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In Tim's third blog post, he discusses an intensive rehearsal at Otley, and how improvisations have helped to develop his character.

Otley

We have been to Otley for an intensive rehearsal weekend. This was extremely valuable. It kept us all together as a company. We spent the whole time we were there improvising the scenes in the play that aren’t seen on stage.

We improvised the meeting between Rosencrantz and Guildenstern before Hamlet goes to university. It was nice to see all the good times that they had, chatting about why Hamlet is going there, what he intends to get out if it and why we’re not going. We decided that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are going to start an import export business and make money instead. In the improvisation, Hamlet was then called away to go and talk to his Dad and we go off to start our business. It was good to establish this relationship and pre-history to the play.

Later, we improvised a scene after Hamlet has come back from Wittenberg, where we try to rekindle the friendship we had previously. Things are very different now though, especially once events begin to unfold. We also looked at the scene later on the boat to England focusing on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s behaviour towards Hamlet. We think that Rosencrantz would have been pretty upset with him. Guildenstern is just going along with everything, as he didn’t have much time to think about it all. He tries to ‘have a heart’ to heart with Hamlet but, Hamlet is aloof and disinterested. We have started to develop the idea that is Rosencrantz is more mercenary than Guildenstern.

We improvised the night on the boat before the pirates board it – where each person is going to sleep. We have to remember that Hamlet is still a Prince, and how we’re going to look after him to show that. We established that we were pretending to be asleep whilst he was reading the letter… Then the pirates came…

I spent less time at Otley improvising Osric, as I was Guildenstern most of the time. In the scenes we did do, Osric was on the council in the court from the beginning. We decided that he is only a lowly member, and is there because his father was on the council. He is part of the gentry and he should be there. It makes him a very political character to play, which I’m not entirely sure about. Later on he doesn’t seem to have as much clout as we have given him. He seems, I think, to be a bit of a twit. So, we’re still trying to work that out. It’s nice to have a background for him but I’m not sure that it all fits into place just yet.

Since we got back from Otley, we’ve been assimilating all that we learnt whilst we were away. We have started working on the stage now, which perhaps wasn’t quite such a revelation for me as it was for others, as I have worked in the space before.

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

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