Claudio

A flash banner.

About Alex Hassell

This is Alex's first season at Shakespeare's Globe. During his time at The Central School of Speech and Drama, he performed in King Lear, Twelfth Night, and Uncle Vanya. Since graduating in 2002, Alex performed in Death of a Salesman and Blood and Ice at the Royal Lyceum Theatre. You will also spot him in the films Cold Mountain and Calendar Girls. His television credits include Pepys, Murder in Mind, Death in Holy Orders and Hawkins.

Rehearsal notes 1

  • Coming to the Globe
  • Claudio
  • Preparation
  • First week
  • Word work

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.

Coming to the Globe

John [Dove, Master of Play] and I worked together on Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman up in Edinburgh, at the Royal Lyceum. That finished just over a month ago and John said afterwards that he thought I might be right for the part of Claudio. It's a funny chain of events actually: I only got the part of Happy [Death of a Salesman] because I did another job at the Lyceum, and I only got that job because they saw me in a play at the Edinburgh Festival, so it shows that “from small things come great things”! [laughs]. John thought I might be right so I came in to audition for John, Mark [Rylance, Artistic Director] and Siobhan [Bracke, Casting Director]. The audition was quite relaxed – I did a bit of Hamlet because that was something that I’ve worked on, and I had to read through all of Claudio's lines. I wasn’t outrageously prepared because I’d just finished doing another play at the time… I’d read through Measure for Measure once before auditioning, but I didn’t wasn’t familiar with the play beforehand and I didn’t ‘have’ a Claudio when I went in. I still don’t actually. I was very, very pleased to be offered the part; this is my first time at the Globe and my first time doing Shakespeare professionally since leaving drama school in 2002. Recently I’ve done quite a lot of theatre, but before that I’d been mainly doing TV and film. I’m very pleased to be doing more theatre work, especially in a venue like this.

I was part of the Globe's William Poel festival in my third year at Central [School of Speech and Drama]. It's a festival they have here every year. Two third year students from each drama school perform a duologue, usually by Shakespeare or one of his contemporaries. I did that for my drama school in 2002 and from then on I’ve just loved the Globe – it's such a wonderful space to act in, especially Shakespeare's plays. They were written for this space and I’m excited to see how they’ll come alive in it. Theatre-wise, this is my first time performing outside (apart from the speeches at the William Poel festival). Filming is sometimes outside, but that's so different. I’m looking forward to being able to see the audience and communicating with them in a more direct way than is normally possible. The Globe doesn’t have the disadvantages of playing in a park where you’re completely exposed to the elements and the energy of the performance can just dissipate into nothing. This space is enclosed with an open roof, so there are elements of unpredictability, but energy is contained and comes back to you. I’m also excited about the fact that it's going to be summer and you get to act outside in the sun – that will be fantastic! I would also say I’m rather nervous about starting work here: I went along to see the Globe production of Cymbeline performed at a friend's drama school (a kind of warm-up before they went on tour). I thought Mark Rylance was fantastic so getting to work with him and John, in London on Shakespeare … well, there's always a certain amount of trepidation coming into a job and this time there's a bit extra.

Claudio

I think the part is fantastic. Claudio is a young gentleman of Vienna who's from a noble family – at least, his father was noble. Basically, he's imprisoned by Angelo, the Duke's deputy. From my character's point of view, the Duke has just disappeared – I don’t have an explanation. Angelo imprisons me because he's found out that my fiancée Juliet is pregnant and we’re not yet officially married. Sex outside marriage was a crime and a sin so I’m put in prison and await execution – today that penalty seems even more disproportionate. It seems that Claudio's imprisonment is a catalyst for the story's interrogation of justice - at least, it leads to the situation between Angelo and Isabella. A new regime is making an example of me. I don’t think it's unfair to call it a regime. Angelo is extremely strict and is imposing new standards: ‘If you commit sins and crimes, a harsh penalty will be paid’. Obviously, I don’t want to die so I get Lucio, one of my friends, to go and ask my sister to plead with Angelo on my behalf. She's joining a convent and is going to become a nun, today, by a strange coincidence! I think she’ll be good at this because she's virtuous and very good with words and also has a quality about her that men generally seem responsive to:

Implore her in my voice that she make friends
To the strict deputy. Bid herself assay him.
I have great hope in that, for in her youth
There is a prone and speechless dialect
Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art
When she will play with reason and discourse,
And well she can persuade.
[I.2.168-74]

There's lots of winding parts to the story, but I remain in prison for most of the play: Claudio's imminent execution is a constant pressure on other characters even when he's not onstage. This is pressure is applied most directly when he asks his sister to save his life and sleep with Angelo – that relationship between brother and sister is going to be very interesting.

Preparation

Before I came into rehearsal, I read Measure for Measure a good number of times. I think it's very important to have an idea of where your character fits in relation to the whole play, not just your scenes. I also read a fair amount of background on the play – looking at the time period, the setting and the language. Things like that. Then I tried to get some thoughts together about my character and his relationships with other people but I didn’t do too much really – as I said, I didn’t come in with a complete or definite idea about what my Claudio will be like. Sometimes I’ll do lots of preparatory work beforehand, but it depends on the play and with this one I felt that a lot of my character would come out of rehearsal, and that perhaps it would be best to leave it till then. I didn’t want to peak too soon!

First week

To be shown around the Globe and introduced to everyone at the Meet and Greet was extremely exciting. It felt very welcoming and caring – there's a good atmosphere. What struck me about the place was that everyone really, really wants to be here and they’re very excited about working here and the projects that are going on. Everyone seems to love what they do and so it feels like you’re being welcomed into a family. It was nice to see how our rehearsals and classes will be organised, and the kind of things we’ll be going in the sessions on voice, verse, movement and dance. Getting familiar with the routine helps you to find your feet.

We didn’t do a read-through of the play with all the cast members. I’ve had a read-through for every other play I’ve done so I found the decision interesting. Instead we talked about the play a little then got it up on its feet. I’ve done plays where we sat around and talked about things for a fortnight and then started, whereas this time we started to make things physical almost straight away. For my first scene [I.2], we read through it to make sure we understood what's happening – the progression of the characters, really – then we just got up and started to try and do it. I don’t particularly know what my character will be like yet; standing up and feeling your way around is useful but scary, because you do feel a little naked at first. You just have to concentrate on making the story as clear and dramatic as possible.

In my first scene [I.2], I’m led onstage and presented to the public by the Provost. I’m tied in handcuffs and led out to the very front of the stage then forced to my knees. Basically, I’m in a very vulnerable situation, and we’ve compared it to my being in Trafalgar Square with the press and paparazzi everywhere. There are lots and lots of people: the scene is set in a very public place and the great thing about the Globe is that we can involve the audience to express that. When I’m presented to the public, I’m taken downstage and presented to the audience. I’m very shocked and bewildered by what's happening, that I’m being led away to be punished so harshly. The laws haven’t been used in years: Claudio compares them to ‘unscoured armour, hung by th’ wall/ So long that fourteen zodiacs have gone round, / And none of them been worn’ [I.2.155-7]. The arrest must be a real shock. Even if I understand and accept the arrest, the manner in which I’m taken to prison – humiliated in front of so many people – seems entirely unfair. That's what I’m trying to express at the moment. I also understand that the Provost is only doing his job, and that I’ve got to try and fill Lucio in on the situation so hopefully he can help me: I haven’t completely resigned myself to the punishment.

Word work

We’ve been going through speeches with Giles [Block, Master of the Word]. Most of them are by Shakespeare, but none of them are from Measure for Measure. I think it's important that we don’t work on parts of the play directly in those sessions because that might interfere with rehearsals. We’ve been picking apart the verse, looking for any clues embedded in it and learning how to make it sound like natural speech – how to make it full of variety, colour, twists and turns. I’d come across some of the ideas in drama school but it's always good to go over things like that. I think it's fair to say that Giles represents the way that verse is spoken at the Globe, so it's good to try and get on the same page. I’m trying to apply everything I’ve learnt to all my lines, which can be rather complicated and difficult. But that's what the job is about, isn’t it? Getting to grips with the words so you can tell the story…

Back to top

Rehearsal notes 2

  • Tudor Group
  • Bowing
  • Text: a session with Giles
  • Ideas about Claudio
  • Changes: I.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.

Tudor Group

A member of the Tudor Group called Ruth came in this week to talk to us about what living in those times would have been like. She spends a large part of her life living as a Tudor person would have done, so she has a huge amount of information about the clothing and how the social order worked. It was really helpful stuff because it all relates to the world of the play and, at specific points, to my character particularly. For instance, Claudio is imprisoned and we talked about what prisons were like in those days. Apparently people could be taken into custody for crimes like murder but if they had enough evidence (mitigating circumstances and witnesses), they could get off quite easily without punishment. The beginning of Measure for Measure might not be quite as serious as it seems at first: going to prison didn’t necessarily mean you would be hanged. Perhaps Claudio would be more confident of getting off lightly than I’ve played it so far. Obviously, these Tudor prisons weren’t prisons as we imagine them today. Often they weren’t prisons so much as dirty holes somewhere, like in the supporting arches of a bridge. If you were imprisoned for a long time, your chances of survival were very low because of the grim conditions and diseases. The places stunk, they were utterly disgusting and no one in their right minds would be pleased to go there. Money talked and if you were rich enough you could buy yourself your own room and clean things, but as Claudio is only there for two days and Angelo is very strict, we think that benefits system probably doesn’t apply.

We also talked about the humiliation, the fact that I have to go and stand in front of all those people in the first scene. That sort of thing did happen. Ruth explained it was a church punishment; you would have to stand in front of the congregation, wearing just a shirt and nothing else, for the duration of the whole service, whilst holding candles. Luckily I don’t have to do that, unless John [Dove, Master of Play] changes his mind rather drastically… if he did, well, I’d probably do it! We discussed walking as well, because we’ll be carrying swords like the Elizabethans, and that will affect the way we walk and our posture as it affected theirs. They have this sort of saunter and it was also good to get chance to practice that, although it does feel very strange. I feel like I’m on a catwalk and I’m Naomi Campbell or something. It's very feminine, and my difficulty is trying to find the masculinity in that. You push your hips forward, really swinging them, which feels very odd for a modern man. I don’t normally get embarrassed, but I was almost embarrassed to walk around like that. You feel slightly naked about trying to be that sexual in an ordinary way, if you like. You’re just walking, yet it seems like a very sexual thing. It's something I’ll have to practice, although I won’t be doing it on the way to the shops!

Bowing

We learnt about social etiquette too. Bowing was extremely important in those days, but also extremely normal. Every time you saw someone, you’d bow to them, and every time you left someone, you’d bow to them. We discussed how you would bow to people in certain social classes and to people who you felt a certain way about: the way I bow to Juliet and to Isabella would be different to the way I bow to Elbow and Pompey, or Lucio or Angelo. There are gradations of bowing. Colin [Hurley, Lucio] and I wanted to find the Elizabethan equivalent of the sort of handshake that mates do together, to try and get a “bowing equivalent” of that kind of thing, which is quite hard. You don’t want the audience to be divorced from you by these bows; you don’t want it to look like something alien that you do. It needs to seem organic and as if it really is a communication of some kind.

Text: a session with Giles

As far as I know, I have only one line of prose. The rest is entirely verse, which is great, and for the first time – with the assistance of Giles [Block, Master of the Words] – I’ve stopped being afraid of the language. You know, I was quite anxious about playing this part because the language seems incredibly complicated and it is very dense. By working with Giles, going through pieces of verse from other Shakespeare plays, I’ve managed to get over the fear of complexity and now the language seems fairly lovely. I know that sounds rather gushing, but I’ve really got excited about how beautiful the language that I have to speak is. There's so much to enjoy and until just now I hadn’t been chewing the words or giving them their full weight. That's something I feel I’ve just started to achieve. I’m beginning to understand where each thought comes from, where it starts and where it finishes, and where one thought overleaps another; that's great because once you get at the train of thought behind the language, that language itself makes more sense. I had a really great session with him the other day when we just talking about rhythm. I’d been saying a line in one way, for example, talking about the Duke, “I have done so, but he's not to be found.” [I.2.173]. I was saying ‘I have done so, but he's not to found’, whereas Giles suggested that if I played the iambic rhythm more strongly ‘I have done so, but he's not to be found’, I can add an element of mystery. Saying the line in that way leaves an open feeling at the end of the line instead of the conclusive closed feeling I was getting initially. And it feels right to add more mystery at a moment in the play when everyone is asking ‘Where has he gone?’ So, I’ve discovered that I had just been taking some lines for granted. When we talked about metre it brought up something new and different; a different rhythm changed the meaning of the line and the intention behind it. I find it very exciting.

Ideas about Claudio

I also had a long session with John [Dove, Master of Play], and we went over my first scene [I.2]. It was mostly about our trying to really get on the same page in terms of our thoughts about Claudio, because now I’m certainly beginning to make decisions about the character. I’m starting to understand how I might play it, whereas before I was bumbling around and hadn’t made any decisions. I held off making decisions really, because I didn’t know what I thought about Claudio, but I’m beginning to think that I do know about him. So we’ve discussed the character again… the ideas that I find helpful, and what John and I find helpful together. We started off saying that Claudio is a bit like Steve McQueen – now seems wrong, because he's too laid back – and then I thought that he might be like Wes Bentley's character in American Beauty, the next door neighbour who is very reflective, quiet and thoughtful, but actually that's not Claudio at all. Well, perhaps he's a little bit like that, but now we’re thinking now that he's more like Han Solo from Star Wars, which is wicked [laughs], or like Westley from The Princess Bride: he has that sort of bravado. I don’t mean that makes him shallow… he's a young man and with an adventurous feel about him. You know that he's really full of a lust for life, and that he enjoys life on the edge. I think he's a “live fast, die young” character which is definitely not how I originally saw him, but that interpretation makes him much more interesting within the world of the play, and more exciting for me. To say that he's a cool character sounds reductive and simplistic – but he does have an element of real coolness, and hopefully this is something that the audience as well as other people in the play will respond to. It's important for me to find that quality.

Act I, scene 2

The tone of Act I, scene 2 has become much lighter. Initially, we were playing it very seriously; I’m on my way to prison and I’m going to have my head chopped off, so the situation isn’t looking exactly rosy. Angelo's fiercely strict, he's taken drastic measures against me and it's awful; the prevailing feeling was ‘oh, hell, what are we going to do?’ As a result of the information that the Tudor Group gave us about the likelihood of getting out of prison and the idea that Claudio is a ‘live fast, die young’ character, I’m much more ‘jokey’ with Lucio now. Instead of ‘oh my god, what are we going to do?’ that scene is more a case of my saying ‘Oh, what kind of situation have I got myself into here? We’ll get out of it, we’ll sort it out.’ Now Claudio is a lot more confident that he won’t actually have his head chopped off and that he will get out of this mess unscathed, he and Lucio seem more similar than we realised at first. Together they are rather like the Montague boys – perhaps Claudio is actually a bit like Mercutio, whereas initially I thought he was a bit like Romeo. I can recognise elements of both characters in Claudio, but it helps me to focus on his ‘Mercutio’ aspects at the moment. Lucio and I get a real banter going between in the first scene; you get a sense of how sparky they are together, as well as an impression of Claudio's zest.

I’m noticing how fast Claudio thinks: his thoughts come a lot faster than mine do! Where I would say something then pause and think about my next phrase, Claudio's lines trip over each other very fast. His thoughts move quickly but they’re still clear and precise, very witty. His conversation really bounces of the other character and involves a razor-sharp wit. As John has been talking about him as kind of knife-fighter, it seems fitting that he also speaks in that way. All in all, the way we’ve been thinking about the character has really changed in the past week, which is exciting. It's going to have a great affect the way we play the scene with Isabella in the prison [III.3]. I think I’m going into the prison with more confidence that I’ll be ok, although that confidence has to be underpinned by doubts: it might just be bravado… there is still the possibility that I will get my head chopped off ands perhaps I’m trying hard to ignore that. Starting at this point certainly gives me a height to fall from when Claudio says

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where,
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot,
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod
[III.1.121-4]

He's moved from one extreme to the other and you don’t expect that; only a few lines earlier he's saying to the Friar

To sue to live, I find I seek to die,
And seeking death, find life. Let it come on.
[III.1.43-4]

I had been playing those lines as a harsh realisation and acceptance of death but now I’m wondering what they might mean to a ‘live fast, die young’ type like James Dean, who seeks to go to the very brink of life. If Claudio is like a big wave surfer who loves the adrenalin rush of living on the edge or an adventurer in the true sense of the word, living on the edge, then maybe death might be the great adventure. Maybe those lines are not as sombre as I thought at first.

I think a Claudio who is more buoyant in the face of death in the first part of the scene [III.1] is more interesting because, once he speaks to Isabella and the realisation hits him that he must die, another side to the character becomes apparent very suddenly. You see his cowardice… no, cowardice is too strong... it's more a realisation that death isn’t actually a great adventure. He realises death could be the end point; he could be doomed to eternal damnation. There's a very quick turn around and I think his first reaction to Isabella would be something like ‘hang on, hang on, that's not what I was expecting.’

Back to top

Rehearsal notes 3

  • Voice
  • Owning the space
  • Posture
  • Final scene: V.1
  • Unmuffled
  • Difficult lines

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.

Voice

This week I’ve had some Alexander Technique sessions with Glynn [MacDonald, Master of Movement], and we also had a Voice session on the stage. It was marvellous to get out there. There were still tours going on in the theatre, so we had bits of audience coming in and out. That was odd, because we were having a private lesson and concentrating on personal voice work – if you don’t think you’re doing it right, you can feel quite vulnerable with lots of people watching. But actually I was quite pleased the tour groups were there, because it helps you get used to the space with some people in it. Just being able to see people watching you is strange. When we did finally get ‘on voice’ and talk, as it were, to the audience, it was great to have actual people standing in the yard instead of having to imagine them.

We discussed the levels of sound in the theatre: Stewart [Pearce, Master of Voice] said there are ten levels of sound and the level you use depends on the area you want to reach. He said he wants our voices to be like boulders slammed down in the middle of the Globe, causing sound to reverberate down through the floor and then up to the galleries. Sometimes it's tempting to pitch your voice upwards and outwards; words might get lost that way because there's no roof over the yard. The sound we make has to be resonant and grounded. We want it to travel through the floor almost, rather than through the air. I haven’t been told that before so I found that interesting. We also paced the stage and measured it in terms of our breathing: how many breaths it took to get from one side to the other. Once we did that it was much easier to actually to breathe the size of the stage. It's hard to explain what that means, but it's something to do with feeling like you own the space. If you can almost walk across the stage in one breath then it doesn’t overwhelm you.

Owning the space

The stage seemed smaller than I remembered from the William Poel Festival, in that I felt I could own it. Although it is a big stage, it's not so big that you cannot command it. You can own it and feel that it is vocally yours, which is extremely important. During the William Poel Festival, we had a couple of hours working with Stewart which was great, but it was more like a whistle-stop tour of his ideas and methods rather than something that you can really take away and use to the extent that we are doing now. We found that there's a little hole that's been drilled into the very front of the stage in the middle, at the exact centre of the Globe circle. If you stand on it and speak, the reverberation is amazing. The echo you get when you stand in that position is brilliant: you could be in a tiny room, which is very strange. I realised that it's much easier to be heard in that space than you expect; you don’t have to yell. Obviously, you wouldn’t be yelling, because that's not the way you project your voice. One assumes that because you’re performing in the open air, you really have to go for it, vocally. But that's not necessarily true. As long as my intention is clear and the support in my ribs is working, I don’t think being heard in the space will be a problem, even when I speak more softly.

Posture

Stewart and I also discussed posture. I used to do lots of ballet when I was younger and he noticed how that has affected my posture. You might not think that the position of your feet could affect your voice, but it does. Obviously I don’t make actual noise from my feet or hips, but your organs and your body need to be in the right alignment for your voice really to resonate throughout your entire body. If the alignment is not quite right, then it's not as easy to get the resonance. I have a dancer's posture which means I turn my feet out, so my pelvis turns out too. That has a knock-on effect: my pelvis is in a different place, so my belly is in a different place too. That means my chest is in a different place, and my neck is in a different place! I push my hips forward, as well, which again is a ballet thing. Normally this posture is fine, but for this stage it would be helpful to “clear the channel” for the voice as much as possible, really from the ground upwards. I want to be in a position that allows me to use my voice most effectively, so that's something to work on. I went and did an hour of movement work based on the Alexander Technique with Glynn, who was amazing. She's doesn't pull the body about – she just manipulates it to relax parts that usually hold tension, and that really helps line up your spine. Afterwards I felt very aligned, and my voice was really resonant. I’m trying to take that into everyday life without constantly thinking about it as something I should be consciously doing. I know where my body should be; I’ve just got to remember not to get in the way of that alignment!

Final scene [V.1]

I’m finding the last scene really difficult – well, I find a lot of my part quite difficult, but this particularly so because I don’t have any lines. The way that we’re doing it at the moment is that I come out thinking that I’m going to be executed. I’m ‘muffled’ [V.1.478], which at the moment we are taking to mean that I’ve got a hood over my head, so that I can’t see them and they can’t see me. Obviously, it's extremely important for the story that they don’t know it's me: I’m supposed to be dead. From Claudio's point of view, I’m going to be led out and killed, and then suddenly the hood is taken off and everyone's there. That's a huge shock and then there are a couple of lines before I’m actually pardoned [V.1.490-501]. It's just such a lot to try and take in. Act five feels like that in general - especially the last part of it. There's a lot of tying-up to do in terms of the story. At least attempts are made in that direction. There's not really any time for Claudio to grasp the magnitude of what's happened; or if he does have time, the play drives on without bothering too much about his struggle to get a grip on the situation. The writing doesn’t particularly give any focus to Claudio – how he feels about escaping execution and being reunited with his sister, for instance – so that's really hard to play. Isabella doesn’t have any lines to say how pleased she is that I’m alive, and I don’t have any lines asking forgiveness of Isabella. I think this is probably something that Claudio is concerned about because of what happened the last time they talked [III.1]. He's really seen the depths of his shame: in Act three, scene one, he had to ask his sister to win his freedom by sleeping with Angelo, even though it destroyed a part of him. There doesn't seem to be a resolution for him at the end [V.1]: he doesn't get to apologise for what he asked her to do, and he doesn't get explicitly forgiven for that. Also I get reunited with Juliet - we’ve decided she’ll come on holding our baby as well, because the timeframe in the text suggests that she would have given birth by the end of the play. That reunion is also extremely important. Generally, the scene is so difficult because there's so much going on and I really have to know what I’m thinking. Of course, I should know what I’m thinking in all of my scenes, but clarity is even more important at this point, because the only way to communicate my feelings is to physically show the audience my thoughts. Those thoughts have to be very clear in my own mind first. But it's hard. I wish I had some lines!

Unmuffled

Mark [Rylance, Artistic Director & Vincentio in Measure for Measure] said something interesting in rehearsal the other day: when Claudio is ‘unmuffled’ in the last scene, no one ever says ‘this is Claudio’. Instead they say

This is another prisoner that I sav’d,
Who should have died when Claudio lost his head,
As like almost to Claudio as himself.
[V.1.487-9]

In a sense, he is a different person. Obviously he's still Claudio but he's a new person too: he's changed as a result of everything that's happened. When the muffle is taken off, it's not the same Claudio of act one, scene one, that is revealed. I think that's a good idea, but I’ve been trying to work out why and how he's different. I think I understand the 'why', but I’m still confused about the 'how' : again, the difficulty comes back to the lines – he has no lines to express any changes in his character. I’ve found it's quite hard to get at his journey because the biggest change would probably come after the scene with Isabella [III.1]. He asks her to sleep with Angelo; after that I’m hardly on stage until the last scene. It's important for me to be very clear what happens in the interim [between III.1 and V.1] so I know where I stand in the final scene - hopefully I can communicate any character changes to the audience. I don’t really know how I'm going to do that... I'm not even sure what it is that I should be getting across in the last scene yet!

There are so many different emotions that Claudio feels in Act five, scene one: fear, surprise, disbelief, thanks, regret, and elation, and then Juliet comes in. I just feel at the moment that I’m hugging and kissing Isabella and Juliet, and that's all I’m doing. It's alright, but we’ve only done the scene once and I never really know what I’m doing until I’ve done a scene a good number of times. I’m still really finding out about Claudio. That doesn’t worry me: we’ve still got a couple of weeks’ rehearsal left. I still don’t know who he is, though. We’re trying out different things. It was interesting actually, in another scene today, when I put my own leather jacket on, and that helped me to get at the sort of person that perhaps he is, like we were saying about Han Solo. It's just that this jacket is kind of cool – if I can talk about my own jacket in such a way [laughs] – and it makes you a feel bit rough and ready somehow. I put the collars up so it was a bit like John Travolta in Grease, and it just helped get a sense of this cocksureness that we’re looking for in him…

Difficult lines

I mentioned about the complexity of the language in Measure for Measure – I wondering how readily understandable the audience will find some of my lines. For instance

Thus can the demigod, Authority,
Make us pay down for our offense by weight
The words of heaven: on whom it will, it will;
On whom it will not, so; yet still ‘tis just.
[I.2.120-2]

It's very difficult to act something that is so convoluted in terms of language. To understand the logic of it, intellectually and emotionally, and to then communicate that to an audience is certainly a challenge.

Back to top

Rehearsal notes 4

  • Good week
  • Running acts
  • Inference
  • Session on the Globe stage
  • Back into the rehearsal room: positions

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.

Good week

It's been a good week. I’ve taken some big steps, or at least it feels that way. I’ve become very aware of the fact that we haven’t got much time left. Until now, I felt that we had lots of time, but we haven’t! [laughs] So that has lent a bit of urgency. I’ve been getting nervous and therefore I’m probably working harder. My thoughts about the character are starting to fall into place, as they usually do towards the end of the rehearsal period. That's when you start to understand a part – after working at it for weeks. Also, I’ve now had the opportunity to watch the other scenes that I’m not in, and we’ve run some scenes together too. This makes a massive difference, because it helps you better understand the world of the play and how your character balances up against the other characters.

Running acts

There are a lot of reasons why it's helpful to run whole acts rather than specific scenes at this stage. I find that it helps me understand the pace of the action; if one scene which I’m not actually in is of a certain rhythm and speed, I try to use that to understand where I should pitch the scene that I am in. Is it supposed to be the same sort of speed, so that the action carries on in a flow? Or perhaps there should be a change in the pace, because different kinds of things happen in the scenes (in terms of the themes etc.) Maybe a different pace at this point would just make the play more interesting and varied to watch. For example, my scenes more serious than some of the others: if a scene deals with weighty issues like death and honour, the pace might slow down. On the other hand, if a sense of danger is important to the action, then the pace might speed up. It's important to find a balance then juxtapose that against the other scenes.

Obviously, it's important to know what happens just before and immediately after my scenes. If a character has to come out of one scene and go straight into another, they might have to act a different state (they might have been confused before and now they’re angry, for instance) and that transition is hard to find if you haven’t just done the scene beforehand. It's hard to remember what the character was like in the previous scene: what's he changing from, what's he changing to? This doesn’t make a huge difference to me because Claudio isn’t in any scenes one after the other. My scenes are very split up, but it's still nice to get a board idea of the other characters’ journies.

Inference

I like just seeing more of the other characters as we run the acts. When I see Lucio and the two gentlemen in Act one, scene two, that helps me infer things about the sort of character that Claudio must be – to be friends with Lucio, Claudio must be a certain way, otherwise they just couldn’t be friends. Seeing more of Lucio increases my awareness about the kind of character that I should be… likewise, seeing more of Isabella makes me realise what kind of character I should be, and the same goes for Juliet. I also find it helpful to hear what other people say about me. Although I know that from the text what is said about my character and I’ve written all of those things down as a reference, it's a different thing to actually hear those things said – you find out whether the other characters mean what they say, for a start, and just how they feel about my character offers a guide as to about how he might be. In the same way, I’m sure that the way I’m playing Claudio will guide them as well. I’m enjoying finding out more about the world of the play, the type of people that inhabit the world of the play, and the type of place that Vienna is in this play.

Session on the Globe stage

I had a great session with Mark [Rylance, Artistic Director] earlier this week. Aside from two voice sessions, this was our first session on the stage. We talked about the space, basically how to use the space and sightlines. Mark [Rylance, Vincentio] and Colin [Hurley, Lucio] and Paddy [Brennan] were on stage; they’ve worked here a lot before and they know how to use the space, whereas I’m still finding my feet in that way. The Globe is a bit unusual because, firstly, we’re practically in the round, and secondly, the two massive pillars mean that some positions which you would expect to be very strong are just no good. Mark talked through the patterns of the stage and the different ways of making entrances and exits – going diagonally across the stage or taking more of a sweeping arc, for instance – as well as the various impacts those movements might make on the audience, and what it might mean about your character.

We also how found out how the impact of any movement varies if, as a member of the audience, you’re in the upper balcony, or the rogues gallery, or if you’re a groundling. The spatial relationship with each of those sections is different, therefore each segment will respond slightly differently to any given movement. That's hard: you can’t do much about it because of course everyone's watching at the same time. I don’t know how I’ll deal with that. It was certainly very interesting though, and now I know absolutely where are the good places and bad places to stand. That will be very helpful for rehearsal.

In the session, those of us who weren’t actually on stage went into different parts of the theatre and kept moving around, because the space looks and feels extremely different depending on where you’re sat or stood. Mark, Colin and Paddy demonstrated different angles and lines and spatial relationships on the stage, so we could see what they meant to different parts of the theatre, and how some parts of the stage are not as powerful as others. There's ‘the King's spot’ for instance – I think that's what it's called – just underneath the sign of the zodiac in the heavens. There's actually a little circle drilled into the floor, so you can tell where it is. This is the most powerful place to stand because it's very onstage, if that makes sense… you’re surrounded by stage and very much become part of the circle of the globe. Having said that, it would be quite difficult to stay there because the position feels so far away from everyone. If I come further downstage, nearer the audience, then I’m in a more vulnerable position. It's intimate, as though I’m sharing something with them specifically.

The work around the pillars was interesting too: we explored how they could be used to conceal and hide, or to reveal. I also found there are dangerous places around each pillar; they can cut out a lot of the audience's sight. On the other hand, the corners of the stage are brilliant positions because lots of people can see you, and it also feels like you’re completely surrounded by people, which is quite exciting. Another interesting that Mark talked about was that if someone is in a bad position onstage and the audience has to move around to see them, then the audience on the other side of the auditorium sees them shifting around trying to see you, so not only would the people who can’t see you would be distracted but also the other members of the audience who could technically see you, if they weren’t watching what all the shuffling was about on the other side of the theatre. Hopefully that will be quite a useful gage in the previews as to whether you’re in a good place or not – I’ll know if I’m in a bad position because people will start paying less attention.

One can do things to avoid problems with sightlines, in addition to standing in the ‘right’ place. If the view of one character is restricted, it's all the more important to make sure that every segment of the audience can at least see how other characters react to that person's speech.

Mark said that if a particular character can’t be seen by some segments of the audience, another character's reaction to what the hidden person is saying can act as a window into the scene. That's very true, even when the obscured character carries the bulk and weight of the scene. And that's why I think being on this stage is so exciting. In a film, the camera will normally be fixed on the person who's talking so you don’t really get to see the other person's reaction. You get the camera's point of view from the word ‘go’. Here there are so many choices to be made about where you look, and on whom you focus.

At drama school I was taught that people in the audience should be looking at the person who is reacting onstage: one constantly wants them to think that they could answer at any point. Actually, they should feel able to respond in any way at any point, because the reason you’re speaking is to have an effect on them. So acting is as much to do with the person who isn't speaking as the person who is, which is why things aren't necessarily lost if you can’t see the actor who's speaking; you can gain something by watching the person who reacts to the visually obscured character's speech. Or at least, you don’t fall away. Of course, you don’t want there to be a time when the audience can’t see either of you.

Back into the rehearsal room: positions

When I got back to work in the rehearsal room, I felt very conscious of being in bad places, so that was hard at first. Sophie [Thompson, Isabella] and I did a scene, Act three, scene one, and we were both trying to act etc. but at the same time we were both thinking, 'oh, no, that's a bad place, can I move? How can I help Sophie? How can she help me?' But when we got over that, the scene certainly played much better as a result of being aware of those optimal positions. I realised that I don’t really need to be really close to Sophie to get a powerful kind of intimacy. The guidelines about powerful positioning and the places that were more ‘alive’ on the stage really opened up the scene in a way that I hadn’t had thought possible. It's interesting that often you have to start off as if you were acting in a studio or for TV in order to understand the intention, to understand that it is perhaps an intimate scene, and then – having achieved that intimacy by being intimate – it's easier to find that again in a big void of space.

Back to top

Rehearsal notes 5

  • Technical rehearsals
  • Clothing
  • Makeshift audience
  • Run-throughs & jigs

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.

Technical rehearsals

I’ve finally got my costume on, we’re on the stage, and we have all the props. Lots of people in tour groups come in and out of the theatre as we rehearse, so we’ve got some audience too. Now we’re attempting to make the leap from the rehearsal room onto the stage, which is huge. It feels so different to be in a massive, open-air theatre as opposed to a small indoor rehearsal room. There are certain things that I was doing before that I’ve realised I just can’t do in this space, and also in these clothes, which make me feel different. I’m starting to realise how much audience there is, and that you need to include them by opening things up.

It's hard to explain how things change when you move onto the stage. Technically speaking, you need to find reasons for not always looking towards the person to whom you’re talking, because you’re just not in that kind of space. That sort of focus is rather exclusive. But also, as Liam [Brennan, Angelo] quite rightly said, audiences can get tired of your looking at them too much. They also want to see the tension between two people without their being personally included. I think there's an important balance between those scenes which include the audience and those which do not.

For me, tech week is all about getting used to the space – it feels so different in the rehearsal room. The floor of the rehearsal room was marked up with an outline of the stage, so we have the same floor space, but there are so many other elements to the theatre itself. For instance, most of the rehearsal room was taken up with the size of the stage, so the experience of watching scenes in the rehearsal room was very different from watching scenes from other parts of the theatre. I realised how much more space there is that I need to fill – not just vocally, but in terms of clarity of focus.

Clothing

Trying to work with the costumes and the space instead of fighting against them is important. On the one hand, there are moments that feel very different and difficult in the costume, but there are things that the costume does them for me – things that I couldn’t do in my own clothes, somehow. I think of Claudio as the knife-fighter that I mentioned earlier, and a gambler. He's the kind of person who tries to keep his cards to his chest, whereas normally I tend to express things very physically. The restraints of the costume have helped me to keep things on the inside, to be a bit more reserved instead of showing what I’m feeling on the outside. The clothing has also helped with Claudio's nobility – it makes me stand in a very upright way automatically and it's very flash, so I look and feel noble before I even get onstage! That changes things. For example, I hope that the scene when I’m in the prison looks different (in the theatre as opposed to the rehearsal room), because you’re presented with a person in these clothes who has been chained up, a person who is clearly high-born and noble and very conscious of himself. There's a greater contrast, visually, between the character and his situation. Claudio in this situation rather than other characters in shabbier clothes, who would look more… well, not at home, obviously, but they wouldn’t look out of place in prison, whereas I think Claudio does look out of place. It's quite a shock to see him there.

When I first put the clothes on, I felt that they might break if I did something wrong. Actually they’re very tough, and they yield quite a lot too; they’re obviously meant to last and to be lived in. The costume just makes you stand and walk in a different way, and move in a different way. I’m not sure how I can describe that. When I wear a suit, I automatically feel like a businessman because suits are what businessmen wear, so I act more a bit more like a businessman. Dressing the part helps you play the part. In Elizabethan clothes, I don’t want modern-day idiosyncrasies; the mannerisms I connect with a modern street-life will hopefully disappear because they feel completely unnatural in a costume like this. Although I still have to be real and natural, the clothing automatically cuts out certain (modern) modes of movement. That disjunction between now and then is what I find is so strange here: in the green room, we all sit eating and drinking coffee in these costumes. It feels so bizarre.

Funnily enough, I feel Claudio has become more masculine in these clothes, despite the fact that it's tights and ruffs and stuff like that. That essential element of the character was missing before, so I’m pleased. It's an encasement of the character that I’ve been trying to work on and create, and suddenly that encasement now has a very distinct look. I very much know now when I’m being me and when I’m being Claudio, because the costume underlines the difference automatically.

I suppose it's as if you’re playing a clown and you wear your own clothes in rehearsals, then when you put on the clown costume, you really are a clown. I become Claudio – well not Claudio, he's a character – but I am a Shakespearean man, because I look exactly like one… I don’t have to actually do anything, because I become that, to a certain extent, by putting on the clothes.

Makeshift audience

I find the tour groups very useful. It's distracting when they have to get leave, because I’m desperately trying to hold their attention and they’ll just walk out on you! It feels like you’re not holding them there, although that's not necessarily the case; they’re just being asked to get up and go because they have to keep to a timetable. So their leaving is quite disconcerting, but I think it's fantastic to have them there because we’ve been discussing the idea that it might be good as an actor to think of the audience as another actor in the scene. I’m very glad that there are other people moving round the space; if I had no idea what an audience would be like, on the first night I would feel as if a new cast member was coming on stage that I’d never worked with before. It's great to have people to look at, to recognise that they are looking at you, and to interact with them in the moments that you’re supposed to. The plays are written for that space and part of that is the assumption that there are people to be in the space, so the play automatically feels different when there are people there. It comes alive, because instead of gesturing into air or talking to empty seats, you’re talking to human beings who react to you. I think that's why this space is so exciting and very different from theatres with a proscenium arch, and other “new” modes of theatres, because you really are in contact the people in the audience.

Run-throughs and jigs

Running through the entire play made such a difference. I started to realise how each scene affects the next, how the ball starts to roll, and how important – in my case – the character obviously is to the entire story. Run-throughs are also useful just to get an idea of the flow of the character: it's much easier to remember how the last scene affects the new scene if you’re doing it all in one go! The jigs, which we’ve been rehearsing separately so far, really add to the storytelling in terms of my character, too. [There are short jigs interspersed throughout this production of Measure for Measure]. The very first jig, which happens before I’m imprisoned, is the only opportunity I get to do anything before I go to prison, so I still haven’t quite worked out how I should be… basically I'm free in the world of the play, so it should show Claudio before anything goes pear-shaped! That's a great opportunity. Though being shackled – or rather roped – in the following jigs is interesting too. Dancing is often a very free thing and in these instances I can’t be free. I’m manipulated by other people quite a lot, which is usually symbolic of justice or public opinion during the events of the play. The jigs tell the story of my character's journey in that way, in between the scenes which I’m actually in. This is useful because I’ve only got a short amount of time in the scenes themselves and there's a lot of information I need to get across. The jigs remind the audience about how the plot relates to Claudio, so that helps put my scenes in context. It's funny just having jigged before going into the big Isabella scene [III.1]... hopefully the jig will fuel the scene, and I can use the dancing as a way to get into it. At the moment I’m just trying to remember what I should be doing in the jig! That's slightly distracting but hopefully it will sort itself out.

Back to top

Rehearsal notes 6

  • First performance
  • Changes
  • Press Night
  • Discoveries from first week
  • Weather
  • Exposure

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.

First performance

I think it went really well. The audience was very excited and enthusiastic. First night audiences here are often real Globe fans. They laughed at absolutely everything though, which I found slightly disconcerting. I assumed we had one play in the rehearsal room and I felt we had a completely different play onstage. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; it was just very surprising and amusing. I realised the audience made it a completely different experience. Like I said, they laughed a lot, even at moments that I thought were serious, like my first line of the 'Ay, but to die' speech [III.1.121]. They laughed and I had to try and pull them back, to say that this speech is actually very serious. Overall it was a really intriguing evening. The play went really well and everyone was pleased, but as I said the audience responded in unexpected ways. The second night was absolutely different again; once again, the audience was very involved but a little calmer.

Again, there was lots of laughter in unexpected places, but not to the same extent as the previous night. It's strange… almost every audience so far has been completely different. That's been the case for every play I’ve done, but not to the extreme extent that I’ve experienced here. Each audience seems to be on a completely different wavelength. It's odd. I think these differences are much more noticeable because of the space; we’re completely in touch with them somehow.

To go out onstage for my first scene [I.2] and see one thousand five hundred people was amazing, absolutely fantastic. I wasn’t nervous, nor have I been nervous yet, which is strange – I don’t usually get that nervous but I really thought I was going to be. I wasn’t, though; I was just excited. It's so exciting just to be faced by this massive block of people. You share the same space with them in a very unique way, because everyone can see each other. It's great to be able to use them sometimes, although we’ve decided that it's probably better for my character not to use the audience as much as other characters in Act one, scene two. John [Dove, Master of Play] says the character is the heart and centre of the scene, so perhaps it's more tense and interesting for the audience to feel that they’re not to be a part of you in quite the same way that they’re part of other characters at that point. With Claudio, there is a little more distance interposed. Obviously I do address some things in my speeches to the audience, especially in the 'Ay, but to die' speech [III.1], but really I think they should be seeing things in me rather than my seeing things in them.

Changes

I made some big changes a few performances in, mainly because I had a conversation with my sister, and she said that she wasn’t sure that she liked Claudio; he was arrogant. I thought about that, and I think there is a slight arrogance about him, but I don’t want that to be an overwhelming feature of his; I want him to be liked. So we talked about where that arrogance came from, and we thought it could be the result of over-emphasising the importance of Claudio's pride. Inside, he's a big ball of emotions, but I was covering that up a bit too much – the audience didn’t get to see how I was actually feeling on the inside to the extent that they perhaps should have done. In addition, my costume, my hair and my beard are all very severe, and my physicality is very straight and proud, so that it seems slightly impenetrable. It's important to play across that costume, we thought. I need to try and undercut the clothes with my character, rather than play on top of the costume. I want the audience to see that Claudio is really ruffled by what is happening to him, so we’ve brought the vulnerability and the uncertainty up a lot more, and taken the pride away. I’m acting less, in that I’ve realised I can let Claudio be a bit more like me than perhaps I was, and use my nature and vulnerabilities in that way – for the moment, at least – rather than getting in the way of it with some kind of characterisation which might not be necessary. Not that I was doing a massive metamorphosis before...

Press Night

The Press came for three nights in the end, because of the tube strike. To be honest, it didn’t really make a difference to me. I’d like to be reviewed well but I didn’t change my performance in any way because they were in. I still tried new things, and in fact that was probably one of the first nights when we played with this new vulnerability idea.

The Press Night audience weren’t really any more or less different in their reactions to our other audiences. There was still a big 'normal' audience, and they were very fast and very intelligent, and they really enjoyed it. I’d obviously very much like the show to be well-liked and have everyone think it's amazing, but the audience are really enjoying it, and I think that's the most important thing, really. I’m not reading reviews until we’ve finished the run. I know they’ve been mixed, but I’m not going to read them because I would find it difficult if I was personally rubbished. Also, if people say: ‘Alex Hassell played Claudio like this’ and I don’t agree with that interpretation, I’d go on stage thinking about the review and then maybe I'd mess it up… so that's why I generally think it's best to steer clear of reviews.

Discoveries from the first week

I discovered that you can see very clearly when people in the audience aren’t paying attention - if you’ve lost them, or if they’re getting bored. As soon as you notice that, you have to try and entice them again. I’m much more alert to how they’re taking things. My energy as a performer also seems different: it dissipates in a different way at the Globe, but I haven’t quite figured out how or why or what that means yet! I’m also learning about practical things, like what to do if a helicopter goes over: just recently a helicopter went over during my main speech, so I just had to change it. Basically I got downstage and tried to be as loud as possible – without yelling, of course. I just concentrated on keeping the audience's focus and attention so that they could follow what I was saying. They’re willing to follow; you know they want to follow and they don’t want to be put off, so that makes my task easier. I’m learning a lot by watching the other actors too; watching Mark [Rylance, Artistic Director & Vincentio in Measure for Measure] or being onstage with him in Act five, when he uses the audience in such a stupendous way (I couldn’t get away with anything like that in my character anyway). I really admire the way that he uses the audience and the text in such a way that they feel included in the play, yet not so included that their involvement detracts from the power of the story. It's a special balance.

Weather

We’ve done a whole performance in the rain, and there have been several others when there were showers. We don’t get wet because of the canopy over the stage, and generally the audience in the yard stay there, but sometimes I find more energy is needed just to keep the groundlings focused. Sometimes, if lines seem about the weather, or even if they’re not, even if they’re just about how terrible things are, you can use it. For example, my lines in the ‘Ay, but to die’ speech:

To be imprisoned in the viewless winds
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world.
[III.1.127-9]

I can use that, it's a wonderful thing to have that. And the show feels so different in a matinee as opposed to the evening because the light is different, the weather's different, and it's hotter or colder depending on when you’re performing. An evening show starts off sunny and ends up dark, and it gets colder. It's strange, but I’m getting used to that; it's interesting to decide whether to use it, or not use it, or play against.

Exposure

The groundlings certainly are something special because they’re leaning at our feet or walking around the yard, which is crazy! Not at all like other theatres. Having people so close, I can’t cheat. I can’t fake things or hide things because that stage is utterly exposing. I think that might be why I’ve felt a bit funny coming off stage a couple of times. Somehow it's just me and the audience; at one level, there's no pretence – although at other levels, of course there is.

Even when I’m onstage without any lines, when I’m not in the immediate focus of the story, I still feel exposed. Also, as Claudio is largely an emotional character (as opposed to a humorous or intellectual character), I don’t get to use laughs to gauge how things are going as other characters might be able to do. It's sometimes difficult to know where you are. Exposing so much in front of all those people does make you feel vulnerable. That's how Claudio should be, but it's strange if people don’t pay attention or if they look bored. Then I feel like saying ‘Oh, come on, I’m working my heart out here.’ It's certainly a different kind of experience.

Back to top

Rehearsal notes 7

  • Hampton Court Palace
  • Changes for Hampton Court Palace
  • The space
  • Running time

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.

Hampton Court Palace

We had a really good time. The other casts found it quite difficult, but I think word had gotten round that the shows were good by the time we moved, so our audiences were larger. Also, Measure for Measure was the last show there, so more people came to our performances for that reason and we had full houses. We found that we learnt quite a lot about the play by putting it into a smaller space. The Great Hall was completely different from the Globe, like a more conventional theatre space. I found the most startling thing was the silence. There weren’t any planes or boats or wind or birds – sometimes there wasn't much laughter, for that matter. I found I could hold a moment in a very different way; at the Globe, I feel the need to drive things through because if I pause for too long, the energy doesn’t hang in the air in the same way. The audience start to get distracted, then move about and distract each other. At Hampton Court Palace, members of the audience couldn’t see each other so they were all just focussing on us. You can’t really see the audience in the same way, at least if it's night time, because when the sky gets darker, the lighting isn’t the same as it is at the Globe. I think the Hall was a more intimate space, which made for more intimate acting somehow… things would hold in a very different way, in a way that I don’t think they ever could here at the Globe. We did things there that we can’t do here. It was great to try new things, but it was also useful to bring the show back here [the Globe] and find out how those new ideas worked (or didn’t work) in the Globe space.

For example, there was one performance at Hampton Court when I really took a lot of time making my decisions in the scene with Isabella [III.1]. I just let pauses and thoughts hold for a long time, because I thought ‘Well, it's an opportunity to try something in this space which I can’t try at the Globe. I might as well see how it works.’ I don’t know if it did work… I think it did. I felt that I could just float the ‘Ay, but to die’ speech out into the silence, whereas here [at the Globe] I find that harder to do. There, I was almost floating it out into a dark space and it became more to do myself, the character, as opposed to the audience. Then again, I chose to use the audience a lot more in the same speech yesterday [at the Globe]. I moved right in front of the stage as far as I could go. Someone laughed, so I ‘jumped’ on them and tried to use that. Those two ways of doing it are so different and completely site-specific.

People walked by our dressing stands coming in, and I didn’t mind that at all. That was fine. We did a sort of promenade as well at the beginning, to really chat to the audience and to relax them – I think the reason was to encourage audience response. It was a pity that the comic aspects of the play didn’t get as many reactions at Hampton Court Palace. The play did get a bit of a different edge there. The audience still laughed, though, and at the end they were still warm and responsive. They just didn’t get whipped up into the same sort of strange frenzy that they do at the Globe sometimes. Here, at the end of Act five, the audiences go crazy sometimes, whereas they didn’t at Hampton Court Palace. At the Globe, some of the jokes that are quite funny, without being ‘Bring the house down’ funny, do bring the house down. At Hampton Court Palace, they were just quite funny, because the audience hadn’t been whipped up in the same way. That was okay, though – I think it meant that other layers of the play became more important.

Changes for Hampton Court Palace

The jigs changed, but not hugely so. It was mostly a case of reworking the way we brought things like the table on and off. We had a smaller table. Nothing major changed. In terms of spacing, we had a big aisle down the middle of the audience, and that was slightly weird because we were there on stage, and in front of us was this big aisle with nothing in it. All the audience was banked on the side, so we could use that spot as a good place to talk to someone, because you aren’t blocking anyone. We did one technical rehearsal in the space, but we didn’t really do much more, so the playing was always rather spontaneous. Everyone knows how to use a conventional space anyway, so it didn’t feel all that difficult.

The space

The ceiling in the Great Hall is very, very high and echo-y; if we got too loud, the sound lost clarity, because it echoed all around. It just meant we had to act in a certain way: not too loud, but clear. Diction and enunciation were very important. I had to be extra-careful to put consonants in clearly so that they are understandable in the space. The position of the audience and their different distances from the stage made finding the right volume an interesting challenge: there were people very close to the stage and down the sides, effectively right next to us, and there were people absolutely miles away, right at the back. I had to be loud enough so that the people far away could hear, without being too loud for the people close by.

Having audience members along the sides of the Hall was strange because there were so few of them, just two rows. Those rows did make the space feel more ‘in the round’, but all in all I think it was more important to give the show to the main body of people. I played to the people at the sides less than I normally do at the Globe. In the Great Hall, I mostly played to that main frontal section.

Running time

The show was considerably longer while we were playing there, and I think it was for the reason that I mentioned earlier – we were able to hold pauses for longer. I didn’t think that additional length was necessarily a bad thing, and it was much longer! Although, having said that, we had our longest show ever two days ago, at the Globe! We didn’t intend to do that. I don’t think things sagged at Hampton Court; it certainly didn’t feel like a desperately slow show. It just took a really long time and I think that's because we bounced off the space… there were new things that we could put in.

Back to top