Globe Education Online

Touchstone has become a ‘Northerner’ - David has decided to use his own local dialect which is ‘Lancashire’. He has been thinking about music hall performers such as Max Wall or ‘Little Titch’ whose physicality was very pronounced. Robert Armin, the originator of the part was very small in stature.

David has cut some of his longer speeches to remove phrases which will mystify a contemporary audience, e.g. Act 3 Scene 3:

...It is said, many a man knows no end
of his own goods. Right. Many a man has good horns
and knows no end of them.Well, that is the
dowry of his wife, ‘tis one of his own getting.

David has been told this week that he will have to sing a song with Audrey, he was worried about this but after some rehearsal feels confident that he will be able to sing the song.

As part of the rehearsal process the whole company went away for a residential weekend to an Elizabethan manor house where they lived ‘in role’ and acted out the scenes that are not in the play – in other words what happens to the characters when they are not on stage. This is helpful because it gives the cast a common memory, which they can draw on in later rehearsals. David spent time with Audrey looking after her goats (they imagined the goats!), he was also badly stung by stinging nettles which gave him one idea why Touchstone does not like the forest.

Unlike other Elizabethan clowns David has decided that his Touchstone will never directly address the audience.

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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