Showing posts with label Shakespeare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shakespeare. Show all posts

Saturday, 3 April 2021

Carruthers Ten Years On: April 2011

April 2011 on the Carruthers blog. The Tempest continued and I was pleasantly surprised by the payoff. It was replaced by Sherlock Holmes' The Sign of Four. My favourite post however is Railing Failing, the photo is funny, but the post improves on it rather than simply relying on it.

I can't imagine making a joke about rape now, even one as oblique as this.
Posted by at No comments:
Tags: , , ,

Wednesday, 3 March 2021

Carruthers Ten Years On: March 2011

March 2011 on the Carruthers blog was the nadir, so far. Duel videos, music tracks used or referenced by our sketches and the text of Shakespeare's The Tempest alternating with dictionary definitions that were probably meant to be stark, but just seem facile.

The best post of probably Revenge.


Posted by at 3 comments:
Tags: , ,

Wednesday, 6 January 2021

Twelfth Night, Or What You Voted For closes tonight

 The final performance of Twelfth Night, Or What You Voted For is online tonight at 7pm.

You can get a free ticket here.

Those of you with a prior engagement have missed it.


Posted by at No comments:
Tags: ,

Tuesday, 5 January 2021

Twelfth Night, Or What You Voted For opens tonight

The first performance of Twelfth Night, Or What You Voted For is online tonight at 7pm.

You can get a free ticket here.


Those of you with a prior engagement please consider attending tomorrow.

Posted by at No comments:
Tags: ,

Sunday, 3 January 2021

Twelfth Night, Or What You Voted For

I'm acting again. It's been a while.

I'm playing Antonio in an online version of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, which has been influenced by the recent departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union, hence the Or What You Voted For.

Unlike Brexit it'll cost you nothing. It's on the 5th and 6th of January at 7pm.

You can get a free ticket here.



Posted by at No comments:
Tags: ,

Tuesday, 19 May 2020

Twitter Twatter #82

April 2020 on Twitter:











































































































Posted by at No comments:
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, 1 January 2012

Resolute

So this time last year I made a new year's resolution to read the complete works of William Shakespeare. I can't really say that I kept it. I managed to read one of Shakespeare's plays. One. I would hesitate to call it an absolute failure, because I haven't given up. Let's call it a qualified failure, but at this rate it'll take another 37 years and I'll be 67 by the time I'm finished.

So I'm making a new year's resolution, but it's the same as it was last year.

I'm making a new new year's resolution as well. I've decided that when I am between work (which has been a little too often of late, but might not be in 2012), that I will treat writing like a day job. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean a twenty-hour-shifts-of-coal-mining-with-your-teeth sort of a job. I mean a start at nine, break for lunch, finish work at five type job.

Come rain or shine, I will write.

Happy New Year.
Posted by at 3 comments:
Tags: ,

Monday, 25 July 2011

Pyramus & Thisbe

Whilst studying Shakespeare at Uni, we were required to choose a sections to perform both individually and as a group. As a solo piece I decided Oberon's speech that begins "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows..." from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

As a group we decided against selecting something which would require contextualising. Sticking with A Midsummer Night's Dream, we hit upon the idea of staging Pyramus & Thisbe, its 'play within a play' in its own right. It was as if this merely another date on the tour of the Mechanicals. I played Wall, although not necessarily Tom Snout.


I suppose I adapted it, but that's probably a generous term for removing bits of Dream that got in the way. We rehearsed it in quite a sparse fashion and at a late stage added in various pieces of props and costume. The show went quite well, but someone from another group commented that it had been better in rehearsal and that the props and costume were an unnecessary distraction and I think they were probably right.
Posted by at No comments:
Tags: , ,

Saturday, 23 April 2011

Topsy And The Bard

Chris Tranchell's 'Shakespeare Shuffle' Topsy And The Bard is today at 2:30 pm at William Morris House in Hammersmith.

Coach House,
William Morris Society,
26 Upper Mall,
Hammersmith,
London W6

Chris and I are performing scenes from As You Like It and Romeo & Juliet (I'm playing Romeo, he's not playing Juliet).
Posted by at 2 comments:
Tags: ,

Saturday, 16 April 2011

Shakespeare Shuffle

A week from today at 2:30pm, I'll be taking part in one of Chris Tranchell's 'Shakespeare Shuffles', a collection of scenes from the works of Shakespeare. Exploring the link between two Williams, this one is called Topsy And The Bard, as the scenes selected have been chosen because they mostly have a link to William Morris, nicknamed Topsy (he's the one on the right, below).



Some were favourites of his and some are parts he played himself. Fittingly the performance is taking place at the meeting place of the William Morris Society.

The venue is:
Coach House,
26 Upper Mall,
Hammersmith,
London
W6 9TA
Posted by at No comments:
Tags: ,

Sunday, 9 January 2011

Reading The Tempest

Here's the first of my lists of observations about Shakespeare's plays as part of my new year's resolution. Due to unforeseen circumstances it's a couple of days late and that has made me reconsider slightly. I'm still going to work my through all of Shakespeare's plays, but now I'm planning on reading a play fortnightly rather than weekly. Those of you who enjoy mathematics will have realised this means it will take approximately twice as long.

Preconceptions: I’ve never seen a production of The Tempest, but I have seen Brent Spiner playing Data playing Prospero in Star Trek and that Forbidden Planet is based upon it. It's also a play which is referenced to estensively elsewhere: Miranda (left) is a revelation in Serenity and the name of a moon on which Rimmer started (and fled from) a barfight in Red Dwarf, Sycorax is the name of an alien in Doctor Who and “Brave new world” entered common usage and became the title of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

Act I, Scene I
The first stage direction is probably the definitive use of the word 'tempestuous' in the whole of English literature. I love the practicality of the Boatswain in the following exchange:

Boatswain: "Do you not hear him? You mar our labour, keep your cabins, you do assist the storm."

Gonzalo: "Nay, good, be patient."

Boatswain: "When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin, silence! Trouble us not."

Gonzalo: "Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard."

Boatswain: "None that I more love than myself."


Act I, Scene II
Prospero's line "Hast thou forgot the foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy was grown into a hoop?" is a great image.


Act II, Scene I
Sebastian gets all the best lines here "Look he's winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike" and "He receives comfort like cold porridge"


Act II, Scene II
One of the things everyone seems to want to teach you about Shakespeare is his use of jesters, clowns and fools to comment upon the story itself, or simply to provide comic relief. Trinculo is Alonso's jester and from what I've read he isn't very insightful, apart from "Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows", nor does he seem particularly funny. In fact the opposite seems to be true, rather than being comedian himself he is Stephano's straight man, as seen in exchanges like this:

Stephano: "Here; swear then how thou escapedst."

Trinculo: "Swam ashore man, like a duck; I can swim like a duck, I'll be sworn."

Stephano: "...Though thou canst swim like a duck, thou art made like a goose."


Act III, Scene I
In a play full of magic it's odd that Ferdinand and Miranda falling in love at first is just that, especially with Prospero looking on and making asides like "Poor worm, thou art infected! This visitation shows it." I assumed that this infatuation was a trick and had to go back and re-read the scene to make sure I hadn't missed anything.


Act III, Scene II
When Caliban is wishing harm on Trinculo and compels Stephano to "cut his wezand with thy knife", I was glad some explanatory notes that revealed that wezand means throat or windpipe, rather than something lower down.
When Stephano asks "Dost thou like the plot, Trinculo?", it reminded me of Eric Morcambe asking his audience "What do you think of it so far?"


Act III, Scene III
Strangely while it's obvious that this scene is important, setting up the Alonso/Sebastian/Antonio plot strand and with the shapes bringing in the banquet and Ariel's use of a 'quaint device' to make the food vanish it also shows us Prospero's magic at its most explicit, but the first thought that occurred to me when I finished reading it nothing to do with any of that. In the last line of the scene Adrian says "Follow, I pray you", which reminded of several of the other scenes ending on a similar note. Either the penultimate or final line of most scenes has shared the same sentiment: "Let's take leave of him", "Come follow", "Lead away" and "So, king, go safely on to seek thy son", "O brave monster! Lead the way", "Lead, monster; we'll follow" and "Wilt come? I'll follow, Stephano". Is this running gag or just a convention to ensure the audience realises a new scene is about to begin?


Act IV, Scene I
Two of the subplots almost converge here, but in true farce fashion, they just miss each other. The section with Iris, Ceres and Juno despite being filled with some great dialogue and what Ferdinand refers to as a "magnificent vision", it is the stage directions which catch the modern eye: 'Juno descends [slowly in her car]', 'Juno and Ceres whisper, and send Iris on employment', 'Enter certain NYMPHS' and 'Enter certain REAPERS', which conjures up images of Prospero's island being filled with cars and unemployment, but at least it distinguishes those dancing from all the uncertain nymphs and reapers. This highlights the fact that the stage directions are far more prevalent here than in other works of Shakespeare that I have read.


Act V, Scene I
The showdown as everyone is brought together: Miranda and Ferdinand have their love acknowledged and accepted, Stephano and Trinculo are revealed to Caliban to be the idiots we all suspected, and Prospero forgives Alonso and they have a chat during which the latter says "I long to hear the story of your life, which must take the ear strangely". Well you and me both. Here's hoping the epilogue is chock full of Prospero's back story because it's something that has been intriguing me.


Act V, Epilogue
None of Prospero's biography is revealed in this last soliloquy, instead he says goodbye and "Let your indulgence set me free".

If I have one criticism of this play it is that Sycorax (below) seems such a well-drawn character that I would love to have seen her interacting with Prospero, Caliban and Ariel.



Reading Shakespeare returns in two weeks with The Two Gentlemen Of Verona.
Posted by at No comments:
Tags: , , , ,

Saturday, 1 January 2011

New Year’s Resolutions & Reading Shakespeare

Happy New Year.

I'm very good at making new year's resolutions, but not so good at keeping them.

Ruined by years of dry teaching at school, my relationship with Shakespeare is an awkward one. A director that I worked with recently said of it that "we have surrendered Shakespeare to the academics". In an attempt to rectify this, my new years resolution for the last two years running was to read all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays, in the time it took me to fail, he’s managed to write another one.


I’m going to try again and this time I’m going public in the hope that it’ll force me to do it. The plan is to read a play a week, an act a day, Monday to Friday and then to write about it on the Friday or Saturday. Last time it failed because I let things like work or running get in the way and when it slipped I didn’t get started again. I won't be running this time, but here's hoping work slows me down for all the right reasons.

This Friday: The Tempest
Posted by at 2 comments:
Tags:

Saturday, 7 August 2010

The Great Globe Itself

The Globe Players are a theatre company that provide theatre-in-education for schools and employment for actors, providing many actors, including myself, with their first Equity contract thus allowing them to join the union.

The Globe Players are also a family business with a legacy dating back nearly fifty years during which countless actors have worked with them and hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren have seen them perform. From traditional pantomimes for infants to Shakespeare shorts for secondary school children

Recent years have not been kind to the Globe Players and when the credit crunched other organisations, and ironically other globes, began to to encroach on their hard-earned territory.

Now a charity (Registered Charity 1131332) they are hoping to raise money to carry on the work, on the 31st of July a group of them performed a scene from Shakespeare at the end of every Shakespeare Road, Avenue, Crescent etc., in the greater London area.

I couldn't take part because it clashed with the third of the Bike Shed festival shows, so I contributed some cold hard cash instead and I encourage you to do the same, especially if you are an actor who has worked for them, a parent whose child has seen one or more of there shows, a child who grew up watching their shows or a teacher whose life they have made easier.
Posted by at No comments:
Tags:

Friday, 5 March 2010

Twelfth Night

Along with a monologue from Forty Years On I was auditioning for drama schools with the wooing speech from Richard III. I was getting away with it but I wanted to get some better experience of Shakespeare. All we did at school was interminably read his plays aloud until they were fairly meaningless.


I can't remember how I got involved with The Domino Players version of Twelfth Night, but I was cast as Sebastian opposite Amy Standish as Viola. I doubt it was because we looked particularly alike. The Edwardian-themed staging saw us in identical blazers and straw boaters. We were also taken to the same hairdressers to emerge with the same haircut. I remember very well the anti-climactic response to our twin barnets at the next rehearsal as if everyone had imagined that they would suddenly struggle to tell us apart.

It's the only show I've ever been involved with in which the cast were still given notes after the last performance.

Here we are getting identical haircuts.


The illusion is complete. Here we are in a photograph from a local paper, with Amy and I in equally strobing costumes, either side of Imogen Black as Olivia. Can you tell who's who?

Posted by at No comments:
Tags: ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)