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Posthumus
In the Globe Theatre Company's production of Cymbeline, Posthumus was played by Mark Rylance. Click on the numbered links to follow Mark's journey as he creates and plays the character of Posthumus in the Globe Theatre.
Mark Rylance - Character Notes and Activities 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 change frequently as the rehearsal process progresses.
The Cymbeline company is much smaller than I am used to working with at the Globe Theatre and we have all got to know each other quicker than we would have in a bigger company. This means that in rehearsal we get much further, more quickly because everyone is very focused. The energy in rehearsal is high, as are concentration levels. I think that this is because with less people in the company there is a lot less time spent watching others work and waiting for your turn.
We began rehearsing by talking about the verse in Shakespeare’s plays and how there is a difference between verse in the early and later plays. Later plays have more of a jazz beat to them and the verse contains more syncopation. We talked about the way that Elizabethan’s would have relied on sound for information, entertainment, justice and security. Elizabethans could think and speak in a more complex manner than we do. We were also thinking about how powerful men probably spoke with great eloquence. It is hard to believe that an individual could have power in Elizabethan times if they did not, particularly with the period’s focus on hearing in the auditory sense rather than the visual sense.
At the start of rehearsals we looked at what the characters are actually doing in the play and what was happening in the story, rather than thinking about how to play the characters. Mike (Alfreds, Master of Play) has decided to use the method of giving a practical title to every scene in the play. Act 1 Scene 1 has been titled ‘Cymbeline banishes Posthumus’. Once a scene has a title, it is then broken down into units of action. These units are the largest part of text in which one thing happens and where everyone in the scene is involved. The units are then given a title that describes what is happening in them. This process makes the text manageable. It means that we can identify moments that aren’t working easily. Thus we may find that one unit needs a lot more work than others do. In order to identify these units, we all sat around a table reading the text very slowly and logically.
We begin each rehearsal with a warm up and are currently looking at gesture. Mike feels that strong gestures on the Globe stage may help to draw the focus. He thinks that we need to be more dynamic with our gestures, getting more width and height to them. We have been doing this by playing games where we move slowly as if we were moving through a substance other than air. We have been trying to gesture using parts of our bodies other than our arms.
We have also been having ‘character sessions’. Before these sessions, each actor has to prepare what their character says about themselves, what other characters say about them and what they say about others. We also have to list any facts that we find about our character, for example, we know that Posthumus is an orphan. In rehearsal, we then read out and discuss what we have discovered, focusing on one character each week. We then discuss as a company what kind of person we think they are, based on what we have heard, where we think their physical centre might be and what their super-objective for their life might be. The super-objective is a character’s overall objective for the whole play or for their life. For Posthumus, I think it is to be worthy, true and to seek perfection. Finally, we talk about what we think their objective for the play would be. I think that Posthumus’ objective is to get back to Imogen.
I have learnt a lot about Posthumus from these sessions. He comes from warrior stock, but I am not sure how far back this stock goes. I don’t think that he is in any way aristocratic. He gets caught up in his love for Imogen. Everything he does is about her. He has a need to prove himself worthy, which I believe may be a result of being an orphan. He wants to feel as though he belongs at court, but as an outsider, he sometimes has to do more than everyone else does, in order to prove himself. I am not sure that he knows his own mind and there is a suggestion that he lacks humour. I discovered that his centre, the area of the body from which a character leads, is similar to a horse, in that he moves from both his shoulders and thighs.
I always do these types of exercises in preparation for a role, but it is really good to have time in rehearsal to do them because it allows the other members of the company to comment on what you are doing. At the end of each session everybody plays the character we have been discussing. It is very interesting to see how other people think that your character should be played. By playing all the other characters, I have learnt a lot about them, which allows me to understand them more clearly and consequently interact better with them on stage. Finally, we sit down and decide what we think is the best way to play each character.
We have also been using Laban’s theories on movement to inform our characters, which is something that I haven’t done for a very long time. Laban was a Swiss gentleman who described human movement suggesting that there were four main ways to move. We have been looking at one area of his system known as ‘efforts’. ‘Efforts’ describe how we relate to the world and they are essentially holistic. Although initially they are activated physically, they also involve feeling and thought as well. ‘Efforts’ consist of three pairs of movement components, which, when combined, create eight archetypal ways in which people behave. All people contain all these types of ‘efforts’, but may favour one and avoid another one. For this reason, ‘efforts’ can be used to find a character, or to find a way to play a particular scene. An ‘effort’ is a combination of one component from the three categories, weight, space and time, listed below.
- Weight- Light or strong
- Space - direct or indirect (flexible)
- Time - sustained or broken
I think that Posthumus is strong, sustained and direct.
We have just begun getting the play ‘on its feet’ and have acted through Act 1 and Act 2. It is always very nerve racking when you first stand up and start performing, especially when you have spent a lot of time talking about the play and how good you envisage it to be. At the moment we are all aware that we don’t yet know how to play the characters. We only know the facts, which can help to inform our playing. At the moment we are only playing what is actually happening in each scene.
In Act 1 Scene 1 Posthumus, Imogen and the Queen enter. The unit is titled ‘the Queen assures Imogen and Posthumus that she is on their side’. My objective is ‘I want to assure the queen that I will go’. All I have to do in the scene is to convince the Queen. However, there are many ways of doing this. If it is pouring with rain at the Globe, it may be that I have to assure her more assertively than I would on a sunny day. At times the theatre does effect how something must be played. The Laban exercises also inform me on how to play this unit. I know that Posthumus is strong and direct, so I am sure that he would be firm.
From all my years experience working at the Globe I know that when acting works in the theatre it is not necessarily because the actor is externally, technically very good. You have to have something to share with the audience. They really have to believe that you are going through these experiences. The technical aspects help as well. You have to work both internally and externally.
In the evenings I am still playing in Life X 3 at the Old Vic. Some people find it hard to go from rehearsing during the day to performing something completely different at night. I used to find it hard but these days it is not too bad. It can be harder if you have not been performing a play for long, but I have been in Life X 3 for a while, so am very settled in the part.
At the moment I am spending a lot of time thinking about the ideas that Posthumus is humourless and trying to find places where he may show humour. I am wondering how confident he is of his relationship with Imogen. He boasts about Imogen a lot and I am not sure if this is because he is confident or because he is insecure. As yet I do not know the answer to this. I also have to play Cloten and I am finding him very difficult. He is partly foolish and stupid but yet the King seems to trust him and wants him to get married to his daughter. Cloten also seems to be quite threatening and strong. I have many thoughts and questions about the play at the moment, but it is still early in the rehearsal process and I am sure I will eventually find the answers.
I am very much looking forward to hearing from you, as I am sure that you will have lots of good ideas about the play and the parts that I am playing, that will be of great help to me.
Activities
Titles for Each Scene
The company has given a practical title to each scene.
Try this exercise for yourself. The title should convey the essence of the scene (see Mark’s notes for an example). Send a sample of your titles, with reasons for your suggestions, to Mark so he can compare them with his own.
Units
The company has divided each scene into units, each with their own title.
Try this exercise for a scene of your choice. How does this exercise effect your understanding of the scene?
Gestures
Mike Alfreds believes that the company should explore the use of gesture. Experiment with the exercise Mark describes, trying to gesture with parts of your body other than your arms. Is this possible? Send any discoveries you make to Mark.
Character Sessions
Re read Mark’s preparation for his character session. Try some of the exercises he describes or write some of the lists he makes, for yourself. Send them to Mark so that he can compare them with his own.
Mark Rylance - Character Notes and Activities 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 change frequently as the rehearsal process progresses.
In the last week we have continued to work through the play with scripts in our hands, looking at the units and sometimes speaking the titles out loud. We are just telling the story, thinking about what is happening, who the character is talking to and what the character wants. We are not looking at the emotional aspects yet. Once we have read a unit with the script we then put the script down and try and do it from memory. It is surprising how much we remember. We are currently nearly at the end of Act 5.
We’ve also been carrying on with the character sessions. I have now had one for Cloten as well as Posthumus. I only have the doctor, Cornelius, to do. I keep very detailed notes of each session although I do not rely on them now as much as I used to. I find these days that I like to be surprised and find out new things. I think if I take too many notes and ‘lock down’ everything in my performance, there will be no room for other things to come in. I have to be careful though, otherwise I might become vague and not have anything to say about my characters. I am getting more confident that things will happen and that I will have ideas.
In Cloten’s character session we decided that Cloten’s animal was either a slug or a rhinoceros – perhaps just a very strong slug! I think he is probably quite dangerous. The King keeps saying that he wants to send him to war, so he can’t be completely useless. He reminds me of a football player. He is very caught up in his appetites. He is also a gambler and always trying to get money. He is obsessed with fashion. Even though he plans to murder Posthumus and rape Imogen the worst thing he thinks he will do is tare up Posthumus’ clothes in front of Imogen’s eyes.
I think that his centre is somewhere in his neck or mouth. To use Laban’s ‘efforts’ he is a strong, indirect and sustained character. When he becomes broken he has a great potential to lash out. I think that he is a very similar character to Caliban in The Tempest. He is an amusing character who has a great potential for danger. He is described, by Imogen, as a ‘Puttock’, which is a particularly low type of bird. His objective in the play is to get Imogen. He wants her money and her power and I think that he thinks she is very beautiful. She is like a ‘pin up’ to him.
The character sessions have meant that when I stand up to play Cloten, or any of my characters, I have all the evidence I need. I can look at a page and remember that the character sessions showed me that Cloten was terribly insecure, so however bold the lines seem I remember that over the whole play the evidence is to the contrary. The evidence has led me to certain conclusions about my characters. I know that I am not making decisions based on one scene and that I always have the larger picture in mind.
At the end of each rehearsal session Mike (Alfreds, Master of Play) always gives us half and hour to just be our character, doing whatever we like. I find this very rewarding as it allows me to get much deeper into the role.
We did an exercise this week that has helped us to think about using the space on the Globe stage. We began in pairs by holding a stick, similar to a broom handle, between us. We held it in the air with just one finger each. We then began moving around the room without letting it fall to the ground. We began to notice the space between us. We then repeated the exercise with bamboo sticks of the same length followed by bamboo sticks that were twice as long. Finally we took away the sticks and spoke dialogue as if the long sticks were still between us. This exercise made us very aware of the space. We then transferred the last part of this exercise onto the Globe stage.
From this exercise and from working in previous seasons on the Globe stage, we have discovered where the strong places are on it. There is a triangle between each corner and the pillar closest to it that is a very strong area to stand in. If you are in the triangle, then the people at the sides and at the front can see you equally well. The space in-between the pillars is known as the ‘Valley of Death’ because it is very hard to be seen by lots of members of the audience from that position. It is useful for some moments in a play, but it tends to be over used. Actors often seem to be pulled to the area, perhaps because they are so used to working with Proscenium Arches.
This week we have also been talking about some of the themes in the play and how our characters relate to them. We think that the play is essentially about loyalty. All the characters are related to loyalty in some manner. Either marital loyalty, sexual loyalty, national loyalty or parental loyalty. The play also seems to be about seeing things, or not seeing things. Posthumus becomes blind to Imogen’s virtue. Although a comedy, death also seems to be a theme. Many of the characters are mourners who have lost parents or someone close to them.
Activities
Playing the scene from memory
In the first paragraph, Mark describes how they are performing a scene with the scripts and then performing it again from memory.
Try this for yourself.
How much can you remember?
Animal study
Mark thinks that Cloten is similar to a slug or a rhinoceros.
Choose a character from Cymbeline and think about which animal they are most like.
Send your thoughts to Mark.
Space exercise
Re read the paragraph where Mark describes the exercise with the bamboo sticks.
Try this exercise for yourself. What did you discover?
Send you discoveries to Mark
Themes
In the last paragraph of this bulletin Mark tells us what he believes to be the key themes of the play.
Do you agree? Can you suggest any other themes that he might like to think about?
Mark Rylance - 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 change frequently as the rehearsal process progresses.
Greetings to the Rebel Shakespeare Company and the Wellington Shakespeare Society, and thank you for the messages!
The reason why I chose Cymbeline was because of the Master of Play, Mike Alfreds. Mike, in the 1980s when I was in my twenties, changed my ideas about acting. He introduced me to different methods and tools for bringing life into my work. Therefore, ever since I became Artistic Director, I have wanted him to work at the Globe. He was available this year, and when I asked him which play he would like to work on, he said that he was keen to do Cymbeline. This was very good as it fitted in with our theme of plays on ancient Britons.
I find Imogen’s imagination admirable; the ways she can express in great detail the world around her and inside her. She has a great ability to empathise with the situation of other characters, even when they are cruel to her in the way that Posthumus is. She displays, as all of Shakespeare’s great heroines do, an enormous ability to be merciful and compassionate. I think that this is a very admirable quality in people, and is very difficult to do when you are attacked and wronged in the way that she is.
If Imogen is the representation of mercy then I think that she does ‘speak’ to present times, as mercy is relevant to all times. I think that there is a huge need for developing our understanding of mercy. What are the right conditions to be merciful? How do you create these conditions?
This is the prime reason that I like to work with Shakespeare’s plays. If someone has no repentance for their actions, then it may be foolish to forgive them, as the person they have hurt may be hurt again. How do you generate remorse or repentance in a person? The few people who I have met in prison hospitals in England, who have spoken about their crimes, are absolutely horrified when they truly realise the other side to what has happened (as they are usually preoccupied with their side of a situation). Posthumus says "I’ll lie against them, curse them and detest them", and then he tries to kill Imogen. However, he then realises what he has done and he feels considerable horror when he is forced to comprehend the other side of the situation. The potential of this realisation is why I am so against the death penalty and it is this potential that can make the outcome of a prison sentence positive rather than negative.
One of the ways to encourage such a realisation is through drama and plays. For this reason I have taken plays into prisons, because it gives people the opportunity to think about the story and see how it relates to their own experiences. It is an indirect and ‘safe’ way of expressing thoughts and feelings.
Shakespeare himself remarks on this, in plays such as Hamlet - when he uses drama to obtain a reaction from Claudius. Shakespeare shows very clearly that the play has been successful in channelling Claudius’ feelings of remorse, as afterwards Claudius tries to pray for forgiveness. Hamlet does not show mercy when he sees Claudius praying, he could have come in and said "you have done something wrong, lets talk about it". Maybe then it might have been a much less tragic play. However, Hamlet, like the rest of the world, is too caught up in vengeance. I feel very ashamed sometimes of the amount of stories that come out of modern theatre and television that promote the acceptability of vengeance. I do not think that vengeance solves anything. I think that this is what prompts the question of Imogen ‘speaking for our times.’ When I have been in the play Much Ado About Nothing, I’ve noticed that very few women have felt any sympathy for Hero who is another merciful character.
Imogen is a very brave woman. You would think that what has happened to her family could not be worse; her mother has died, the two brothers have been kidnapped and nothing has been heard about them for twenty years. She must keep hoping that news will come forward about them. Her father is ravaged with temper-tantrums and rages. He actually imprisons her. It is a very intense household, which would turn many young people into very angry, vengeful, violent and self-destructive people. However, Imogen retains her imaginative soul and courage. She develops a beautiful expression and imagination, maybe because of the imprisonment and pain she has experienced from her family. I think that beautiful situations can emerge out of hard conditions, the way a diamond comes out of the hardest of rocks. I think that Imogen is the soul of the play. Posthumus and Cloten are the egos and consciousness of the play. I am not talking about a ‘soul’ in a traditional Christian sense, as you do not have to be religious to have a feeling of what a soul is. It is that part of us that exists between heaven and earth, between the imaginative spirit and our matter. I agree with the view, "everyman’s duty is the king, but everyman’s soul is his own".
Is Cymbeline Shakespeare’s most radical play? There is a very good book by the late poet laureate of Britain, Ted Hughes, which is called Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being. I think that it is a wonderful book. You can read bits about the different plays. He says that Cymbeline is the first play where Shakespeare tries a new emphasis on a tragic character. Often in plays such as Othello, King Lear, Anthony and Cleopatra, Macbeth and Hamlet the male characters are enraged against women. In the tragedies there is always a moment when these characters realise what they have done, and then, soon after, they die.
In Cymbeline, for the first time, Shakespeare develops a character unlike this in Posthumus. Posthumus first sets out to kill Imogen, the soul of the play. However, in Act V he comes back onto stage searching desperately for death, he changes his clothes to be on the losing side of the war in an endeavour to get himself killed. Eventually he gets himself captured and is going to his execution. The night before the execution he has the chance to repent, when he is in his cell. When he is released he is forgiven and is reunited with his wife. In the tragic sense he should be dead, and so should she.
Many people have found the play to be unbelievable. They thought the end was too fantastic. It has to be played with great belief in order for the end to work and not be funny. In The Winters Tale the same thing is done with Leontes, a very jealous character, who kills Hermione. However, Hermione comes back to life and forgives Leontes.
In this last phase of Shakespeare’s work, I think that he is trying to tell stories of forgiveness and about the redeeming nature in the universe. He is trying to do this in a ‘heavy’ way, giving the stories as much gravitas as the tragedies have. I think that there is a radical change of pace in his writing. Shakespeare started with the comedies, which have a holy and redeeming aspect to them, and they sometimes include the intervention of God, in the same way that Jupiter comes into Cymbeline. I think the tragedies were influenced by the death of Elizabeth I (as I think that it had a huge effect on Shakespeare). At the end of his life I think that he was trying to create a hybrid form of writing that had the gravitas of the tragedy, a journey that takes the character into hell and back, with the redeeming qualities of a comedy.
On Shakespeare’s birthday we celebrate by reading sonnets in different places in London. This year we went into the Inigo Jones’ Banqueting Hall, where over a third of the plays were performed for the court. It was amazing to think of a play like Macbeth, or many other plays (which talk about the death of kings and the dangers of kings becoming disconnected from their people) being played in front of King James. Sometimes his sons would be present. Many years later, one of his sons (Charles I) was forced to walk out of the window of the room where he would have seen these plays to his execution for taking the very path in his reign that Shakespeare had warned against.
We have currently been working on Act V. We have found that there are so many pieces of information and revelations, that we have developed an exercise. For each complete thought, you say the word ‘beat’ before you say the thought. Then you play out the thought and then you say ‘beat’ before the next one. Everyone else has to react to each beat, and each beat has to be different. You must not fall into the routine of people playing the same rhythm or speaking unnaturally. My character, Posthumus, around line 170-180, says to Iachimo "I saw thou dost…most credulous fool…the grievous murder of thief…anything that is due to all the villains past and being to come". In the ‘beating exercise’ you would say: ‘Beat. I saw thou dost. Beat. I mean most credulous fool. Beat. The grievous murderer. Beat…’ You put the word ‘beat’ to mark the separate points being made. Everyone stays in character, and shows their objectives and what they want in a scene. They should try to react realistically. It might be a little more expressive than usual, but it helps to awaken you to the different possibilities. It is a very good exercise to highlight the potential of a scene.
Another good exercise that we have been doing is on points of concentration. Once you know the basics of a scene, everyone knows what their character wants, and you understand what you are saying, you then concentrate on another character. All the lines are played through this one character. You find that you are torn between what you want and what the character that you are thinking about wants.
About Mark Rylance
Born in England, but raised in America from 1962 –1978. Trained at RADA under Hugh Cruttwell and at The Chrysalis Theatre School, Balham with Barbara Bridgmont. He is the Artistic Director of Pheobus Cart and Shakespeare’s Globe. He is also an Associate Actor of the RSC and friend of the Francis Bacon Research Trust. The Citizen’s Theatre (Glasgow) gave him his first job in 1980 and since then he has worked with the RSC, Royal National Theatre, Royal Opera House, Scottish Ballet, Shared Experience, Bush Theatre, Tricycle Theatre and London Theatre of the Imagination. Mark has also worked with Contact Theatre, Oxford Playhouse, Project Theatre (Dublin), Mermaid Theatre, Royal Court, American Repertory Theatre (Boston), Theatre for a New Audience (New York), Pittsburgh Playhouse and Thelma Holt, after whose production of Much Ado About Nothing he received the Olivier Award for Best Actor. In the Globe’s Prologue Season in 1996 he played Proteus in The Two Gentlemen of Verona in London and New York. In 1997 Mark directed Triumphs and Mirths for Her Majesty the Queen and played Henry V in the Globe’s Opening Season. In 1998 he played Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice and Hippolito in Thomas Dekker’s The Honest Whore, adapted by the play’s director Jack Shepherd together with Mark. The 400th Anniversary 1999 Season saw Mark as Master of Play for Julius Caesar and playing Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra. For the 2000 Season he played Hamlet and appeared in The Antipodes. Television: The Grass Arena, Love Lies Bleeding, In Lambeth and Loving. Film: Prospero’s Books by Peter Greenaway, The Institute Benjamenta by the Brothers Quay, Angels and Insects and Hearts of Fire. He has just completed a run of Life x 3 by Yazmina Reza at the Old Vic and Intimacy, by Patrice Chereau is to be released later this year. The 2001 Celtic Season at the Globe will hear him playing Posthumus and Cloten in Cymbeline.