We asked AYT readers what they’d like to ask our RSC diarists…

Q: “I’d love to know how rigorous the rehearsal period is; time-wise and the level of depth with textual analysis.”

Rosie: Well, it varies according to the director’s process and the parts you play. In Hamlet, we spent the first few weeks going through each scene in detail and discussing it, then slowly putting it on its feet before we moved on to the next scene, and after an initial read through we were only called for the scenes we were in which we explored bit by bit. But in As You Like It we were all called for a two week movement workshop which had no text at all, before we even read the script around a table together. The workshop had us dripping in sweat for eight hours a day pretty much, whilst the read through was a week long and at times it could lead to hours of discussion on one scene.

As for parts, I thought that as a newbie cast in small parts I wouldn’t be called that much, but both David Farr and Maria Aberg had us in for group scenes again and again (they can be very choreographed and technical), as well as song, dance, movement and voice calls.

So I’ve done 12 hour days, five to six days a week for the last two and a half months, and what with the understudy runs and All’s Well That Ends Well coming up, that doesn’t look set to change until the 7th August. It’s amazing, but exhausting.

Dan: Rehearsals at the RSC are very in depth. We’re lucky enough to get ten weeks to explore each play. Both processes included a great deal of textual analysis and table work as a company, to discuss the meanings of all the lines and words within the play so we would be able to communicate them to an audience properly. With As You, we also had a two week workshop period where we improvised and tried out various movement ideas for establishing the two worlds of the court and Arden.

Q: “Is there any chance for those of us who don’t go to drama school after university due to cost?”

Rosie: I tried to get acting jobs without an agent and without drama school, and it varied from hard to impossible. Unless you know someone like a radio producer, or director, or want to put on your own stuff, go to drama school. It’s hard to get an agent and without them you don’t get seen for paid jobs. I know RADA can take on tuition fees if you can’t afford them, at least they could when I applied. Otherwise, the Actor’s Centre do courses which at least means you meet professionals and peers, and Paines Plough do fantastic open auditions.

Dan: I think it’s getting a lot harder for people going to drama schools, especially with the recent increase in fees. But don’t be put off, there are various bursaries and scholarships you can apply for which help towards funding. If this is your first higher education course, you can take out a student loan to help with the costs too. Also there’s nothing stopping you working for a year or so to stockpile some cash to help get you through your training as well.

Q: “Do you have any tips on how to make yourself more open and vulnerable in acting?”

Rosie: Being centred and remembering to breathe helps to focus your concentration on listening like you’ve never heard stuff before, which means if the situation is sad or funny it should make you laugh, cry, sigh automatically. I need to know who my character is through movement, rehearsal, and what they are thinking, then I can relax and stop worrying about back story because it’s in my body and I can just listen. It’s hard though; I’m easily distracted and it takes concentration.

Dan: There are so many ways for this to be achieved and I think I’m still figuring it out myself to be honest. There’s not one correct way; I suppose it’s finding what works best for you. A good warm up and some physical exercise (run, gym or yoga) before a performance helps to clear my mind before a show, so I can be as much in the moment as possible and not over think stuff too much, and just let it happen to me.

Q: “How does an actor transition from being his cheery self backstage into a sad character on stage in limited time?”

Rosie: For me, having explored a character’s physicality really helps, and costume helps too. If I change how I move, that makes me a different person, or at least body memory reminds me to be a different person in a different situation. Lighter or more tense, slower or more jagged. I’m not a very intellectual actor. I’d rather my body did the work, and I can just try and be available to the other actors and immediate situation. That’s where repetition and rehearsal come in.

Dan: For this I think it’s just a case of giving yourself enough time to focus and relax, and doing whatever is necessary to allow you to do this whether that’s a warm up, or a cup of tea and a sit down. Different things work for different actors so I suppose it’s just a case of trial and error until you land on something that fits. It also depends on what you’re doing in the show and what the role requires of you, so adapt and change what works for you accordingly.

The RSC runs a £5 ticket scheme for 16 – 25 year olds. Find out more here.

Images: Daniel and Rosie in rehearsals for Hamlet. By Keith Pattison.

Last week, Abdulla Al Asam performed at Shakespeare’s Globe as part of Globe Education’s Sam Wanamaker Festival. The annual celebration brings together 42 students from the leading UK accredited drama schools. This year, Globe Education also welcomed Abdulla and his colleague Mohammed Ziyara who, from the Youth Activities Department, Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage, Qatar, as part of Qatar-UK 2013 Year of Culture. Abdulla shares his thoughts with AYT…

As an actor, I never expected that my first taster of performing Shakespeare would take place in the country of his birth, let alone a location so fitting as Shakespeare’s Globe theatre. Of course, I have gained a large amount of experience performing modern drama in Qatar, which perhaps is to be expected in a country whose recent development has come to define modernity.

It was this cultural contrast between the UK and Qatar that made my experience at the Sam Wanamaker Festival at Shakespeare’s Globe so enjoyable and beneficial.

My colleague Mohammed Ziyara and I were invited to participate in the festival, alongside 42 students from UK drama schools, by Globe Education, as part of Qatar UK 2013 Year of Culture. Qatar UK 2013 is a year-long celebration of the long-lasting friendship between Qatar and the UK and aims to cultivate mutual understanding between the two countries. Our inclusion definitely brought a different perspective to the weekend, and it was a brilliant experience sharing knowledge and bouncing ideas in an international group.

The weekend involved a variety of workshops and classes, each led by an expert who helped us improve our performance skills. I found all the Globe staff I met to be extremely helpful and encouraging, but the chance to talk about acting with students in the UK who share my interests and passions was a real highlight of the trip. As a whole, I would describe my experience as both unique and extreme.

What I found most encouraging was the internationality of our medium. The UK is, of course, home to not just Shakespearean-era plays, but a whole variety of modern theatre. Working with British students in the weekend’s workshops and bringing in various performance elements that I had learnt in my home country was a great experience.

I found that acting and humour easily transfers over boundaries. My highlight of the weekend was performing the castle garden scene from Othello with Mohammed in front of an audience of 1,500 on the Globe’s stage – in Arabic! With very few of the audience able to speak our language, my ability to translate the scene through my acting was truly tested!

Standing on the stage, I felt very intimately connected with the audience and the Arabic humour we brought to the scene was definitely appreciated by those watching our performance. Throughout Iago’s devious discussion with Othello about Desdemona, we used our environment to great effect to bring Othello’s passion to life. At one point, a pillar even became Desdemona!

The weekend left me feeling even more excited by my craft and inspired with a huge range of new ideas. Exchanging these ideas with students from another culture has also really highlighted to me the benefit of Qatar UK 2013 and the cultural exchange it is promoting. I would like to thank everyone involved in the Sam Wanamaker Festival for giving me such a unique experience. And I am looking forward to the chance to welcome some UK drama students to Qatar in the future.

Image: Abdulla Al Asam performs at Shakespeare’s Globe as part of Globe Education’s Sam Wanamaker Festival, Sunday 7 April, 2013. Photographer: Ellie Kurttz 2013.

The thrust of Andrew Hilton’s second Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory play of this season is simple: men are idiots. Some are more or less idiotic than others, but, in essence, none of them come out of this tale well. What Hilton’s production manages to do is remain pretty funny without ignoring the darker moments. He also returns to the women of the piece a little of the dignity which their assorted menfolk do their best to remove.

Valentine, a well-to-do young man of Verona, is off to Milan to attend the court there, and teases his bosom friend Proteus for decided to stay put in Verona, kept there by his sworn love for Julia. Except, as mentioned previously, Proteus is an idiot. Bidden by his father to join Valentine in Verona, he leaves his Julia, swearing eternal loyalty etc etc. Proteus, on arriving in Milan, finds his friend has also fallen in love, and in an astonishingly ridiculous turn of events, Proteus then falls in love with Silvia, on whom Valentine dotes. Got that? Valentine, who is not the sharpest tool in the box, fails to notice Proteus’s about-face, and ends up banished on Proteus’s slander where he is naturally forced to become an outlaw. Proteus then attempts to woo Silvia for himself, forsaking Julia and double-crossing Lord Turio, Sylvia’s father’s intended husband for her. So far, so ludicrous. Without rehearsing the entire plot here, suffice to say that Julia disguises herself as a man (of course) and ends up as Proteus’s page (he doesn’t recognise her because he’s an idiot); Silvia runs away with the felp of the hapless (and eventually trouser-less) Eglamour (SATTF stalwart Alan Coveney); Proteus attempt to rape Silvia, in front of the disguised Julia; they all live happily ever after. Well, it is a comedy.

The problem with the play lies in the story itself, not in this production: it’s almost incomprehensible, to a modern audience, why Julia would continue to dote upon a man who proves time and time again to be an unfaithful, violent idiot. Baby-faced Piers Wehner is very charming and affable, but Proteus himself is almost never likeable, let alone loveable. I suppose one could make a point about people who stay in abusive relationships, but Hilton doesn’t seem to be doing this here – Julia (the wonderful Dorothea Myer-Bennett) is played pretty straight. Her love is portrayed as genuine and, despite watching Proteus woo Silvia and even being reqired to woo on his behalf, she does want him back.

What Hilton does well is allow the female characters to maintain some autonomy; they end up with the men they choose, because they choose. They have some agency, which is nicely reiterated at the end when the women walk off arm-in-arm leaving their gormless fiances to walk together. All of the action is underlined and punctuated by John Telfer’s music, played onstage by Peter Clifford, Thomas Frere, David Plimmer and Eva Tausig. Jack Bannell plays Valentine as a kind of loveable buffoon, and gets away with it because his character looks like quite a catch compared to Proteus. Dorothea Myer-Bennet is a delight as the fiery Julia, as likely to burst into tears as to disguise herself a boy and travel to Milan. Elegant Silvia is given some pizzazz by Lisa Kay, complaining loudly that she is not a gift to be given, and that she will only consent to marry Valentine when he asks her rather than her father.

Comic relief is provided by the various servants: Julia’s maid (Nicky Goldie), Valentine’s servant (Marc Geoffrey) and Proteus’s long-suffering servant Launce (Chris Donnelly). Geoffrey and Donnelly particularly play well of each other, making the most of every terrible pun and using Crab the dog (Lollio, who stole the show) to great effect. Paul Currier makes an amusing Lord Turio (also an idiot) who is duped by Proteus, and Peter Clifford looks like he’s having fun as the stern Duke of Milan.

It’s an enjoyable evening once you decide to stop worrying that such interesting women are wasting themselves on such foolish men. Hilton’s direction has once again brought out beautiful verse-speaking from his cast, ensuring that ancient jokes are still funny and creating a fast-paced show. It’s not an unproblematic comedy, especially the ending, and this production finds a nice path through the complexities to end up with a show that remains true but sneaks in a few knowing twists. Worth seeing for the dog alone, Hilton has another great show on his hands.

Two Gentlemen of Verona is at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol until 4 May. Visit the Tobacco Factory’s website for more details and to buy tickets.

Photo: Dorothea Myer-Bennett as Julia and Piers Wehner as Proteus. (c) Toby Farrow, Farrows Creative.

Cheek by Jowl takes its name from a quotation in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “Follow?” Demetrius roars to Lysander. “Nay, I’ll go with thee, cheek by jowl”. It’s a phrase that artistic directors Declan Donellan and Nick Ormerod chose to reflect the “intimacy between actors, the audience and the text” that they strive to sustain in their work. Since founding the company in 1981, director Donellan and designer Ormerod have taken audiences with them through many of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as the works of European dramatists including Chekhov and – less often – new writing. In 1999, they formed a sister company of Russian actors and have more recently begun working with a French ensemble. Their latest French-language production, Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, comes to the Barbican this week, where the company is an Artistic Associate. Currently staging work in three different languages and touring globally with its three companies, Cheek by Jowl remains, as Donellan puts it, “passionately devoted to sharing an intimate experience with the audience” on an international scale.

When I speak to Donellan, though, it’s not so close and personal – in fact, he’s on the phone from his hotel room in Paris between rehearsals for Ubu – but this does little to mute the emphatic force of his always carefully considered words, and the experience is certainly an intense one. I get short thrift after opening inanely with “how are rehearsals going?” and pretty soon we’re discussing how the production connects with Cheek by Jowl’s previous work and with Donellan’s taste for landmarks in European theatre. Ubu Roi, although “a continuation of the work with the same French actors” from the recently formed company, is “the complete opposite” of their first production, Racine’s Andromache. It’s a play that surreally satirises self-gratification and the greed for power, reworking Shakespearean tropes to chronicle a despotic ruler’s rise with unrestrained vulgarity and scatological comedy.

Famously, riots broke out in the theatre at Ubu Roi’s 1896 premier in Paris after only the first line was uttered: “Merdre” – a pun on the French words for “murder” and “shit”.  When I bring this up, asking whether the play still has the power to shock, Donellan is quick to clarify that “I’m not interested in shocking the audience,” viewing such an approach as “an easy way of having an intimate shared experience”, and a “cheap” motive. However, he later reflects, “people think it’s so difficult to shock these days because people are ‘un-shockable’, but I don’t think that’s true at all. I think we’re becoming much more narrow-minded in many respects. The world is becoming less tolerant, and I’m not just talking about the rise of fundamentalism, I’m talking about actual middle-class values such as you and I have. I think there are more taboos, not less, but they’re just less visible and more difficult to put your finger on”.

Donellan’s staging of the play illustrates pretty well what he’s getting at here: by transposing Jarry’s absurdist narrative to a dinner party in a chichi French apartment, the play is framed as an adolescent fantasy in a bourgeois world. Ultimately, though, his intentions are never clear-cut, mainly because to have specific intentions – he believes – is to undermine the complexity of the theatrical experience: “you don’t think, ‘oh I’m going to move the audience here’ or ‘I’m going to frighten the audience here, I’m going to blah the audience here’. Audiences are much more independent than that… everyone is a participant in the act”.

As for what Ubu says about us today, Donellan simply states: “all the plays I do, I do because they’re about universal human nature, and fortunately – or unfortunately – human nature doesn’t change”. Whilst many of the plays he’s directed are part of what we might call the canon, Donellan has little time for the idea that he’s breathing new life into the classics – in fact, he says, “you’ve made me feel sick by using those words”. Oh dear. “As soon as you use the word classic, it makes my heart sink, because it’s so easy to forget that these plays are well-written. I don’t do them because they’re classics; I do them because they’re good.” What draws him to a play, then, is not its literary status but rather its simple ability to convey “what’s so alive about the human condition”. The example he quotes is in Three Sisters (which he directed in an acclaimed production in 2005) when Masha tells the audience she’s going to have an affair simply by taking off her hat and saying, “I think I’ll stay to lunch”.

It’s this love of “brilliant” writing that makes working with new playwrights a rarity: “I do read a lot of new scripts, but my problem is I’m spoilt – I’ve been fed a stream of wonderful words all my life, by Pushkin and by Chekhov and by Shakespeare.” On the few occasions that he has taken on a new play. though, it has tended to become fairly, er, canonical itself. “And then when I get a new writer”, as he says, “I get Tony Kushner” – Donellan directed the UK premiers of both parts of Angels in America for the National Theatre.

Donellan’s directorial approach to these texts, it seems, is as pure and direct as his appreciation: when I ask about the differences between working with the three different companies, he laughs off the notion that his methods might ever be consistent. “I’m rather an anti-methodology person. Every piece of work I do in a different way; I’m very much not a man that goes in with a theory and tries to make work of art to prove it.” Instead, his attitude is refreshingly pragmatic: “I have actors, I have a play and I have a theatre that expects to see something, and I put them together in the best way I can – that’s genuinely how I do my work.” This all comes back, of course, to what he sees as a fundamental principle of theatre: “It’s very important to me, because all the art I do is about life, it’s not about theory. All I hope and pray is that the work that I do is not particularly adhering to any pre-formulated idea of how things should be, but that it’s alive.”

Ubu Roi is at the Barbican 10- 20 April. For tickets and more information, visit http://www.barbican.org.uk/theatre/event-detail.asp?ID=14022. To find out more about Cheek By Jowl, visit www.cheekbyjowl.com.

Image credit: Johan Persson