Just the one rehearsal for me this week. I was up in Edinburgh for a Stag Party and missed out on Sunday’s rehearsal, which was regretful. We started off Wednesday’s immediately referring back to it, and I immediately kicked myself. I hate missing out on this sort of thing.
But on the plus side, I DEFINITELY got the intended insight in to sleep deprivation. I got up at 6:00am on Saturday and four and a half hours on a train to Edinburgh, filled with knee cramps, boredom, grizzly food, weak coffee and low battery. I arrive at 11:30am in Edinburgh, where I bomb it to one side of the city to drop off my bags and sprint across town to make the beer tasting on time. That takes us up to noon. We then spent the next 15 hours drinking, singing, dancing, eating and, in my case, suffering from migraines. But we made it through all night. And I woke up in a damp and grizzly hostel in the middle of the night to the sensation of drip, drip, dripping on my face from the bunk bed above me. One of my fellow attendees had been drinking Cola in bed before passing out and left the cap open just enough for a kind of sweetened water torture in the middle of the night. It was fun! Then there was day 2!
And then I had just enough time to get back to London, kick the hangover in about two days and attend Wednesday’s rehearsal, ready to rock. And boy it was a belter. Why? Because it was another Zombie Fight Club special!
Kiel, the fight choreographer, took us through the first major zombie invasion in the first act, a sequence that I think totalled about 60 seconds, and took the full 3-hour rehearsal to block. 5 zombies, 7 actors, 3 soldiers and 1 dead body. There were A LOT of moving parts, and (a growing theme for this production), everyone had their moment.
And those zombies, man… The Afflicted. Are. Terrifying.
Some of them are fast, some of them are slow (suitable given the author’s descriptions of “torpor” and “frenzy” in the production notes), but they are all extremely unsettling to witness. There’s an element of 28 Days Later to the fast ones. A wild, hyperactive unpredictability that really scares me. But when those slow ones lock eyes with you, with apparently nothing behind the eyes… good God.
If there is any one genre of horror movie/fiction that has always and perhaps will always scare me, it’s zombies. I think it dates back to playing Resident Evil as a young teenager. It’s the fact you can’t put them down, that’s so scary. They’re relentless, unstoppable and they grow in numbers with every victim. And its the fact that they are your loved ones as well. the idea of having to kill your friends and family, who look the same but are completely devoid of a soul… ugh. I have had so many nightmares about this sort of thing.
But I’m better than I was. I used to be borderline phobic about the whole thing (apart from the desire to watch zombie movies, which were like a flipping rollercoaster ride), but I definitely turned a corner at University, where I was asked to appear in a friend’s film. I said yes, sight unseen, because that’s how it worked in Film Studies class. He even told me that I was going to be playing, not just a zombie, not just a samurai, but the King of Zombie Samurai. Student films… they are what they are…
Anyway, I was totally fine with the whole idea, as the reason they cast me was mainly because I was one of only a few people in my class with any martial arts experience. So I got to wave a sword as if I knew what I was doing. And then came the moment when I was required to summon the zombies to me. And thirty groaning, stumbling zombies came shambling up from all around me while a Steady-Cam ran around and captured a load of footage. I’m ashamed to say the first take was perfect until I became so unnerved, I got raging giggles.
So needless to say, I was curious about how the Afflicted were going to affect me. Alfie and I were the only ones that had not attended the Zombie workshop last month, and I had seen a single Afflicted, but watching them en masse was something new to both of us. And we had no way of knowing what to expect. And the pacing that I was doing before first rehearsing the duel was happening all around the room. There was a buzzing excitement in everyone, the adrenal glands just beginning to fire up. Steve and Kiel set up the afflicted with a few directions and unleashed them on the stage. Everyone reacted beautifully. Alfie and I, however… We completely froze. It was horrifying. Then one of them turned to us and started leering over and Alfie ran for his life. Steve yelled cut. The Afflicted regained their souls. Alfie and I looked at each other and saw equally aghast reflections. And quietly, for only him and me to hear, I said (in my finest Jason Bateman impression) “Pepper’s gonna need new shorts…” Alfie cackled. I was quite proud of that.
Alfie and I starting to have fun with this whole thing. Rice and Shakespeare have a really important relationship and we are trying to build up to that together as actors. We share a sense of humour, which helps, and we started off the day with a few Eddie Izzard jokes and sword wielding, but we had a really nice moment when we were left observing Kiel choreographing another part of the scene. Alfie observed that “it feels like Rice is always standing next to Shakespeare”. I agreed and we chatted at length about what Rice means to Shakespeare professionally and personally. That Rice represents not only the future of his company but a surrogate for the son he lost some years ago. And as a result, Shakespeare is always going to be protective of Rice, right up until they get separated at the end of Act 2. Alfie pointed out that this was because “Shakespeare has learned to trust Rice”. At that point I told a slight fib.
I do not actually believe this to be the case, I think Shakespeare is relying more on Burbage to look after him while Shakespeare takes care of business. But I think Alfie is definitely on to something. I think Rice thinks Shakespeare trusts him, and that Shakespeare is relying on him. And I think if Alfie thinks that too, that’s no bad thing. So I didn’t correct him. I nodded in agreement and kept quiet. Besides, though he’s 15 years younger than me, Alfie actually has more professional acting experience than I do at this point, so I might be wrong anyway.
And we actually started off the day with a key scene with the two of us at the end of the play. We blocked it for practical purposes, but I’m really looking forward to doing the scene with full dialogue, particularly now that Alfie and I have had a chat about the relationship.
The other thing that seems to have happened is that a video I made with Giggle Loop seems to have done the rounds thanks to Steve. I got a couple of mentions of it, but for a moment I was worried, as it doesn’t necessarily flag someone with artistic integrity. But then I stopped worrying, because the is, if nothing else, fun. And I am forced to commit to some slightly embarrassing things. You know what, I’ll end this with the video itself. You’ll see what I mean. See you next week!
William Shakespeare’s Land Of The Dead is being performed at The Bedford in Balham from 28th-31st October. Tickets available now!
I Am Zombie Shakespeare 