Lodovico

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Dickon Tyrrell plays Lodovico

Dickon's recent stage credits include Animal farm at Derby Playhouse, The Romans in Britain at Sheffield Crucible Theatre, Harvest at the Royal Court Theatre and The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV parts 1 & 2 and Richard II for the Royal Shakespeare Comapny. His television work includes Coronation Street, Peak Practice and Dcoctors.

Bulletin 1

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.

Becoming an actor
I didn’t always want to be an actor. At first I was attracted to the church, but then I lost that sort of faith. Then I thought about the law. I guess there is an element of performance running through these ideas. Finally, towards the end of my time at school, I decided I wanted to be an actor. I didn’t have an acing background, I’m a theatrical orphan, and my parents were a bit shocked – they wanted me to go to university. That is what I did, acting in university plays and also with the National Youth Theatre. It was the NYT that made me realise what real professional theatre can be. I went on to do a postgraduate course in acting at Cardiff.

Othello
I was interviewed for the part about three weeks before rehearsals began, and I was finally cast about a week before. But I have been in the world of Othello since February, because I have been directing a drama school production with second year students. This meant I didn’t need to do much research about the play before the rehearsals started, but I did think a bit more about Lodovico – about what he might be – looking at the givens within the text. I have been thinking about his relationship with Brabantio, and about his relationships with Gratiano and Desdemona. I have worked with Wilson [Milam, the Director] before. In this production he is going to be in the first half of the play, which he isn’t in the text. Wilson has put me in there, so we have the idea of the Brabantio family with Lodovico as a part of their circle. He is a character of great status, but with not a lot of text, so there is that challenge. It's back to the old saying, there are no small parts only small actors. You have to be able to fulfil the weight of that character.

The first day of rehearsals
The first day is a really nervous time. We started with the ‘meet and greet’ with all the people at the Globe. It is like being back at your first day at school. All the people who work at the Globe know one another, but the rest of us are having nervous conversations with people we are just meeting. After the meet and greet we saw the model box, and then went on to the read through. That can be another very nervous moment, but it wasn’t it was an inspiring one, we have some very strong lead actors.

We have stayed sat at the table for the rest of the first week. Having worked with Wilson before, he is keen to unlock the text in the first couple of weeks. It is almost like a process of osmosis, where you absorb it without having to think about moving arund or where you are going to stand on stage. It is a great way to connect with the pay without feeling the pressure of performance. Not all directors are like this obviously – some directors on day 2 will say, ‘you are coming in stage left, I like you to stand there for that line and then stand over there for that line.’ With Wilson it is very different – and his is very keen on actors’ input. So there is a sense that if you go off and do your homework it may be useful – or it may not of course, but what you suggest will be considered – there aren’t acting choices to be made at this stage.

The highlight of the week has been working with Patsy Rodenburg [Head of Voice at the Royal National Theatre]. I’ve done a lot of work at the Royal Shakespeare Company, I was there for six years, so I’ve worked with Cis Berry, who does the voice work there. Working with Patsy reminds me of how wonderful voice work is. You are dealing with heightened language, and the choices you make are sometime very useful for th actor. Heightened language requites and engagement with the voice and the actual texture of the language, and Patsy has been helping us connect with that. So it is very much about energy, connecting viccerally with the words. Finding our voice not in the throat or the chest, but in the groin, where there is a sense of being really rooted. Always speaking to surprise, to move forward, which I think is a fantastic thing to have in week one – to help you drive it through. Especially in a space like the Globe, where it isn’t light s down and you can hide on the stage. You are exposed. You need to feel secure in the storytelling. That is what patsy has started to connect us with. Wilson will then help us unlock acting choices, and the two should marry together (hopefully) for the first preview.

Acting at Shakespeare's Globe
I haven’t worked at the Globe before. One of the things we did this week was go and look at the stage, and have a run around on the stage. At first it felt quite daunting – there was just this weight of history suddenly there. The theatre was pretty empty. This sense of old London, of Shakespeare, of what we were doing. There was a moment with a little intake of breath. Oh. Here we are. There is no set as such. There is nowhere to hide there. You have to go in there and embrace the space. It was very exiting. That was the thing I took away. I got a great feeling of where the play can go, and the fact that it hasn’t been performed at the Globe since 1604 is just awesome – to be bring it into the twenty-first century – what a privilege and what an excitement.

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Bulletin 2

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.

Lodovico
We are not sitting round the table any more – we are now on our feet with our scripts in our hands doing some very rough blocking. We haven’t touched on the main scenes that he is involved in yet, but we have worked on Act 1 Scene 3, the Senate scene (this is the scene he isn’t in, but Wilson [Milam, the Director] has put him in). At the moment my feelings are that he is a political man, and that he is very concerned about the threat to Cyprus, which has to be sorted out. This is a very useful through line for the rest of the piece, because he is instrumental in the politics of Cyprus. Going there to remove Othello and bring him back, and to put Cassio in his place. So there is a political quality to the man. But also there is a personal quality – which is the family. So there is a strong personal and political thing that is beginning to emerge with him, a divided loyalty if you like. Then there is the beard. This is the longest I’ve ever gone without shaving. Two and a half weeks – lots of itching. He has a beard for gravitas, and if we can make itching part of the performance it will be great!

Most of Shakespeare's characters have a degree of being on the make – they are not passive people – and Lodovico is a man on the make – he is politically ambitious. I think there is also a fracture point within him; this loyalty to his family, which I think comes out in the end. I hope I will find this with Wilson in the rehearsals. Lodovico lets the personal tip into the political, especially when he is talking about the treatment of Iago in Act Five – I think he tips over there into letting the personal lead, in the way he talks about the torture. So Lodovico is not just a safe pair of hands, he is not just a nice decent family man who wants to make sure his family are ok. Like most of us, he has got darker aspects. We haven’t done much work on Act Five yet, but we might get to it by the end of this week. As a character he isn’t really on his feet yet.

As well as Lodovico, in Act Two Scene Two I play a Cypriot gallant, so I people a scene there, which is quite a challenge. You can’t just sit there and look bored. You have got to be concentrating and listening to the scene.

Getting used to the Space
We’ve been learning how to tell the story in the Globe. So running alongside the rehearsal we’ve had a session on stage with Patsy Rodenburg, helping us act within that space; to act with our voices, because that is all we have out there, the voice.
Thinking about playing the space, what has been interesting with Patsy is the temptation to play to the groundlings is something you must avoid. I can understand that, especially in those early performance when you are feeling insecure, you may well leap for the nearest relationship – which may well be with a groundling. You will probably then lose about 95% of the house. So in a way Patsy has suggested that we always get our thoughts from above – which is a great way to think – getting inspiration from above. And of course when you look up in the Globe you have the sky – so it is a wonderful place to gain inspiration. And also then you keep the whole house open to you. This been a very useful thing to build in – as you build your character you are building in how to play the space too.

One thing that Patsy said, which I loved, was the thought that, as an actor, don’t physically play the whole space. Her term was, you will machine gun the thought. As an actor you think you are taking it from left to right all the way round the auditorium, but in fact you are diluting what you are doing; so actually you should be specific. You should make the thought a bullet and not scatter it. I thought this was great. That was something she brought from her work at the Olivier at the National – again a very big space. That is something that is not a particularly useful instinct – to tell it to the whole auditorium. Big auditoriums, like the Globe or the Olivier, require a heightened awareness.

We’ve had a session with Glynn MacDonald [the Globe's resident movement advisor] on how we use our bodies out there – because it is such an exposing space and also tricky in that, depending on how you angle your body, you can cut off a large piece of the Globe audience, which we don’t want to do.

I’ve also had a session with Giles [Block, who does Text work at the Globe], working through all my lines, looking at the verse and making concrete my relationship with the words. There is an actual choice behind each word and a relationship behind each word which is important. So that the smallest word – like and – a word we use without thinking, in ‘fish and chips’. In Elizabethan terms it has the weight of ‘in addition’ and it helps you to remember this. For example when you say ‘Law and Order’ in means ‘Law,’ and, in addition, ‘Order’. It is you with your character, taking your character's vocabulary and really making your relationship lucid and concrete with their choice of words and use of language.

We have the extra level of the Globe as a space as well as the normal challenges of a production of Othello.

I did a corporate film earlier in the year, and they wanted to re-shoot the opening scene because the production company didn’t like it. The director rung up and said could I film it over the next two weeks. I said I’d be very happy to, but I have this huge beard for Othello. So they said how do you fancy doing a voice over!

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Bulletin 3

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.

Rehearsals
This week we’ve been through the scenes that Lodovico is in for the first time, on our feet, script in hand, and we will go back to them for a second time, which will be useful. I’m working with the script because I don’t want to learn the lines until I can learn the intentions – otherwise it is just like learning the phone book. When I have a hold on the character, or I’m beginning to, that gives me the reason to consolidate the lines. I try to learn the lines as thoughts, breaking speeches down where there is a full stop, finding the new thought. Giles very interestingly says it is a play of three and a half thousand lines, but he would much rather is it was a play of nine hundred and eighty thoughts. So when I get to the lines it is learning through the thought processes of the character rather than going for the line ending, which works for me.

Lodovico
The challenge is getting his status straight away, playing his status. He is going into a political situation he doesn’t know anything about. Cassio has disgraced himself. Othello hits his wife. This simple job that he thought he was going to do, has turned into something else. The research has revealed some interesting things about what Lodovico would do. My feeling is he makes his money through trade. For him, and this helps me as an actor, there is a real urgency for him to get Cyprus sorted out so that trade can go on. He has turned up to give power over to Cassio, and he finds that Cassio hasn’t really shown himself to be a sound man. Cassio has disgraced himself and lost his reputation. Suddenly the situation is revealed as being more complicated, and this is a shock. It makes an interesting journey – otherwise he would just turn up, hand over a letter, and take Othello back with him. Ultimately he doesn’t get to do his job – because Othello and Desdemona are dead.

In the willow scene Desdemona says Lodovico is a proper man. Because Wilson has chosen to put me in Act One Scene Three we have established a family connection between Lodovico and Desdemona, but because they are kinsmen they could not have been lovers, Lodovico could not have been one of the rejected suitors. I did read an essay which suggested he might have had an affair with Emilia. He is a family member, arriving with the knowledge that Brabantio, Desdemona's father, is dead. There is that to play, but Desdemona never finds out that he is dead. There is some off stage time when Lodovico and Desdemona are together, but it isn’t long. Part of the assistance that I’ve had from the Globe research team is a list of the qualities of a gentlemen like Lodovico always maintaining his dignity, and a cool mind. I suspect he doesn’t tell her because of the journey back – he doesn’t want her hysterical on the ship. He can sort it out at then end of the journey. It also isn’t clear what Othello is going back to. At one point in that first scene he says:

Is this the noble Moor, whom our full Senate
Call’d all in all sufficient? Is this the nature
Whom passion could not shake? [4i 256-8]

I think he likes that in Othello – that he is clear headed. Not a very convincing assessment of Othello, as it turns out. His war CV was great, and he can deal with war situations, but this is a shock. I keep looking for modern parallels. Would it be like going to Checkers in the 1940s and seeing Winston Churchill hit Clemmie [his wife]; or if Tony Blair hit Cherie Blair at some state function? It is an event of that magnitude. The absolute disgrace of the act is that he does it in public. It would be a disgraceful act anyway, but more so because it is done in public. Also it continues. I tell him to make amends – with all of the weight of what amends means. The OED says, reparation and compensation – it is not just a case of saying you are sorry. He has to acknowledge the weight of what he has done and what he needs to do to put it right. The moment goes on. I say call her back, but Othello continues to humiliate her – in effect asking me what I would like to do to her. He continues the mistreatment of Desdemona – which is even more disturbing. It is almost a professional and personal suicide note. This is it for Othello. Now that Lodovico has seen this, it will be the end of his career for Venice.

My ideas are still in ferment a bit. He hasn’t quite arrived in my mind yet. I played him on Saturday with quite a bit of anger, that he couldn’t do his job, taking Othello back. Also that he has lost a member of his family – Desdemona. But I’m not sure that is quite right for this rather stoical man. I still haven’t found the right balance of the personal the political and the emotional. This is normal for about two thirds of the way through the rehearsal process. I’m just entering the fear period now where you think you would rather do any job other than acting. Hopefully that starts to go away, and by the time we’ve done the last run-through in the rehearsal room it has gone. Of course with some shows, and some directors, the preview period is very much part of the rehearsal process and you are still discovering and refining things during that time. That's ok for the director who is just watching, but doesn’t feel so good when you are standing in front of a thousand people.

Shakespeare and the script
We have a typescript of the text which has been issued to all the company. At home I’ve got four editions of Othello, the Penguin, New Swan, Arden and Cambridge. There is a point where you have to settle on a choice – as an actor you can’t play four different choices – that way you would end up playing nothing that the audience could understand. I take a lot of notes on my script. Finding out what words mean, or relationships, questions for the director - anything that springs into my mind I write down on the script.

Shakespeare puts lots of clues into the verse to help the actor, like when I greet Iago and there is only a half line, we have put a handshake in at that point to take up the rest of the line. The fact that Shakespeare was an actor, so he understood the problems that actors face, means he is on our side. He is not just a brilliant playwright. He was also writing for a settled company – I think this is part of the wonder of Shakespeare. You have the genius of Shakespeare, also a practical man determined to make money, but also a company of actors that came together who could handle these plays. Somebody like Burbage who could take the really big roles that Shakespeare wrote. It is not as if he wrote one of the great parts, say Othello, and found that the actor who was playing the part couldn’t handle it, so he couldn’t write something like that again. One of things I love about Shakespeare's age, and in many ways I think it mirrors our own, is the way the guys became very popular. There was a cult of celebrity. Burbage as Richard III wore his sword in a particular way, and suddenly men in the city were wearing their swords like that. Another example is the story of Burbage making an assignation with a woman from the audience and Shakespeare overhearing, and turning up before Burbage. When Burbage arrives and knocks on the door Shakespeare shouted out to go away, because William the Conqueror came before Richard III. If only teachers could get across the fact that he was an actor, and a man making money, and a celebrity, and so very human it would make a difference. The humanity that comes through the plays is so powerful. It shouldn’t be about sitting behind a desk studying for exams, it should be about feeling the text and letting the words work on you.

Research
One of the things I’m going to research in more detail is torture, because that is one of the moments when the personal and the political seem to come together for Lodovico. How should Iago be tortured. Lodovico says:

…To you lord governor,
Remains the censure of this hellish villain,
The time, the place, the torture: O, enforce it! [5ii,365-7]

That open O is a very emotional sound. It is very loaded. He is telling Cassio to make sure it is done, which is a political act, and he is letting the personal tip in. The Elizabethans seem to have adored torture, so I want to go into that. I’ve found out that in the Doge's palace even, there was a torture chamber. So even this very sophisticated place has its dark side. Research like this helps me to talk about things with authority, so that I can say the words with meaning and the audience can hear them afresh. He is inviting them to think about torture at the end of the play, that is one of the thoughts in their minds as they leave the play. Iago's acts have very real consequences. It is chilling in that last scene that Iago will not talk about it. I’ve read about a man of this time tortured for two hours who won’t say anything. At this point the torture becomes the story and the resistance becomes the victory. I imagine Iago sitting there resisting by staying silent.

I’ve been reading a history of Venice, just to get Lodovico's back story in my mind. The story is set in 1570, and Lodovico is my age, so I’ve been trying to get what he ahs lived through clear in my mind. Even in 1559, just 11 years before, the Turks were already a major threat. So in the play there is an urgency to dealing with the Turkish threat, and they have been living with it for the last 11 years. The more of this sort of research I do, the more authority and ownership I feel I have. If I believe it, because there is a solid backstory, then the audience should believe it – otherwise we should all go home.

Costume
I’ve just had a fitting of my shirt and my doublet. This is an ‘original practices’ production, so they are as authentic as they can be. My doublet is in the peascod style, which makes me look about three months pregnant, so I hope they can do something about that. It looked very stylish and smart. It has handmade buttons – the attention to detail is astonishing – it makes you feel you have to do your job as well as you can too match up to what you are wearing. Shoes for me are a big part of getting to the character – it is the final step into the world. I’ll have my beard trimmed and that will be a symbolic part of the move from Dickon to Lodovico. A costume should be an important part of helping you tell your story. In this production the designer has researched so well that it all works. Sometimes you can be 50 or 60 performances into a show and start to realise that the costume is wrong for the character, but I don’t think that will happen here. Talking to the designer about the costume can be difficult because at the start of the rehearsal period I don’t have a very strong sense of who the character is, and what he should wear, but obviously the designer has been thinking about the show and creating the costume designs for some time before we start.

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Bulletin 4

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.

Lodovico's main scenes
What we have found working Act 4 Scene 1, which has been going on for quite a while before my entrance, is that I have to bring a great deal of energy into the scene, to avoid bringing it down. I need to drive it forward with my energy and my intention. You can’t come in, stop the scene, and say hello, I’m Lodovico. You come in with the intention of giving him the letters and taking him back, so there is a real urgency of intention. The idea that he has come straight of the boat, and gone straight to Othello. I know that he is being recalled to Venice, and that, in our version, he is being called back because of the family has been working against him back in Venice, because of his marriage to Desdemona. The scene becomes quite anarchic once he arrives. Seeing Othello hit Desdemona – in a way it is good for Lodovico, it is an awful thing to witness, but it is further evidence that can be used against Othello. Politically it isn’t good, in that Cassio has disgraced himself, and he is to be the Lord Governor. I don’t have the power to stop Cassio becoming governor, but maybe I’ll go back and tell the Doge about what Cassio has done. This is the scene where the pace of the play really begins to pick up. The story telling is speeding up, and I have to give it the energy it needs. I have met Iago briefly in the senate scene, where Othello refers to him as: 'A man he is of honesty and trust.' [I,3,285] He is not a man I know socially, he is a step down the hierarchy, but I have seen Othello entrust Desdemona to his care. So when Othello goes I interview Iago about what has been going on, and he draws me into his world of deceit. I have a great ironic line about Othello: 'I am sorry that I am deceived in him' [IV,1,282]whereas, of course, I’m actually being deceived by Iago. It is an interesting encounter. I’m asking him so many questions and he is very evasive. He just doesn’t give you a straight answer, which is very clever. He fuels the situation by implying that things aren’t great, but he can’t quite say what is going on. I am completely taken in. This is an honest, straightforward soldier, who wouldn’t lie, and certainly wouldn’t lie to Lodovico.

We also re-establish the family thing. The fight director has put in a back handed slap when Othello hits Desdemona. He is a big man and she is a small woman, this is the sort of blow that could do her serious damage. She falls to the floor, and I go and pick her up which re-establishes the family bond which we can build on in Act Four Scene Three. That scene starts with my line: 'I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no further.' [IV,3,1] This really shows the antagonism between Lodovico and Othello. There is a tension which follows through into this scene. It is a humiliating thing for Othello to be recalled, and he sees me as a representative of the family who has been intriguing against him. I’ve seen Othello act irrationally, in hitting his wife, and Othello has little left to lose, because he is being recalled. I don’t feel a threat because Lodovico is a representative of Venice, and it would be inconceivable for Othello to attack me.

In Act Five Scene One Lodovico starts by saying a few things and then steps back and quite cautiously observes what is going on in a town at war. There is almost a sense of civil unrest. He is like a war correspondent who will take back to Venice the story of what was going on. It can be part of the case against Othello, that I’m able to say that under his rule tings were not good. Offstage then I think he starts on the political handover.

In Act Five Scene Two it is important to get the colours of his journey right. There is the personal; Desdemona, my kinswoman, is dead. Then there is the political; dealing with Iago, who I also have a personal grudge against because he let me down. So I have quite a lot to deal with there. We don’t have it all nailed down yet, but I’m sure we will. At the end of the scene Lodovico has installed Cassio as governor and I’m straight back to Venice:

Myself will straight aboard, and to the state
This heavy act, with heavy heart relate. [V,2,368-9]

I’ve not been able to bring back Othello or Desdemona. That final couplet, I think, is one of Shakespeare’s moments where he is saying to the audience to go off and to keep the story going: to tell their friends that these sorts of things can happen, that jealousy is a monster. We haven’t done enough work on this scene yet. Because of where it comes in the play we always get to it late in the week, or late in the day, when you aren’t at your freshest.

The last week
We did a full run on Saturday, which went well, though it is a little long at the moment. We haven’t cut much, Othello is a long play, and it is often played with about 400-500 lines cut out of about 3,500. It is a big play, you could easily spend eight weeks rehearsing it. There is so much happening in the play, that with modern acting techniques, applying the psychology to it, and the research we need to do, as opposed to the first Elizabethans who we think had very little rehearsal time. Theirs must have been a different type of acting. They had the advantage of Shakespeare in the company as well, no need to puzzle out what it might mean when he was there.

So we are looking for ways to speed up. Once Iago and Othello really get on the front foot with it will speed up. It is a normal thing in any production that it gets quicker from the first run though. There may well be some laughs though, particularly in Iago’s soliloquies – he has such a fantastic relationship with the audience that I think there may well be some laughs. These are moments of almost comic relief, as opposed to the clown. The clown himself isn’t particularly funny. I think Shakespeare by 1602-3, tired of those guys who were playing the clowns, so he puts in one who isn’t particularly funny, one who is very moody and quite aggressive in our production. He is saying – here is a clown – but not what you think. This may be a clown who hasn’t got too many bookings in the next few weeks; who has fallen on some lean times in Cyprus.

Between now and the tech the main challenge is to get clear the through line – the story telling – and to completely settle our ownership of the language, and, personally, my ownership of the stage. I don’t have time to establish it slowly. I have to walk on and command things, particularly in Act Five Scene Two. Even when I stand between Othello and Iago, everybody has to realise I have the highest status there. When you play a king the people around you have to play the status for you, and it like that really, which is quite a challenge. I’ve played this type of role three or four times before, you have to be ‘the play finisher’.

We have had one jig call. Wilson is very clear he doesn’t want it to be a traditional Globe jig, so it is very laid back – freestyle really.

The highpoint of the week was doing a run through – seeing the world of Othello on its feet. The low point might have been too much celebrating of Shakespeare’s birthday on Monday, or Tuesday morning as a result. We had a lot of fun for dear Bill’s birthday.

Costume
My costume reflects my status. A very good cut, largely black, with handmade buttons, which are very elegant and a peasecod tummy [a projecting lower part of the stomach, so called because it looked a bit like the end of a pea pod]. The trousers are being made for me, I haven’t had a fitting for those yet. Hopefully we will be getting our beards sculpted at some point. We will be in costume all through the tech week of course. I’m just starting to think about the weather forecasts, and I will be outside and in costume most of the day. I have a very heavy costume, so a June heat wave will be uncomfortable – but we will have to suffer for our art!

Looking forward
During tech week the tours will still be coming through the theatre. We have had a jig call on stage, and the tours were coming through, and because you are concentrating you forget they are there. They should be helpful in reminding you there will be an audience. One thing that came out of the jig call yesterday, and I’m not sure why this happens, is how much smaller the stage felt than the rehearsal room [which has the exact area marked out, and pillars in the correct place.] Partly the pillars seem bigger, and perhaps the stage canopy affects you.

We are due to have a dress rehearsal on the Friday afternoon, before the first preview in the evening. That will be a very special show, the sheer adrenaline of the first time you do it with an audience can never be repeated, it is always something very special.

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Bulletin 5

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.

Stage work
Lodovico didn’t settle quite as much at the end of last week as I would have liked. We have started to work on the stage, and I think that Lodovico will develop in the first two weeks of the previews. Those first few performances will be very important – just playing the space is a great challenge. It is so different to the rehearsal room, obviously. Just finding the storytelling is so different from a conventional theatre – a nice black box, lights, you know where the audience are. At the moment we are just finding the play on the stage. It is very liberating to get out of the rehearsal room. For one thing you had had a roof, and suddenly you have glorious blue sky. Also what is great at the Globe is that, during the tech rehearsal, the tours are coming through all the time, so you get a glimpse of audience reaction. They just sit there for a few minutes watching – it is not off putting, though you would think it would be. It is good that the space itself starts to be peopled, so that you have a bit of an idea what it will be like.

The aim for the tech week is to feel comfortable on the stage. We haven’t got lights or massive technical equipment, so we are the tech and the big thing to concentrate on is that we are telling that story in this space. The first few previews will be clearly embracing the storytelling. In the tech it is just seeing whether moves we had in the rehearsal room work on the stage, or do you suddenly find yourself very static with your back to a large section of the auditorium, which doesn’t work. What we are finding out is that diagonals are very strong, that you mustn’t drift on the stage, it is about being direct and dynamic.

The tech is helping us to enhance our storytelling. You have to be brave, you can’t apologise in that space, it needs energy. It is phenomenally different from a conventional theatre. Only one member of the company has worked on that stage before, but we are surrounded by Giles Block and Glynne Wickham who have been associated with most productions here. They are helping is keep the story alive. I’m also remembering things that Patsy Rodenburg told us, taking ideas from above not below, so that the energy has got a good front footed quality about it. It will be a challenge to see how introspective you can be on that stage, how do we find the moments of silence?

One thing I have just mentioned to Wilson is about changing my final entrance, because I feel we are making it too cosy. It seem to me it should be an explosion of authority for the arrest of Othello. Those epic doors at the back of the stage fly open, and the guards come in ahead of Lodovico. I am the power of the state at that point. It should in no way be one man against the world, it should be the whole of Venice which symbolically arrives to take these two.

Costume
I have lovely black boots which have been made for me, which are very comfortable indeed – they lace up all the way. I’m very happy with those. Then black stockings, and a black patterned doublet and hose, with a small ruff, and a very nice cloak. It gives a very regal feeling, and really helps my posture. I had a haircut today and the beard has been trimmed, so I’m starting to feel like somebody else, which is useful. I do wear modern underwear underneath it all, but the rest of it is completely authentic, clothes have ties to hold them together, as they would have done, and my boots take forever to put on – a good ten minutes. The attention to detail is fantastic.

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Bulletin 6

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.

The last week of rehearsal
We finished the tech – which was fine, we had the entrances and exits sorted out and everything was ok. We had a dress on the Friday before the first preview in the evening. But because this is the Globe the one key thing you are missing is the audience. That first preview felt like a rock concert. The place full is extraordinary.

The dress took place in the afternoon, in daylight. Act One Scene Three in the evening, was still light, the place was full, you could see everybody. Then, what was amazing, by the end of the play when I come back it is dark. The difference is, in that first moment, when it is natural daylight there is a tendency almost to push – you can see them, they can see you, it is very exposing. By the time it is dark, it feels much more intimate. You can still see the audience, but without the rawness of daylight. That was a really valuable part of the learning curve – to be there at night.

Just finding the storytelling in there, has been the main concern. Wilson has been moving us around, changing the blocking – can you move two feet and turn that way so you don’t exclude that part of the audience? So it has become quite technical as well as relying on our actor’s instinct for emotion and all that.

The groundlings just pay five pounds, and as a result you get so many young people and so much energy comes off them. They want to be there. It is not a velvet space, which makes it a unique experience. There is an edge to it that really helps the storytelling as a performer. It doesn’t allow it to become introspective. It doesn’t allow you to become vague. The storytelling has to become like the building, which is wood and hard. It demands that commitment to tell that story in that space. Otherwise, without that, the story becomes lost in that space. Patsy [Rodenburg’s] theory of always driving it through really works.

We are at preview six and we are still finding things; what moments work. It is a good job we have got as many previews as we have, we are still two weeks away from the Press Night.

The relationships on stage are evolving; because the nerves have calmed down people are making eye-contact and communicating, and listening. Also we are finding that relationship with the audience – including them in the story. Technically not just playing to the groundlings, which is the place you might feel you want to go because they are very close to you, but remembering that there is the upper gallery and that you have to play the whole of the space; thinking about the back of your head, that you tell that story. There is a challenge – to be specific with your attention to the other actor, while at the same time maintaining the audience relationship, which at the Globe, is certainly different from any other space I have played. I like the relationship with the audience, I think it really helps with the story telling, because it stops you becoming too introverted and closed off in your world as an actor, you are constantly aware of their presence, and therefore constantly aware of the storytelling. I keep going on about it, but that is fundamental – every word has to be specific, and there has to be a reason for it. If you drop that word, you drop the play and you have to pick it up again. It is a muscular space.

Lodovico
The main task in the previews as far as Lodovico is concerned is finding the authority. I was pleased Patsy said I was very clear; it can’t be generalised anger, it has to be authority. One moment that instinctively hit me was that I was pushing Iago, and I said to Wilson [the Director] that it didn’t feel right. I shouldn’t do that, that would be coming down to his level. It is very interesting, when Iago says:

Demand me nothing. What you know, you know.
From this time forth, I never will speak word.

and Lodovico replies:

What? Not to pray?

I think he has wrong-footed Lodovico there, and he then steps back to deal with Othello. It is almost that he can’t quite, in the moment, react to Iago, because what he ahs said is so audacious, so extreme. Something he has never come across before. So in a way, that enigma of Iago really freaks Lodovico out. He is really thrown by Iago’s duplicity; hence the obsession with torture:

If there be any cunning cruelty
That can torment him much, and hold him long,
It shall be his.

and then in the final speech, it is about torturing him, it is something you will take away and think about, and he invites the audience to do just that – beware.

Cutting
In Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare talks about the ‘two hours traffic of our stage’. Whether that is true or not, it is not the case with Othello. At the moment it is the 3 hours 45 minutes traffic of our stage at the first preview. To get round that there have been cuts. Most people have had cuts. I’ve lost two letters in Act Five Scene Two, which to be honest I didn’t mind losing. The reason being, was that they were exposition, and I found them very difficult to learn, which I think was telling anyway. I couldn’t find the psychological hook for what he was saying. I couldn’t find the intention. At this moment it faltered and I couldn’t quite get them into my emotional bank balance. So I was quite happy that they went. We have cut quite a lot of Iago and Othello, mostly in the first half.

We have also had Patsy in, and she did some wonderful exercises with us, which were purely about us energising it; picking up cues. An example is one where we stand in a circle, the first person starts a speech, it could be any speech. If at any point they lose their intention, they stumble, they pause, they are acting too much, whoever notices just steps in and starts another speech. So basically there is a hunger to stay there and to survive. It is almost like the radio programme Just a Minute, you start your story and you speak to survive. It is a great way of thinking. Every line you have got you are speaking to survive, and of course when the pauses happen it is because you haven’t found the intention.It has to have a life behind it. Some people never manage to get in, some people lasted two or three words, and then they are pounced upon by three or four, and then you have to see out of the three or four who will give way and who will actually hold it. Again it goes back to intention, and being clear. If Act One Scene One starts with ten pauses of half a second on cues there is five seconds, and that builds over the evening. We just need to take those out. It is almost as if, between ‘Tush’ and ‘relate’, the first word and the last word of the play, the audience should hardly pause for breath as well; it should belike a tsunami. That is how front footed and energetic it has to be. You are outside and so much can distract you, and the audience can get distracted, and we have to keep them engaged by telling them the story. I just think that people can’t stand for three hours and forty-five minutes – it is just way too long. There are trains to catch.

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Bulletin 7

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.

Previews
The main thing was growing in confidence about how you play the space. One of things I’ve had to come to terms with is the light. A matinee is a whole show in daylight. An evening show starts in daylight and goes into night time, which gives a very different atmosphere for the end of the play, and suits the sombre mood of the end of the play, and I think it works much better. So I have been trying to find a way of getting that night-time atmosphere into the matinees, and I think I am just about there now.

Press Night
We had a very short notes session; Wilson just told us to keep driving it and keep moving it forward. Because we have had a lot of previews we had ironed out the problems beforehand. Press nights are horrible. There is a lot of tension and people start ‘acting’ again. The reviews are interesting – mixed and varied.

I was pretty relaxed on Press Night actually. Having done so many previews we have a good idea that the audiences like the show. Also it is not like a West End show where if the reviews are bad you can be off – it happened to a friend of mine recently. But we have pretty much sold out, which is odd for the critics, because they in effect have no power. They can turn up and say what they want, but they won’t affect the audiences very much, the audiences will still be there, they will still come to see this production.

I did quite an extensive warm up on my own; warming up the voice and physically warming up. I have various tongue twisters that I do, and sonnets, and speeches from Henry V. I go into the space, and walk around the Yard. One of the things that Glynn [Macdonald, the Globe’s master of Movement] said, which has been so helpful, and which I will use for the rest of my career. It is something Olivier said – the audience are in your lounge. So I walk around my lounge, so I know what it is like at the back of the upper gallery and other places, so that I have a physical relationship with the space.

I read the reviews – I’m curious and I can’t bear actors coming up to me and saying, ‘Are you all right?’ It is just one person’s opinion, but obviously, if your name is there in print, and they don’t like what you have done, of course it hurts. At the same time, that is the job, and it is brutal and hard, but you take it. As I said before we are sold out, so this afternoon was glorious. It is a rainy Sunday afternoon and you are in a sold out theatre. People are standing there in the rain just to listen to you. Playing Lodovico, with that last speech of the play, you know whether they are still with you or not. I’ve noticed that when the groundlings concentration goes they start almost hopping, them move their weight from right to left. I noticed it the other day, when it was very hot. Eamonn [Othello] was talking and they were hopping, and I thought I had to see if I could stop that, so I came in really sharply, with a great deal of precision, and they stopped moving, they refocused. That has been something that is very interesting, that you can up the story telling. You see this hopping, and people waiving with their fans, but once you get their concentration back, they are still. It is incredible. So although you are immersed in your role there is also that actor’s awareness of the audience, which is why I prefer to do live theatre rather than telly, because you have that extra relationship as an actor to be aware of – how your storytelling is going.

Post press night
This is where shows go through a transition; it is where the actors really take the ownership. We have lost the awful, artificial focus that press night produces, and we are in the glorious position of just doing the play - of telling our story. It is down to our professionalism and sustaining the work technically; to keep the play exciting and fresh and not letting it get tired, because we have another three months to go. We have to find a way of keeping that precision, and keeping the storytelling tight, tense and taunt and making sure it doesn’t become lazy. Watching In Extremis yesterday [a modern play by Howard Brenton] showed the Globe is a great space, but it never allows you to sit back, because the story needs to drive onward. Patsy [Rodenburg] said these plays are about blood and oxygen, and the Globe is about blood and oxygen. If, at any moment, you become introspective, you lose it. It needs a burst of energy. You can play introspective moments, but those moments of quietness and stillness still need energy. Last night I watched The Entertainer at the Old Vic, with lights telling you where the story was. Here, as an actor, you have to technically pull that spotlight on to you for those introspective moments. That is what you have to do, and it is hard work. Everybody is shattered, because it requires such an amount of work, to hold that attention all the time.

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