Globe Education Online

This is the fourth bulletin from Naomi Frederick, playing Rosalind. This week Naomi talks extensively about playing a boy in the play and making her disguise as a man believable.

Playing a male character

I once had to play Jesus in Dennis Potter’s Son of Man, and I spent the first two weeks of rehearsals working out how to be a man, but then about a fortnight in, it occurred to me that Jesus wasn’t preoccupied with that; he was a man, and therefore I just had to be a man and get on with it. Obviously Rosalind isn’t a man – she’s just acting like a man – but it works so well for her because her own personality has a lot of masculine qualities anyway, So for me, it’s about exploring this aspect further, not having to obey any of the etiquette of what is expected of women, but just being a guy.

I think Rosalind has an obligation to become as much a boy as possible in everybody’s minds, including her own. I think that’s partly for the sake of Orlando, who totally mistakes her for a boy (like Corin and various others who aren’t in on the game); if she really is rather womanly and just happens to be wearing a bloke’s clothes, then Orlando looks very stupid. She also has to enter into it fully, or else we miss the point of the play, which is that somebody chooses a disguise for her own protection, enters imaginatively into the role and finds it so liberating and so exciting being that person that she actually forgets that she is Rosalind, not Ganymede.

Moving like a man

I have heard a lot of interesting things about the way boys operate from the other guys in the company! Of course, everybody is an individual in this life but if you make broad generalisations, it’s amazing the differences that come up. For example, I’ve been forbidden to walk backwards in rehearsals, because it’s too apologetic and humble and looks like you are making excuses; as a boy, I’ve got to show a natural assertiveness and not even ask the other person what they think, but just go for it straight, and say, “Yeah, this is what I think”. There is a physicality that goes with that, and when you stop being nervous of it and get into the groove of it, it’s really fun and quite seductive.

Thinking like a man, speaking like a man

I’ve been having voice sessions with Jan [Haydn-Rowles] and I thought it was going to be her saying, “Drop your shoulders, lower your voice”, but she is amazing – she’s more like a psychologist! And of course, she’s right to approach it that way, because the voice is the expression of the soul. It’s how she gets people to do accents that are entirely foreign to their own, because they are more to do with psychology and culture and the way that you think.

The wonderful thing about working with Jan is that it’s not a case of thinking about what I should or shouldn’t be doing next in terms of my voice. Instead, it’s to think about the way boys think (which is exactly what Rosalind adopts anyway). That’s the best disguise: if you stop thinking like a woman, you actually stop behaving like one. And if you stop behaving like a woman, then, in some respects, you stop being a woman. If you’ve got a few helpful things like short hair and trousers, then you’re quite far down the track to convincing other people that you are a boy.

So Jan has been pointing out a couple of the boys in the cast as very good examples of straight-forward guys who say what they think and don’t apologise for it. Interestingly, male thinking is often quite factual. Jan and I had a fascinating chat all about football, and why it ticks all the boxes for male behavior: there’s a team, with positions that can be compared; there is a league table where everything gets lined up and gets given a set number of points; and it’s a competition where you wait to find out who is going to win. It’s such a cliché that when men get together they talk about sport, but there are those reasons for it. So I’ve been thinking about that.

Jan has also been telling me little bits about what the son of one of her friends has been saying and how he already demonstrates that self confidence that can be typical in a lot of boys. It’s building up this picture of how men are so direct in their thought that they aren’t considering things laterally, which is what women do all the time. Even in approaching the part of playing a man, I was thinking in terms of how I would have to change things – voice, posture etc – but when you do that, you are thinking in terms of restrictions and frameworks; it prevents you from being natural.

Looking like a man

I’ve had my hair cut short now, and it’s been very helpful to look in the mirror and go “Oh yeah, I don’t have a ponytail to worry about anymore!” It’s much less fuss having short hair. What particularly helps is seeing other people’s reactions and how they respond according to the way you are. My husband said to me at home recently, “I can’t wait for you to wear a skirt again”, but of course I feel I can’t while I’m rehearsing for Rosalind – the bit I really have to conquer is being a boy. So, I have deliberately been choosing jeans and t-shirts for rehearsals, but as a result, have been turning up looking like Jack [Laskey, Orlando] amusingly! But then, boys’ clothes are a bit more limiting – I happened to put on jeans and a grey T-shirt, he did too – the choices aren’t vast!

All of that helps, because it’s about entering into the character and committing to being believable as a man. So you benefit from looking more boyish, because then it rebounds back to you via other people’s reactions and this corroborates your sense of the character.

Costumes

When I’m in the forest, my costume is going to be leather: leather jacket, leather breeches, long leather boots – leather top to toe! It’s very different to the layers of silk and petticoats and bodices and corsets and all of that that goes on at the beginning with Rosalind’s dress. Because my hair is now short, I have a longer wig at the beginning which I then whip off, as if I’ve cut my hair. It would be so nice to cut your hair every night – that would be so satisfying! – but obviously that can’t happen, so at the beginning, I have short hair underneath my wig.

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