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This is the fourth rehearsal bulletin from Tim McMullan (Jaques)., in which he discusses Jaques' costume. staging the play and the set design.

Jaques’ costume

As a way into the character, I thought about some of those 1960s counter-culture characters who had taken life to quite a few excesses, then withdrawn and become much more philosophical. I think Jaques is described as having been a very louche character in his past, so physically I wanted to play him in very back foot, very relaxed way. He’s got his shirt hanging out and jacket over his shoulder, his hair is a bit too long. I think becoming like that is one of the things that has fed into making him a little bit more philosophical than he was at the beginning. I don’t want the audience to go, ”Oh, I see, he thinks he’s Bob Dylan”, but I talked through the costume with the designer, trying to find a look where there was a resonance of that 60s feel that I talked about. So I have a wig of long hair, slightly curly, slightly romantic (I’ve got very short hair naturally). The look is quite slim. I’ve got a very nice shirt with very tight suede, a fitted suede jacket as well knee-length boots and suede trousers; they would have been baggier in Elizabethan times, but we’ve made them more fitted.

Staging

Thea [Sharrock, director] hasn’t really staged it in terms of where we stand on the stage, but certain patterns have emerged and some scenes are more locked in place than others, for example the final wedding. But, for example, in my long scene where I give the seven ages of man speech (2.7), nothing has really been set for me; I can do whatever I want. I think there has got to be a balance between finding the connection with the audience and playing it inward. I know Thea wants me to take it down into the yard and take it out to the audience, while trying to keep it strongly internal at the same time. So it needs to be both ways and I think that’s going to be something that I’m going to have to discover more in performance. If it becomes internal, then it’ll be lost in this space, it has to be outward too.

Set design

The stage is being extended into the yard by several feet, which gives the opportunity to play more centrally and be closer to the audience. Then there are two walkways which go out diagonally, more or less from the two downstage corners. We can enter and exit on those and play scenes across them. In Act 3.2, which I have with Orlando, we’re standing on opposite walkways, so we can play it across the people in the yard, which is nice as it gives it a lot of energy. There are hanging fake pillars which at the start are covered in black to signify Duke Frederick’s court, and which then become the woods in Arden. Beyond that, there’s no other real scenery or set; there’s not an awful lot you can change with the Globe as you are dictated to by the stage.

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 progresses.

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