Globe Education Online

This is Michelle's first blog post. This week she discusses how she became an actress, her reflections on the Globe and Love's Labour's Lost and the first week of rehearsals.

Becoming an actress

I have, as far as I can remember, always wanted be an actress. Since I was ten I have wanted to be an actress. I went to a local amateur dramatic society and did LAMDA exams in poetry, prose and spoken verse. I grew up in Western Super Mere, where there are lots of drama festivals, which I took part in. Then I went to National Youth theatre at the age of fourteen. After school I went to Cardiff University to read English, but basically immersed my self in the drama society there. After university I went to RADA for three years and graduated three years ago.

Previous Shakespeare

I have played Celia in As You Like It, in Stoke on Trent at the Old Vic, Newcastle Upon Lyme. It is a beautiful theatre, it’s in the round and perfect for Shakespeare. I played Perdita in The Winter’s Tale last year for the RSC.

Globe Shakespeare

I saw the Mark Rylance Twelfth Night a few years ago. Tim was in it playing Malvolio [Timothy Walker is playing Don Adriano de Armado in Love’s Labour’s Lost]. It was the definitive Shakespeare production. I remember I was at drama school and everyone was: ‘Wow!’ It made sense of how Shakespeare should be done, especially in this space, on this stage. Everything is for the audience, the comedy, the self consciousness of the text, it is all for the audience.

I saw most of last years theatre season here, Antony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus, In Extremis. This season I have seen Othello and In Extremis again. It is amazing.

I think, having done promenade theatre and now coming to this space, I can’t imagine Shakespeare done any other way. In the round, or here, or in promenade the audience are active, because they can see each other. There is a heightened awareness and heightened listening, because if at any moment they are not listening someone can go ‘Oi!’ The audience are so much a part of the theatre. When you get halfway through rehearsals you think, now we just need people to see it, because they’ll teach us what’s funny or which bits we need to speak up. We tend to try and spell Shakespeare out, and actually, especially here, you realise when you are watching it, the audience listen so acutely that they get it.

I haven’t done very much Shakespeare, but I was speaking to Anton Lesser and Linda Basset at the RSC who have both done lots of Shakespeare about how the writing is so infinite, and as a young actress you do it and you are always left inadequate. You come off the stage thinking ‘I didn’t quite get it.’ Whereas with lots of other texts that you do, that are not as well written, you know where you need to be to nail it. You never really nail Shakespeare because it is so much bigger and better than you. It is just the way it is going to be, especially in this space, it transcends you and you just have to go with it and play up to it rather than apologising for it. The massive ideas and subjects that Shakespeare tackles are so human. I think that is why his work has lasted so long. Every time I read the ‘To be or not to be speech’ from Hamlet, I think it is the most perfectly put piece of philosophy, it is amazing!

Love’s Labour’s Lost

I didn’t know the play before I was cast. My initial reaction to the play was: ‘what on earth are they talking about?’ It is really intricate and the play is only about people talking. It is about people, linguists who are clever with language, and that’s it! It is about Shakespeare playing with words.

I have read a lot of Shakespeare, but when I was reading Love’s Labour’s Lost, I don’t know what the statistic is but, the amount of words that Shakespeare makes up, its brilliant and quite overwhelming.

I don’t really know what I first thought of the Princess of France. I noted her ability with language and the force of four women that all have this wit and language at their disposal, this weapon, this arsenal of language. As a woman, you don’t tend to get that in much, especially in Shakespeare. They are actually women in their own right; independent and they win all the linguistic battles hands down. Because of their poise and their absolute assurance of who they are, they just fire words at these men who end up babbling, but the power of these women! I know initially they would have been played by men but it was all in the time of Queen Elizabeth. It is a play very specific to his time.

Week one of rehearsals

In week one, we put the script into our own words, making sure we understood what we were saying. The only time we got on our feet was when we had a voice workshop and a jig workshop. We have just been sat round a table and literally trying to decipher what every single word in the play means. There are a lot of speeches where the sense is clear, but actually specifically what are you saying, the big ideas and conceits, that needs to be clear too. It would be easy to let the whole to wash over you and go: ‘Yeah generally I get it, but specifically?’ Especially as the characters have to look so confident about what they are talking about, there is no room for doubt. In this play, they are so conscious when they don’t know what they are talking about. Shakespeare deliberately makes it obvious, that you have to really know what you are talking about when you are meant to.

Jig

There are lots of dances in the play. At the moment I know there’s going to be two dances within the play and I am not sure what happens towards the end. Then there is the jig at the end. The jig rehearsals have been quite nice because the scenes are so bitty, you only tend to see the actors you are in the scenes with, so it is quite nice to have these group session with the whole cast. Sian’s brilliant, but she makes it look so simple. And it is the hardest thing in the world!

Text

I had a text workshop with Giles yesterday. My character speaks mostly in verse, but then deliberately chooses to use prose to cut someone down or shut someone up.

Design

I have seen the sketches of the costume for the Princess, which is very Elizabethan. If they are true to the period then the dresses will have high nicks and ruffs, but I think what they are going to try and do is have open chests so that we look a bit more feminine and a bit more sexy. The women use their sexuality so much to dominate these men. There were no colours on the drawing. I think maybe I am going to be in gold colours and the other girls are in bright colours. I know I will be wearing a wig, because I had my wig cellophane head wrapped around thing! I don’t know what it’s going to look like. I haven’t been told. I think there is going to be a high brow thing.

Set

I have seen the model box. The play talks about the court, but actually most of the action happens outside in the open air. The Princess lives in the tent for the most of the play, and then there is the hunt. So this is the courtly world coming to the natural world. The pillars will be all decorated with these trees and the two back doors will have trees in front, so it looks like when you leave the stage you are going into the forest.

Performing on the Globe stage

On the first day we got to go out and stand on the stage. It is overwhelming when you first stand out there because this is a mythical space. I am quite glad I am playing a Princess, because I will have the status to own the stage. If the world is your domain, the world is your court, you rule it. So somehow I have to find that poise that controls the space.

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.

Back to Princess of France