Back in Bristol

Week 4 of rehearsals and the first time that the whole cast, crew and production team have all come together under the same roof.

To mark our return to the Bristol Old Vic we took an informal tour of the Theatre where ‘Juliet and Her Romeo’ will be performed. Amongst much ‘ooohing’ and ‘aaahing’ director Tom Morris gave us a brief history.

1766 - Theatre opens, originally it has no gallery and the boxes on the ground floor were used as entrances onto a stage which extended up to where the boxes come to now.

1800 - The theatre ceiling is sloped to allow a gallery to be built

1880 - The end of the stage is pulled back causing actors to cry

‘they’ve thrown us out of the room’

1970 - Fly tower is built on an european model. Cooper’s hall is incorporated into the ‘Theatre Royal Complex’ and the Studio Theatre is built giving the Complex a whole new performance space

2010 - ‘Juliet and Her Romeo’ comes to the Bristol Old Vic

Tom Morris: ‘the theatre’s been messed about with, well, since it was built..

Dudley Sutton: ‘Yeah, just like the actors!’

What is very exciting is that for this show we are putting some elements of the theatre back to the way that they were when it first opened in 1766.

The stage will be extended again and use one of the ground floor boxes as a downstage entrance.

This week we have finally begun to work on the fight choreography with Kombat Kate the fight director. The fight is already realistic to the point that looking around the room I could see all of us angels watching with nail biting alarm.

Fire In The Belly

We want to be really specific about how frail the characters are and avoid generalisations. Through exercises, anecdotes and research we have discovered that the characters’ extent of fragility and exhaustion is not wholly about how elderly they are but more about their circumstances and the characters themselves.

An exercise that we have found very useful is putting physical exhaustion and drive on parallel scales of 1-10, 10 being the most exhausted or driven and 1 being the least.

In this way the actors can explore the struggle between bodily fatigue and their desire to say something, do something or get somewhere, which they can also picture as a fire building somewhere in their body.

Once the actors have discovered the way that they feel at different points on the scale they can plot how the scale changes for their character throughout the play.

An interview with our very own Friar Lawrence aka Tristan Sturrock aka Frankenspine!

So who do you think Friar Lawrence is, in our rather unique production of Romeo and Juliet?

In this story the Friar is still a confidant and friend of both Romeo and Juliet, but because of the context of the care home he has perhaps more relevance to being medical on the surface. Also because of the age difference in the show, there is an interesting relationship developing whereby he is advising Romeo as a young man to a much older man who needs his assurance perhaps more through frailty than wisdom…

The Friar is most likely to…

Listen and then speak (a lot!)- He is an advisor.

The Friar is least likely to…

Ignore someone/not listen

What would the Friar have for breakfast do you think?

Oh he’d definitely be a vegetarian! Probably some mushrooms on toast and a root vegetable smoothie… he probably has a penchant for marijuana too…

Which does he prefer- Western or Eastern approach to medicine?

Both I reckon, he is fascinated by most things and probably would be partial to giving out a little Valium under the table if you know what I mean…

Now Tristan on a more personal note, we were chatting the other day about the piece you performed recently here at Bristol Old Vic as part of Bristol Ferment, that piece was called ‘Frankenspine’ and was supposedly based on a true story, can you elaborate?

Yeah, well it was essentially a research and development piece that looked at a personal life changing event, which was me breaking my neck 5 years ago, and in the piece I used Shelly’s Frankenstein as a way of exploring what it felt like to awake with a new body.

Wow. Can you tell us more about what happened?

Sure. Like I said it was 5 years ago, and at some May day festival when I was off walking and fell 10ft backwards, landing on my head and severing my spine.

I was paralyzed and in shock and my body began to shut down, I nearly died, it was like the tide was coming in, it was like being buried alive.

I knew that unless I willed myself to stay awake I was going to die, drunk and wedged between a garage and a wall!

I couldn’t shout or move at all, but could see peoples feet in the distance, if they didn’t find me, I would die, if I panicked, I would die, if I slept I would die…

So I stayed calm and awake and after a while found it quite amusing!

How long were you there for!?

About 1 and a half hours.

How did they find you, how did you recover, how are you moving now!?

It was my partner Katie’s intuition to look for me and I was found and taken to hospital. Then it was looking at the ceiling for months, feeling claustrophobic and thinking- fuck, I’m a father and a husband and now I need care and I don’t want to be a burden to Katie- fuck that, I’m gonna move!

In all that despair what was the turning point, the first return to happiness moment?

When I plunged into a bath for the first time after my operation and I could stand, I knew this water was going to make me feel, and it did; it was like an explosion of sensation and I began remapping my body.

Do you see this recovery as being a miracle or was it more of willpower/choice?

A bit of both. Of course I didn’t give in, but another part of it was timing, choices and the physical healing and operation elements- were of course pure luck!

Now you showed me your scar quite readily in rehearsal the other day, but how do you feel about it really?

I love my scar! It is important and it maps the event as important on me.

And now it may be an obvious question, but I’m going to ask it anyway- If you could go back and not have any of this happen, would you?

No. I would of course want to have had this happen, the way it has changed me has been positive and fundamentally, through facing death like this it has forced me to reassess everything, I am certain I never would have done that otherwise.

And finally, do you feel this experience has affected your acting?

Definitely, it has totally changed the way I react to things. I’ve had to get used to a whole new body. I have to work harder and be more precise in all the things that I do. And in terms of the work that I choose, I cut out the shit now and do what I want; which is work that is worth something, work that feeds your soul.

Tristan’s creative exploration in retelling this personal story is still in its exciting development stages and hopes to be performed at Bristol Old Vic studio in the autumn.

Below is a link to a review of a rather interesting production called “The People vs. Friar Laurence: The Man Who Killed Romeo and Juliet."- Which we thought you might enjoy checking out... as well as a link to Kneehigh theatre's website- one of our fave south west hailing theatre companies (of which Tristan is a member)…

The People Vs Friar Lawrence

Kneehigh Theatre

After three weeks of rehearsals...

So after three weeks of rehearsals, we are leaving Jerwood Space in London behind and heading back to Bristol. We thought we would take this moment to let you get to know a few members of the company a little better. Hopefully there will be more stuff like this to come over the next few weeks.

After three weeks of rehearsals...

Name: Pal Aron
Role: Doctor


How are you feeling at the end of London rehearsals? Hopeful

What are you listening to on your ipod/CD? Stevie Wonder

What book are you reading/last read? Dreams of My Father

What was the last film you saw? The Wolfman

What was the last piece of theatre you saw? Romeo and Juliet

What is your favourite line from the play so far? “Give room and foot it girls!”

What are most looking forward to in Bristol next week? Being in the theatre – I love the building



Name: Lydia Poole
Role: Rosaline

How are you feeling at the end of London rehearsals? Amazed at how much has been accomplished and how much I’ve learnt!

What are you listening to on your ipod/CD? The Maccabees/Mumford and Sons

What book are you reading/last read? Sean Penn’s biography

What was the last film you saw? The Road

What was the last piece of theatre you saw? Off Broadway improv piece

What is your favourite line from the play so far? “Tybalt you rat catcher ... will you walk?”

What are most looking forward to in Bristol next week? An easy journey to work! Being more involved in my role as ASM



Name: Abigail Thaw
Role: Ms Capulet


How are you feeling at the end of London rehearsals? Sad to leave Jerwood

What are you listening to on your ipod/CD? Jill Scott, Amp Fiddler, News Quiz podcast

What book are you reading/last read? Purple Hibiscus Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The True Deceiver Tove Jansson

What was the last film you saw? The Frog and the Princess with my kids

What was the last piece of theatre you saw? Jerusalem – Jez Butterworth. Mark Rylance an inspiration. Recharges the batteries.

What is your favourite line from the play so far? Depends on what scene we’re doing and what mood I’m in

What are most looking forward to in Bristol next week? Peace and quiet to work without domestic demands!



Name: James Bounds
Role: Assistant Director


How are you feeling at the end of London rehearsals? Excited/exhausted

What are you listening to on your ipod/CD? Mostly ‘Hot Chip’

What book are you reading/last read? Mo Mowlam’s autobiography

What was the last film you saw? A Single Man

What was the last piece of theatre you saw? Bluebird by Simon Stephens

What is your favourite line from the play so far? “By his own tears made drunk”

What are most looking forward to in Bristol next week? Having Michael Medwin complete the jigsaw

Week 2 – “How deep is your rake?”

> The Verona World

After the fun, “rom-com” feel of Act I- (Tom Morris’ phrase, not mine), this week we moved on to Act II, a less joyful affair. Nevertheless, we started off on Monday by imagining what the Verona Care Home, or the Verona Elder Care Unit PLC as it now called, might look like. We discussed our experiences of care homes and looked at photos to generate ideas that can be used by the actors as a hook into the Verona world.

Balloon Tennis-----------------------Disorientation------------staff---------------------too hot

Smell of cabbage-------------------Decay------------------Suffocation----------------conversion-build

Pissing in the vases-----------------noise----------------musak---------------------------sirens garden/trees------------------------------business plan--------------------------"Shall we end it dear”

As you can see, some of our ideas are very specific to our play, and others are more general. Balloon Tennis came from a cast member whose wife worked in a care home. To keep the residents active, they played tennis with balloons and apparently it could get quite violent! “Shall we end it now dear?” was a phrase that somebody had read in a newspaper article concerning a nurse who had been caught asking some patients if they wanted to end their long lives now, rather than wait any longer. This is a difficult dilemma and a modern one as people continue to live longer but their quality of life may not increase.

Tom was keen to stress that our care home is not an especially bad place. It has a private (Capulet) wing and a public (Montague) wing and differences between the two have to be clear, but overall the care home is not a bad place to be in.

Act II

Once we started to work this week, it became clear to us that the language and the feeling of Act II was very different to Act I. This after all, is the Act where everyone dies! But seriously, the language is, as Tom says, often ‘like wading through treacle’. As the week progressed we adapted to the different style and rehearsals progressed well. The last two scenes are the most heartbreaking, and I’m sure that the age of our Romeo and Juliet makes the ending more poignant. Tomorrow we have a “stagger-through” of Act II, which should be a great test of how the play is progressing.

Storytelling

This week the (how shall I phrase this?) “younger” members of the company had a meeting to discuss what the storytelling elements of the play could be. Characters such as the Nurse and Friar Lawrence are the ones who move the story along, creating situations and commenting on what is happening. One idea is that these characters could come together to form some sort of ensemble. Some members of the cast, Abigail Thaw and Tristan Sturrock, have experience of ensemble performing and others have hardly any, which makes for a great dynamic. Tristan and Tom both have experience of working with Kneehigh Theatre, and we talked about using their experiences of ensemble work to enhance our story. One idea involves moving pieces of set around by hand, which led one actor to ask “how deep is your rake?” which led to a chorus of “how deep is your love?” by the Bee Gees! They were worried about the scenery slipping down the rake into the audience, something we were assured would DEFINATELY not happen. But the storytelling element of the play is an interesting one and will certainly develop more as rehearsals progress.

Verse Speaking

For me, one of the most interesting half-hours of the week is our verse speaking session. This is a great opportunity to learn from some of the real pros, and listen to their own experiences of speaking Shakespearean language. Verse speaking is a mixture of technique, listening and imagination. By setting up the iambic pentameter, the audience gets a feeling for the rhythm, which the actor can then work with or against. The length of a line can correspond to the length of breath, but the actor can also find sound or pauses to disturb this. One analogy Tom used was jazz. Underneath every melody line is a rhythm, which is consistent, and once the singer or musician has this in their bones, they can start to play around with the melody, changing rhythm and tempo but always coming back to the original underlying rhythm. Once an actor has his/her lines, they can experiment with pausing and speed, finding their own way into the language. In the second session this week, we took this idea one stage further. It started with the whole company being given a copy of a sonnet (Sonnet 65 as seen below) and walking around the room stamping with the beat of the line. For instance, in the first line, you would take ten steps, but stamp on the stressed beats – “Since BRASS, nor STONE, nor EARTH, nor BOUNDless SEA”. We then repeated this exercise, keeping the feet on the beat, but allowing ourselves to play around with the words. This was not always easy, but you learnt so much in such a short time with this kind of exercise.

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

Ageing in the News

There has been a lot recently in the news about how we are going to deal with our ageing population. In rehearsals we have been talking about this a great deal...something to research perhaps...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8520800.stm

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article7008399.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/feb/18/elderly-long-term-care-death-tax

Next week we move back to Bristol Old Vic to continue rehearsals. The last two weeks have been intense and sometimes difficult, but always good fun, I am excited to see how we progress…

The beginnings

Actors and their ‘Angels!’ (BOV Young company hosts)

Diary Extract:
Monday 1st February 2010
[Meet and greet with cast and crew at Bristol Old Vic]
It is the first day of the ‘beginnings’ of this project, which we soon realize and can feel, has been cooking for some time (about a decade in fact!)… And now it’s here, it’s arrived; it’s the ‘making it happen’ time.
A lot of excitement and cheer is bubbling underneath the usual feelings of the morning and a tentative meeting new people scenario…
I am as usual still glugging the provided coffee and munching on a free pecan pastry when Tom Morris begins speaking and there is hush; we must all introduce ourselves in the usual format of traveling around the circle stating name and role, I quickly realize my position and try as fast as I can to swallow the remaining pastry without choking to death, as the names are traveling fast and for some reason I always find myself with dark imaginings of humiliation and humor in professional situations such as these-- and envisage that me receiving the Heimlich maneuver from the nearby fight director so early on would perhaps not be the best start-- anyway this formality does not last too long and we get to have our first gander at the faces we will be working with over the coming months.
What strikes me most of all is just how many faces there are, of course I have worked on shows before but I never really have had it laid out in front of me like this, and for the first time really identified with the fact that we will all be dependent on each other- (essentially a bunch of very talented ‘strangers’)- to pull this off. We have a concept to work with and we all have our skills, but we still have absolutely no idea what will happen...it is a strange and beautiful feeling this creation point.
Next we break off and chitchat, familiarizing ourselves with everybody and making contact with the people we need to deal with more specifically.
I am looking after Romeo throughout the process who is played by Michael Byrne and who is instantly charming; we discuss going to the same drama school in London and how I went to Circus school, he jokes and smiles a lot, and he asks me if he can come visit the school in Bristol and learn flying trapeze, I laugh and say ‘Of Course!’- And then realize quickly the very dangerous implications of this offer, as I can’t be sure he isn’t serious…
[End of extract]

The first week in Bristol is a very focused time in which we work specifically on the relationship between Romeo and Juliet; after ploughing through verse and textual understanding for some time, we arise to our feet and make some exciting discoveries… Including a very special musical moment for Sian Phillips as Juliet at the ball, and the general wonderment of what it is for our two lovers, to find each other in this environment and at this time in their lives…
We decided this is not just a love story, but also a story of 'waking up' for our characters, who have in this ‘world’ and care home environment, been perhaps ‘asleep’ for some time…

‘Waking up.’

[Poem written by Charlie George in response to these discussions]

(Those who go into a home can quickly deteriorate; those who find love quickly accelerate)

I think it strange that when I am angry and saddened by the world and therefore myself, how quickly I would turn to leave and death.
Yet should I find some pleasure, however small, within this world and thus myself, I will cling on dearly and will all but else.

It is not then the ravages of time nor the diseases that so infect our air and minds that should take us to our graves.
But it will be the altering of moods, that so threatens our mortality; and pure happiness that saves.

Dementia and Old age discussions:

Playing old age: ‘We do not want to be “slumming”- descending the character, but transpose the justifications of the characters situation, and play to the strengths of that character within their frailty.

Dementia/Alzheimer’s heightens everything, and could be very relevant in terms of premonitions of death and intensity/confusion of feelings, as well as outbursts of anger and violence.

Perceptions of age:
‘How do you play a man of 50? [Said a drama student hobbling and bent double to suggest] ‘Well I’m 68!’ Responded a spritely and upright Dudley Sutton!

How an environment ages a person, and frailty can grow in a frail environment, exploring the physicality of playing someone frailer than yourself by using your own ailments and enhancing them.

Time and time again discussions of old age were filled with both beautiful and alarming anecdotes from our own lives and experiences with families and friends, it indeed has strong relevance to us all…

Left shuddering suddenly with the thought of a lonely council grave- Upon hearing how expensive funerals were!

‘My grandfather was unable to remember the death of his own wife, and relived the grief almost every day, I believe that is why he passed so soon after she did.’

‘At parties/functions in care homes they often sit everyone in lines, lines! Like a children’s party.’

Quotes of the Week:

‘Being unforgiving is an unattractive quality.’
(Grudges/feuds)

‘Even from the perspective of a relatively young person, the joys of youth can be regretfully lost.’
(Lovely things I haven’t done for years)

‘I fall in love everyday.’
(Love at first sight)

‘I want to go, before someone has to wipe my arse.’
(Death/suicide)

‘A blooming flower on the edge of a cliff.’
(The Romance)

‘I don’t think they should rush into anything,’
(On Romeo and Juliet falling in love in their 80’s)

‘No I don’t understand at all! But of course we’ll try…’
(Rehearsal)

‘Why is impossible love so exciting?’
(Sian Phillips)

‘I just don’t feel glamorous on a commode!’
(Rehearsal)

‘Cap the Capulets!’
(Dudley Sutton)

‘The one thing that keeps him awake is a good old rage.’
(Tybalt)

‘Perhaps the friar has a concoction that consists of Valium and spring onion?’
(Friar Lawrence development)

‘The evidence is on your own body’
(Tears)

‘A verbal bouquet,’
(Romeo’s language with Juliet)


‘Why can’t real life be like that!?...
…That’s why we make theatre.’



Theatre.
[Another poem response by Charlie George]

We are players,
We play,
We tell stories,
We share stories
Our work is a playground
Where we create beauty, truth, terror, lies…
Similar to life, in that they are living
But these are not our life games
Our life games live outdoors and are not so easily observed
In truth the joy that can be found in these experiments can equal, if not outweigh the source.