Globe Education Online

My good sweet mouse, I commend me heartily to you ...

And so the 2009 tour of The Comedy of Errors begins in Brighton! We've out up our stage in what is essentially a graveyard at the bottom of a ramped hill that has a stone wall! There’s lots of grass all around the edge are tombstones, and then at various points in the field there are also these mighty tombs. Our stage is raised three foot, with steps at the front and the side, it all packs down and goes into a trailer. Then we’ve also got what they call the ‘tiring house’, which is very rustic and traditional: poles of wood with canvas lashed with rope and bunting – very mobile, you can tell it’s not permanent. It’s quite a relaxed atmosphere for us actors because you’re outside and you’re getting ready in a tent, it takes a lot of the hype out of it. So you’re able to just go on and do what you want to do and enjoy the experience. There’s just something about no walls that you open up more and it is really liberating being outside.

The first time we performed was supposed to be a dress rehearsal, but in the end it was our first night! It just sold so well, I think they asked Rebecca [Gatward, director] “Would you mind?” She said “No!” So we were just told in the afternoon: “This is not an open dress, it is now a performance.” The audience was at full capacity every single day. The audiences sit on the ground, or some people bring chairs, and they have their picnics and watch the show. In the play we directly address the audience, so if you choose someone with a mouthful of strawberry, that might not work! But it’s actually great - you see them sitting with their drinks and it’s a really casual atmosphere, so it makes it a lot less daunting than it could be. Due to the environment and performance times, a lot of people came with their children. It’s not the easiest plot in the world but at the end we had children and grownups alike saying, “I often get lost in Shakespeare, but I knew what was going on. You made it really accessible” and when you hear the children laughing it’s great.

We were so lucky with the weather; from the minute we got to Brighton, it was just gorgeous! We had this huge tree on one side of the stage which framed us beautifully, and shaded us from the sun, so we weren’t boiling to death. It was absolutely glorious every single day.

When we’ve been doing the carnival scenes, we are able to come down through the back of the audience down the hill. We used all of the space which just set it up beautifully, rather than us coming out of the side of the stage. It made the performance area bigger and a lot of the time we referred to that area too, or would run through the audience and gesture to things in the distance. The audience had to turn 360 degrees to see what was going on, so it was nice that the location really lent itself to our entrances.

It is different performing Shakespeare in the open air; for example, during intimate moments on stage between you and another character, of course your natural tendency is to speak slightly softer and if you’re being intimate, you’re usually very close to the other person too. However, if you do an intimate voice with intimate acting, it’s only you and the other person that are involved. No one else experiences the moment, so you have to be aware of that. Also, generally the audiences sit where they want to, so if people are sitting at the side, they don’t want to see you in profile for two hours, you have to open out and then you give eye contact and you get eye contact back.

Finding my character has been a real journey for me because I had this idea of who I thought Luciana was - very bookish and nerdy, but innocent and naïve. She gives out a lot of advice, she is definitely well-read, but not actually very experienced. Then we went through this whole phase during rehearsals when I played her as the passive-aggressive older sister and she was gunning for her and Antipholus to get together. I tried it a few times and then when we got the costumes, I saw Ronan’s glasses and I thought, “She’s definitely a nerd. Could I give her some glasses too?” It was brilliant! It’s funny how sometimes a prop just clicks you into something, so now we’ve come full circle again and she’s this terribly sweet, naïve, innocent girl who loves her sister more than anything, and is just always trying to help. Now the scene where it almost happens between her and Antipholus works so much better because she’s just trying to advise him but he completely misreads it. I didn’t want to play an unauthentic character. You don’t want the audience to hate you because you were horrid to your sister! You want them to laugh with you as well as see your pain and cry for you when it all goes wrong.

Hopefully I’ll be able to develop this more as the show goes on, but now, the next stop for us is Shakespeare’s Globe!

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