Decius Brutus, Titinius and Murellus

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In the Globe Theatre Company's production of Julius Caesar, Decius Brutus, Titinius, and Murellus were played by Ben Walden.

About Ben Walden

Ben has appeared in productions at the Comedy Theatre, Theatre Clywd and the Lyric, Hammersmith. TV work includes roles in Martin Chuzzlewit, Camomile Lawn and Between the Lines. This is Ben's third season at The Globe, he previously appeared in Henry V, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Click on the numbered links to follow Ben's journey as he creates and plays the characters of Decius Brutus, Titinius, and Murellus in the Globe Theatre.

Ben Walden - Introduction

The rehearsals take place in rehearsal rooms about 5 minutes walk from the Globe theatre itself. Each rehearsal room is very large and has an outline of the Globe stage marked out in tape on the floor. This helps the actors to prepare for working on the Globe stage. The actors will have very few rehearsals on the Globe stage before production week.

Each day your actor will receive his/her ‘call’ which is the time s/he is expected to report for rehearsal. During the rehearsal period, an actor's day will vary considerably. Your actor may rehearse scenes, attend a class (voice and/or movement) or have a costume fitting with the wardrobe department. A typical day might begin at 10.00am and finish at 6.30pm – sometimes there are also evening calls.

During the rehearsal period (particularly at the beginning) your actor will research his/her character. To help the actors, the assistant director will find relevant books, pictures, etc. and bring these to rehearsal. Extracts from books and pictures are often stuck onto the rehearsal room walls. Actors will also experiment with using props in rehearsal; these will be rough versions of the final prop and will help the actors to build the prop into the scene. Similarly, some form of rehearsal costume will be worn e.g. long skirts for the women, this will help actors to get used to moving, sitting, etc. in their costume. In particular, actors will use the actual shoes they will wear in performance during rehearsal. This is to wear the shoes ‘in’, as they are made using Elizabethan techniques and most pairs have no specified ‘left’ and ‘right’ foot. Many actors also feel that wearing the correct shoes helps them to ‘get into’ character.

The companies have 5 weeks of rehearsal before the technical and dress rehearsals. Generally, the beginning of this period is spent improvising around the text and in development of character; towards the end of these 5 weeks, actors will rehearse scenes in detail and run parts of the play. The exact method of working in rehearsal is established and shaped by the director.

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Ben Walden - Character Notes

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.

Ben will be playing Decius Brutus, Titinius, Murellus, and a Plebian. In the first weeks of the rehearsal process Ben has been concentrating on working with the company to tell the story of the play, ensuring that their own understanding is clear and that they remain focused on communicating this to the audience. Ben is also spending time researching his characters as they appear in Plutarch's history and in other materials which were given to the company. Ben feels research is important to him as an actor and quotes Robert De Niro who says that he does research in order to know more about his character than any other person in the room! As Shakespeare based Julius Caesar on a historical source there is clearly much scope for research for the actors.

This is Ben's third season at the Globe and he is now able to rehearse using this experience to inform his work as an actor. He feels, however that it is also important to explore ideas or ways of playing in rehearsal which might not work on the Globe stage; as the experience of doing this will enrich his final performance. As Ben plays three characters he is exploring ways of ensuring each is different. One way he might do this is to prepare lists detailing what each character says about themselves and what is said by others about each character. Ben also feels that it is important to keep some of the discoveries or decisions he makes about his characters to himself – so that other members of the company do not necessarily know what is driving his actions. This he feels is true to life - where the majority of a persons motives remain hidden from those they interact with.

The company have begun to focus on the differences between text and performance. In Act 2 Scene 2 Decius Brutus must persuade Caesar to ignore Calpurnia and go to the Senate. In the Globe's production Calpurnia and Caesar will be positioned in the balcony above the stage, Decius will be on the stage below. This presents a challenge to Ben as if he wishes to look at Caesar and Calpurnia during this scene he will have to face upstage. The actors are rehearsing in a room without a balcony, so Ben will have to wait to get on the Globe stage itself before the problem can really be solved. Ben must find a way of playing the scene that allows him to face the audience for at least part of it with out losing the intensity of the moment between Decius and Caesar.

Another challenge for Ben is his first scene as Murellus in Act 1 Scene 1. Murellus makes a lengthy speech during that scene which must be made against the shouts of other actors on stage and possibly members of the audience. Ben does not want to deliver the speech all on one note eg. anger, he wants to find variety within the speech and a way of speaking the lines which can communicate on an more intimate level despite the noise of the plebeians.

The cast has been rehearsing the play, working through each scene beat by beat. A beat, Ben explains, is a section of dialogue that pertains to one subject. As soon as the subject changes, there is a new beat. A beat can be as short as one line. For example if we look at the first few lines of Murellus’ speech in Act 1 Scene 1:

"Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome
To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome.."

The first beat ends after ‘wheels’ in the third line as there Murellus finishes asking the plebeians why they are rejoicing and instead begins to berate them for their behaviour. Once each beat has been sufficiently rehearsed on its own the actors will put them together and begin to rehearse the scene as a whole. Ben finds that working initially within beats, helps him to focus on the details of each scene.

Ben is beginning to look more closely at the relationships between the characters in the play. He works out his characters objective for each moment in each scene, thinking about their motivation for every action.

The company are also using improvisation to explore certain parts of the text. Ben was asked to improvise a speech to persuade Caesar to come to the Senate. Improvisation can be very useful sometimes if an actor feels limited by the text and would like to explore a situation in modern terms. In addition to the improvisations the cast has already done, Ben would like to use improvisation to help the actors understand the atmosphere in Rome upon finding out that Caesar had been assassinated. In the Act 3 Scene 1, lines 96-7 Trebonius tells us:

"Men, wives and children stare, cry out and run,
As it were doomsday."

Ben feels that it is important for the actors to be able to create this atmosphere convincingly. He points out that the public reaction to Caesar's death would be have been immense – the people would be deeply effected. The closest that Ben has been to experiencing such an atmosphere in recent years was following the death of Princess Diana – although he feels that the effect of Caesar's death would have been far greater. Caesar provided his people with a sense of security and protection, he was the most powerful man in the ancient world, and Ben believes that people honestly didn’t know how they were going to survive after his death.

Ben has concluded that Titinius commits suicide towards the end of the play purely out of love for Cassius. Today, Ben feels, suicide is generally committed out of a feeling of loneliness, depression, or need for attention. However, he concluded that Titinius committed suicide because he didn’t see any honour in outliving Cassius. His suicide had very Roman motivations, as Titinius tells us, "This is a Roman's part." (Act 5, scene 3, line 89.)

For Ben a rehearsal process is never linear, he never feels that he can look at one point of the rehearsal process and then another and state that one is better. He finds that he continues to make new discoveries because of the discoveries of other actors and what happens in the rehearsal room when these are put into practice.

Looking forward, Ben's sees many challenges he needs to overcome. One is how to play the intimacy and the trust that he needs to establish with Caesar in Act 2 Scene 2. He is also looking for ways to play Murellus’ speech to the entire audience and to vary the energy so that people don’t stop listening to him. Ben's biggest question at this point is, what is it about the way one actor performs Shakespeare that can make him/her easier to listen to than another actor?

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Ben Walden - Activities

These activities are based on the notes above. They are suggestions only; please feel free to devise your own. Please select the activities which are relevant to your group. You can send students’ work and suggestions from any of these activities to GlobeLink and we will be delighted to forward them to Ben.

The activities have been devised assuming the students know the story of the play.
Decius Brutus’ CV

Ben likes to create a profile for his character in which he lists his title, education and family history – a little like a CV.

Write a CV for Decius Brutus. Start by using Ben's headings, then add some of your own. You could look for information in the text, then use some of your own ideas to create a distinctive picture of Decius Brutus. Send the CVs to Ben (you could also prepare a CV for Ben's other characters)

What is said about each character?

At the beginning of the rehearsal period Ben reads through the play and lists:

a) everything that is said about his character
b) everything that character says about him/her self

Choose one of Ben's characters and make these two lists. What do you find out about the character by doing this? Send your lists and observations to Ben so he can compare them with his own.

Staging Act 2 Scene 2

Look again at Ben's comments on the difficulties of playing that scene with Caesar positioned on the balcony.

Imagine you are the director, advise Ben where he should stand on the stage to address Caesar on the balcony above. How much of the scene should he play facing Caesar? You may wish to include a diagram with your description. Send your ideas to Ben.

Beats

One way Ben works is to divide each scene into ‘beats’.

Look again at his explanation of a ‘beat’, then pick any speech and try this exercise for yourself. How does it help you understand what is happening in the speech?

Murellus’ speech

Look again at Murellus’ speech in Act 1 Scene 1. Ben is currently trying to find variety within the speech so that he does not deliver it all in an angry tone.

How do you think Ben might vary the tone of this speech? Try out your ideas, then write instructions for Ben.

Rehearsal Calls

Look at the copy of the call sheet for the first week of rehearsal. Work out what Ben would be doing on each day.

Either write a day or days in the life of your actor OR choose one scene Ben has worked on during the week and try out ways of playing it for yourselves.

Telling the story

On of Ben's biggest challenges at this stage in rehearsal is to ensure he tells the story of the play in a way which will communicate with the audience. One way the company work to do this is to read a scene and then improvise that scene, remembering it in as much detail as possible.

Working in small groups, try this exercise for yourself. How does it help you to focus on the story of that scene?

First Night Cards

Many actors are nervous about their first night and feel that cards bring them luck.

Make a first night card for your actor. Be as creative as you wish, you might like to make a card that contains some of your ideas about the character that your actor is playing.

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