Cheltenham

These comments are the assistant director’s thoughts and ideas about the process of touring 'Romeo and Juliet'; they may change as this process progresses.

Notes from Cheltenham ...

A short taxi journey through the beautiful Cotswold countryside brought me to Sudeley Castle. Steeped in over a thousand years of history, the castle seemed almost more fit for a production of Shakespeare's history cycle. On site, you have the ruins of a banquet hall built by Richard III, St. Mary's Church; the final resting place of Katherine Parr, Henry VIII's last wife, and then the main building. Studeley Castle served as a Royalist headquarters during the English Civil War; its’ inhabitants were fighting against Oliver Cromwell who, upon winning the war, closed the playhouses for twenty years and thus ended the life of the (second) Globe Theatre.

Much of the Elizabethan interior of the castle has survived. After passing by a beautifully intricate example of English tapestry, I was then surprised to find myself walking past a young boy in his room playing computer games. The castle is still the private residence of Lord & Lady Ashcombe and their families; I don't think I would be so welcoming of public tours through my bedroom…

In fact, the whole experience of visiting Sudeley Castle felt a little intrusive; no-one from the castle ever came to welcome us or even spoke to us much for that matter. This was our most Elizabethan venue to date and we had a pretty Elizabethan experience; that of rogues and vagabonds appearing for the pleasure of His Lordship.

Our picturesque location on the front lawn, with the castle on one side and a reflecting pool and long ruins of a tithe barn on the other, was idyllic (save for a fair amount of goose droppings scattered about that constantly had to be scraped off the stage).

The ruins, though stunning as a backdrop, did present the unique challenge of generating an echo whenever the actors spoke. We did an extensive vocal warm-up and discovered how crucial the over use of consonants were for this venue. Consonants could cut through the echo; without them, the actors' vowel sounds would blend and blur with the vowel sounds of their echoed words. Juliet made good use of the effect with her line:

Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies
And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine
With repetition of my Romeo's name. (II.ii.161-163)

The presence of a castle certainly also helped everyone believe Juliet's threat to kill herself; not only that she would, but could in fact "…[leap] off the battlements of any tower…" (IV.i.78).

The best compliments rarely come from avid theatregoers, but from the unlikely ones who come with little to no expectation and love it in spite of themselves. After the show a big burly security guard, who had never thought much of Shakespeare, came up to me and said " I'm f***ing converted! That was fantastic!" - a great review indeed.

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