AYLI, rehearsal 17: ACTOR'S CHOICE 1
/When I direct Shakespeare, I don’t rehearse the scenes in order. That’s the surest way to create bored and grumpy actors as they come to a rehearsal for Act II and they’re only in scene 7. Instead, I create a character distribution chart (which I think I learned in costume design class, actually) so that I can group scenes to be more efficient for the actors’ (and my) time.
Before we start running the show in order, I always include a couple of rehearsals for PROBLEMS, i.e., complicated scenes that we haven’t fixed, or scenes we haven’t spent a lot of time on. This time, I’ve also scheduled a couple of similar nights called ACTOR’S CHOICE: same idea, only the actors tell me what they want to work on.
So tonight and tomorrow night, we’re working on what the cast has decided makes them nervous. Based on emails, I had scheduled Touchstone’s stand-up to work on, and I was going to take the bit and go through Adam’s scenes myself. Then a bunch of other people showed up, mostly to hang out. It is our own TAZ, after all.
Gary confessed that the dance was eluding him — he is not alone — so we circled up with our smaller group and ran through it. Key points: turn in the direction you’re “hitchhiking,” and look to your right for every interaction.
At 80bpm, they were flawless. At 120bpm they fell apart again. When next we work it, I will use a metronome to get us up to speed.
Mike (Duke Senior) wanted some support on 2.7 (SEVEN AGES), and as it happened Gary (Amiens) and Robert (Orlando) there, so we dissected it. Mostly I emphasized my interpretation of the scene as analogous to a theme camp at a burn: everyone’s relaxed and very grateful to be in their Temporary Autonomous Zone, when out of the woods some newbie burner barges in and offers to pay for a meal. (The sword = cash analogy is not exact.) They regard him calmly and with some bemusement, then offer him supper.
They are not particularly alarmed when he first appears, since people have been fleeing to Arden for months. (We have LeBeau show up during “Blow, blow,” seeking refuge from a Court he can no longer tolerate.) To me, the key line is the Duke’s “Sit down and feed and welcome to our table.” It’s positively eucharistic in its expansive generosity.
Meanwhile, Amanda, Lilly, and Meranda had been going over the slapstick in 5.1 (WILLIAM) out in the lobby. I proceeded to drill them in the rudiments of physical comedy: inelasticity is funny; repetition is funny; mechanical is funny. Every beat has to be precise and discrete. I changed a bit of the combat blocking both to make more sense and to make it easier to make it mechanical. SLOPPY IS NOT FUNNY.
This stuff is not easy, particularly with book in hand and 400-year-old jokes in the book. I am generally opposed to getting a laugh by stepping on the text, but this sequence has the potential of being honestly funny. It’s going to take a lot of work to make it precise, though. (It is actually harder to pull off than either of the two fight scenes.)
Kudos to Lilly for taking my suggestion on how to turn Audrey’s getting slapped into something funny instead of something eyebrow-raising — and running with it!
Then Amanda and I settled in to discuss Touchstone’s standup persona. I gave her some insights from my observations, pointing out how to work the room — she had observed how some comics stand still while others pace; she’s going to pace — and how to play off of different audience responses. We’re going to try having Touchstone pull a mic out of his pocket and go into lounge mode during those bits. Yes, we’re going to hit him with a spotlight.
It always amuses me when I tell people I’m directing As You Like It, and they ask what period I’m doing it in. How am I to answer? “Well, the Court is vaguely District One, and the Forest is sort of Burning Man, and we end up with a Diplo finale”? Good enough, I guess.
P.S. We never did get to Adam’s scenes.
