Life’s a beach, and then you’re undead.

Hello! Blogging again about playing Shakespeare in William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead. Have a read of previous posts if you fancy any previous ramblings. Keep reading for all-new ones.  I’ve been on holiday in the south of France for a couple of weeks, so there have not been any updates ’til now.

Right. Holiday done. Back to work.

Although, truth be told, my ideal way to relax on holiday in the south of France was actually to sit on the beach, get a tan and learn my lines, which might be misconstrued as work, but I’m just really excited about being in this play! And when I wasn’t doing that, I was reading Soul of The Age whereby, amongst other things, I learned that Shakespeare was considered something of a country boy to his detriment when it came to his social standing and his reviews. Obviously I knew about his Warwickshire upbringing already, but I was surprised to see that it was such a burr in his side, which will later inform all of his most sycophantic moments with Bacon in Act 1 when we rehearse those scenes.

It also helped inform a few things just about Shakespeare’s state of mind. Bate considers that the constant back and forth between Stratford and London, coupled with the fact that Shakespeare never successfully wrote a city-based comedy (they always head to the forest and/or countryside) might have meant that Shakespeare was never really that comfortable in the city, and perhaps was always a country boy at heart. I grew up on the East coast of Suffolk, which was actually a pretty remote place to be a teenager. If you didn’t have a driver’s license, the best way to go to a friend’s house was by boat or tractor. And I live in London now, but sometimes a little bit of Suffolk comes calling. It just does. And I consider myself to be very comfortable in the city, but many of my closest friends and even family have expressed exhaustion in regards to city life and, in some cases, gone back to the countryside. So its not going to be a huge plot point, nor will it even be a hinge point for the performance. It’s just going to be in the back of my mind. It stresses you out when you’re not in your element.

And I read all of this whilst sitting comfortably on a beach in France! It was flipping great. I was feeling a touch stressed out before we left, what with moving house, appearing in two improv groups and starting a play, but a couple of weeks on the beach gave me all the opportunity I needed to finish the screenplay I was writing, recover from a few stress-related ailments and learn some lines. So I did.

And I’m pretty sure I looked like a lunatic, sitting on the beach, sweating bullets and muttering to myself in an Elizabethan vernacular, but it was fun. And my girlfriend even got in on the fun. Especially when trying to irritate the noisy French teenagers on the beach. She would read through the entire play with me to test my knowledge of the dialogue. She’s a legend.

The first rehearsal since France was last Sunday, where we had the delight of feeling like literal giants again as we rehearsed in a humble nursery in Balham. I remember hearing that in the old days of Hollywood where they would film a Western about once a week, the small-town-in-the-Wild-West sets were built to 7/8th scale in order to make Clint Eastwood and John Wayne look giant.  This is how we feel x3 approimately in that nursery. I find myself sitting at Shakespeare tiny desk on a tiny chair feeling like Andre The Giant, but its all in good fun!

And it feels excellent to hit the lines without the script. This is a minor and obvious thing to most actors, but as a someone to which learning scripts is a novelty, it was an incredible relief to put the script down and deliver the lines with some eye contact for once. We had a great time just playing about with the blocking of Shakespeare just by virtue of the fact i was no longer waiting for my cue. So rather than stand there like a lemon and reading along with the script while two actors have a discussion, I’ve been biting my nails, annotating scripts at my desk and really getting the chance to live in the headspace a bit. Again, if you are an actor, this is probably your bread and butter, but for me this is totally new and exciting.

Other things that are new are twofold.  One: Hair! I’ve had a pretty trim beard for a while now, but the part would demand that I go Elizabethan, and I’ve been growing the sucker since I got the part. I call him William Shakesbeard. He’s a bit unkempt at the moment, but I’m hoping that by the time October rolls around, he’ll be downy soft and, hopefully, controllable. It’s got a mind of its own at the moment!

And on the other side of my head, there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. At Steve’s request, I have been growing my hair with an aim to look as much like Shakespeare as possible at the end of all this. If I’m being totally honest, I was praying he would say “we’ll do a Shakespeare In Love type thing where you have a modern look in an Elizabethan setting”, because I have a short-back-and-sides and I knew what would happen. And it’s happening. I call him, Hamullet… photos will follow but right now, I just can’t face it. Literally. It’s on the other side of my head.

Two: COMBAT! Our second rehearsal this week was a Zombie Fight Club Special! We met in a dimly lit pub and fought with, not sharp, but certainly pointy swords. We did two zombie attacks and one duel! A bloody duel! How awesome is that! And I laid eyes on my first zombie (or Afflicted as they are called in the script). It’s bloody unnerving to see.

We had a choreographer by the name of Kiel come in and show us a few things. Instantly friendly, instantly got the play, instantly enjoyed the process. It was great fun. And the adrenaline started pumping! I’ve never never done stuff like this before, so I began pacing with anticipation at one point.

And it’s hard! I did dance at school, I did kung fu at university, but I just started panicking. And I think my Kung Fu instincts to protect myself meant the choreography would regularly go out the window. And it was at night. I started having brain flatulence and, annoyingly, it took me forever to get my head on straight for the duel. I think everyone intended this fight to be a cathartic/tense/emotional breaking point and due to my inability to get the god damn footwork, I think it’s not nearly as elaborate as I would have liked, let alone Steve or anyone else. But Steve, Leigh and everyone else were very accommodating of my stumbles, and Leigh even helped me run through it again afterwards using an umbrella.

And what’s both frustrating and comforting, in a way, is that Leigh is bloody great at it. With all things he does, he follows his instructions to a T, he does it with precision and grace, and he gave me a glare that genuinely put fear in my heart. Yup, Leigh has the eye of the tiger. He’s a very good actor. I admire him more and more each time I work with the man. And I had a great time chatting to Alfie, too. I have been waiting for some kind of shared interest to show itself with Alfie, since Rice and Shakespeare have a close mentorship in the play, and it finally did. He’s a dancer. And though I can hardly call myself a dancer, I did Dance AS Level at school and my mother works in the dance world, so I’m seeing new and varied forms of dance the whole time. We had a nice little session trading youtube videos. He’s a good kid.

That’ll do it for now. Quite a lot of verbage this week, but I didn’t blog last week, so there was much to discuss.

Oh, and I was thrilled to see a comment on the last blog (“Much Ado About Fear”) from original cast member Keith Prusak! The gentleman who played Burbage in the original production in 2008 at the Minnesota Fringe Festival!  Hello Keith! It was a thrill to read your comment! I hope we do the thing justice!

William Shakespeare’s Land Of The Dead is being performed at The Bedford in Balham from 28th-31st October. Tickets available now!