First Preview was last night. I think I'm an optimistic person in general; if not a "glass-half-full" guy then at least an apathetic "not-that-thirsty-anyway" type. But last night our entire production was almost blown away by what our director termed GALE FORCE WINDS. Seriously, there were times when it felt like any actor in a long-robed costume might just take sail and float off the stage.
It was hard not to take it badly, but the truth is it was no ones fault (you could argue it was Mother Nature's fault, but who can be mad at her? Plus who has her number?) The audience was remarkably understanding and stayed the whole time. On the good side it's going to be hard for it to be any harder weather-wise. On the bad side young Caroline Gelber (Prince Edward) nearly had her wig untimely ript off her head by a erstwhile gust.
Still, on to preview number two!
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
See Dick Run (w/designers)
The designer run arrived and went. All in all I think people were happy. It’s such a monstrous play as far as politics, death and the simple amount of lines Richard has that it can be exhausting to watch as well as play. Reg is going at it like a champ, surely losing five pounds per act and his drive is enough that the rest of us get swept along.
A couple things that have maturated nicely in the most recent run: The textual cuts look and sound good. There doesn’t seem to be any extra dangly bits hanging off this particular theatrical cut of meat. Apt metaphor actually, since the play is now lean and bloody.
With the text changes a couple characters that were given a little short shrift have been brought nicely to the fore. Catesby and Ratcliffe (in previous productions I’ve seen they have been confused, combined or cut entirely) now have an individual personality and satisfying arc to each of them.
The addition of a couple extra female characters to the show; Mistress Shore (“mistress” to King Edward and Lord Hastings) and Young Elizabeth (King Edward’s daughter, later espoused to Richmond.) These are “extra-textual ladies” that are alluded to in the script but that Mark has popped directly into the story. R3 is a play with the potential to be a massive Y Chromosome party so it’s nice to expand the women’s role a bit. Plus Mistress Shore in particular gives us a chance to add a little sex to the general violence and we all know audience people HATE that.
Finally, I think we can safely assure that the play will be under 3 hours (knock on wood!) It moves along like a little Italian motorcar (making occasional stops to hit dogs and squish pedestrians) and with any luck people will be out before the sun rises.
A couple things that have maturated nicely in the most recent run: The textual cuts look and sound good. There doesn’t seem to be any extra dangly bits hanging off this particular theatrical cut of meat. Apt metaphor actually, since the play is now lean and bloody.
With the text changes a couple characters that were given a little short shrift have been brought nicely to the fore. Catesby and Ratcliffe (in previous productions I’ve seen they have been confused, combined or cut entirely) now have an individual personality and satisfying arc to each of them.
The addition of a couple extra female characters to the show; Mistress Shore (“mistress” to King Edward and Lord Hastings) and Young Elizabeth (King Edward’s daughter, later espoused to Richmond.) These are “extra-textual ladies” that are alluded to in the script but that Mark has popped directly into the story. R3 is a play with the potential to be a massive Y Chromosome party so it’s nice to expand the women’s role a bit. Plus Mistress Shore in particular gives us a chance to add a little sex to the general violence and we all know audience people HATE that.
Finally, I think we can safely assure that the play will be under 3 hours (knock on wood!) It moves along like a little Italian motorcar (making occasional stops to hit dogs and squish pedestrians) and with any luck people will be out before the sun rises.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Superior Stage Blood: Ketchup or Caro Syrup? Discuss!
A bit of the last weeks insight:
On the the front of violence there have been many intriguing developments. Particularly in the area of death, blood and maimage. Dave (last name forthcoming) is our fight choreographer and was responsible for last years vertebrae-popping wrestling match in As You Like It. He's arranged all the able-bodied men of the cast to take part in the final Act Five melee (The Climactic Battle Between the Army of Richard and the Army of Richmond). Somehow the "elderly and infirm" Dan Hiatt and Jim Carpenter have managed to be excused from this, even though Carpenter can be seen jealously stroking the broadswords when no ones looking and occasionally wielding them with startling ability. Still we have a bonny crew of bloodthirsty theatre-nerds who love nothing more than to yell inarticulate battlecries and gleefully bang each other to pieces with sword and shield. All with the utmost safety and caution, of course. Above is a cell phone picture of Reg beating the prose out of Blake Ellis (Richmond).
Besides this, there are some other wonderfully creepy bits that Dave has cooked up. I won't ruin it by being too specific but this is one of the plays with a bit of a body count and we'd be remiss if we didn't get a little messy. It's part of the fun.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Verse and the Art of Heavy-Breathing
We’re now a couple days into rehearsals. We’ve done the slow-text work quickly followed by the uncommonly bizarre experience known as the “first read-through”.
What’s nice about doing Richard III is that unless your playing the man himself there are spans of text where you mightn’t show up at all. The benefit, of course, is crossword puzzles; the danger is Jim Carpenter going missing from rehearsal like the narrative in a David Lynch film. To be fair, both he and I are in one of those positions where we appear early in the play; give a particularly long, eloquent and purple-ish speech … and then drop down dead. And once you’ve died it’s understandable you’d think you’d be done for the day.
One aspect of rehearsals I’ve come to enjoy is our voice and text instructor Fonta. At first I misheard her name and went through our session calling her a mix of “Fanny” and “Fatwa”. She didn’t seem to mind. She’s one of those infectiously optimistic personalities, which helps in voice work, I think, since it’s a time when actors can easily become self-conscious. After all, when one’s bent over, pushing against a wall in the Facilities Office and yodeling into a Nicholas Nickelby poster of Danny Scheie posturing in false side-burns it’s self-possession that’s the first thing to go.
What’s nice about doing Richard III is that unless your playing the man himself there are spans of text where you mightn’t show up at all. The benefit, of course, is crossword puzzles; the danger is Jim Carpenter going missing from rehearsal like the narrative in a David Lynch film. To be fair, both he and I are in one of those positions where we appear early in the play; give a particularly long, eloquent and purple-ish speech … and then drop down dead. And once you’ve died it’s understandable you’d think you’d be done for the day.
One aspect of rehearsals I’ve come to enjoy is our voice and text instructor Fonta. At first I misheard her name and went through our session calling her a mix of “Fanny” and “Fatwa”. She didn’t seem to mind. She’s one of those infectiously optimistic personalities, which helps in voice work, I think, since it’s a time when actors can easily become self-conscious. After all, when one’s bent over, pushing against a wall in the Facilities Office and yodeling into a Nicholas Nickelby poster of Danny Scheie posturing in false side-burns it’s self-possession that’s the first thing to go.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
The First Day of Rehearsal
RICHARD THE THIRD or "Early Shakespeare Murder-Spree in Verse"
Day One
There was a lot of nervous excitement this morning.
Liam Vincent (the actor playing Catesby), while waiting to be costume-fitted said "It's like the first day of school."
"Yes," I replied, "I actually left the house wondering if the other kids are going to make fun of my clothes like before."
Is it meaningful that the first day of rehearsals fell on the first of the month? The cast (a whopping one, this is one of the histories after all) assembled at the Heinz. There followed the usual series of introductory remarks; usual not in a redundant way but almost ritualistic. Everyone wants to start rehearsals off right. Even more so since this is the first play in the CalShakes season.
Mark has filled the cast with a slew of CalShakes regulars (or irregulars take you pick) notably Liam Vincent, James Carpenter, Dan Hiatt, Sharon Lockwood, Catherine Castellanos and Susannah Livingston (the artist formerly known as Schulman). As well as Elvy Yost and Eddie Webster. Several new faces (or new to me) as well: Blake Ellis and Brad Myers have dropped in from Fresno. And of course our Richard is played by a wonderful actor Reg Rogers. Who I didn't hesitate to Google all up and down the internet.
After the speechs had been made Mark briefed us on his first-day impressions of the play. "Richard's supposed to be this first incarnation of evil in writing or something." he said, "I don't think so. Everyone in the play is self-serving it's just his time to shine." The model of the set was brought out; a fascinating thing that looked like an Elizabethan stage dissected and spread around with neon and flourescents gravy. The costumes were described and sound almost painfully awesome (modern armor and sort of gothic) and everyone was given the newly cut script.
This is incredibly important, of course. As any one will tell you (anyone being a drama-nerd) no-one sees the same Richard the Third twice. The play is nearly Shakespeare's longest and has so many knotty bits (not naughty bits, but those too) and also some quite long and difficult passages so that the only solution is to cut and cut bravely. This means that any production is necessarily a kind of adaptation and very unique. The 90's Ian McKellan film (which was excellent) is a great example of how much restructuring and surgery a given version needs. Mark and the able-bodied CalShakes dramaturg Laura Hope did a killer first draft for the first rehearsal which they made clear to us all was a FIRST draft.
"Some of these cuts are for real and some are to provoke debate." Mark pithed. And that's true; I'm sure many more cuts will be proposed, argued, rejected, re-preposed and finally snuck in while nobody's looking. If surgery were done like this it'd take a year to get your tonsils out, but for a play it actually works very well. Plus it's nice to have some big cuts made without you. If the director decides it you can sigh and mourn for the line that never saw the light of day and move on. But if it's your decision then it becomes a whole "tempest of the soul" thing. And that's way more interesting onstage then in your room.
After that, Mark forwent (real word?) the usual "read through the whole play while the administrative staff quietly files out of the room" part of first rehearsals and had us launch right into the slow but valuable text work. A nice move, I thought. So much of the first day is ritual, meant to inspire people and set mood for the process to begin, that it's easy to forget that's it's also a day to rehearse the play. And there is something really cool about sitting down with all your scripts and hearing a guy start you off with "Now is the winter of our discontent ..." It's high job-satisfaction and a good way to start a play.
Day One
There was a lot of nervous excitement this morning.
Liam Vincent (the actor playing Catesby), while waiting to be costume-fitted said "It's like the first day of school."
"Yes," I replied, "I actually left the house wondering if the other kids are going to make fun of my clothes like before."
Is it meaningful that the first day of rehearsals fell on the first of the month? The cast (a whopping one, this is one of the histories after all) assembled at the Heinz. There followed the usual series of introductory remarks; usual not in a redundant way but almost ritualistic. Everyone wants to start rehearsals off right. Even more so since this is the first play in the CalShakes season.
Mark has filled the cast with a slew of CalShakes regulars (or irregulars take you pick) notably Liam Vincent, James Carpenter, Dan Hiatt, Sharon Lockwood, Catherine Castellanos and Susannah Livingston (the artist formerly known as Schulman). As well as Elvy Yost and Eddie Webster. Several new faces (or new to me) as well: Blake Ellis and Brad Myers have dropped in from Fresno. And of course our Richard is played by a wonderful actor Reg Rogers. Who I didn't hesitate to Google all up and down the internet.
After the speechs had been made Mark briefed us on his first-day impressions of the play. "Richard's supposed to be this first incarnation of evil in writing or something." he said, "I don't think so. Everyone in the play is self-serving it's just his time to shine." The model of the set was brought out; a fascinating thing that looked like an Elizabethan stage dissected and spread around with neon and flourescents gravy. The costumes were described and sound almost painfully awesome (modern armor and sort of gothic) and everyone was given the newly cut script.
This is incredibly important, of course. As any one will tell you (anyone being a drama-nerd) no-one sees the same Richard the Third twice. The play is nearly Shakespeare's longest and has so many knotty bits (not naughty bits, but those too) and also some quite long and difficult passages so that the only solution is to cut and cut bravely. This means that any production is necessarily a kind of adaptation and very unique. The 90's Ian McKellan film (which was excellent) is a great example of how much restructuring and surgery a given version needs. Mark and the able-bodied CalShakes dramaturg Laura Hope did a killer first draft for the first rehearsal which they made clear to us all was a FIRST draft.
"Some of these cuts are for real and some are to provoke debate." Mark pithed. And that's true; I'm sure many more cuts will be proposed, argued, rejected, re-preposed and finally snuck in while nobody's looking. If surgery were done like this it'd take a year to get your tonsils out, but for a play it actually works very well. Plus it's nice to have some big cuts made without you. If the director decides it you can sigh and mourn for the line that never saw the light of day and move on. But if it's your decision then it becomes a whole "tempest of the soul" thing. And that's way more interesting onstage then in your room.
After that, Mark forwent (real word?) the usual "read through the whole play while the administrative staff quietly files out of the room" part of first rehearsals and had us launch right into the slow but valuable text work. A nice move, I thought. So much of the first day is ritual, meant to inspire people and set mood for the process to begin, that it's easy to forget that's it's also a day to rehearse the play. And there is something really cool about sitting down with all your scripts and hearing a guy start you off with "Now is the winter of our discontent ..." It's high job-satisfaction and a good way to start a play.
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