Globe Education Online

In her second blog post, Michelle discusses how rehearsals have progressed, dance rehearsals and the complexities and inconsistancies of her character.

Week two and three of rehearsals

We’ve finished sitting round the table going through the Shakespeare and putting it into our own words. I have actually now read all of the play, bar the bit after Marcade comes in and says my Dad is dead, putting it back into Shakespeare’s words. We are still sat round a table looking each other in the eye and just saying the words. It has been great because now I know what I am saying. I understand what I am saying. I still have no idea why I am saying or how to say it, but at least I know what is being said.

Towards the middle of this week we were up and blocking the play. By the end of the week we’ll have pretty much blocked most of the play. The blocking is very much a rough guide, but obviously in the Globe, spacing on the stage and proximity to other actors matter more than anywhere else.

Dominic [Dromgoole, the director] blocks quite specifically. There are two gang ways in our set and so we are making sure that the space is balanced. That at any given moment an audience member will be able to see at least one member of the company.

So by the end of the week we will have hopefully blocked the whole of the play. Although it means I am at the stage where I feel a bit lost. It is that middle bit of the process where I am asking: ‘who am I? Who is my character?’ I sort of know her in scenes, but I haven’t got the journey of her character through the play yet. I know what I am saying and where I am meant to be when I say it, and I know who I am saying it to. But I have to find where her thoughts have come from and she is a difficult character, but all of the characters are quite difficult.

Dance

We have had one dance rehearsal for the hunting scene. We are going to have a primal hunting dance, the boys come on and do a dance and then we [the girls] come on and do a dance. We got the bows and arrows in rehearsals yesterday. We are warrior girls.

In jeans and t-shirts we know what we are doing but when we are in are big dress cages, with bows and arrows and these huge gloves and all the proper equipment! I don’t quite know what we are going to do with the dance!

Voice and text

Charmian [Hoare] is our voice person. We’ve had one group session and I think people are beginning to have individual sessions. Giles [Block] is our text master. I had one workshop with him last week which was amazing. He just reminds you that actually for all your fears and everything else that you add on top of it Shakespeare knows what he’s doing. So you’ve just got to trust him, which is hard to remind yourself when you get lost in vanity issues.

Character

My character is called the Princess of France. She doesn’t have a name. She is pure status. I don’t know if that is a conscious thing, because there is something very princess-y about her. Dominic [Dromgoole] and I have talked about this warmth that she has and that she is very benevolent and mature for her age and understanding. But there is also this barbed side to her. She throws the princess card every now and then, if she needs to. That is what I am finding hard. She’s not consistent. There is a sort of consistency to the other characters. Women in Shakespeare tend to be one thing and you try and colour it, but the Princess is so varied. One minute she’s the queen, and the next minute she’s a little girl. She’s this virgin that doesn’t understand anything about men, but the next minute she’s mischievous and she is human.

She is brilliant to play, but it is hard to access her complexity all at once. I have to remind myself that it’s ok, I have still got three weeks of rehearsals left and then I have still got four months of playing the part. I don’t have to find all the answers now. I am really enjoying myself, but I haven’t quite found the hook yet that you sort of go: ‘Ok that’s my way into her character.’ I haven’t quite got that yet.

I am going to research Queen Elizabeth. We are doing Love’s Labour’s Lost in period dress, and I don’t think an Elizabethan audience would have been able to get away from the fact that the moment a regal woman walks on stage, (despite being played by a boy) there would have been associations with Queen Elizabeth. I think that maybe my way in to the Princess of France. Queen Elizabeth was a virgin queen, which is effectively what the princess of France is; Elizabeth was also very much her father’s daughter, which of course the princess of France is too.

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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