The last night of Love’s Labour’s Lost was amazing. Firstly, we managed to get back outside! Due to rain (and the threat thereof), we hadn’t performed in Merton Fellows’ Garden since opening night: although I was very fond of the chapel space, I think I was in the minority among the cast, most of whom were definitely glad to get back to the Herm and the bench and the trees. The weather was balmy, warm and still. I so wish we’d done more performances – everything was so much better on Monday night, and although Friday, Saturday and Sunday were all better than I’d expected, by Monday we had a really strong show with so much potential. I had a terrible case of post-show-blues on Tuesday (hate everything, never gonna be onstage again, nothing else has meaning, life is worthless, weep); our cast was becoming so cohesive, and a last-night party in my home college reminded me how horribly I’m going to miss the place, come August. I should say I haven’t behaved quite so badly onstage since school – Phil and I were viciously corpsing each other all night, hopefully without audience notice, and the Muscovite scene came close to hysteria when one of the beards fell off. This, even without the bottle of sherry (oh yeah, we know how to live) being passed round by Dan on the Sunday night.
An American tourist stopped me in the street yesterday to tell me I was ‘awesome’ as Moth – it completely made my (very long but very enjoyable day). I was on my way to a certain college – ladies and gentlemen, I have a DPhil supervisor. I may even have two (except I am HORRIBLY FRIGHTENED of both the additional possibilities, note to self work on this). My DPhil supervisor is beyond brilliant – she’s my first choice for supervision by about nine hundred years, and has been since Michaelmas of my first year (because, you know, I am in a constant state of evolution and flux). Admittedly, I don’t yet have a research proposal, place, or funding, but it’s nice to think that should the great fruit machine of postgraduate possibility vomit out 3 7s or similar, I’ll have someone willing to teach me in October 2010.
Still unemployed come September. I must say, getting job rejections definitely becomes easier; quite often, when I get the emails, I can’t remember what the job was for in the first place.
The rain it raineth Saturday. Long and hard, until it had drenched the steeples, drowned the clocks and put pay to any chance of our performing in Merton Fellows’ Gardens last night. And so to Merton Antechapel, and the truly heroic efforts of Jenny O’Sullivan and Phil Aherne to get everything moved and marshalled in time. Sam Roots and Geraldo seemed to spend hours moving chairs, while the other 15 of the cast moved from pillar to post to Mob Quad 2:5 (cries from the non-Mertonians: “But we don’t know where that is!”), Merton’s Accessible Guest Room and now the home of 17 actors and 25 costumes. Not to mention several very wet carrier bags of civilian clothing.
As predicted in my last post, yesterday’s audience were a bunch of smilers – having a great time, it seemed, but not being very loud about it! The pace was much better than the first night & we definitely knocked a good few minutes off the (already reasonably short) running time. Obviously, with an abrupt move from open-air to indoor, thrust staging, the blocking was a little bit hair-raising (we had to reblock the end of Scene 9 while half the cast was on stage) – vocally, though, the move was an interesting one. Outdoors, vocal power is key & usually the girls have a harder time of it than the boys. Men have a more impressive lung capacity & our male actors are, as it happens, predominantly more experienced actors (or singers in the case of Dan McLean, for example) than our women. Women’s higher voices are more likely to be lost in the wind. In the antechapel, however, the acoustics are determined by a high vaulted ceiling, stone floor, and a rood screen leading to the chapel body itself. Suddenly, the men’s voices are far more problematic; their reverberation triggers the echo and, for the first time, audiences said that the girls excelled the boys in clarity (if not always in volume). Definitely something to think about; I wonder, if I was directing an entirely chapel play, what I’d do to ensure good sound. What the rules are, if I’d need/use/be allowed to use deadeners. And whom, in all of Oxford, would be the best person to talk to…
3rd show tonight. Setting off in a second. See you there!
…was attended by a series of miracles. Firstly (and for the first time in our whole rehearsal period), we competed with only one plane, no drilling, only one garden party and neither wind nor rain. More-than-sold-out, our audience cheerfully (well, mostly) sat on MCR furniture, benches and picnic blankets in addition to the hired seating (tip for future audiences: get there early. I am excessively paranoid about being late for the theatre, and even I was surprised how quickly we filled up once it got to 7). I say ‘mostly cheerfully’ because one latecomer had a strop at the interval about sitting on the grass, meaning that our heroic Production Manager (a misleading term which actually encompasses ‘all known technical staff’) had to break into Merton JCR and steal two more chairs. Merton Fellows’ Garden looked beautiful (as the space which inspired Narnia could hardly fail to do), and even provided some of the props – Jacquenetta’s final scene bouquet (wait and see) was hand-tied by the College Head Gardener, and buttonholes for Moth and Armado were plucked from the flowerbeds during the second half.
Our dressing room is James Lowe (Navarre)’s bedroom. This is large and nice enough to fulfil every stereotype about Oxford accommodation, and is also impressively neat. James himself was a saint, first off reverting to some sort of Edwardian priss (appropriate, that) by suggesting that The Men Let The Ladies Go And Dress, and then amenably spending the next three hours going ‘Can I come in? NO SORRY SORRY I DIDN’T WANT TO ANYWAY’. The rest of the time, when not backstage (i.e. Behind The Tree, Quietly Freezing), the cast masses in the Music Room, a tiny rose-fringed building that audience members occasionally mistake for the theatre. Sam Roots (Dumaine) spends a lot of time sitting around playing the piano with casual and terrifying brilliance.
And the performance itself? Went well. Much better, in fact, that anyone could have hoped for. When the 13 actors offstage for I.1 heard James say ‘Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives […]’, there was a certain amount of shock that this was, finally, actually happening, but apart from one hiccup in the last scene (over which may a charitable veil be drawn), it went well. The wait for the first laugh is always horrific, but fortunately came with Phil Aherne as Costard, establishing for the rest of the evening that what this audience would respond to was: campness, silly voices, silly walks, silly noises, and sex jokes. So that was what we gave them. Tonight we’ll probably have one of those terrifying audiences that only laughs to show they understand the language, or worse, a bunch of smilers. Note to public: ACTORS CANNOT HEAR YOUR SMILES. In the case of this actor, without her glasses and in the dusk, she cannot even see your faces. Laugh. Loud, and often. One unexpected effect of the semi-blindness was that when Daniel McLean ran towards me in full Muscovite gear (comedy beard, now with the addition of a fluffy hat), I had no idea who he was and thought I was about to be assaulted by Rasputin.
Have spent the morning asking myself profound questions (‘Where did I put my glasses before showering? How did my room get like this? Where is the selotape?’) and nursing certain bruises from an AMAZING Propeller workshop just before the show. More on that when I get time, but now, I have Primark shirts to buy…
We had our wet weather venue rehearsal this morning, running the show as best we could. Despite apprehension about moving, several of us have turned out to prefer the space, myself included. It’s more obviously a thrust stage, offering us greater freedom of movement, and a second level (though probably only Krishna, as Berowne, will get the chance to go up there). When not onstage (or writing essays), the cast explored the chapel (we’ll be performing in the antechapel) and flicked through the book Sam’s reading – Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. Sam is a terrifying (Material) scientist, but I could understand it so it must be pretty mainstream.
The men of Merton are not in fine fettle this morning, Ed White (Armado) feeling rather tired if not emotional, and Phil Aherne (Costard) existing in a straightforward alcoholic fug. However, Krishna’s mum is somewhere cooking delicious food, so presumably he’s being well looked after. Geraldo Silva Neto (Marcade) is back from Italy; Eleanor Lischka (Nathaniel)’s exams are almost over and – apart from the fact that Dan McLean (Longaville) was in the library until 5 this morning, we’re more-or-less raring to go.
It’s bloody cold in that chapel. We’re on our lunch break now, til 3 (second run & DRESS in Merton Fellows’ Garden) and I’m using the time to interim to have hall lunch (free, in the sense I don’t have to pay for it yet) about doing Father’s Day shopping, debate the wisdom of dashing home for WARMER CLOTHES, and send begging emails to squeeze more friends & relations into Saturday night. Saturday night is now completely sold out; Friday is almost sold out, and Sunday and Monday are definitely going fast (I just reserved 6 tickets for the last night, and apparently there aren’t many more left…). And, of course, I’m here to blog. It’s really bloody cold.
Love’s Labour’s Lost | by William Shakespeare | 19-22 June 2009, performance nightly | Merton Fellows’ Garden | tickets £7, £5 concs, book @ lovedandlostinoxford@gmail.com | dir. Krishna Omkar and Ellen Davnall | A Merton Floats Production | THE COMPANY: Phil Aherne, Sophie Duncan, Eleanor Lischka, Samantha Losey, James Lowe, Max de Marenbon, Martha May, Dan McLean, Charlotte Mulliner, Krishna Omkar, Emily Roessler, Sam Roots, Michaël Roy, Geraldo Silva Neto, Rebecca Tay, Ed White |
l to r: Liam (Dull), James (Navarre) Phil (Costard) and Krishna (directing).
We are rehearsing. It’s good. Our cast is somewhat reshuffled and now complete – we’ve welcomed Martha May as the Princess, and Dan McLean as Longaville. I’m sorrier than I can say to see Rob and Ellen go (nothing sinister – work and family commitments) but the new people are great and it’s good to be a secure company. Merton & Oriel are especially well-represented – the latter provides myself, Rebecca Tay as Jacquenetta and Dan McLean. The last two are both JCR Theologians, for added crossover.
The weather, too, is glorious; the pastier amongst us (…that’d be Ed and I) are swooning slightly in the heat, but I wouldn’t miss the chance to rehearse in the space. When I directed the Oriel Garden Show, two years ago, we were lucky enough to rehearse in the quad for a good three weeks or so; now, college red-tape seems to make everything a lot trickier. Thank God Merton is so huge – we’re a long way from any rooms, and the one eye-witness report (my friend Jodie saying ‘this isn’t meant to sound creepy, but I think I watched your rehearsal’) suggested our spectator actually enjoys the sound of a bit of Shakepseare in the afternoons.
I’m playing Moth. No, not the fairy. The page. The small, compulsively clever, unstoppable show-off and occasionally vicious little brat to whose canonical characteristics Krishna and I seem to have added mild hyperactivity. I never stand still. Except on the bench (our sole bit of set!). Moth is the page and comic foil to Don Armado, the Spanish lover-and-or-fighter who brings chaos to the court of Navarre. And he never shuts up. At the moment I think Moth’s about 13-14; a good choice for a page, and, obviously, any boy I’m playing can’t be too mature or adolescent. He’s crueller than I originally thought; the cross-casting of Holofernes and Nathaniel (Ellen Davnall and Eleanor Lischka) means that when he mocks them, it’s a young teenage boy having a nasty go at two old women; different resonances to the usual schoolboy/pantaloon clash. He also has more of an arc than I’d expected – we see him meet & develop a friendship with Costard (Phil Aherne). These notes could become tediously detailed, but one thing that’s really coming out is that not only (as K points out) is he almost always the teacher in what should be a reversed pupil/teacher relationship), but he has more natural authority; in a scene where Armado has to imprison Costard, it’s Moth who actually takes him off to prison, with far less fuss. I imagine him a bit like one of the Magdalen/New College schoolboys you see walking through town all the time.
I must admit that I’m already having the occasional shiver of stage fright. It’s such a long time since I acted, especially acted-without-also-directing, and the usual formula that having directed plays (the biggest possible stress) cured my stagefright (acting = relatively unterrifying) has gone. Gone. I’m worried I’m too old, curvy, female, high-pitched, quiet and clumsy for this part. But then, all the scampering and running I’m doing has gone pretty well so far, although there’s one weird little bit of dancing that (while v effective) is already a possible source of nerves. I have no idea where to practice it – my room doesn’t give me enough of a run-up, and jigging about in the corridors could be interpreted as psychological warfare enacted on my neighbours. Equally, doing it outside (presumably after dark) might easily give rises to suspicions of a satanic rite. Oh the vicississitudes of my life.
Lots of movement is definitely the way to go – not only because Moth has some incredibly wordy speeches to deliver (fortunately my forays into Latin are v brief), but because of the one helpful fact I’ve gleaned from neurotic academic scrabbling through Love’s Labour’s Lost‘s stage history. Well, no, there are two. The first is that the play was written as am-dram, for lawyers, to be performed in the Inner Temple. Hence, you might say, all the Latin and loquacity, and leave it at that. IN FACT, the legal profession clearly have the filthiest minds of those alive today – the play, so sweetly beautiful at the RSC, is actually pure filth. We discovered this at the readthrough. You can get a lot of mileage from the word ‘fructify’. Collapse of cast.
Anyway, my one useful fact is that, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the play has often been staged in a double-bill with The Tempest and, in such cases, Moth usually doubles Ariel.
So as far as movement goes, we’re probably on the right track, then.
Obviously, the rehearsal period is going to get extremely intense between now and our 19 June opening, but that’ll be no change for our cast – 15 of us were in plays in 5th week, a couple more have productions in 6th, and two of us (Ed and myself, fortunately) have Masters dissertations to hand in, four days before we open! Oh, and Phil and James just did finals or something. Whatevs. And everybody else seems to do a lot of rowing (cue lycra, muscles, and plenty of people to finally explain what ‘rowed on’ means – I know, it’s terrible).
Before show week, though, we have workshops oh yes. Propeller is coming to work with us (I AM SO PATHETICALLY EXCITED ABOUT THIS) during their week in Oxford, we’ll be learning ballroom dancing and also choral singing (this last in preparation for the final scene). I think we’re quite a musical cast – although obviously Rebecca has been doing musical theatre all through Oxford – so that should be fun. Workshops seem to be the latest thespy vogue, along with 1) experimental theatre in the O’Reilly (which seems to have edged out Hertford Bop Cellar as Top Place To Wear Leggings In) and 2) thespian blogs. Er. Whoops. I am all in favour; training is such an important part of rehearsals, particularly for student actors who want to turn professional, but for whom having a first degree makes subsequent training much more expensive (and thus necessarily shorter). Obviously nothing we do here can replace drama school training (even Sian [Robins-Grace] who went from Oxford to the RSC in a matter of months had done BADA etc. in the holidays) for actors, but every little helps.
But yes. We are rehearsing. It’s good.
Love’s Labour’s Lost | by William Shakespeare | 19-22 June 2009, performance nightly | Merton Fellows’ Garden | tickets £7, £5 concs, book @ lovedandlostinoxford@gmail.com | dir. Krishna Omkar and Ellen Davnall | A Merton Floats Production | THE COMPANY: Phil Aherne, Sophie Duncan, Eleanor Lischka, Samantha Losey, James Lowe, Martha May, Dan McLean, Charlotte Mulliner, Krishna Omkar, Emily Roessler, Sam Roots, Michaël Roy, Geraldo Silva Neto, Rebecca Tay, Liam Wells, Ed White |
P.S. Another lesson I am learning from rehearsals – do not look scared and horrified when a co-actor (Michaël, in fact) tells you he reads your blog every day. This is good. This is why you’re writing. You want this to happen (LLL cast, hi!).
Our theatre: looking towards the Herm in Merton Fellows' Gardens
Sunday was our photoshoot for Love’s Labour’s Lost. A friend of mine said later on her blog that she’d seen someone inexplicably dressed as a king in Merton Fellows’ Garden – it was Ed! Looking rather like his namesake Edward VII in beard and ermine, our Don Armado put up nobly with the heat (another sufferer was Eleanor Lischka, as our curate Natalia) while black-tied boys and girls in white frolicked about. I suspect some sort of Faustian pact to pay for the costumes – they’re all really gorgeous. I’m still not sure exactly what I’ll be wearing for Moth (parcels are arriving from Cheltenham shortly, so I’m told…) but v1.0 features a little cream jacket that (on closer inspection) turned out to have an interesting tag. Apparently Moth v1.0 was worn by an undergraduate Kate Beckinsane, playing Nina in The Seagull! Above is a picture of our theatre space as it looked yesterday – but for a 360 degree experience, go here and click on ‘The Herm’.
The proper images will doubtless be on Facebook soon, but above and below are some sneak previews. The shoot was so much fun – my last was spent freezing in a cellar while the shirtless leading man developped goosebumps. Our photographers were very well organised, and our four court ladies were gambolling about like something out of the Branagh Much Ado About Nothing. Of course, we had the classic photo shoot mishaps of one dress zip malfunctioning – a certain actress had to keep facing the front – and a gaggle of excited tourists who may have ended up in one of the shots. Meanwhile, enjoy the splash, email for tickets &- oh, I nearly forgot. We now have a co-director, Ellen Davnall – a brilliant addition to the company. She’s also a Mertonian, and will be a huge asset to the company. Our MD is John Murton (the best pun will be rewarded with chocolate) and our Marketing Officer, Yasmin Mitha. Just please let the weather be like this in 8th…
Ed nobly does not die of sunstroke. Scout drops unconscious at apparent resurrection of Russian Tsar.The director directs, the photographers photograph, and Herm is not amused.
Courts of France and Navarre practice their loving looks. Emily and Robert horrify with their general beauty.
Love’s Labour’s Lost | by William Shakespeare | 19-24 June 2009 | Merton Fellows’ Garden | tickets £7, £5 concs | dir. Krishna Omkar and Ellen Davnall | A Merton Floats Production | THE COMPANY: Phil Aherne, Ellen Buddle, Robert Dacre, Sophie Duncan, Eleanor Lischka, Samantha Losey, James Lowe, Charlotte Mulliner, Krishna Omkar, Emily Roessler, Sam Roots, Michaël Roy, Geraldo Silva Neto, Rebecca Tay, Liam Wells, Ed White | lovedandlostinoxford@gmail.com
Yesterday was the first meeting, and partial readthrough, for the garden show in which I’m involved, next term! It’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, at Merton College, running from 23rd-27th June – and I’ve decided to blog the process. I’ve never publicly blogged a show before, so this is quite exciting. We’re fully cast and it looks as if it’s going to be an extremely exciting, collaborative process, in a seriously sexy setting. It’s great to be finally working with Krishna (the director) after years of enjoying each other’s work; originally, it looked as if I would be co-directing but the demands of my thesis next term make that more or less impossible (as I have to keep telling myself, sternly). I ran the first couple of days of auditions with him, then left him to it for recalls, so it was exciting to see who’s been cast. One very pleasant surprise was Ellen Buddle as the Princess of France; Ellen is one of my favourite people, my favourite actress to direct and just lovely. We are uniformly rubbish at meeting up so it’ll be good to be together so much at the end of next term. I’m playing Moth and thus will be opposite a guy called Ed White (Don Armado), an English postgrad whom I recognise from Faculty events. I also chatted to Michael Roy (who was quite nervous at audition) – French, teaching at St Hugh’s, and doing a DPhil in (get this) the early history of women’s colleges at Oxford. He seems absolutely lovely and I’m only sorry we won’t be onstage together much.
The setting will be Edwardian/pre-WW1 Oxford, with Elgar, academic lesbians (yes, Chlo, Virginia Woolf-esque women inna play), many many trees and general beauty & joy. Krishna definitely knows what he’s doing and I felt a stab of envy sitting there, looking round at this fabulous cast – I wish they were ours, not just his! But it’s wonderful to be acting again and I’m sure by next term, etc. We did some warm-ups (Joe! who works in a button factory! — this made me really miss Titas), then went and had a look at the space in the fading light. It was cold, and a bit damp (Ellen’s heels kept squelching into the mud), but already prettier than when I’d seen it last – the daffodils are out. Krishna did a lot of gesticulating and explaining that THAT THREE THERE WILL BE GREEN and also plotting the demise of one ‘piddly little thing’ (a shrub, not a cast member) spoiling the veiw. The problem with Merton is that it’s too pretty – there are too many ways we could plot the space. We had a chat about costumes, as well, specifically the issue of corseting for the girls – Ellen and I both think instinctively it’s a bad idea (though one which wouldn’t apply to me, hurrah, although possibly a breast binder will ohgod) given a) the relative inexperience of two or three of our lovely girls, which would make chest breathing more difficult, more likely and less desirable, and b) the inherent problems of projection once you get into a garden space.
Omkar informs us we already have print. The man is a machine. I think it’ll be a very happy company; most people seem to already know one or two people, which helps things gel, but since we’re still mostly strangers to each other, there’s no danger of cliques. There won’t be another meeting until next term, but I wanted to get the blog up and running before then.
LOVE’S LABOURS LOST | by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | 23-37 June 2009 | 9th week, Merton College, Oxford | dir. Krishna Omkar | THE COMPANY : Phil Aherne, Ellen Buddle, Robert Dacre, Sophie Duncan, Kate Lewin, Eleanor Lischka, Sam Losey, James Lowe, Charlotte Mulliner, Krishna Omkar, Emily Roessler, Sam Roots, Michael Roy, Geraldo Silva Neto, Rebecca Tay, Edmund White.
