AYLI, rehearsal 8: GONE GIRLS (2.2), ORLANDO FLEES (2.3), OLIVER'S ASS (3.1)
/Another good night. If this keeps up, all we have to do is stay home, memorize the words, and then show up for performances.**
GONE GIRLS (2.2)
Besides the regularly scheduled cast members, we were joined by Meranda, Ronald, and Alexander—which was good, since we needed two attendant lords for this scene. Easy, right?
Not really: I want to reserve Alexander’s Corin as a character unmuddied by any part doubling. Ronald can’t be Lord 2 because the character references Charles the wrestler, and Meranda can’t be Lord 2 because the nastiness of the line is in conflict with what we know of LeBeau (also Meranda) in 1.2.
So for the time being, Meranda is Lord 1/LeBeau and I will play Lord 2 — the theory being that my taking the role of Frederick produced John to take it away from me, and that magick will surely work again.***
Into the scene: Frederick raging, the two Lords jockeying for favor. After applying the Lyles Dictum of Actor Yelling (“Don’t.”), John settled into a lovely controlled fury, snarling and venomous.
NOTE: AYLI is not a comedy till we get to the Forest. The Court is dark and treacherous, and this scene is an exemplar in small of the whole milieu. Lord 1: Nobody saw anything. Lord 2: Watch me one up my peer by supplying information that I got from Celia’s lady-in-waiting (she “confessed”). The information is wrong, but at Court that’s just the ballgame.
ORLANDO FLEES (2.3)
No Adam, so once again I’ve been cast.***
Setting aside Orlando’s really offensive classist attitude (“O, good Adam, who works for my family out of loyalty, not like those money-grubbing servants of today, sing me one of your people’s spirituals, and of course I’ll take your life savings to run away with. Here, carry my bags.”), this is a pretty simple scene.
We noted that when he enters, Orlando must be in pretty good spirits: he defeated Charles, won some prize money (some discussion of the mechanics of showing that in 1.2), and met a pretty girl.
OLIVER’S ASS ON A PLATTER (3.1)
Again, short scene, and no problems. Some clarification of text, but otherwise it’s three speeches and out.
OPENING (1.1)
This scene was not on the schedule, but since the other scenes are extremely short and non-problematic we were done early, and since we had Oliver, Charles, and Orlando, we decided to go ahead and do it.
Since it’s the first scene, your director had actually paid attention and visualized some blocking/picturization for it: When Oliver enters, he’s at the top SR of the arcs. Orlando moves up the SL side to challenge him; they move down each arc till they are DC, where Orlando trounces Oliver.
As we worked through Charles’s scene, we decided that Oliver’s lies about Orlando are actually a contract hit, and that Charles picks up on it and agrees to it. We could play Charles as an honorable guy — he does come to tell Oliver that he can’t not hurt Orlando if he comes in against him — but it was more in keeping with the Court atmosphere to have him take the bribe to kill Orlando.
In other news, Meranda picked William as an extra role, and Ronald picked Martext.
** Not really. [ALTHOUGH, this is the thesis of John Russell Brown’s Free Shakespeare, which is what inspired the production of Coriolanus that we did with six men and a boy.]
***Not really.
