Theseus/Oberon

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In the Globe Theatre Company's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Theseus/Oberon was played by Paul Higgins.

About Paul Higgins

This is Paul’s first production at Shakespeare’s Globe. Previous work includes seasons at the National Theatre, Lyric Hammersmith, Almeida Theatre and the Royal Court. His film and TV work includes Taggart, Dr Finlay and Dangerfield.

Click on the numbered links to follow Paul's journey as he creates and plays the characters of Theseus/Oberon in the Globe Theatre.

Paul Higgins - Character Notes 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.
I missed the first week of rehearsals, as I went to Canada with a show called Nightsongs that I’ve just finished at the Royal Court Theatre. It’s been nice to catch up with the company, and I don’t feel like I’ve fallen behind them, so all’s going well.

I missed some of the character work Mike [Alfreds, Master of Play] has done with the others, using lists and so forth. At the moment, we are starting to rehearse scenes in sequence, but in a fairly superficial way. Mike encourages us to build up our characters slowly, layer by layer, if you like, so our portrayal of our character is constantly developing. At the moment, we are working on that first layer scene by scene, working out what our character wants, and how they relate to the other characters in each scene. First, we try the scene concentrating on our relationship to one other character onstage, and then in subsequent tries we broaden our focus to include more of the characters involved in that scene. This is all part of the process of building up our character.

I was doing a production of Macbeth in the early ‘90s, and the director brought the company to the Globe to try some scenes here. The theatre wasn’t quite finished at that time, but it was nearly there and I have to admit that, as an actor, I wasn’t that impressed. This was because I treated the space like a studio theatre. Now, I realise that this theatre requires its actors to be far more aware of the space they are performing in than they would have to be in a conventional theatre. The space imposes its needs, (which aren’t necessarily restrictions) on us, for example, there is a need to maintain a reasonable distance between actors on that stage, even in intimate scenes, so that they can be seen and contribute fully to the action of the play. What I do remember noticing when I came here with that Macbeth, however, was how fantastic it felt to do a soliloquy in the Globe, where the actor-audience relationship is so involving and dynamic.

I’m playing Theseus and Oberon, two characters who I think are very different. Theseus is a very mature, wise person, whereas Oberon is more instinctive. Oberon knows what he wants, and pursues it irrespective of right and wrong; unlike Theseus, he doesn’t concern himself with philosophy and higher thinking. I’m slightly worried about making both characters distinctive so the audience know who I am at any one moment, as I’ll be wearing the same costume throughout the play. At the moment, I’m playing with different accents, keeping my own [Scottish] accent for Oberon, and using a standard English accent for Theseus. I don’t know if I’ll keep using these accents; we’ll see how it goes. The differences between Theseus and Oberon also seem to be mirrored in their relationships with Hippolyta and Titania. In both cases, there is a distance between the lovers, despite the passionate nature of their relationships. The difference is that for Theseus and Hippolyta, that distance is self-imposed, maintained by their own self-restraint and the promise of their wedding day to come. Though they are distant, they are in harmony. Oberon and Titania, however, are not; the distance between them comes from their refusal to settle their differences. Still, there are a lot of similarities, which I’m looking forward to investigating in the next few weeks.

Activities

What is said about Oberon?

1) At the beginning of the rehearsal period Paul read through the play and made lists detailing:

  • everything Oberon says about himself
  • everything Oberon says about other characters in the play
  • everything that other characters say about Oberon

Make these three lists for Oberon. What do you find out about the character by doing this? Send your lists and observations to Paul so he can compare them with his own.

Character Reactions

In the activity above you made lists of what Oberon says about other characters in the play. Many of these comments are made behind that character’s back. How do you think that character might react if s/he heard what Oberon said about them?

Try improvising this situation in pairs with a) as Oberon and b) as one of the characters he talks about. What do you find out about Oberon from this activity? Send your discoveries to Paul.

Differences between the Globe and other theatres

What are the differences between the Globe Theatre and other, "proscenium arch" theatres? Make a list of similarities and differences.

Now apply this list to the text of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Take one scene, for example, Act 2 scene 1). How would you stage this scene in a) The Globe Theatre, b) a "proscenium arch" or "black box" theatre? How could the different locations affect the actors’ interpretation of the text? Use the virtual tour of the Globe theatre on the website (www.shakespeares-globe.org) to help you.

The problems of "doubling", i.e. playing two parts

At the very end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there are only 20 lines between Theseus’s last speech and Oberon’s entry. There will not be time, in this production, for Paul to change his costume.

Can you suggest any other ways in which Paul could make his characters distinctive. Which lines from the play support your ideas? Would he need to leave the stage?

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Paul Higgins - Character Notes 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.

This is our last week in the rehearsal rooms; from Monday, we’ll be rehearsing solely in the theatre itself, so now is the time when we all need to voice any ideas that we have for the production. It’s very important that any actor, on any stage, feels that what they are doing is, in a sense, theirs. If you make a particular movement on stage, or say a line a certain way just ‘because the director told you to,’ you aren’t as confident as you would be if you wanted to do it yourself and an audience will pick up on your uncertainty remarkably easily. I’m excited about getting into the theatre at last; I really want to play to an audience because they’ll quickly teach us what’s going to work and what’s not. Just having a large audience in the theatre will also help me correct some of the problems I’m having: for example, Stewart [Pearce, Master of Voice] warned me the other day that I might not be heard in the upper galleries at some points during the play. I’m working to correct that problem, but it will help when an audience is there, as making my voice heard will no longer be just a technical exercise to me, but something I need and want to do.

I’ve been thinking about the role of Theseus in the play, especially in Act i scene 1. Ultimately, he must take the role of judge in the conflict between Egeus and Hermia, but he doesn’t want to force her to obey the laws of Athens. Instead, he acts as a mediator and tries to convince her to change her mind, which is difficult for him because he too believes that what Demetrius is offering her is not everlasting fellowship, (such as Theseus is offering to Hippolyta) but a marriage of convenience. I think he is embarrassed by the stricture of the Athenian laws on marriage, and the idea that these laws could force him to execute a young girl for not getting married just days before his own wedding is totally repugnant to him.

The musicians are spending more and more time in rehearsals with us, although they don’t play that much when I’m on stage, so they have little effect on my performance. They add nice touches to the production at various points, for example, the bass player plays a long low note whenever a character is casting a spell, which gives those moments a very eerie quality. The time I have most to do with the musicians is at the end of the play, where Oberon’s last speech has become a song. These lines don’t have to be sung, but because the verse is written in tetrameter, it’s very hard to speak it and not make it sound boring. Apparently, some scholars believe that many of Shakespeare’s lines written in tetrameter were originally sung by the actors, so it’s not that controversial for me to sing them in this production.

At the moment, I’m really enjoying my verse work with Giles [Block, Master of the Words]. Because of the spontaneous style of play that we’re using to create this production, I have a tendency to break up the text into single lines, and Giles is encouraging me to remember that a character’s thoughts can’t be divided in the same way. Even though a speech is naturally broken up by the punctuation, a solo thought will often inform several lines, if not the whole speech, and the root of this thought is not always to be found at the beginning of each section of text. For example, in i.1, Theseus turns to Hippolyta and says:

“Hippolyta, I woo’d thee with my sword
and won thy love doing thee injuries,
but I will wed thee in another key –
with pomp, with triumph and with revelling.” (i.1.26-29)

You can treat the first line as a statement in itself, but it’s more likely that, at this immediate moment, what’s more important to Theseus is the revelling to come, not the nature of their courtship. If I remind her that “I woo’d [her] with my sword” because I’m about to make the contrast between our courtship and the revelling to come, I will say the first line with much more joy and anticipation that I would if I was treating it as a statement of what happened in the past, and that enthusiasm must continue until the end of the speech when I finally reach the conclusion of the thought. It’s the thought of the revelling that informs all four lines and the way that I will say them. This week, I’ll be working with Giles on making sure I’m certain about how my characters’ thoughts inform the lines, and this process will help me make sure that my speeches flow clearly.

Ultimately, I just can’t wait to get into the theatre. On a sunny day, it’s simply the best place in the world.

Activities

1) Paul mentions that he thinks Theseus seeks to mediate between Hermia and Egeus in i.1.

Do you agree? What lines from the text support your argument? You might want to consider Theseus’ treatment of the laws of Athens in v.1 before writing your answer. Send your ideas to Paul.

2) Paul describes some of the sounds and music being made by the Globe Musicians performing in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Listen to the interview with Claire Van Kampen (Director of Theatre Music and Master of Music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream) on the GlobeLink website, where she talks about the process of creating the music for this production. (To access this interview, click on Adopt an Actor, and follow the left hand link to Audio Interviews).

In act iv scene 1, Oberon and Titania both call for music. At what times during this scene could you use sounds/music to accompany the play? How many different sounds could you create using the same instruments as those described in Claire Van Kampen’s interview?

Write a sound cuesheet for iv.1. List your chosen sounds/music in the order they appear during the scene, together with their corresponding line/stage direction from the play and an explanation of why you have used that sound at that point in the scene. How many different sounds can your group invent for each sound cue?

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Paul Higgins - Character Notes 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.

One of the biggest issues for me in tech week was finding the right shoes! I’d rehearsed in trainers and suddenly had to find the same sort of mobility in bare feet on thick oak boards. I found bare feet on the Globe stage just excruciating – unlike Duthy Hall, the stage here feels as hard as concrete. After some experiments, we decided on jazz shoes fitted out with extra rubber soles like trainers, which gave us some spring. Puck and I both have these shoes – though Simon [Trinder, Puck] did try to play the first night barefoot. Overall though, I got used to the stage quite quickly; the transfer from rehearsal room to the stage didn’t seem too hard. If you focus and concentrate on getting yourself seen, you can enjoy taking what might feel like a risk or a leap of faith. That’s an important thing – the space at the Globe is so different, and so vast … I think that’s something that can become a hindrance, or you can approach it as a challenge to be enjoyed.

Our first night was extraordinary. I’ve never seen an audience reaction like it – there was just wave upon wave of laughter, especially at the end when the mechanicals are performing before Theseus and the court. The company sits around the edge of the Globe stage at this point, breaking the boundary between actor and audience, and defining that relationship in a different way. The actors become part of an audience onstage. But there were such waves of laughter. One of the big anxieties I have is the feeling of not knowing whether you’re performance is funny or not. I’ve been trying to reason things out – you can say ‘Oh look, I know that scene I’m playing is a serious scene. That’s fine, I’m playing it fine’ but until people laugh at our funny scenes, you’ve really no idea whether the way you gauge these things has any relevance for the audience. The play is themed around bedtime and its rituals as the precursor to sleep and dreaming, and the mechanicals use props from the toilet. At the end Snug plays the Lion wearing a toilet seat headdress painted with a lion’s face; when he speaks his lines, he lifts the lid. A particular worry was whether this humour would read or not. Ultimately it did. The mechanicals did a fantastic job with that; the actors conceived that section without any help at all.

I’ve definitely become more secure in my performance and audience reaction is reflecting that. Oberon is not a funny part as such, but I can tell that an audience is following the logic of the lines when the laughs do come – laughter can indicate the audience heard a line in the previous scene that illuminates the present one. As Theseus I don’t speak directly to the audience. Perhaps this is because Theseus is more restricted by his position as King, whereas Oberon is completely free but much less mature. He’s rash and selfish. Anyway, he’s often on his own when he’s not talking to Puck, so he explains to the audience ‘Having once this juice/ I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep’ [ii.1], and also at the beginning of III.2 ‘I wonder if Titania be waked’. I think the audiences have become increasingly responsive as the play evolves and matures. It’s much easier to have a focal point in the audience rather than talking to thin air. On the first night I singled out a woman for the part when Oberon is explaining about love-in-idleness and refers to the love-shaft aimed ‘At a fair vestal throned by the west’ [II.1.158]. I thought she would smile or give some sort of positive reaction, but she just got more and more frightened at being singled out. So while a focus really helped me deliver my lines, I don’t think she enjoyed it very much! Generally, I find the audience appreciate the greater level of involvement that the Globe stage allows, as everyone being able to see each other and the groundlings are so close to the stage. It’s fantastic when you manage to establish that relationship, as its draws the audience into the play more directly. instead of sitting back in a dark theatre, they’re being spoken to by actors on a stage that’s only feet away. They really become part of the production.

In the first week of performance, we don’t do any matinees and rehearse during the day. We don’t know who is going to be called or when. Mike [Alfreds, Master of Play] decides what he’s going to do after he’s seen the show the previous evening. We began this morning at half past ten this morning for a twelve-hour day, and it’s hard to do a twelve-hour day and be at your best at the end of it. The last three hours are the most important. I’m just going through the text now, just sitting down and reading the text to regain a sense of the play as a whole. However, the long run doesn’t really bother me. Every performance here is like your first night; you have to work and think hard to keep it fresh towards the end of the run. I think that the play should be changed in order to prevent it from getting stale. That’s the cue to do it another way. You can get stuck if the director doesn’t want the production changed, whereas Mike wants you to change all the time. By taking a different point of view on the play, your intentions will change, affecting your actions and the reactions of those in contact with you onstage. All it takes is one line said in a different way for your colleagues to respond differently and for everything to change.

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