Duchess of York and Abbot of Heath - Herald

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About Peter Shorey

This is Peter's second season at Shakespeare's Globe. Last year, he played Valentine in Twelfth Night. Other roles include Ross in Macbeth, Clarence in Richard III, and Snug in A Midsummer Night's Dream. He has performed at the Theatre Royal, York, the Salisbury Playhouse, Birmingham Repertory Theatre. For the past eight years, he has written pantomimes (in which he also plays the Dame) in theatres across the country. Television work includes The Bill and Minder.

Character Notes 1

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

This is my second season at the Globe; I was in Twelfth Night and The Golden Ass last year, so it has only been about 6 months since I was last here. To come back for a second season is something I’d never dreamed of and it was fantastic to walk back into the building and see some familiar faces.

On the first day, the whole company walked across the river to Middle Temple Hall, where we’ll be performing Richard II in April before bringing the production to the Globe. I’d never been there before; I’d seen pictures, but they can’t convey how grand the hall is. I couldn’t help thinking that it will be very easy to play nobility there. The ceiling is very high, and there's a slight echo, so I was a little worried about whether an audience will be able to hear us. However, I’ve been assured that as soon as you put over 300 audience members in that space, the increased number of people will soak up some of the sound and make it easy for everybody to hear us clearly. We were also told a little bit of history about the hall; how Shakespeare himself had played there and how the Earl of Essex, (who ordered a performance of Richard II the night before he rebelled against Elizabeth I in 1602), had lived next door to the hall at one time. The building is full of history, and it's going to be very exciting to perform there.

We spent the first week of rehearsals getting to know each other, and then getting to know the play. We spent a lot of time talking about what happens in the play, but also what has happened before the play starts. We were only a little way into talking about act 1 scene 1, when I asked ‘So, are we assuming that Richard did kill the Duke of Gloucester?’, and we didn’t stop discussing it for hours. The death of the Duke of Gloucester (the brother of John of Gaunt and the Duke of York, and Richard’s, Bolingbroke's and Aumerle's uncle) is, in many ways, the starting point for the whole play. It is suggested that Richard and his followers were responsible for his murder at Calais, but the play doesn’t give you an answer to whether they really were. During the first week of rehearsals, we spent a lot of time getting to grips with the history behind the play.

Last week, we all went away on residential. We (the whole company, plus the stage managers, the Master of Play, the Master of Theatre Music and several others) all travelled to ‘Gaunt's House’ just outside London. We all thought that the name of the house was a nice coincidence, as John of Gaunt is one of the characters in Richard II, but we found out that the house, although built in the Victorian era, stands in the middle of what really was John of Gaunt's estate over 600 years ago. We spent several days there, rehearsing different scenes from the play in different settings (such as a tower, a great hall etc.). We rehearsed a selection of scenes, sometimes using the script and sometimes improvising lines in modern speech. It can really help you to understand the meaning of your lines if you put them into your own words first; you very quickly find out if there are any lines you don’t understand, and it helps you discover which of your lines are especially important, both for creating your character and for moving the story of the play forward.

At the end of the week, we all took part in a huge group improvisation, in role, based on the play's pre-history, from Richard's coronation to the death of the Duke of Gloucester. We had the whole house to ourselves, and divided it up into different ‘estates’. For example, there was a separate building outside that became the great hall where Richard was crowned, the ballroom was King Richard's quarters, the first floor was split between the Dukes of Leicester (John of Gaunt) and York (as the Duchess of York, I had my own ‘parlour’), and so on. Everyone who wasn’t playing a role, such as the Master of Play, the Assistant to the Master of Play and the stage managers, played servants and messengers who brought us messages and pieces of information. We covered the events of many years in a few hours, staying in character the whole time and responding to particular events and pieces of information as they happened, or, more pertinently, as we were told of them. For example, when King Richard was crowned, Queen Isabel came up to me and told me that the king had sent her to me for a tea party. So, we had a tea party in my area of the house, but I was amazed when it lasted for over an hour, which within the world of the improvisation was not an hour but several years. I found out later on that this was exactly what King Richard did; as soon as he was crowned he needed to get his queen out of the way so he could spend time with his favourite courtiers, so he sent her to stay with the Duchess of York with whom she stayed for a very long time. The whole improvisation was a fantastic exercise that really helped me to understand both the relationships between different characters and the world of the play in general, and this knowledge will be a great help now we’ve come back to the Globe and we’re starting to put the play on its feet.

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Character Notes 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.

We’re in the third week of rehearsals now, but we’re still talking about what each line actually means. In many ways, I knew what each of my lines meant a long time ago; I did a lot of work at home before rehearsals started to make sure I knew exactly what I thought both Ross and the Duchess were saying at all times. But it's wrong to think that each line can only be interpreted one way, or can only mean one thing. It's important to consider all the different meanings a line could have, and then gradually decide on the meaning that fits best with the way the other actors are playing the scene. At the moment, Tim [Carroll, Master of Play] is encouraging us to try each scene over and over again, and each time he gives us a specific instruction. He often calls this instruction a ‘blanket’; when he gives us our instruction, it's like he's spreading a huge blanket over the whole stage and all of us who are on-stage get covered by it. The blanket doesn’t really stop us from doing anything we want to, but we can’t help but be aware of it. It's like a shadow over the scene that affects what each character says and does at any particular moment.

So, for example, yesterday we were looking at act 2 scene 3, when Bolingbroke returns to England and those lords who support him, including my character, Ross, come to meet him. First of all, we tried the scene with the ‘blanket’ that meant all the characters in the scene were not comrades but sworn enemies. As a result, lots of lines whose meaning had seemed to be fairly subtle, if not gentle, suddenly became very aggressive. For example, when Ross says to Bolingbroke, “Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord,” (line 63) I had originally thought Ross was welcoming and flattering Bolingbroke, whilst perhaps implying that he could hope to gain lands or money by taking his side. However, with that ‘blanket’ on the scene, the meaning of that line changed dramatically, and it became a sarcastic warning, as though Ross is saying ‘Ok, you’re back and having you here will help us, but be careful - we’d better do well out of this, or else.’ As soon as we’d finished doing the scene that way, Tim [Carroll, Master of Play] gave us another ‘blanket’; that all the characters are close friends. Of course, the meaning of that line changed again; it became a warm, enthusiastic welcome. We tried different scenes in lots of other ways as well; I especially enjoyed trying the scene with the ‘blanket’ that whenever you speak in the scene, you’re not allowed to look at the person you’re speaking to. By watching people address person-specific lines to anyone but that person, I suddenly became aware of how many lines changed their meaning when the character that says them is openly allowing others to hear what they say. Is a line that in theory is said to the king meant to have a stronger effect on the king, or on the courtiers that are silently listening to every word, or perhaps the audience that is watching the play? Who is that line going to affect most? By trying this ‘blanketing’ exercise, we, the company, can explore a huge range of possibilities; we can find out what every line could mean, and over the next few weeks, we’ll begin to make decisions about the best way to play each moment and each line in every scene of the play. It's a huge task!

Each morning, the whole company splits into small groups and each group will work for a few hours with one of the Masters of Movement, Voice or the Words. This morning, my group worked on movement with Glynn [MacDonald, Master of Movement]. Each movement session starts with basic stretching, like you have to do before you do sport, to make sure that you don’t strain anything. Purely by chance, 3 of the 5 men in my group are playing women, so we have started to look at the differences between the way men and women move, both now and 400 years ago. For example, whereas men tend to walk in straight lines, women walk in more of a circular pattern, and 400 years ago, a woman's clothing would have meant that she couldn’t take huge strides, but instead had to walk using very small steps so as not to fall over her dress.

I’m also really enjoying working with Giles [Block, Master of the Words], who is working with us on text. We don’t look at the script of Richard II with Giles, but instead we look at parts of other Shakespeare plays that, like our play, are written in verse; apparently, one in five lines of Richard II is a rhyming couplet. I find this really interesting, as each year I write a pantomime, (in fact, I’ve just finished Cinderella for a theatre in Northampton this Christmas). All the pantomimes I write are in rhyme, usually in a rhyme scheme called ‘old fourteenths’ (8s and 6s - ask). In every pantomime I write, I also play the dame, so I suppose I’m used to playing a woman. However, the Duchess is a very, very different character in a very different situation, but all the same, I’m being very careful not to make her in any way a pantomime character. Of course, it's not as though I’m going to come on stage and say something like ‘hello boys and girls, my name's the Duchess of York, what's yours?’, but still…

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Character Notes 3

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

I’m getting a little nervous now; we’re in the fourth week of rehearsals. We’ve been working through the play scene by scene, and we’ve now reached the beginning of Act V, so I’ve now been able to have a go at the Duchess of York's scenes. I’d done a lot of work on them at home, both before rehearsals started and during these last three weeks, making sure I knew exactly what each line meant and which words I should stress to make sure the that meaning is clear to an audience. Of course, as soon as I got to play the scene in rehearsals, everything fell apart! Still, we tried it again the next day and it was much better.

I’ve been doing some work on the background of my character. I’ve discovered that Richard II is not historically accurate, because at the time when play is set, the Duchess of York was not Aumerle's mother. Aumerle's mother, the first Duchess of York, had died around 6-7 years earlier, and the second Duchess of York, Joan Holland, who was the Duchess of York at the time this play is set, was in fact only 5-6 years older than Aumerle. So, when she sarcastically asks the Duke of York whether they can have any more children should Aumerle be killed:

Have we more sons? Or are we like to have?
Is not my teeming-date drunk up with time? (v.2.90-91)

In the story of the play, the answer is ‘no’; she is too old, but historically, she was still young enough that the answer could have been ‘yes.’ Perhaps Shakespeare believed that his audiences, watching his play 200 years after these events had taken place, would have forgotten that Edmund Langley, Duke of York had married twice during the 1380s and 1390s.

In many ways, I think the character of the Duchess of York represents motherhood; and in particular, what it is like for a mother to lose her child. As soon as he discovers that Aumerle has been plotting against the newly-crowned Bolingbroke, the Duke of York immediately says that he will ride to the king and tell him what he's discovered. As a traitor to the king, Aumerle would then most likely be put to death. The Duke of York is in a very difficult position; he has sworn to be responsible for Aumerle's behaviour not just to the king, but in parliament as well, and as a result, if Aumerle commits any crimes, it's either his life or the Duke's that must be forfeit. By telling the King that Aumerle has committed treason, the Duke is saving his own life.

Even so, the Duchess finds it very difficult to believe that her husband could allow their son to be killed, especially given that, being related to the king, there is potentially some hope that he could be saved. It's for this reason that she bursts in on the king, Aumerle and York in act V scene 3. We’re just starting to explore that scene, but I think that, by interrupting in this way, she is putting herself in great danger. Like her husband, she was a staunch supporter of Richard when he was on the throne; Richard sent the Queen to stay with her not long after they were married, so to put herself in between Aumerle and the king's anger is a very brave thing to do. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the scene develops over the next few days.

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Character Notes 4

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.

Lots of scholars dismiss the scenes with the Duchess of York as being ‘not very good’, and they are often cut from productions of Richard II. Some apparently believe that he wrote it very quickly, which is why most of the lines are in a simple tetrameter (4 beats in a line) rather than in Shakespeare's usual pentameter (5 beats), and the language is very plain and straightforward. I really enjoy these lines, and their lack of complicated language means that whenever a more poetic line arrives, I enjoy it even more; my favourite is when, speaking to the King, the Duchess says:

Thine eye begins to speak. Set thy tongue there;
Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear,
That hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,
Pity may move thee pardon to rehearse. (v.3.124-127)

I think it's a beautiful speech. During this scene, I think the Duchess treats Bolingbroke/King Henry like a 5 year old. She is telling him; ‘you weren’t brought up to be a king, remember what a king should be like, a king should show mercy.’ In many ways, seeing the Duchess treat the king in this way is very funny, but at the same time, she is in an absolutely terrible situation; her son could be put to death, and she's risking everything she and her husband have, against her husband's will, to save him. She is very angry with her husband, in fact, in today's rehearsal, I’m going to try hitting York at the end of the scene as we exit, just to see how he reacts. He can’t say anything, (I have the last line of the scene!), but it will be interesting to see whether he accepts it, and accepts that he was wrong, or whether he remains angry with me for arguing against him in front of the king.

I’ve also been thinking about the character of Ross, and why he rebels against Richard. One reason could be that he does it to get more power for himself; he is only a Baron, and would probably gain a higher title, perhaps a Dukedom or an Earldom, if Bolingbroke succeeds. However, Ross was a high-ranking member of parliament, (the House of Lords), who was well connected at court, and what he says in the play suggests that his reasons for supporting Bolingbroke were far from selfish. He is concerned that:

The commons hath [Richard] pilled with grievous taxes,
And quite lost their hearts. The nobles hath he fined
For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts. (II.1.246-248)

I think that Ross is concerned for the whole country, not just himself or the nobles. Unlike Bolingbroke, who declares that all he wants is his lands and titles, what drives Ross is a need to protect the country from falling apart, and if this means deposing Richard, so be it.

We went to Middle Temple Hall yesterday and spent some time trying different games in the space to get used to working there. One that was very useful was when the whole company spread out across the space, then we would run through the lines for a certain section of the play. The person who was speaking would throw the ball from one hand to another, throwing it up in the air from one hand on the last stressed syllable of each line, and catching it in the other on the first stressed syllable of the next. When you reached your last line, you would throw the ball to the next speaker on your last stressed syllable, so that they could catch it on their first such syllable. Whilst we were running certain scenes in the hall, we had members of the company sitting on all three sides to help us become used to having an audience there. When you were sitting down, if you felt at any time that you weren’t being included in the scene by those on stage, you were allowed to raise your hand. When you were on stage and someone raises their hand, your job is to turn around and include them, ‘knocking’ their hand down. I’ve worked in a lot of pantomimes, which is useful preparation for working in traverse (with an audience on three sides, as at Middle Temple Hall), or in the round (with an audience on four sides), as you often have to start a speech looking at the character you’re talking to, then turn to address the middle of the speech to the audience, then finishing it back facing the same character. I’ve done one play in the round, and it's amazing to have an audience so close to you; it feels like you’re in a cauldron, with people scrutinizing your every move. You have to be careful not to exaggerate the way you speak or move, and make sure you look the audience in the eye. It's fantastic.

My costume as the Duchess of York is nearly finished. I’m going to look like a battleship. However, it is the most beautiful costume I’ve ever seen. Much of the cloth is a raised velvet woven on looms in Genoa that were used to make a similar cloth in Shakespeare's time. It's very exciting – I can’t wait to see it finished.

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Character Notes 5

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.

Playing at Middle Temple Hall was a very special experience. It was an amazing few weeks; the whole building is rooted in history, Shakespeare himself performed there, and we all wanted to speak the lines as well as we possibly could in the space. Before each performance, the audience were allowed to walk through our dressing room and watch us getting changed into costume. That was a very odd experience; although the audiences for Twelfth Night at the Globe last year could watch us dressing through the frons scenae, at Middle Temple Hall, they were much, much closer. I felt like an animal at the zoo.

Audiences at Middle Temple Hall were very different to those I experienced last year at the Globe. The two spaces are similar in that audiences can see each other, but Middle Temple Hall is a much smaller, more enclosed space, which meant that anything a member of the audience did would often draw a lot of attention, even if they only shuffled in their chair. In general, audiences were very polite and well behaved; they would laugh occasionally during the Duchess of York scenes, but most of the time they seemed to be listening very carefully to every line.

Because every movement spoke volumes at Middle Temple Hall, I was very careful what movements I made in the opening scenes, when I’m playing Lord Ross, and I tried to make sure that they would show an audience whom I supported in each situation. My costume gives them a hint; Richard's flatterers, Bushy, Bagot and Green are dressed in very bright colours, but I’m dressed in a dark brown, similar to the dark colours worn by John of Gaunt, the Duke of York and the Earl of Northumberland. Any movements I make, I try to make them show that I support these characters, so I occasionally walk over to York and have a word with him, or exchange a look with Gaunt; just little things, but they immediately show whose side I’m on. Everyone was very pleased with the production at Middle Temple Hall, but at the same time, we wanted to get into the Globe.

As soon as we finished the run in Middle Temple Hall, we had one day off, then we were straight into technical rehearsals at the Globe. We hadn’t really had time before to think about doing Richard II on the Globe stage, where we have such a huge choice about where to move and what to do. Tim [Carroll, Master of Play] encouraged us to simply keep moving, to keep trying different things, standing in different places and so on. We had one session with Mark [Rylance, Artistic Director and King Richard] on the stage, where he had marked out circles and triangles showing different ‘paths’ across the stage that we might find useful. He then demonstrated these paths together with the stage managers, which meant we could sit and watch how different angles and ‘paths’ affect how your character is seen by an audience, which was very useful. Technical rehearsals at the Globe are very different to those in other theatres, as we have no lighting or sound cues to blend into the production. Instead, we focus on entrances and exits; where will we come on, who will open the doors and how quickly, together with the music cues. Because we had so little time, and because Tim [Carroll] was in the middle of rehearsing Dido, Queen of Carthage for later in the season, we only rehearsed two scenes properly on the stage. Those scenes were I.1 and I.3, the scenes where most of the company are on stage at once; it was especially important to make sure we weren’t going to bump into each other!

Originally, I was going to make my entrance as the Duchess of York through one of the side doors, but Tim [Carroll] took me aside and told me not to, but instead to enter through the centre doors. I’m not sure how audiences will react, but we’ll see.

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Character Notes 6

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.

We have now opened at the Globe, and it was incredible. Because we’d already performed the play over 30 times at Middle Temple Hall, the first night was slightly different to usual, but everyone was still very nervous. As soon as we got on the stage, though, it was all fine. The audiences here are so supportive, and their reactions to what is happening on stage are so much bigger than at Middle Temple Hall. When the audience laughs here, it's very loud! When I first walked out onto the stage as the Duchess (through the centre doors), 1,600 people gasped, and in the middle of V.iii, when the Duchess is begging for Aumerle's life, an ‘ahhh’ suddenly came from the audience; we didn’t get that sort of reaction in Middle Temple Hall. Suddenly, because of the size of the space, we can open out the production and address lines to vast sections of the audience where appropriate, and they will react.

Now that we’re in the Globe, the comedy in V.iii is suddenly much more apparent, as audiences are laughing loudly at what we do on stage. There are certain amounts of physical comedy, for instance, when Aumerle says “Unto my mother's prayers I bend my knee” (V.111.96), he kneels, then I push him to the ground so that he's lying face down. The audience, especially the groundlings, love physical comedy, and they always roar with laughter at that point, but I think we have to be careful not to add too much to the scene as a whole. I was talking to Mark [Rylance, Richard] and Tim [Carroll, Master of Play], and they both agree that the scene is intended to be comic, especially given that it's placed just before the plotting, then the execution of Richard. However, it's important to focus on what is written and to make sure the language of the scene is very clear. Because it's all in rhyming couplets, I think the language of V.iii is naturally funny; the rhythm helps the comedy. But, at the same time, you have to remember to try and say the lines like they’ve never been said before. The key to this is to remember that, often, you are replying to what another character says; if you say the lines as a reply, rather than just reciting them, it helps keep the way you say them fresh.

Some characters in Richard II speak directly to the audience, but I’m careful as the Duchess of York not to do so, despite the comedy of V.iii. I do open out lines to the audience, looking around as I say a line, but I don’t address anything to them directly. This is because of the severity of the situation she finds herself in; she is risking everything in opposing her husband in front of the king, and her son is about to be condemned. I don’t think she would even think of making a side-comment, despite that there are some lines which might work as such.

We’ve now started rehearsals for Edward II by Christopher Marlowe, our (the White Company’s) second play of the season. It's exhausting, but I do enjoy rehearsing one play during the day then performing another in the evenings. If I just have a performance in the evening, I find that I can’t really concentrate on anything else for the rest of the day, so I really enjoy rehearsing in the afternoons.

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