Maecenas

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Tas Emiabata

This is Tas’ third season at Shakespeare's Globe. In 2004, Tas performed in the Globe's production of Romeo & Juliet and in 2000 he appeared in The Tempest and The Two Noble Kinsmen. Other Shakespearean roles include playing a witch in Macbeth. Tas has worked in many other theatres, most recently at the Royal National Theatre in Howard Brenton's play Paul.

Bulletin 1

Becoming an actor
I went travelling for a couple of years across Asia and Australia and while I was in Australia I did a lot of dancing. I joined a dance school and I did jazz, tap, ballet, hip-hop - a whole mix of different types of dance, even a bit of classical and contemporary. I also did a bit of acting in Australia and when I returned to London in the mid nineties I thought about what I’d enjoyed most whilst on my travels and I thought that I really enjoyed the acting so I went to Rose Bruford College in south east London and trained for three years on the acting programme there. And once I graduated I just started to work in the business.

Before I travelled I hadn’t really done any acting, not even when I was at school. I remember a friend of mine saying once that I should do some acting and that always stuck in my mind, but I never did anything about it. I did my A-levels. So yeah I think it was the travelling that really inspired me. When I had the opportunity to try it I thought suddenly ‘Yeah, I really like this!’

After drama college
My first job out of college - I was quite spoiled - was with the Royal Shakespeare Company in a production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which was such good fun. There were 28 actors in the company so it was really massive and I was playing Mr Squirrel, a Satyr and some of the other animals in Narnia. While I was there I remember I wrote letters to the Globe, just to see what was going on. And then I got cast! So my next job after that was at the Globe in The Tempest and then The Two Noble Kinsmen so I really am just totally spoilt. Since then, I’ve done lots of other things and now I’m back here for the summer!

Actors I admire
There are actors who I think are really good but often its actors in particular things. In terms of young actors, contemporary actors, I quite like Ed Norton at the moment who is a film actor and who I just think is brilliant. He is very versatile and brings quite an intensity to the work that he does, somewhat like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino who we all respect. But for me it's definitely different actors in different things.

Auditions
I came in to meet Dominic Dromgoole, the Artistic Director, and I was quite nervous. We talked about who I’d worked with and we realised that we had been working with similar people on similar projects. Then I had to do a speech for him and funnily enough I had prepared a speech from Titus Andronicus by a character Aaron which he liked. He said ‘That's good, but…’ and he gave me some direction and gave me another way of playing it, which I then did, and then that was it. We left it there. I didn’t hear anything for a while and I knew that rehearsals had already started on Coriolanus. And then out of the blue my agent got a phone call saying that they would like to offer me the role of Maecenas in Antony and Cleopatra. I was delighted! I’m also in the play In Extremis by Howard Brenton, which is great so I will be very busy this season.

First day of rehearsals
On the first day we had what's called a ‘Meet & Greet’ and everyone has a coffee and introduces themselves and getting to know one another. I knew a couple of people already and I think in some ways it was easier for me because I’ve been in and out the Globe so much so I’m fairly comfortable here. But still it was very exciting because there are all these new people!

There are 18 people in the Countrymen Company so it's quite big. I think there are three women and 15 men so it is a very male orientated play but then, if you think about it, Rome is actually very masculine. Caesar and Lepidus and Antony are the three rulers of Rome so it is a very male society.

Learning about Antony & Cleopatra
On the first day, we also had some lectures to help us understand a bit more about the play. One lecture was about the world of Rome by Dr Farah Karim-Cooper [Globe Education Lecturer]. This play is set at a time when Rome was a superpower in the world but there was lots of complexity, lots of tensions. Part of the rehearsal process is actually understanding the world which we are playing because then we understand politically what it means for Antony to be away in Egypt. We were also told about Elizabethan perceptions of Rome because that is obviously what Shakespeare is writing from so we are beginning to understand some of that connection.

I think these ideas will feed into my performance; not necessarily in a way that you can see it, nothing as clear as that. But I like to think that it feeds into our understanding of the play, and makes us clear about the world we are in. We understand the differences between the culture of the Roman era, the culture of Shakespeare's time and our culture now and I think it informs the play. Its gives me a kind of security.

Bulletin 2

Scripts
The scripts we are working from the first folio edition of Antony & Cleopatra. Dominic explained that he felt that the first folio hasn’t suffered from all of these editors who Dominic feels have edited and edited out an element of the life of the play. The thing about Antony & Cleopatra is that there is a lot of action and the action happens very quickly. In some editions there have been so many words changed or commas added that you kind of miss a bit of the flow and the action. Also, the folio is drawn as much as possible from the original source, Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.

Maecenas
Maecenas is one of Caesar's friends. Caesar has two main friends - Agrippa is the other - and they are Caesar's lieutenants if you like. They are not rulers in Rome but they are advisors. I’m slowly beginning to understand Maecenas and his character and part of that comes from understanding the world that we are in; this very male-dominated world that functions on order, honour and responsibility. I’m reading about Rome and finding out about Octavius Caesar. I think if I can understand Octavius Caesar then hopefully I can get a hold on what the others characters are about.

First impressions of Maecenas
My first impression is that he is diplomatic. There is a scene about sealing the friendship between Antony and Caesar [Act 2 Scene 2). Agrippa suggests that Antony should marry Caesar's sister and Maecenas supports and agrees with that action so my initial impressions of him are that Maecenas is concerned with order, with honour and with the stability of the triumvirate, and doing the right thing by Rome. That has been my initial impression and I’m hoping to discover other aspects of him.

Rehearsals
I have enjoyed this week but it has also been quite challenging because there's so much to do. We had one read of the play right at the beginning of the week, and then bang, we’re straight into blocking it. We’re not making final decisions but we’re trying to provide a framework from which we can peel back some extra layers and get a bit more detail. It's very good but at the same time I suppose it is quite challenging, because you are thrown in at the deep end, and you are finding and discovering things as you go. I suspect that as we go on we will get more and more in depth and more secure in it. It's like anything - at the beginning of the process you are always feeling slightly on edge and slightly unnerved.

Bulletin 3

Bonding as a company of actors
It's really important that a company works well together. Games are really good for getting everyone to bond as a group. One simple game is keeping a ball up in the air in the middle of a group of ten people. It's just a game of keepy-uppy! What is great about the game is that it gets everyone laughing together and it promotes bonding. It pulls everyone in together and gets them feeling the energy. I think that exercises which allow you to explore the group dynamic are really good.

There are other games you can use to explore themes or ideas within a scene. For example, the scene in the play that mentions all of the indulgences of Antony and Cleopatra could be explored by creating a physical still picture or an image of that aspect of the story. It could involve all of the actors in the scene and get them each to jump in and do something. You probably won’t use this at all in the final production but it's just a way of pulling everyone together and making sure that you are all thinking about things in the same way. These exercises are quite luxurious but great if you have the time.

We don’t do lots of games in rehearsals but we do spend a lot of time talking as a company which is our bonding in a way. We’ll go through a scene and pretty much go through line by line asking ‘What does that mean? What are the resonances? What is the scene about? What does it connect to?’ The process of questioning and discussing is really helpful in understanding the scene and what it contains.

This week in rehearsal
It's all been going very, very well. Yesterday we finished the process of blocking the whole play so we have a rough sort of shape to the play. Now we are going back to the beginning and we are starting to paint in some of the deeper levels. So basically we have done every scene once and given it a rough shape so as we know where the entrances and exits are and how we move around the stage.

It was quite nerve wracking at the beginning of rehearsals because we went straight in to blocking it before you’d even had a chance to wrap your head around the play or understand your character fully. However, since we’ve been rehearsing we’ve been doing lots of character work and talking with other people and just getting more and more familiar with the characters. Now it feels good and, although it's nowhere near performance level, it generally is possible to see the shape of the play. We need to go back and refine it further. I think it was a great way of working because that it's like we’ve done the first draft and now we can get on with refining that draft.

Lines
I have learnt my lines! The tricky thing is to know your lines and your cue lines because the cue lines are sometimes harder to pick up. Often you just have to learn the cues on the floor [in the rehearsal room] or sometimes just before you do a scene you have to go through the script and check each cue line and then you have to specifically listen out for it so you know when to speak.

Difficulties this week
There is a scene in which the character Enobarbus, who has been loyal to Antony, eventually betrays Antony and leaves for Rome. Antony gathers up all of Enobarbus’ valuables and money and sends them to him, along with a generous bonus. This makes Enobarbus feel really bad. I was having difficulty because my character has to tell Enobarbus this news; that his possessions have been received and that also there has been a big gift - his old boss was actually a really generous man. Dominic gave me a note [a direction] saying that I am telling Enobarbus this news and it is quite uncomfortable and quite difficult because in effect what it is I am saying is ‘this is what happens when you’re disloyal and the honourable thing to do would be to stick with Antony’. Dominic said that I should play it like I am not enjoying being malicious but that nevertheless am aware that what I am saying is quite hurtful. I found that quite hard. It was hard to get the tone right so that I’m not vindictive or mean and at the same time show I know that Enpbarbus should be feeling really guilty and really bad.

Personal research
There are still some things that I want to find out about the background to the play. I want to look at that HBO/BBC series Rome because, although a lot of it is fictionalised, it talks about this period of time just before the Roman Empire was going to fall apart. I think it might be helpful in understanding this notion of order and honour and of competition which was such a foundation of the Roman world.

Character work
A lot of the character work I have done is just reading about the context of the play and thinking hard about ways I can just bring this into the play and into rehearsal. One of the things I’ve read about the Romans is that they were concerned with order and duty and also that there was quite a hardness to the Romans - an inner stiffness. The challenge for me is because I am relaxed and naturally easy going person so I’m trying to get that rigidity.

We did one exercise with Glynn [MacDonald who does movement work at the Globe] in which we looked at archetypes. What I mean by that is we explored typical traits that we all have within us at certain times. One of the archetypes we tried out was the king. We put the palms of our hands either side of our head and used our hands as an imaginary crown. As we shot our fingers up into the air and pulled our elbows back we all developed a kind of rigidity. Then Glynn told us to walk around the room like that, ensuring that our fingers pointed straight upwards at all times. Doing that really gives you a sense of the weight of the crown and the duty and responsibility it contains. When you take your hands away you then have to try to achieve the same kind of rigidity. That exercise helped me to think about the movement of my character.

I think that a lot of the character comes out of the language that the character uses One of the things I like to do is to go through the text to know what I’m saying but also to know what I’m thinking. It's important to consider what it is that the other character has just said that makes me want to do this or say that. I like to clarify that for myself. What am I saying? What do I mean by what I am saying? What am I trying to do?

Performing Shakespeare
I love acting in Shakespeare plays! If I compare performing in Shakespeare plays with other more modern productions, I wouldn’t say there is a huge difference in approach as far as the character goes but there is an added dimension with the language. I find that looking closely at the language can help me to understand the character, especially if I look at some of the words they use or the rhyme and rhythm. I find all of that very interesting.

Bulletin 4

I think we’ve turned a real corner now. We’ve put layers on top of layers. This week we started running the play in four sections so we split the text into quarters. It was the first time I’d sort of seen what was happening in the other world, in Egypt, and we got to see how they were moving and it really highlighted the contrast between Rome and Egypt; Rome being really ordered and duty bound and Egypt being quite lush and free and sensual.

Later on, we had our first run, and it was really lovely because we weren’t as nervous as we had been doing those little sections together. I think any time you bring together what you’ve done so far, even if you are not performing it as such and it is a work in progress, there is natural adrenaline and you can feel nervous. The run was helpful because we got to ‘feel’ the whole play and we got a sense of what hangs together and what needs a lot more work.

I think that the run was extremely encouraging. It does hang together and the narrative is so powerful that, if you let it, it will just drive us through. I think Dominic is going back now and he is beginning to tighten up scenes and moments. We are beginning to go back and find more layers.

I think one of the things we will be looking at is how we project each character. Through the course of the play, certain characters can be overpowering or over projecting whereas they need to be able to chart their emotional journey a bit clearer so that they are not peaking too soon, or they reach the peak and then try to sustain that energy level for too long. If you listen to a normal conversation between two people, you will notice that people speak very quickly indeed, whereas if you are on quite a high emotional pitch, the speed tends to slow down. We’re searching for the right balance and flow of emotional pitches so the audience can sense more colour in the language.

Dominic was really good in setting up the run because he said that we shouldn’t feel like we are performing to anyone. It is just so that we can see what we’ve got. He also said that we shouldn’t get angry with ourselves if we drop a line or mess up - don’t worry about it. I just thought that was really lovely because even though we were all focused and we know what we are doing it almost took us off the hook of having to be right. And that gave us freedom to just go for it.

Maecenas blending with other characters
In Antony and Cleopatra there are lots of individual characters, lots of messengers and soldiers, who just come in and do some reporting and I think Dominic felt that on a certain level perhaps Shakespeare was just showing his knowledge of some of these characters around Rome at this time. So you have lots of different names coming in and say just one or two lines. What Dominic decided to do was consolidate some of them into Maecenas which is great for me because it means I have more to do! It's also interesting because of what happens is that Maecenas - at the beginning of the play he is very much in favour with Caesar but towards the end of the play he loses favour and others come in and take his place so I suppose it changes it slightly, although I don’t think it changes my character very much at all – Maecenas informs and advises Caesar throughout the play.

Rehearsing the jig
The jig is something we’ve been working on this week. At the beginning of the jig, the Romans make certain moves which are really ordered and formal. Then the Egyptians kind of flounce in and they are waving their arms and being very fluid. Each set of movements is well supported in the music through the beat and the tune which is very good.

There is a moment when all of the actors get together on stage and we do the same thing. It is quite tricky and we are learning a lot very quickly. We found out yesterday that we are going to be singing while we are dancing so we are all busy learning this song as well! The song sounds amazing – we heard it on CD – and it just pierces your soul. Its tones and the key it is in make it sound quite like the Muslim call to prayer – that's what it reminds me of, anyway.

Bulletin 5

What is a technical rehearsal?
A technical rehearsal is taking what you have been rehearsing in a room for the last four weeks and actually putting it up onto the stage. You work on transferring the movements from a room to the stage and developing any fight sequences and all the action. It's really just working out the logic of the play in the space. We practise picking up cues, working out you need to start your entrances and exits, timing scene changes and so on to ensure that these are all running smoothly. Then director stands in the yard and makes adjustments to where people are stood or when they make their entrances just to make sure that the majority of people around the theatre have the best views possible.

I think the main difference between a technical rehearsal at the Globe and a tech elsewhere is that there are no lights. Often in other theatres the big problem is the lighting. Is the lighting right? Are the actors lit up properly on stage? Do we want anywhere else lit up at the same time? Of course, at the Globe you don’t need to worry about the lights but therefore we need to focus much more on the music and getting the right levels for that.

Take today for example; we were doing the war scenes in the second half and they had some of the musicians positioned outside the Globe theatre, actually on the other side of the piazza, and on a certain cue they have to bang drums and shake sheets of metal and then there is a huge explosion that is heard in the Globe. All of that is timed. It has to build to the right level and it's got to hit the right pitch and it's also got a cue in for when the next part of the story happens so we has to work on that a lot.

The technical rehearsal also involves making sure that the sight lines are good. In most proscenium arch theatres the audience are just looking front on whereas because the Globe is in the round it requires a bit more thought about where people are positioned on stage. We try not to have any straight lines on stage; we go for diagonals because that means that you can always see one person wherever you are in the audience.

My costume
I really love my costume! The material is what they call a ‘Roman red’ which is actually more of a wine colour. My character, Maecenas, has a very high status; he is one of Caesar's advisors and he has an outfit that reflects that. It consists of a tunic, like a shirt, which is quite exaggerated and long. On top of that I often wear a toga, which is pinned on my left shoulder and then falls down and goes around my back and then connects up to the shoulder again. That is really nice because you get this feeling of grandeur about the character. I’ve also got boots that come up to just beneath my knee and they are brown leather boots that are strapped all the way up the side. They take a little while getting used to - they are made from leather so they just need wearing in like any pair of shoes. For the war scenes I have this amazing leather armour; a breast plate and a back-piece as well and shoulder straps and then there is a cloak that hangs off of that. And that is really quite striking as well. Overall, I need about 15 minutes to get into my costume.

First night
I’m feeling alright about the first night now. When we went into the theatre on our first day of the technical rehearsal I felt really unsettled. I just couldn’t find myself on the stage and I was a bit unnerved. But now we’ve had a few days in here and I feel much more relaxed. I don’t know whether the nerves will kick in as we get closer to Sunday but otherwise it's fine.

To prepare for a performance, I do lots of yoga. I make sure I have a good stretch and I have a good vocal warm-up because that just relaxes me. I relax into my voice so that I become, in a way, not conscious of my voice. I know that it’ll do whatever I need it to do because it is nicely warmed up. I just try and relax as much as I can. I make sure I eat during the day but I try not to eat too much during the show. I can’t eat too much before a show, probably because of nerves.

I also go over my lines. At this stage, I am continually going over my lines for quite some time and I’m just thinking about what I’m saying and that reassures me in some way. It would be really weird for me to have gone out on stage without doing a warm up. That would be really strange.

Once I have done the show a few times and I’ve got used to the audience then I tend to feel better. That is going to be the particular challenge for this space and this audience and this play. But once we’ve done a few performances I start to believe that I can do this!

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