Act 2 memorized, Act 3 almost done!

Almost 3 weeks since my last post–egad!  Not to say that I haven’t been working, just that all my available time has had to go into memorizing and practice. It gets a bit overwhelming at times, when I step back and consider how much I’m already trying to keep in my brain, much less how much has yet to go in!

So, for a while, I’ll use blog space only to keep up to date with current events, then start picking up earlier threads as I start to consider the play as a whole. And that is now starting to look more real–as of yesterday, I’ve memorized 53 pages out of 80 in my script. (Applause First Folio, by Neil Freeman)

Act 2 came together relatively smoothly, as it switches completely away from Prospero and Miranda/Ferdinand, and fully introduces all the characters that the audience needs to follow through to the end.  It splits neatly in half, and in doing so also reveals dual tragic and comic elements essential to what are referred to as the ‘romances’.

Scene 1 reveals King Alonso’s court wandering the Island in search of his son, Ferdinand, even though Alonso firmly believes he’s dead, as do Sebastian and Anthonio.  Gonzalo (see the post Fifth Business) is doing his best to console the King, putting forward the argument that their escape from death is miraculous, and therefore cause for hope that Ferdinand may also have survived.  The Island’s magical property can be glimpsed within this radical split between beliefs and points of view.

Gonzalo’s arguments (supported by Francisco and Adrian) are countered by Sebastian(Alonso’s brother) and Anthonio (Prospero’s brother) through a series of vicious puns and insults that seem to be as much for the audience’s benefit, as intended to be heard as part of the discourse–lots of room to explore potential for when/how asides can be effective.  Through the ‘battle of wits’, much is to be learned concerning this pair of ‘usurping brothers’, particularly Anthonio’s influence over Sebastian which prepares the audience for the reveal of Anthonio’s plot to murder both King and Counsellor (while everyone else sleeps due to Ariel’s ‘solemn music’), and Sebastian’s agreement to participate.   Tragedy is neatly, if momentarily, avoided by Ariel’s intervention which reveals that Prospero’s prescience has foretold of the plot.

Scene 2 is the comic opposite of the court party of Scene 1, and introduces two new characters previously unseen, entering the world of servants and clowns that populate Shakespeare’s comedies–the ‘downstairs’ half of the equation, if you will–which in turn is destined to meet up with with Prospero’s servants, i.e., Caliban and (later in Act 3) Ariel.

Here we understand Caliban’s role in the play as a mainly comic figure (with an admittedly ‘monstrous’ edge), as his fear of Prospero’s ‘ministers’ leads him to believe that Trinculo (‘a jester’, in the FF Names of the Actors) is a spirit, and Stephano (‘a drunken butler’) a God, reinforced by the large amounts of wine that Stephano starts to feed him.  This first intro to the clowns is madcap and mayhem all the way, and is the perfect antidote to the looming tragedy on the other side of the Island.

From this point on, the audience will now be tracking 4 stories simultaneously:

1. Prospero’s principle plan for revenge on his enemies
2. Miranda and Ferdinand’s budding romance (guided by Prospero)
3. Sebastian/Anthonio’s plot to kill Alonso/Gonzalo (known and observed by Ariel/Prospero)
4. Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo’s drunken escapades

In three relatively short scenes, Act 3 gives the audience another look at all three ‘sub-plots’, before they start to converge in Acts 4 & 5.

In my process of learning the whole of THE TEMPEST, these parallel stories are starting to hook up in the memorization process, allowing me another way to assemble them as pieces in the larger puzzle.

More on Act 3 to come.

To Hear a Play

I read somewhere today that in Shakespeare’s time, people were more likely to say they were going to ‘hear a play’, rather than going to ‘see’ or ‘watch’ it. I’ll take that one step further and suggest that if (as Hamlet says) ‘the play’s the thing’, it’s the words that make it so.

I like that. The notion of ‘hearing a play’ fits well with this first phase of SHAKESPEARE’S BRAIN, in which I’m learning to speak the entire text of THE TEMPEST (including the stage directions) from the First Folio edition, circa 1623.

I’m hip deep in Act Two now.  This morning’s Shakespeare walk had to be lengthened somewhat, as my exercise plan included a complete runthrough of Act I, prior to a run of what I’ve learned in the past week concerning Act II, Scene 1:  the audience’s first real look inside the ‘court party’, which, according to the stage directions, features  [King] Alonso, Sebastian, Anthonio, Gonzalo, Adrian, Francisco and Others.  Needless to say, it is complex in the extreme, as the debate/banter bounces back and forth between Gonzalo/Adrian/Francisco and Sebastian/Anthonio while Alonso tries to shut himself off from most of it, ending with Anthonio convincing Sebastian to commit murder, followed by Ariel’s entrance (on Prospero’s orders)  just in time to save Gonzalo/Alonso.

I took some additional time yesterday to go back over the whole text learned so far, checking for minor glitches/mistakes, and noticed that even the slight adjustments I had to make in fact bring greater clarity and new insight into the thought process of whoever is speaking.

Even as I arrived home to contemplate and engage in the on-going struggle(!!) of being a self-employed (under-employed) artist in British Columbia, Canada, I took heart in the message that if I can make the text absolutely clear (as crystal), then perhaps a simple reading of the play, with minimal visual support (other than perhaps a beautiful setting) will be enough to engage and entertain an audience, and that this is really the only (best, organic) way to do it justice.

Based on my current rate of memorization, I should be ready sometime before the end of the summer….