Feel Free To Move...But Not Too Much!

The Merry Wives of Windsor...the musical?
Funny, isn't it? The more 'modern' we become the more traditional and, for want of a better word, Shakespearean we find ourselves being.
We really are a very lucky bunch of thesps because last night we were delighted to welcome to rehearsals (for the big finale!) our choreographer, Suzie, and the man who's writing the music especially for this production, Mr. Ben Malley.

Without giving too much away - and to clarify the 'ancient and modern' comment above - there is a section towards the end of the play that entails Herne the Hunter, faeries, hobgoblins and more mayhem. Ben has created a soundscape for the opening section and set some of Will's words to a lovely tune for Sally to sing. And as modern as it sounds, there is a wonderful feeling of the traditional music that could be heard in the Globe when Will was plying his trade.

Suzie worked with pretty much the entire cast on getting the traffic from A to B, without disrupting the flow of the words and the feel of the poetry, and on to C. There was initial choreography for the final curtain-call song and dance, which reprises the Sal Song, and also reminds us that this was the way that performances ended at the Globe (The Swan, The Rose etc etc). So it is a modern dress version of the play but with real Shakespearean values. It's already feeling like a classic!

Working on the 'let's torment Falstaff' scene

And there is definite debt of gratitude to paid to the entire cast and all the practitioners from last year's production too. As you recall, it was a Commedia dell'arte rendering of 'The Taming of the Shrew', which required some real physicality and stepping-out-of-the-comfort-zone from all involved. 
And the confidence gained whilst working on that has spilled over into this year's rehearsals with a vengeance! 

The levels of commitment and skill were sky-high; everyone worked together (as they should) and had a brilliant time transferring Suzie's ideas to their performances and the scene as a whole. The bloke in the front had the hardest time though. You've got no idea how tiring it is to just sit around and watch everyone else dance about a bit.

Dancing about a bit!

Wives has been described, not only by me, as anarchic (not showing respect for official or accepted rules and behaviour - thank you Oxford English!) and it is all of that, but it is also fabulously funny, a little rude (quite a lot rude, actually) and, in places quite scary and cruel. The end scenes that we were rehearsing last night, whilst having a funny element, also included some of the things an Elizabethan/Jacobean audience would have found remarkably scary and unnerving.  

(Not dissimilar to the Witches in Macbeth; we may not find them particularly frightening, but back then? And the same applies to the faeries in The Dream and spirits in The Tempest. Other-worldly stuff was something you might have poo-pooed then...but you still made the sign of the eye to ward them off!)

The comedy in Wives is derived from a lecherous old soldier trying to have his way with two virtuous wives and their revenge upon him for his crass belief that they could ever find him remotely attractive. Yet. Yet the comedy ending involves something darker than that - the complete humiliation of the man using the scariest (at that time!) means possible. Add a bit of torture and pinching and you've got the perfect Elizabethan comedy! Here's a thing: within the Shakespearean canon, The Merchant of Venice is classed as comedy. Really?

Chase me!

'Where's Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid

That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,

Raise up the organs of her fantasy;

Sleep she as sound as careless infancy:

But those as sleep and think not on their sins,

Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides and shins.'

Not only does the scene scare, it is also reinforces the religious message of the time: pray, be virtuous and all will be well but if you don't repent your sins, well...just read the last two lines again. And these lines are spoken by a vicar!

Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.

Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:

Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept,

There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:

Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery.

Even the faeries and their queen won;t let you get away with it! Then comes the song that sums it all up.

Fie on sinful fantasy!

Fie on lust and luxury!

Lust is but a bloody fire,

Kindled with unchaste desire,

Fed in heart, whose flames aspire

As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.

Pinch him, fairies, mutually;

Pinch him for his villany;

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,

Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out.

Personally, I feel quite sorry for poor old Falstaff...but I would.

Should have gone to Specsavers!

Finally, this is our Suzie, working the socks off of the cast and getting, we hope, the results both she and Jilly want. 

See the final results of all the hard work at Dartmouth Castle from 4th August. You can get your tickets from here.

We're Back In The (Rehearsal) Room!

Well well well...it has been a while, hasn't it?
But, as intimated, we are back in the rehearsal room and working as hard (if not harder) as ever.
After the resounding success of Dartmouth Shakespeare Week in 2014, we were always going to be hard-pushed to come up with something equally as adventurous and entertaining but also something that pushed our creative limits and buttons. 

As you know, we have a committee that works incredibly hard during our 'down' time, to bring together all the components that comprise a production. And one of the things they do is, whilst one production is rehearsing and getting put in place, they are deciding what the following year's play will be.

And so it was while The Shrew was coming together, they were chewing the fat as to what we would do in 2015...and who would direct. This time round, they asked the person they wanted to direct to have a look at three plays and make a couple of decisions: A) Do you want to direct? and B) If the answer to A) is yes then which of these do you fancy?

A) YES!
B) The Merry Wives of Windsor.

And here we are, back in the rehearsal room with Jill Brock at the helm steering us through another first for the Company. A modern dress production of Shakespeare's ridiculously anarchic comedy.
You may remember Jill from previous productions...

Jill as Katherina, with Rich Turley as Petruchio,
in the 2014 production of
The Taming of the Shrew

Jill as Regan in King Lear - 2013

Jill has managed something quite astounding: she dragged us into the 20th century with her vision of The Merry Wives of Windsor. The play was written in or around 1594 and tells the convoluted tale of Sir John Falstaff - low on cash, self-esteem and options - and his plan to woo two wives and have his way with them and their husband's money. There are plenty of other things going on as well, in typical Shakespearean fashion. The young lovers who are being thwarted by parental wishes; the suitors (an idiotic young nobleman and a mad French doctor) both vying for the hand of the young lady; a scheming go-between in the shape of Mistress Quickly; Falstaff's side-kicks, Pistol and Nim, adding to the chaos and the wives themselves, along with their husbands, all plotting and planning to achieve their own ends.

Jill wanted to do something radically different for this production - so she decided to set it in the 1950's...so it's modern-dress, but not that modern: one step at a time, please!
Along with her assistant director, Lynne Deller, Jill's guiding everyone in the cast through the complex story and enthusing them all with the way she sees things coming together. We have a real live choreographer for various scenes (I shall get shot if I give too much away) and there will be specially commissioned music, performed by a live band that will be on stage for the performances.
And for those who love all the spectacular costumes that are usually associated with one of our productions, fear not! The costumes this year will be of an equally spectacular nature, just from a different era.

James Osben (Reverend Huw Evans) and
Max Brandt (Sir John Flastaff) back in the room.

Shaunagh Radcliffe and Gina Carter as
Mistresses Page and Ford...or is it Ford and Page?

Gil Garland (Justice Shallow) and James Osben.

And, as ever, everybody is having a huge amount of fun getting to grips with the script and all the insanity it entails.
Once again we have come up with something, for us, that is very different and something that, we hope, the audience will love...they haven't let us down in all the years we've been doing this.

We are also more than little proud of the fact that, once again, we are affiliated to the Royal Shakespeare Company and also that we have, since last year, acquired our very own patron.

Michael Corbidge - senior voice and text coach with the RSC

Michael Corbidge worked with us on The Shrew, offering invaluable insights to the text and helping the cast to maximise their vocal skills and presentation for the massive space that is our performance area up at Dartmouth Castle. And at the end of that process, not only did we have a magnificent show, we had a wonderful new patron!




And Michael will be working with us again this year, running workshops for the cast and working with individual members to hone their characterisations and give the entire production another special facet.




  








It really is a very exciting time for the company as a whole. We have some amazing new young performers joining us for the first time this year as well as some old friends renewing their acquaintance with us, including the lovely Jenny Gould, who has the unenviable task of over-seeing the costumes for the Merry Wives production.




Get your tickets for The Wives by going HERE!

AND IN OTHER NEWS...

Not only are we back in the room for The Wives but, for our sins, we are back there for a final run at The Dream.
After a huge amount of too-ing and fro-ing (which is another story entirely, and one too long and boring to go into here!) we are also doing a special, one-off performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream on 27th June at Pecorama in East Devon...it's just outside Beer. So not only is Jill having to wrestle and wrangle with all the complexities of The Wives, she's also refreshing her memory (along with everyone else involved) for playing Titania.

You can see on the poster where to get tickets for this last ever production of The Dream (last ever by us, at least!) - so if you missed it last year at Hazelwood House or The Bike Shed or the special charity gig at Hole Farm, NOW is the time to rectify that error and come and enjoy a a brilliant production in a really magnificent setting! Bring a picnic and get carried away by it all! 

AND FINALLY...

You may recall, early in the blog, that the committee make a decision about the next year's production while working on the present one? So, just to whet your appetite for 2016 - the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death - here is what we will be presenting then. No director as yet, we await the word from that person. It's a big decision for them to make: time-consuming and life-consuming. Watch this space.