.

Research

I have always felt that the Globe is an extraordinary place and there are extraordinary people working in different areas. Once I found the Library, they couldn’t keep me out! You’ve got to go and find some of this stuff, everyone doesn’t just come up to you to say “come and see us”. I don’t particularly like there to be invisible barriers between performers / research / education / library / the building, so I’m delighted to cross any of those divides and boundaries.

To be able to get the input of Dr Farah Karim-Cooper [Head of Courses & Research] input is just a golden resource. I actually directed a staged reading a couple of years ago for Read Not Dead where the plot involved people using make-up. Farah wrote her first book on cosmetics on the Renaissance stage, so I asked her lots of stuff then and she was incredibly helpful. Then last year I was Dr Caius in The Merry Wives of Windsor and I asked her what kind of medicines and cures would he be using. A lot of it was all about urine, so we actually experimented with loads of yellow bottles that he came on with, though we didn’t use them in the end.

This year for As You Like It she talked about the pairing of mirth and melancholy. Jaques is presented as the melancholy character and Duke Senior is always teasing him, trying to cheer him up and always failing, so I thought, “Oh melancholy and mirth, the big antidote”. That’s why I love Jaques. He is so cynical, so wittily black sometimes; that idea of mirth and melancholy has already given me something to study.

These comments are the actor's thoughts and ideas about the part as s / he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his / her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsals progress.

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