Don John

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About Rachel Sanders

This is Rachel's second season at Shakespeare's Globe. Last year she was a member of the Globe's first all-female company and played parts in both The Taming of the Shrew (Widow) and Richard III (Duke of Clarence). This was not her first experience of Richard III – she played Lady Anne in the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1996 production. Other stage roles include Beatrice in A Servant to Two Masters and Yvette in Mother Courage and her Children. You will also spot her in the television dramas The Wyvern Mystery, Coronation Street, The Bill and Starhunter 2300.

Rehearsal notes 1

  • Back at the Globe
  • Research
  • Preparation
  • First impressions
  • Brothers
  • Villain
  • Claudio
  • Original practices
  • Start of rehearsals
  • Hot-seating

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.

Back at the Globe

I only found out I was coming back to the Globe a week and a half before rehearsals started, so there wasn’t much time to digest the news before I turned up! Of course, I’m pleased to be back because you learn so much working here alongside the Masters of Voice, Verse, Movement, Dance and Clothing… it was an amazing experience to have so much expert knowledge on hand last year. Sometimes it feels strange that you’re paid for taking in all this training and information. There's a great atmosphere here, too – it's friendly and very supportive which encourages you to take risks but means you’ll be okay on the bad days as well. The place can hold it all.

There are some differences that make working on the Globe stage unique. You have to be extra-accurate with your words and movements because this is what the audience are concentrating on and there's not the spectacle of an elaborate set to distract their focus. Of course, everyone should concentrate on words and movements anyway; a set won’t tell the story of the play for you. So in one sense a bare stage shouldn’t make much of a difference… but then it does make a difference because this stage in particular demands laser precision rather than asking for it politely. Audiences here will notice if you’re not absolutely truthful in the way you show relationships between characters, or if you say something without quite understanding what it is you’re saying. I suppose the fundamentals of acting don’t change just because you’re on the Globe stage – I’ve performed on bare stages in studios before – but here you find yourself committing to those fundamentals all over again.

The audience is very close and the whole theatre is lit so you can see every single person there and they can see you. You know whether they’re following the story, and they know whether you’re being open-hearted and truthful. Some people have the misconception that because the groundlings are standing, they’ll always be prone to shuffle around. Actually, the groundlings will stand still for the whole hour and a half if you’re open-hearted and truthful – if you put on a good enough production. I think that's our aim; to enthral the audience so completely with our story that they only realise they’ve been standing for two hours when the show is over. I know from my own experience as a groundling that you do get enthralled when everything works on that stage. I watched Twelfth Night in the 2002 season and I remember being absolutely transfixed by the drinking scenes with Sir Toby and Sir Andrew. A lot of the action was very still – drunken men sitting around and being funny – but I could see quite small movements. The remarkable thing was the way my imagination kicked in. You listen to the words and you start imagining a world – that's where Shakespeare's scenery is, when he needs it. I was drawn into Sir Toby's little hall. The actors weren’t pushing it out or trying too hard… they were just being truthful and it was really engaging. It reminded me of radio – the more you listen, the more you use your mind's eye and visualise the world that the characters inhabit. It's not even something that you do consciously; suddenly you’re in a palace or a garden and the description will have slipped into your head along with the story.

Research

Normally I like to do a lot of research before rehearsals start because then you’ve got a good base of ideas to work on. Preparation for this job has been a bit different because I only found out I’d got the part a week and a half before rehearsals began. Actually, it's a little frustrating. Maybe some actors don’t do any preparation and they just turn up, but I like to know the play and I try to do some background work – looking at the period when the play was set, for example. I don’t mean that I read the whole history of renaissance Europe because the facts themselves aren’t going to give you any answers about how to play the part, but background knowledge might inspire you. Research sometimes helps you bring out aspects of the character you otherwise might have missed. It helps to get your imagination going. I find myself making links between different pieces of information from the text, from my research and from the sessions we have on voice, movement and verse. For instance, we had a voice session today with Mark [Rylance, Artistic Director and Master of Voice for the White Company]. He spoke about the words going through your body – filling the spaces in front of you and behind you as well. That made me think about the part when Don John talks about being born under the influence of Saturn [I.3], and the way the Elizabethans thought other forces could move through a person's body… astronomical forces like the stars, or perhaps witchcraft. That link struck me: maybe Don John would get into witchcraft. Maybe he would choose to let something evil work through him. They’re all ideas that go into the mix. I won’t necessarily use them.

Preparation

I read the play and I went through the scenes before we came in for rehearsal. I wrote a synopsis of each scene to get an idea of the play's journey and the specific journey of my character through the play. I found where Don John's journey starts off and where it ends, and where the play starts off and where that ends. A mind-map helps you keep track of where you are in the play. I don’t actually learn the lines, but I read and re-read them to build up a picture of my character. Asking questions is really helpful: where is my character at emotionally? What is affecting them? What is upsetting them? Where are they going? Why are they doing or saying what they’re saying? What do they want? Usually the answers are right there in the lines, so concentrating on the text is a good start.

I played Clarence at the Globe last year [Richard III] and there were times when I had to remind myself to be quite basic. My head gets a real mess when I start rehearsing because there are so many ideas to explore and different things to focus on. It's like scrambled eggs up there! So I find it really important to remember the simple things. For example, my key facts for Clarence were that a) he is a duke, b) he is in a prison, c) he has a bad dream and d) he thinks he's going to hell. Bam, bam, bam, bam – never forget those things and their implications. If he's a duke, he's going to be aristocratic. If he's in prison, he's having a bad time. If he's just woken up from a dream, he's probably bleary-eyed and confused. You can do a lot of chatting and discussing, but at the end of the day, it's a prison: how would you feel if you were in a prison? That's the core of it and that's what you act. I’ve started to do something similar for Don John – I wrote down my first impressions in the back of my script: bastard prince, malcontent, bored until doing mischief, gets a kick out of it. So I’m illegitimate and feel like the lowest of the low inside, but at the same time I’m a prince with a lot of privileges. I’m very resentful about my situation and I’m most alive when I’m doing something bad. It's important to write it down because you forget your first thoughts very quickly.

First impressions

Don John is somebody who feels very hurt. Emotionally speaking, he's a mess; he feels like a freak and an outcast. He thinks his illegitimacy means he's never going to be accepted, which breeds a lot of resentment. He's trapped by the circumstances of his birth: on one hand, he's illegitimate and feels ugly inside, but on the other hand, he is a prince and has the privileges due to royalty. The contradiction sets him apart and Don Pedro keeps him on a tight rein because he's shown himself to be a threat. I think Don John's like a trapped animal and actually makes this comparison in Act I, scene 3

I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking.
(I.3.80-3)

I imagine him like a vicious sort of cat that you wouldn’t want to let out of a cage. He's very destructive and his actions say very clearly ‘I am not going to play by their rules. I am going to cause trouble whenever I get the opportunity. I am waiting for the opportunity.’ What interests me is that although he hasn’t chosen to be what he is, he does choose to behave in this destructive way. Don John seems to challenge the very ideas of conformity and a perfect lineage by doing his ‘liking’. I can see that his relationship with his brother [Don Pedro, the Prince of Aragon] is going to be very important.

Brothers

Belinda [Davidson, Don Pedro] and I have just started to talk about the relationship between the brothers. We don’t know where we’re going with this, or what exactly that dynamic will be. I imagine Don John is very jealous of his perfect brother. One of the questions we’ve been thinking about is the war that the soldiers are returning from in Act I, scene 1. Who was the enemy in this war? Shakespeare isn’t specific, but in Act I, scene 3, I talk to Borachio about Claudio. I say:

That young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow; if I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way.
(I.3.61-2)

It's been suggested that Don John has raised a rebellion against his brother, but the text isn’t that specific. Don John feels usurped by Claudio and that could be interpreted literally – Claudio has helped squash the rebellion – or metaphorically, in that Claudio has usurped his place as Don Pedro's right hand. Maybe it's both of those things. We have to decide whether the war was specifically caused by Don John, or whether they fought another enemy.

Belinda feels very strongly that Don Pedro is keeping Don John close because he's dangerous. He's an enemy that Don Pedro needs to keep an eye on. He needs to be kept on a tight rein to prevent him causing trouble. At the same time, Don John is a strange kind of royalty so Don Pedro has to be careful about how he treats me. The relationship is tricky. I am the illegitimate brother and at the same time I am part of the royal family. These things pull against each other: on one hand, Don Pedro has to acknowledge me to some extent, but I’m never going to be accepted as part of the royal line as a legitimate brother. We’re never going to be like Princes William and Harry. I think Don John feels that conflict very deeply, and maybe that's where the character's going: he questions the perfect, uniform order of things that has rejected him. Why do we have to have this perfect lineage? Why does everyone have to be so conformist? You end up back at the fact that although he hasn’t chosen to be what he is, he has made a definite choice to behave in the way he does. The other thing that influences that idea of agency is the stars. Don John says to Borachio:

I wonder that thou – being, as thou sayest thou art, born under Saturn – goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am.
(I.3.10-12)

Saturn is the dark planet as far as I know – associated with sadness, moodiness and a heavy disposition. I’ll to get on the internet and do some more research, but basically I think the question here is whether Don John really believes that the stars control your destiny and your actions. He might be speaking ironically, or perhaps making excuses for his actions – as though he's shifting the blame. I haven’t looked into this much yet.

Villain

Playing a villain in a comedy is interesting. Don John isn’t brought back into the community of the play; he remains an outsider. I’m approaching him as a character that does bad things for a reason. I have to know that there's a reason behind his actions for the performance to be truthful – it doesn’t matter whether the audience know what the reasons are. They can see him solely as a villain if they choose, but I think of him as a character rather than a plot function: he is someone who feels awful about themselves therefore behaves badly. I think he enjoys the power that destructive behaviour lends him, however temporarily. He gets a kick out of it. These are all ideas that are flying round my head at the moment. I spoke to a friend who asked ‘Why is he evil?’ and since then I’ve been thinking ‘I’ve got to know, I’ve got to know!’ So far, I think he wants to break the pattern and order that he cannot be a part of – going against the grain and behaving badly are statements. His behaviour is a sort of a perverse attempt to get involved in the order that he challenges – and at the same time it's a real protest against that order, asking ‘Why does it have to be like this?' It seems to me that these reasons clash: a real desire for acceptance and a hatred of the fact that social order has to work in a certain way. It's only because he wants to be accepted that he hates the perfect order so much. It's all a bit confusing! But I think the contradiction of a non-conformist who, on the inside, just wants to conform isn’t so strange.

Claudio

Claudio is also going to be very important for my character. It's obvious I really hate him and this week we’ve started to properly discuss the reasons why. Ann [Ogbomo, Claudio], Belinda [Davidson, Don Pedro] and I have talked this through and we’ve come up with the solution rooted in envy. What has actually happened in the story to explain Don John's hatred of Claudio apart from the fact that Claudio is very close to the Prince? Claudio has usurped my place. In the first scene, everyone hears about how well Claudio has acquitted himself in the wars and how well Don Pedro has rewarded him:

Leonato:
I find here that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio.

Messenger:
Much deserved on his part and equally remembered by Don Pedro. He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb, the feats of a lion; he hath indeed better bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how.
(I.1.9-16)

Later Borachio describes Claudio to Don John as ‘Your brother's right hand’. Claudio is close to Don Pedro in a way that Don John will never be. Another thought was that perhaps Don John was in love with Hero? He's not married and as an illegitimate son he's not a good prospect for the nobility. Although I suppose he's a prince; he would have money and I imagine him being quite attractive… but his exclusion from the perfect royal lineage would have been a sort of brand that balanced or outweighed any of his advantages. Even if he had legitimate children, that wouldn’t alter his status. I just feel that Don John is a very isolated character and the prospect of Claudio's happy union would increase his envy. It's a thought that I’m putting on the back burner right now, because working out his jealousies will be very complicated. I’ll come back to that when I’ve got some other things straight!

Original practices

I’m looking forward to my costume fittings. That's one great thing about original practices – the costumes look fantastic. It's a matter of marrying the stage, the costumes and the acting… they have to work together. The stage looks amazing, the costume department produces brilliant pieces of clothing using the same techniques and materials as the Elizabethans would have used – it's up to us to make sure the acting comes together. I think sometimes the temptation is to be careful when you’re wearing beautiful things, but it's wrong to be shy of treating them like any other costume: ‘Oh I can’t do that. I mustn’t fall over and roll around on the floor…’ It can’t become excuse or a barrier. The costumes are to be worn whilst you act. Audiences would get bored very quickly if it was just about modelling with some lines! There's also some leeway. Last season I wore a sports bra underneath my doublet which was less than Elizabethan. Basically, original practices is great as long as it doesn’t get in the way of your thought process, or your intention. The Tudor Group came in last season to talk to us about Elizabethan etiquette and how to handle a sword properly, which was really interesting (I think they’re coming again next week), but at the end of the day the audience haven’t come to see people take swords out of sheaths – they’ve come to see a story acted well. The best thing is when original practices gets your imagination going, like when you realise ‘Oh hell. Those swords are really sharp.’ When anyone gets threatened with a sword onstage, you have to believe that it could go pfft, straight through your body. When you get familiar with the swords Elizabethans would have used in real life, rather than blunted stage swords, it sort of brings the danger of a scene home which is helpful.

Start of rehearsals

We didn’t do a normal ‘sit-down’ read-through on the first day. Instead we went through the play doing different exercises; we sat in a circle and went into the centre ‘stage’ area to say our lines. Every time you referred to another character, you had to point at them and they had to stand up. That emphasised just how often characters talk about people offstage – there's so much eavesdropping and gossip and scheming. Don John wasn’t pointed at very much, whilst characters like Claudio and Hero were standing up, sitting down, standing up, sitting down. It reinforced my idea of Don John as an outsider who causes trouble partly to force himself into their world.

The games feed into your thoughts about a character or the way you play a scene… another exercise I found very useful was ‘trigger words’. We went through the text and looked at the words that triggered our characters’ lines, so for example when Borachio asks me ‘Can you make no use of your discontent?’ in Act I, scene 3, I have to pick out the word in that line that motivates my response ‘I can make all use of it, for I use it only.’ I think trigger word there is ‘use’; that's what Don John picks up and repeats. It helped us think about why we were saying lines – people talk for a reason in real life, so to find reasons for speaking each line will help us to be truthful.

We’ve also started work on individual scenes. I’ve just come from a session on Act II, scene 2: Borachio and I are scheming. Tamara [Harvey, Master of Play] asked us both to make non-verbal noises before each our lines. We had to find a different sound every time and discovered a comic tone that really worked for parts of that scene. When Borachio starts explaining his plan

I think I told you lordship a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting-gentlewoman to Hero.
(II.2.11-2)

Borachio made a simpering sound as though he was very pleased with himself and I made an exasperated sound before responding ‘I remember’, as though I’d been hearing of nothing but Margaret, Margaret, Margaret for the whole of that year and it was driving me up the wall! Having to find the right sounds before you speak also puts back some of spontaneity that you can perhaps lose when you know what you’re going to say next.

Hot-seating

I’ve been talking things over with Belinda [Davidson, Don Pedro]. It's important that we work out the specifics of what has happened between the brothers even if that's unclear in the play-text, because our understanding will make their relationship clearer in the playing. There's a lot to talk through and one of the ways we approached this was ‘hot-seating’. Each character took a turn in the hot seat and answered the other character's questions: how do you feel about your brother? What is your relationship like? I enjoyed interrogating Don Pedro – when Don John was asking the questions, it felt like he was in control. Don Pedro felt Don John had put him in an uncomfortable position; he had to be given the respect proper to a prince, but also represented an unpleasant threat. When Belinda asked me how I felt, I explained about my resentment and bitterness, and that I felt ugly and hurt and deeply unhappy. It wasn’t just what we said to each other, though. Body language and tone were really interesting – I found that I had crossed my arms and sat back in the chair, which is quite a defensive position. Don John wouldn’t just open up and pour out his heart to his brother, so my replies were quite abrupt and terse to begin with.

Hot-seating made me wonder about what happens to Don John at the end of the play. Don Pedro is part of the final celebrations but Don John just disappears after Act IV, scene 1. It's like he's become an evil force at large in the world, waiting for the opportunity to cause trouble. I would say I’m about three quarters of the way through piecing together his back-history. One of my questions for next week might be ‘What happens next?’ I’ve also been reading through the wedding scene and I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into that in rehearsal.

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Activities 1

  • Positions
  • Character building
  • Frozen images

These activities are designed to be incorporated by teachers into their individual schemes of work. The activities reflect key challenges faced by the adopted actors during the rehearsal period; they cover a range of different ability levels and focus on different areas of the curriculum. We advise that teachers select the activities which are appropriate for their students and adapt them where necessary. We hope that teachers will develop their own activities based on the material in the bulletins: we would love to hear about them and share them with other members – please send them to globelink@shakespearesglobe.com

Activity 1

Positions
Materials: chair, large space
Time: 20 minutes
Type: groups of 8

Rachel says that performing at the Globe is different from performing at other theatres: ‘The audience is very close and the whole theatre is lit so you can see every single person there and they can see you.’ Explore how audience position might affect an actor onstage.

1) Get into groups of 8. Choose one person who is happy to be ‘Speaker’ (during the exercise, this person will talk on four subjects that interest them for a minute per subject). Everyone else will be ‘Audience’. ‘Speaker’ and ‘Audience’ will stand in several different positions during the exercise. As you try each new position, think about how it affects the way Speaker and Audience connect with each other visually and aurally.

First position – Speaker stands on a chair. Audience forms a semi-circle close around Speaker, facing towards Speaker. Speaker talks for one minute on a subject that interests him/ her.

Second position – Speaker stands on a chair. Audience forms same semi-circle but this time facing outwards (with their backs to Speaker). Speaker talks for one minute on another subject of their choice.

Third position – Speaker stands on a chair, Audience disperse themselves around the room. Speaker talks for one minute on a different subject.

Fourth position – Speaker stands on the floor and closes his/her eyes. Audience sit together in a row close in front of the speaker. Speaker talks for one minute.
2) On your own, put positions 1, 2, 3 and 4 in order of preference then give them each a rating out of 10 (10 = fantastic, 1 = very poor ). For each position, makes notes about why you thought it was good/ bad/ indifferent.

3) In your group, discuss what you discovered about how positioning can alter the relationship between Speaker and Audience. You might like to start off thinking about what contributes towards a good connection between Speaker and Audience: how does a speaker engage their audience and how might the space help or hinder them? Next think about which positions allowed the best connection between Speaker and Audience. Did the Audience and Speaker find the same positions best/ worst?

4) Compare each position to the playing conditions at the Globe Theatre. You might find it useful to take a tour of the Globe to help you visualise the space: click here to take the virtual tour (remember to explore the space from the perspective of Speaker/ Actor and Audience). Which position is most like the Globe, and which is like normal ‘black-box’ theatre? Using evidence from the ‘positions’ exercise, which space do you think would be easier to play? Email your ideas about the advantages and disadvantages of each space to globelink@shakespearesglobe.com so Rachel can add them to her notes.

5) Later in the bulletin, Rachel says that playing the villain in a comedy is interesting because ‘Don John isn’t brought back into the community of the play; he remains an outsider’. The ‘Positions’ exercise explored how it is possible for a speaker and a listener to ‘connect’ with each other. Use your findings about positioning and connection in the context of a scene from Much Ado About Nothing. Every scene involves characters speaking and listening. Rachel sees Don John as an outsider. Adapt your findings from the positions exercise to portray Don John's ‘outsider’ status (as a start, try thinking about what the term ‘outsider’ might actually mean…)

b) Get back into your original groups of 8 and allocate the roles of Leonato, Hero, Beatrice, Benedick, Don Pedro, Claudio, Don John, and Balthasar/ Messenger. Read through I.1 together and then put the scene on its feet, using your ideas about positioning, communication, and the connections between speakers and listeners. As a group, discuss your scene – how did the person playing Don John play ‘outsider’ status? How did the other characters react? Send your ideas to Rachel at globelink@shakespearesglobe.com

Activity 2

Character building
Materials: writing and drawing materials, collage material (magazines, newspapers, etc.)
Time: 25 minutes
Type: Whole class activity

Rachel describes how she prepared for the part of Don John before rehearsals began. Use some of her techniques to analyse the character of Don John and produce your own interpretations.

1) First impressions matter: ‘It's important to write them down because you forget your first thoughts very quickly’. Word-storm as a group and collect together your first impressions of Don John. Everyone should contribute a word, a phrase or a quote from the play that they feel gives some insight into the character. Don’t forget the basics! Once the word-storm is complete, everyone pick out five key words or quotes to form the core of your individual interpretation. Support your decisions with evidence from the text wherever possible.

2) Expand your character sketch with visual images: create your own drawings or use photos from magazines. Rachel says she imagines Don John as ‘a vicious sort of cat’ – the image is taken from a speech at I.3.25-34 in which Don John describes how he feels. Read through this speech again and find visual images that match the imagery in the language: add them to your character sketch, alongside anything else that says ‘Don John’ to you. Use whatever you like – scraps of material, song lyrics, lines from other poems, even photos of famous people who remind you of the character – make sure you justify your choices with reasons from the text.

3) Imagine you have been cast as Don John in an original practices production: try answering some of the questions that Rachel asked about her character e.g. how does my character feel and why? What does he do and say to other people? What do other people do and say to or about them? What does he want? Start off by answering these questions as Don John in Act I, scene 1 – ask them again at different points in the play. Rachel kept track of character developments by writing a synopsis for each scene in the play, then writing a summary of what happened to Don John specifically alongside. Use your character sketch as a starting point to produce a similar character-map.

Activity 3

Frozen images
Materials: none
Time: 20 minutes
Type: Whole group/ pairs

Rachel believes that one aspect of Don John's character is the split between his inner feelings and exterior appearance: ‘on one hand, he's illegitimate and feels ugly inside but, on the other hand he is a prince and has the privileges due to royalty’. Use your physicality to explore these contradictions.

1) Get into pairs and decide who will be A and who will be B. A moulds B's body like plasticine into a frozen image that shows how Don John feels on the inside. Consider eye contact, body position (how would Don John stand? Is he standing or on a lower level e.g. curled up or crouched? What are his arms doing?), and tension. If you have access to a digital camera, you might like to take a photo of the finished frozen images to appropriate points on your character maps (see Activity 2, ‘Character building’).

2) Next B moulds A into a frozen image of Don John as he appears to the outside world. Consider eye contact, body position and tension from this new perspective. Think about possible points of contrast with the ‘internal’ frozen image.

3) Share your frozen images as a group: each pair should get up in turn and show the group their physical images. Discuss why each pair chose these positions, as well as any differences and similarities between Don John's internal and external personas. What does it mean to have a public persona? Discuss any problems associated with this. Does the public/ private division have a wider significance in Much Ado About Nothing?

4) So far you have been approaching the character of Don John from an actor's perspective: at this stage you might like to discuss whether it's important for us as an audience to recognise Don John's motivation. Someone asked Rachel ‘Why is Don John evil?’ and she said she worried about finding a reason: ‘I’ve got to know, I’ve got to know!’ How does Shakespeare answer the question ‘Why is Don John bad?’ Think about his function in the plot and how much we need to know for this function to be served. Share your ideas with Rachel by sending them into globelink@shakespearesglobe.com

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Rehearsal notes 2

  • ’Ta’en in flight’
  • Wedding scene: Act IV, scene 1
  • Don John's words
  • Verse
  • Head or heart?
  • Ending

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.

Ta’en in flight

Last week I said Don John disappeared in the middle of the play and that he was out there like an evil force, waiting to cause trouble I kept thinking about that idea and then suddenly I thought ‘Hang on a minute – he's captured.’ A messenger comes on and says:

My lord, your brother John is ta’en in flight,
And brought with armed men back to Messina.

Benedick replies:

Think not on him till tomorrow; I’ll devise thee brave punishments for him. Strike up, pipers.
[V.4.123-6]

It's interesting I blanked on that. I’ve had a good look at it since and the commentaries explain Don John's disappearance in terms of ‘defining the limits of mischief in a comedy’. I suppose the idea is that if everyone knows ‘brave punishments’ will be devised for Don John, the wedding celebrations are given a boost. The villain gets what he deserves and that's satisfying. But I don’t think of Don John as a plot function or simply as a villain. I always thought Benedick's lines were a dismissal rather than something to add to the general gaiety: ‘No, we’ll think about him tomorrow. This is a time for joy.’ It certainly makes sense not to bring Don John back at the end because he’d disrupt all their happiness. Benedick ties up the question of what happened to him without bringing him back onstage. If he was there onstage and silent, that would be different. But he's not. There you go. It just goes to show that you forget things really easily. It's only when you actually do the play that you remember it all and everything falls into place.

Wedding: Act IV, scene 1

I haven’t got much to say about Don John this week because I haven’t been called very much. My last rehearsal was on Saturday when we did the wedding scene [IV.1]. That went very well, actually. It really felt like everybody was working together and listening to each other, which is sometimes difficult in large group scenes. There was a really good atmosphere – it was very positive. I mean, I went in not knowing what on earth I was going to do, but it turned out alright. The more Claudio got upset, the more interesting I found it. I discovered that while Don John wants to wreck the marriage and he does enjoy seeing Claudio suffer, he's also aware that it's quite a dangerous thing for him to do. When people start examining his story too closely, he interrupts them. Don Pedro begins to ask for more details about what Hero has been up to and Don John cuts him off

Fie, fie, they are not to be named, my lord,
Not to be spoke of!
There is not chastity enough in language
Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady,
I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.
[IV.1.93-7]

He's being careful and covering his back: ‘Don’t talk about it – no, no, no, you mustn’t mention these awful things she's been up to. There isn’t enough purity in language for it not to be offensive if you talked about what she's done’. Someone could easily say, ‘Hey, hang on a minute! What window was this? Who was looking out of it? How far away were you? Are you sure you saw the right person?’ That would ruin everything for him. He can’t let that happen. He gets Claudio and Don Pedro out of the way after Hero has fainted Smother her spirits up.
[IV.1.109-10]

He uses her faint as evidence of her guilt. She's guilty – the shock of exposure has made her faint. I didn’t understand that line about ‘her spirits’ at first … in rehearsals, you go through what each line means and put it into normal language to see if you’ve got the right meaning. We came to that line and I thought it meant something completely different. I thought meant she must be smothered because she's got evil spirits in her, which is completely wrong, so we had to talk that one through. Tamara [Harvey, Master of Play] went, ‘Oh, it doesn’t mean that, it means this.’ So it's quite interesting how wrong you can be at points. But anyway, by the end of that scene, when Don John exits with Claudio and Don Pedro, I felt really, really happy that I’d kind of got what I wanted. I think that's the thing about Don John – he does these evil things because it makes him feel powerful. It's almost like he's an addict. He's sort of addicted to being evil and so if he gets something done that's bad, it’ll give him a kick. At that moment he feels powerful and in control.

The way he cuts off Don Pedro [IV.1.93-7 see above] is quite interesting because it's all about the power of the spoken word. Earlier on in the scene, Don John says to Leonato ‘Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.’ [IV.1.64]. Speaking the things makes them true; the spoken word is hugely powerful. I think as far as Shakespeare goes, that's the whole thing. Obviously Shakespeare's plays are quite good stories… well, actually I suppose it's arguable how good the stories are – most of them have been nicked from sources. Are they brilliant stories? Is Much Ado About Nothing a brilliant story? Not really. Beatrice and Benedick fancy each other but never quite manage to get it together and an evil bastard son causes lots of problems… there's drama in there, but the plot outline is quite basic. There's nothing wrong with that, but I suppose if you’re talking about Shakespeare, the brilliance is in the language and the way he tells the basic story. I’m only just starting to learn that really – how brilliant his use of language is. Take the line ‘There is not chastity enough in language without offence to utter them.’ Chastity in language. It's interesting, isn’t it? The play's so much about chastity, chastity in language and the power of words. They make it all happen. Everything in Shakespeare is in the words.

Don John's words

There's something quite direct about Don John, I think. He hardly has any verse, but then hardly any of the characters have any verse in Much Ado About Nothing. Well, it sort of gets verse-y when it gets heavy, emotionally intense, but Don John has very little verse. He has got some nice images though, like the canker in a hedge: ‘I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace’ [I.3.25]. He has some nice things to say – he's direct but he isn’t dull. My favourite line is ‘I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog’ [I.3.30]. I mean apart from anything ‘clog’ has such a great sound. Clo-guhh. It's a great word and ‘enfranchised with a clog’ gives you this animal image. They only trust him if he's got a muzzle on him, and he's given his freedom but he can’t move anywhere. The contradiction hits you. I’ve just been reading this book about concentration camps and how the prisoners always have terrible, heavy shoes … Don John feels like he's in a prison, and I think he has some wonderful lines that describe that state. They’re not lovely, but they’re meaty. Lines like those talk about how he feels, but there is a sort of directness about what he says. The most typical example in Shakespeare of the kind of monster who has skill with words and language is Caliban; he's got the most fantastic lines in The Tempest. For instance, the speech that begins ‘Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises, / Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not’ [III.2.135-6] – I can’t remember it all, but that's how it starts out. Caliban says the most fantastic things and you think ‘Oh!’ – this grubby kind of monster that lives in a rock is speaking in the most beautiful way. I don’t think Don John's like Caliban, but there's a similar juxtaposition between what you might expect and what you get. Don John is much more direct, but he does have some choice lines which you can really get your mouth around. It's very different from Clarence's very lyrical verse speeches last year. I think I found speaking in verse easier.

Verse

If you have a long speech which is in verse, there's a kind of form to how you say it; you have to be aware at the ends of the lines and notice when there's gaps in the middle of the lines, and it all has a de-dum de-dum de-dum de-dum de-dum rhythm, so if you’re doing a speech like Clarence's ‘Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower’ [Richard III, I.4] you look for clues in the line-endings and rhythm and gaps. I mean, you should never seem like ‘I’m standing here doing my speech’ – you’ve got to be active and interesting and believe in what you say. But verse is easier in a way, I think, because of those clues and, also, to do dynamic scenes with dialogue in prose is very different to a lyrical verse description. Or at least I find it more difficult to remember the lines.

Head or heart?

Giles’ [Block, Master of the Words] theory is that when a character speaks verse, it often comes from the heart while prose comes from the intellect. I think this is probably right, although I haven’t quite experienced it for myself yet. I think Don John is talking from his heart when he says ‘I’d rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace.’ He's so hurt. Then there are all the things he says about how he feels about being imprisoned; it's prose but to me that's his heart talking, his hurt heart talking. And so I don’t know about the head/ heart thing yet. I don’t think Giles is saying that prose is purely intellectual. I don’t think it can be purely intellectual, otherwise you’d just be reading an essay, wouldn’t you? Don John is talking about his feelings – he's talking about why he chooses to be kind of silent and grumpy in court. I don’t know why that's prose rather than verse. That's something for me to think about.

Ending

After remembering the capture, I got thinking about what would happen to Don John at the end of the play… at the moment I don’t really know but I think he would have a slump. He's addicted to evil and causing trouble, so I think he would experience the same come-down that alcoholics or drug addicts or gamblers get after a hit. I don’t know whether he’ll feel awful in terms of remorse. We had a chat in rehearsals about what Don John actually does and it is pretty horrible; there's no hint that he’ll be sorry afterwards. He steps on people to make himself feel better so I think the parallel with addiction is stronger: he’ll feel bad afterwards in the way an addict does. He wants to hurt Claudio and that's what gives him his fix. I’ve interpreted Don John's line ‘This young upstart hath all the glory of my overthrow’ as meaning that Claudio has taken my position at Don Pedro's side. Claudio is closer to my brother than I’ll ever be and that makes me hugely jealous; I want Don Pedro to be my brother and, when you get down to it, I want him to love me. But Claudio's got all the garlands of the war, Claudio's the war hero, Claudio's done marvellously well and Claudio's got everything I should have. He's best mates with my brother. He's marrying a beautiful girl. It's unfair and I just want to see him suffer. When I get what I want, I’m happy to watch - like in the wedding scene. At least, that's the idea. Most of this is in my head at the moment and I’m trying to remember it all for when I get into the rehearsal room. As I said, this week I haven’t been called for Don John's scenes. I’m sort of going ‘Please, can I come in and rehearse?’ I’ve only talked through the scenes once and just started to put them on their feet, so I’m feeling a bit nervous at the moment. There's only so much thinking work you can do on your own – you need to develop the relationships between characters with the other actors involved, for one thing. I’d be less worried if I came in with a very strong idea of Don John's character on day one, but I didn’t do that and I’m still not very sure what I am going do. It means I’ll use every last second when I do get started on my scenes!

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Rehearsal notes 3

  • Hiatus
  • Through-line
  • Movement
  • Verse
  • Powerful language
  • Session benefits
  • Clothing

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.

Hiatus

I haven’t really got any thoughts this week. I’ve come to a big pause. I don’t feel like I’ve done much work on Don John because I haven’t been in the rehearsal room a lot. There's only so much head-work you can do before you need to get up on your feet with everybody else. I’m sitting, waiting to get going. We’re rehearsing for two hours this afternoon so that will be good. It's the first scene, i.e. the first scene with Borachio and Conrade [I.3] and it will be the second time we’ve ever had a look at it, which makes me a bit uneasy. I’m finding the hiatus a bit frustrating - I want to get in there and get on with it – but to some extent I suppose a pause is inevitable. That's just how rehearsals work if you’re playing Don John. There are five acts and roughly three scenes per act… about fifteen scenes altogether, say, most of which I’m not in! That doesn’t mean the character is less complex though. Rehearsal time is still very valuable. I’m sure everything will be fine, but I want to make sure that I use every last second when I do get into the rehearsal room. For instance, I’m going into this afternoon's session with quite a specific plan: there are three things which I want to try out with Don John, three ways I want to play that scene [I.3] which seem quite distinct in my head. In reality, they probably won’t turn out to be so clear-cut. First, I want to try and be like the animal in a cage that Don John describes to Borachio [I.3]. He's angry and trapped. Secondly, he's very depressed and low. Thirdly, he's very controlled – dangerously so, in an Antony Hopkins/Silence of the Lambs sort of way. That's the idea that's in my head. I don’t know whether it will happen in rehearsals, but that's what I feel I need to try. I’ll probably end up with a mixture of all three ideas.

Through-line

I think the way to tackle the pauses in rehearsal is to keep hold of the through-line between your scenes: what's happened to you before a scene, what happens to you during the scene. Obviously you get things from other scenes, from what people say and the actual events, but basically you have your own through-line to the end of the play and that's what you have to concentrate on. It's not as if you have to know that whilst Benedick is being tricked into thinking that Beatrice likes him, I am in the kitchen drinking strong, black coffee. That's not the sort of engagement you need with other scenes: the information has no place in the story so it doesn’t really matter, dramatically speaking. It's like asking ‘How many children had Lady Macbeth?’

Movement

I’ve had some really good movement sessions over the past couple of weeks. They feed more directly into your physical agility and confidence rather than your character; it just wakes your body up and keeps you supple. It particularly helps with your confidence, I think. You don’t start trying out text-specific things in the sessions. They’re more general, they’re more about you as an individual and keeping you well-oiled. For example, in our session with Glynn [MacDonald, Master of Movement], we did some exercises which helped us move in a very controlled, focussed way. One of them was called ‘the Arrow’, which is just a physical sequence of movements where you basically draw an arrow and point it. It's all to do with your psychological commitment and your psychological reaction – what it gives you in terms of power and direction. Glynn said that ‘the Arrow’ the sort of exercise that the Sufi people would do. It's slightly spiritual. It's not that you do yoga or tai-chi, but it's related to those exercises which give you a physical discipline and also a certain mental and a spiritual discipline. That's what they do. It's like doing something like karate, which is a martial art, a physical discipline. They improve your physical ability, but there's a psychological aspect as well.

Verse

Our work with Giles [Block, Master of the Words] is a bit different because he is text-specific, though we’re not working on Much Ado About Nothing. We use other pieces of Shakespeare's text. He’ll give us Shakespearean speeches, and we’ll explore them and try to say them and try to get the meaning and the thoughts. It's to do with using the lines and being aware of the end of the lines and the vowels and consonants. For example, the line ‘To be or not to be, that is the question,’ [Hamlet, III.1] if we were to read that and think just about the consonants, we would say:

T(o) B(e) (or) N(o)T T(o) B(e) THT (is) TH Q(ue)ST

[Spitting out the consonants, staccato, vowels barely heard]

Whereas if you were thinking about the vowels, you’d say:

tOOO bEEEE AHHr nAHHHt tOOO bEEEE thAAt IHHs thEEE quEHstEEE-AHn

[Sounds like Dorie in Finding Nemo; each vowel sound is drawn out long, stressed]

That's an exaggeration, but it shows that within the line there are vowels and consonants, and they do different things, emotionally. This is all very intellectual; you do it naturally when you’re speaking. If you say ‘I don’t want to go out!’ you’re probably stressing the consonant ‘d’ – ‘I Don’t want to…’ On the other hand, if you were to say ‘Please don’t make me go,’ you might say ‘Pluuheese’, stressing ‘UUhh’ on the ‘e’. You don’t say ‘Pleeze don’t make me go’ because that sounds short and sharp. You’re coaxing with ‘Pluuheese.’ You’re using a part of the word to get what you want. We do it naturally all the time.

Powerful language

Obviously there was no television or film in Shakespeare's world: visual media took a back seat in favour of the spoken word – language was much more powerful then, I think. You went to hear a play rather than use your eyes - as the prologue from Romeo and Juliet says ‘If you with patient ears will attend’ [Romeo and Juliet, Prologue l.13] – ‘patient ears’ are important. Shakespeare was a poet who understood rhythm and form and content; he understood that if he wrote something in verse, the form would give the content a dynamic thrust. It gives it a rhythm and a form – I think it drives it forward. That was the form he often chose, and he knew it really, really well. Within that, he would choose certain words to stress and convey meaning through sound as well as sense. He does that in prose too, of course. Don John has a good example:

I wonder that thou – being, as thou sayest thou art, born under Saturn – goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief
[I.3.10-2]

The four ‘m's in ‘moral medicine to a mortifying mischief’ create a certain feeling. The repetition of the consonant makes an emphatic point. Something that's almost irreversible, I think. Don John's fundamentally saying to Conrade - ‘I’m not listening to a word you’re saying; I’m not going to take any notice of you.’ The sounds of the words give the line an incredulous, disdainful tone.

Session benefits

I think the classes help you understand what Shakespeare was trying to do with particular rhythms, and how he used these words and these vowels and consonants to create the characters or the emotion in a scene. To create more than the emotion actually; he shows where a character's at within the context of the play by putting certain words together and use the poetry to sculpt an image through the words which that character uses. The sounds and the feeling and the rhythm of the words can create an image or a feeling. That's what really good poets can do.

I’ve read a few of Shakespeare's sonnets: as you see him using language so cleverly within this form too, you do start to realise that he is a quite amazing writer. I went to see a play by one of Shakespeare's contemporaries a few months ago. It was in verse, but it just wasn’t as good as Shakespeare. It got quite drab because the rhythm was there but I felt it lacked the poetry. You don’t realise why one play in verse should be so different from another [play] written at the same time until someone helps you understand the differences in the language. You go, ‘Oh, I see! That's how it works.’ That feels great.

Clothing

I had fittings at the beginning of rehearsals and now I’ve got a tight black doublet. It's quite simple and I like that. I feel much more masculine wearing these clothes: very solid and bullish. The doublet is quite tight but that's okay – they’re meant to be tight. It will loosen off a little as I wear it. I’ve got a little earring, which was the fashion at the time. At first I was going to have my hair bound back but now we think I’ll be wearing it down instead. I’ve also beard and a little moustache so I should look quite severe and menacing and cool [laughs]. Let's hope. It's very beautiful.

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Rehearsal notes 4

  • This week
  • Three ways
  • Fragments

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.

This week

Last time we talked, I had reached a bit of a plateau. I spent more time in the rehearsal room and that helped get things moving. Now we’re doing runs and I’m beginning to see how the whole play fits together, which is very useful as I’m better able to see how Don John fits into the journey of the play. There was a stagger-through on Sunday and we had another run on yesterday; the whole show is in really good shape and that's encouraging. From a personal point of view, however, I’ve still got quite a long way to go. I feel I’ve done all the ‘head-work’ I can and I’ve worked out Don John's emotional journey, but I’m not active enough. At the moment, he's on his back foot in a slightly ironic way. I don’t want to lose that; Don John isn’t fully part of the Court and irony helps to distance him. He can’t always be like that though. There need to be points where the character truthfully expresses what he feels. This stage in rehearsals is quite frightening; you feel as though you’re clinging to a raft and you have to pull yourself onto it. I have to be active and get on board instead of floating alongside!

The danger of doing lots of head-work is that you comment on a character instead of discovering it. For instance, Don John is sarcastic and ironic; I could say [sarcastic] ‘Oh, hi! How are you, where’ve you just been?’ and that would be entirely different from [sarcastic, insinuating, arch by turns] ‘Hi! How are you, where’ve you just been?’ I’m exaggerating, but that's the type of difference that gets worked out in the rehearsal room. Don John doesn’t have to be so arch, but he does have to be a real person who is going through a tough time, emotionally speaking. You discover those nuances by trying things out with everybody else. I try out the lines again and again; that helps me get into the right frame and the right emotional state. In the right frame of mind, you can really listen and answer each other: it's a question of listening and answering, listening and answering.

It's important to show the audience who Don John is; his pain and his motivation. It has to be shown at some point for the character to be interesting and active, otherwise he's just a villain and that's not as interesting as someone who is bad for a reason. So Tamara [Harvey, Master of Play] has been pushing me in that direction and I think she's right. With that in mind, we’ve looking at the relationship between the brothers and this morning we worked on act one, scene one. Basically Don John is very upset and he's had enough. He only has one line in the first scene. He comes in and doesn’t say anything until Leonato specifically bids him welcome. Then he says:

I thank you. I am not of many words,
But I thank you.
[I.1.157-8]

This morning we played the scene so that Don Pedro enters and has a bit of a chat with everybody – he's clearly at home with this sort of thing – then Beatrice and Benedick meet each other and so on. Just before Leonato greets Don John, Don Pedro beckons me over; he nods his head as though he's telling me ‘Come on, do your bit.’ He's almost forcing me to comply with courtly etiquette. I really don’t want to, but I have a go at being courteous. It just doesn’t sit well with me and everyone thinks I’m a bit of fool. I try to be civil although it's quite embarrassing for Don Pedro to treat me like that, like a dog called to heel; it's even more humiliating for everyone to just go ‘Who's that?!’ I’ve been pushed out of a circle I didn’t want to be in anyway. It's humiliating and embarrassing, and that's what we’re trying to play. After that, Don John is certain their etiquette doesn’t suit him. When I come to the next scene [I.3], I’m thinking ‘I can’t do it. I can’t behave like that. I can’t do it. And I’m not going do it.’ Details like that will hopefully show his back story and the way he's feeling. I haven’t been thinking about alternative ways of playing that scene, but maybe I should, just in case. I wonder if walking out after my lines would work – we could try that. It might be a bit much. I’ll think about it. Any suggestions would be good!

Generally, things are moving forward but we’re not there yet. I feel I’m being a bit slow. I’ll get there in the end. Of course, ideally I would be marvellous and there already, but sometimes you need to accept that things take a bit longer!

Three ways

Early last week, I did try playing Don John three ways [see Rehearsal Notes 3]. We worked on the first scene with Conrade and Borachio [I.3]. I tried being quite still, weird and dangerous. Tamara [Harvey, Master of Play] called it my ‘Anthony Hopkins’ version! We decided that was too still and arch. Then I tried being really angry, like a caged animal, and the final version of Don John was really depressed. I couldn’t immediately see what could I do with that, but we’re now moving to a cross between angry, hurt and self-contained. We looked at the same scene in rehearsal yesterday, because Conrade and I just weren’t connecting with each other. During the rehearsal, we really tried to listen and connect – to answer the questions and ‘be there’ – reacting to what the other person is saying rather than pre-empting the next line. Things got better by the end of the rehearsal; we were talking and listening to each other. I wasn’t just ranting, raving and being angry… I’d been generalising too much in previous rehearsals, I think. When we really listened, the scene became more specific and more intimate. I was angry but controlled. So we’re filling in the details slowly but surely.

Fragments

Don John is an odd part to play in that it's quite fragmented – he comes in, goes out, comes in, and goes out again. He's in little bits. They’re nice bits, but the consequence is that anyone playing Don John won’t be in the rehearsal room very much. I don’t mean that bigger parts are better or easier to play, but if you have more to say, you will spend more time in the rehearsal room. That helps you to be there, in the world of the play. Don John comes in and out of rehearsals quite briefly… I would have liked more time! But we’ve got some rehearsal today, so that's good. As far as what happens next – we’re getting more rehearsal time in, which is great. Our run last Wednesday was in the rehearsal room rather than on the stage, but it was still useful because it highlighted the scenes that need work. Over the next week we’ll look at those bits and pieces.

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Rehearsal notes 5

  • Press night
  • Routine
  • Small changes
  • Laughter & collusion

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.

Press Night

We’ve done all our previews and the Press are coming in tonight. I’m feeling quite confident as the audience response so far has been fantastic. I try not to think about the Press being in though. I want to do my best without getting too nervous: a good, tight show is the order of the day. First night is always nerve-wracking, and when I’m not onstage I think ‘Oh no, I didn’t get that bit right.’ I’ll try to avoid that tonight and keep focusing forward. I also have a tendency to rush if I get nervous, so I’ll concentrate on keeping the lines clear at a good pace. Not too fast, but not too slow either; it's really important to pick up on the cues. I tend to leave the actual reviews because criticism about something as subjective as a performance can be difficult to take.

Routine

For an evening show (like tonight), I’ll come in and do a bit of a warm up before the jig call. After we’ve practised the jig, I have a shower and get into my costume – my time to get dressed is half past six. Alice helps me to get dressed because the costume needs a lot of lacing, buttoning and tying – then I go see Pam and she sticks my moustache on and does my eyebrows: after that I start to look more like Don John! I try to do a vocal warm up and a physical warm up on stage, but from now on I’m going to jog. Throughout last season [2003, The Season of Regime Change], I went jogging with Jules [Melvin, Earl Rivers in Richard III, Verges in Much Ado About Nothing] for half an hour before each show. Jogging is good because firstly it keeps you fit, and secondly it gets your body ready for the performance; your lungs work hard, and you get an energy boost. I expect that extra energy will be more useful as we settle into the run.

Small changes

As far as the scenes go, I think I’ve cracked about three-quarters of Don John's part now. I’ve been working steadily through the previews, discovering what does and doesn’t work. We’ve been rehearsing in the daytime this week as well as performing at night: all the time tightening, altering and shuffling the small bits that weren’t quite right. For instance, in the first scene that I have with Borachio and Conrade [I.3] I used to sit down on the bench and now I stand up, further downstage. Also, I was quiet at first because I was still a little unsure about the volume of my voice in the space. Now I’ve lifted the volume considerably; you don't have to shout but you have to be heard over the outside noises.

We made another little change in the wedding scene [IV.1]. After I denounce Hero, Belinda [Davidson, Don Pedro] has put in a moment when Don Pedro nearly touches Don John. I say:

Thus, pretty lady,
I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.
[IV.1.98-9]

Previously at that point I’d always gone back towards Don Pedro, to present a united front, and recently Belinda has given me a sort of brotherly ‘Well done.’ I feel pleased that I’m getting some sort of response from my brother then I feel guilty because this is all a lie. It's a strange mixture: Don John has gotten what he wanted, but it's rather false satisfaction.

I’ve still got some work to do in the scene where Borachio tells me his plan [II.2]. The blocking at the beginning still isn’t right. I enter and say ‘It is so, the Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato.’ [II.2.1] We both come in and swirl around the fountain [positioned centre stage], but then it gets sticky. I sit down on a bench [there are benches positioned in each downstage corner]… that leads us into a tricky moment which we haven’t quite cracked yet. I want to change it, but obviously today's not the day to experiment. Tonight we’ll stick with what we’ve got and change it next week. I don’t think I need to be sitting down then, so that's something to try. Actually, I tend to stand up in all the bits where I used to sit down. I want more activity and sitting down seems to bring stillness which is wrong for that particular moment.

Laughter & collusion

As the week has gone on, audiences have found Don John more amusing. He's getting more laughs. That's good, in a way, because it suggests a kind of collusion between the character and the audience. They can appreciate his point of view and enjoy his irony. Think of Shakespeare's big villains; Richard III and Iago talk to the audience a lot and villainous collusion is very exciting. Don John is a much smaller part, but he's still a villain and the same idea applies. I think Shakespeare's villains tap into the audience's badness. Everybody has a good side and a bad side, audience members included. Don John shows the darker side of our nature onstage, and everyone can understand that to some extent. People will recognise his actions as wrong, but that doesn’t preclude a sense of connection. I think that's why the villain should talk to the audience: to foster that contact. Only in recognising the darker side of things can you truly appreciate the lighter side. The happiness at the end of the comedy is underscored by the fact that things could have been different, darker.

People are always fascinated by others behaving extremely badly and apparently without remorse. Perhaps that's another reason why Don John connects with the audience. His isolation from the other characters also pushes him that way, I think. I’m still unsure whether he would feel sorry for what he's done, after he disappears. Don John probably leaves Leonato's house feeling good about spoiling the wedding, but I’m not certain how he feels later on. It doesn’t necessarily matter. I’d like to think that he doesn’t feel any remorse because makes him nastier, a much better villain!

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