A Midsummer Night's Dream Rehearsal

…THAT’S RIGHT, I’M THE GAFFER

In our first week of rehearsing for the children’s theatre adaption of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, inspired by Cbeebies, we ran through our parts to get familiar with performing them. We started with our ‘Sherbet’ cast where I play the simple-minded Gaffer, who had been added to assist children in they’re learning of Shakespeare and to make it easier to take in. Supporting my character in our adaption are Shakespeare (Logan) and Sparks (Becky); with the latter acting as the other half of my comedy duo. I felt that after the audition stage it was the right decision to cast Becky and I as these characters as we always have a very good chemistry and that will of course help with our performance on stage. In our spare time/on breaks, Becky and I could run through lines and rehearse with Logan as well; aiding us to become more familiar with lines and comical timing.

To help us with getting familiar with Shakespearean language, Sally held various workshops for us. Firstly, we were put in pairs to devise any sort of simple conversation, then to apply Shakespearean language to it, changing words like 'you' to 'thou' or 'thee' and 'are' to 'art'. Subsequently, 'How are you?' would become 'How art thee?' if asking a question about a person'swell-being. 

Pau and I were partnered for this exercise and we wanted to eventually build the conversation into an argument between the two of us; we planned a conversation regarding homework and how well we were progressing with it:

P: You alright mate? How's the homework going?

R: Not great, I want to die to be honest. You?

P: Really well, I've got such good monologues to do (laughs)

R: Oh I see how it is, you absolute knob.

P: Fuck you! 

R: You're being an absolute moron!

P: Oh, you are a nasty piece of work!

R: You have dishonoured me!

P: I never want to see you again!

It is obviously a very petty argument that escalates quickly, however we were intrigued to what we would come up with whilst including some Shakespearean language terms to it; this could include adding 'est' or simply 'st' after a verb (words like 'hear' and 'speak' would become 'hearest' and 'speakest'). We were given 'Odd' and 'Troublesome' words sheets to assist our translating of our devised text. After much deliberation, Pau and I said the following:

P: How art thy speeches progressing, friend?

R: Not in the best of ways, one wishes to perish. How art thee?

P: O' the joy! I have politician'd the mightiest of speeches!

R: Thy tax me as a foe, my friend.

P: O fie! Thou art banished you bugbear!

R: Thou hast chop-fallen me thou hobby-horse!

P: Thou art a backbitten sheep-biter!

R: O' the oppugnancy you have graced upon me!

P: Be gone with thee, you beldom!

This provided an insightful session to participate in, as I found myself understanding different aspects of Shakespearean language in conversation. Supported by the fact that both above texts differ so much in style but have the same meaning (the latter a more dramatic representation however). 

Next, we took part in an 'insult class' where we were each given a sheet with three columns that state the structure of a typical Shakespearean insult. In the first and second columns were descriptive words, based as the starts of an insult, whereas there is the noun to 'finish off' the sentence. The middle column, I noticed, often contained double-barrier words such as 'fly-bitten' or 'rump-fed' to perhaps emphasise the insult even more and worsen the blow as a result. We were then divided into two groups, where we would attempt to come up with the best insult using the three-column structure on the sheet. The aim was to utilise the words as best we could, communicating the emotion behind our true disgust at direct it at another member of the opposing groups. Various insults included 'tottering elf-skinned pignut', 'rank reeling-ripe ratsbane' and 'artless beef-witted apple-john' to name a few. 

The third exercise involved Sally extracting verses from anything written by Shakespeare and splitting them up and then we would have to put them back together in the order we thought correct. Many extracts were from of Shakespeare's sonnets, or plays such as Hamlet and Macbeth; the language proved to be very intricate and almost backward, yet understandable. In our group, we would always come close to completing the original but would struggle with the order of verbs as it is very different to nowadays; for example,

'Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature' 

was put as

'Yet nature hath fought with discretion so far'. 

We had obviously got the gist of what was being said, it was just the order in which was much derived. However, this exercise was very helpful on the organisational side of Shakespearean language as structure has a pinnacle role in his works as it could be argued that it is what makes them so profoundly unique.

JUST ANOTHER ATHENINIAN?

My character for the opposite ‘Liquorice’ cast was the Athenian Demetrius who is in love with Hermia; I recalled the performance at the Globe Theatre, where Ncuti Gatwa was the same role. He was aggressive and oozed authority, therefore I wanted to liken my performance to Gatwa’s portrayal of the character; the only big obstacle being that we are performing to children and I didn’t want to come across as scary or threatening.

Demetrius can be seen as a main antagonist in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and I wanted to communicate this to the young audience with what precious stage time I had. For this, I got used to tilting my head upright to demonstrate how high authority I was, or how high my character thinks he is. In addition, myself and Jack C (as Lysander) comes on in a pathetic brawl in which we both scurry on behind Egea (Becky) and Hermia (Chloe H) into our positions on stage, physically demonstrating our mental fight for Hermia. These continued throughout performances as both characters reference each other in negative fashion, connoting their hatred for one another. For example, in our representation of the script, Lysander (under Puck's spell) says to Helena "Where is Demetrius? Oh, how fit a word to leave this world unheard."

Lastly, Demetrius ends the 'waking up' scene in both versions:

'Why, then, are we awake: let's follow him 
And by the way let us recount our dreams'

Is shortened to

'Let's follow him,
And by the way let us recount our dreams'

This cut version is to make sure the younger audience understand more about what is being said and do not bore them as a result.

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

Shakespearean plays are written with various rhetorical devices purposely enforced; most to create a mood for a scene or to explain a character's emotion in it. Normal text is written in Prose (a text with no rhyming scheme or pattern); however there are many other language tools used, in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' especially. My characters; Demetrius and Tom Snout the tinker are differentiated by the way that their lines are written; Demetrius is usually seen as spiteful and villainous, his texts are (besides Prose) generally written in blank verse (A rhythm of de-dums, that can be likened to a heartbeat; text follows a five-beat rhythm to give performances momentum) however, is introduced to the play with an 11-beat line;

'Re/lent, sweet Her/mi/a: and Ly/san/der, yield
Thy crazed title to my certain right'

Later, when asked whether he would point Hermia in the direction of her beloved, Demetrius replies:

'I/ had/ rat/her/ give/ his/ car/cass/ to/ my/ hounds'

this indicates that in moments of empowerment, he uses his authority to undermine others (mostly Lysander and Helena as he sees them as his enemies, as, in his eyes, they are the people in the way of a relationship with Hermia) and it could suggest that he puts on a 'hard-guy facade' as he cannot come to terms with his unrequited love for Hermia; as this style of writing usually indicates the character is facing some form of struggle or difficult decision. Another example of this would be in 'Hamlet' when the title character is deciding whether to commit suicide or to live on:

'To/ be, or/ not/ to/ be: that/ is/ the/ question'

this structure also heightens the drama in a play as actors usually use the 'a' and 'o' sounds to communicate a key point they are trying to express.

Rhyming verse is a type of rhetorical device frequently used in Shakespeare's plays and is the easiest to identify. It features in some of Demetrius's lines and is generally to communicate a major plot point, or to make a character's decision obvious to the audience; for example, after Hermia storms off on her quest to find Lysander, he says:

'There is no following her in this fierce vein:
Here therefore a while I shall remain.'

This is to communicate to the audience that he intends to rest on stage, just in time for Puck to enchant him with a love spell that will make him fall in love with Helena; therefore proving as a significant part of the plot. It also strengthens my theory that he initiates an 11-beat line (identifiable in the first line) when in a state of bother.

Full-stops (the caesura) are obviously very frequently used in the works of Shakespeare, interestingly, however, they are never obeyed in texts and characters will instead read until the end of the line. This is to liken his language to real life as when in conversation, people do not have a structured way of speaking and tend to pause when taking a breath in the middle of a sentence; especially valid when someone is speaking about something they are passionate about. For instance, when Demetrius awakes to see Helena for the first time after being put under a love spell, he explodes with compliments for Helena and says:

'O, Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!
To what, my love shall I compare thine eyne? 
Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show
Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!'

Many devices are identifiable in this fraction of text including 11-beat line to prove the importance of what he is saying, and rhyming verse to further engage audience members of the time.

WE’RE A MAGICAL TEAM, OF COURSE

This week, we got started rehearsing songs in the play; beginning with our ‘scene change’ sing-a-long which involves a lot of energy, involving Shakespeare reading out what set he needs and Becky and I as Sparks and Gaffer fetch them for him whilst maintaining our rhythm and enthusiasm. We all use the Cbeebies video of the song for inspiration and to draw ideas from, as both actors who play their equivalent of Sparks and Gaffer were always very engaging and goofy; so, I studied them and their movements and facial expressions and tried my own versions of them in rehearsals. It ended up being very well received so I stuck with it.

In contrast, I had not yet had a lot of opportunity to perform as Demetrius or Snout in previous rehearsals, therefore I struggled at first with the heightened approach to the roles. Nonetheless, I feel I brought a lot more to the scenes once I learned my lines with confidence. In addition, Sally challenged us to make all our roles have obvious differences; which I had took into consideration before as all my characters have various personality traits. For example, I regard Gaffer as a simpleton with a child-like mind who’s up for a sing-song; Demetrius is angry and often seen as the villain as he acts on his unrequited love of Hermia; Snout, who plays the wall in the play of Pyramus and Thisby in the play, is like Gaffer in the respect that he is easily confused and has a child-like temperament. James, however, plays Snout with a docile quality and puts on a ‘baby voice’ that allows people to see him as quite innocent yet very stupid.

Moving on, Becky and I were aware that we had a part to play in Nick Bottom’s (Pau) ‘Hum dum diddle’ song. In the performance, he lists the animals that live in the magical forest, where Sparks and Gaffer would intervene with ‘…and the fairies that live in the wood, tra-la!’ then as the list goes on, ‘…and don’t forget the fairies that live in the wood, tra-la!’ and finally,’…we hate to bring it up again, but we think you are forgetting the fairies that live in the wood, tra-la!’. This provided a challenge for us as we weren’t used to singing, never mind at such a pace in the small amount of time we had. At first, we stumbled and could not get used to the speed of the lines and I would find myself mispronouncing words time and time again. I got very frustrated and started to go over it with Becky as she had kept the pace up during rehearsals and after some practising, I became confident with the song and I think it was a morale-boost for both of us.

Later, we were introduced to the last song of the play, which happened to be an ensemble number involving a ‘Bergomask’ dance. This included dancing to Medieval-like tune, which went:

(palm to palm with partner) step forward (beat) two steps back (beat) turn around to meet second partner… (repeat x1)

(hands on hips/fast) step-toe-step-toe-step,

Jump and raise left leg and slap with right,

Shuffle left then right then back at centre,

Shuffle back,

Salute with left hand then right,

Arms out in sailor’s position and turn 360 degrees,

Kick out with left leg, bending at the knee and then the right; slapping with left hand,

Freestyle whilst stationary,

Sway from side to side to ‘Hey nonny nonny’

PROUD, CLUMSY AND VERY LOUD

We then wanted to work on Liquorice cast’s mechanicals scenes as we had mostly been involved with our Sherbet characters thus far. All of us involved in the scenes agreed that we might be more creative with ideas if we step out the performance space for a lesson and improvise and try different things out, without the pressure of others looking on. Although we had started alone, mechanicals from the other cast thought similarly to us and asked to devise privately whilst others work on songs, therefore Katrina tried to direct us, however we were very set on making our scenes our own. Logan hatched an idea that we should come in doing some sort of dance routine, so I suggested a clap, click, clap, click motion - which everyone liked, and so we went along with and tried to improve upon before showing to Sally.  

The idea arose that our march on stage should be followed by a typical ‘boyband’ pose, as it might be funny and ideal for our target audience; we put it into action and we weren’t sure it worked as it seemed a bit awkward just afterwards as we all go very quiet and there was a prolonged silence. We worked with it after showing Sally, however the idea phased out as we progressed with other aspects of our entrance after Sally pointed out that we could add more into our clap and click routine. At first, Sally suggested that we add some sort of song or chant that would be relevant as well as funny; we came up with some ideas and ended up with:

Peter Quince: ‘We (!) are mechanicals (!) and we (!) are proud (!)

Mechanicals repeat: (We (!) are mechanicals (!) and we (!) are proud (!))

Peter Quince: We (!) are clumsy (!) and very (!) loud (!)

Mechanicals repeat: (We (!) are clumsy (!) and very (!) loud (!))’

*(!) signals a clap

We then went on to add some engagement between characters as they walk on-stage as it appeared dull beforehand as it looked like most of us were just strolling on as ourselves; so, the key was to apply character to all dimensions of performance. Subsequently, we thought to add something slapstick as children tend to enjoy minor violence; evident in programmes like ‘Tom and Jerry’ and ‘Looney Tunes’. Thus, we incorporated an entrance that involved me (as Snout the tinker) bending down to tie my shoe-laces while Nick Bottom (Logan) jumps over me; then Max (as Flute, the bellows-mender) attempts to do the same, but I get up in time for him to stay on my back. The idea then was to look so confused as to why this has happened, but the struggle at first was to keep Max up as he would tend awkwardly on my back; as I was in such a position where I could not see him.

After many choreography mishaps, we managed to execute it safely as we got to grips with the timing within the space provided.