Globe Education Online

In this week's entry, Naomi [Frederick, Rosalind], discusses tech week, her costume and the opening night!

Tech Week

Tech weeks generally are when you have lights and sound and work out entrances and exits. However, tech week at the Globe doesn’t involve any lights or sound really (although a lot is about the musical cues with the band). Instead, because the Globe is such an unusual space (and a big space), the time is largely taken up with staging. We didn’t really stage our play when we were in the rehearsal room, which was a bold choice, but it made sense. Sometimes you slip into what we call ‘blocking’ – that is, literally where and when you are going to move on the stage (“I’m going to sit there and walk there and then I’m going to go round that pillar and off through that door”). You slip into a pattern in the rehearsal room and then just plonk that on the stage, which doesn’t always necessarily work as you can just go into autopilot from A to B which stops you from working the language. So by not setting it too soon, it keeps your attention on the words. As a result, tech week has been spent working out entrances and exits – we can’t be crashing into each other!

Costume

It was really nice to put the costumes. Our company has been really well dressed by Dick Bird (designer) who has done a great job. He said he has had practise because he has done a full Elizabethan production before, with Othello in 2007. He joked that he learnt then how to make the Elizabethan look into a good one, and it is true! There are lots of great leather trousers and lots of long boots. The breeches and the boots are good and everybody looks really classy, especially at the beginning in court. It is very exciting as an actor when you receive the costume, particularly when they’re good because you get a huge amount of support from the aesthetic, and you realise that everyone is working so hard for the play. It gives you such a psychological boost!

Opening Night

It is actually impossible to prepare for opening night. It was very useful having visitors in the organised tours, coming in and out of the theatre space as we were teching, so we got used to seeing people sitting in sections of the theatre. But nothing prepares you for 1500 people all sat there (or should I say standing there?) The space felt immediately smaller, really quite cosy, whereas the first time I walked in there and it was empty, I remember thinking “This is vast! I couldn’t even begin to fill it!” But actually it’s not vast. The stage only feels big when it’s empty, but everyone is packed quite tightly in; when it’s full the walls just seem to close in, it is quite amazing.

I played to the audience an awful lot on the first night, which I have done much less since. There is no way of preparing for it – the Globe is unique in that the audience is present and close and vocal in a way that they aren’t in other theatres. It is just a different stage dynamic and therefore a different theatre dynamic. I made the mistake of wanting to play too much to the audience at first, just because I felt them there, but actually the point is that you should play less to them, because they are right there. Every character has a different relationship to the audience, and I could never have guessed that, but I have been gradually discovering that and exploring it. Particularly working out what my relationship as Rosalind is with them.

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 progress.

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