The first read through of Romeo and Juliet. We’re producing this with Northern Broadsides, whose trademark is classic work presented with simplicity and clarity – and, most notably, with largely northern actors speaking the verse with their own accents. So everyone, from Duke to pot boy, has a regional accent, taking us on a tour from the Yorkshire Moors to the Peak District and from Liverpool to Hull. I’m reminded, listening to the actors reading the first act, how inspiring this is. Actors find a genuineness, a candour, a groundedness, when speaking with their natural accents – remembered from childhood dinner times, from playground games, from furtive kisses behind the bike sheds – which they seem to lack when speaking through the polish of received pronunciation, when perhaps a little of themselves is packed away in order to be someone else.
And Shakespeare’s language takes on a new vibrancy when watercolour southern vowel sounds are rubbed out. I’m constantly surprised to hear it, but I shouldn’t be; for Shakespeare’s England the word ‘love’ had a full-blooded vowel sound that was wrung out by successive generations to become a politely limp ‘u’ sound that, for me, makes love an airy concept instead of a fleshy, vital thing. When Mercutio tells Romeo, “If love be rough with you, be rough with love”, there is a fresh muscularity to the line that brings out the sense that passion and pain are near cousins.
And there’s one other thing. The spoken vowel sounds, as much as the consonants, are grist to the performer’s mill; when they have such robustness, they can be used in the way an opera singer uses them, soaring and twisting with them to get the sense across, in a way that’s hard to achieve with the light touch of received pronunciation.
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Be My Baby has been in technical rehearsals all week, working through the minutiae of scene changes, of which there are many, and lights, costume, entrance and exits, props and sound. It’s been a tough week for the performers, who are all adorned with big pregnancy bumps but still have to work hard on stage. Tonight, finally, we welcomed an audience in to the building to see it, and were delighted with the experience. Having watched a moving, delicate piece of theatre all week, the presence of the audience reminded me of what had surprised and enchanted me at first reading – how funny it is! It’s such a clever piece of writing, to be so witty and lively and yet so profoundly moving.
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Guest Blog: Vivienne Rowdon’s Blog on Rehearsals for Be My Baby.
In a play charting the journeys of four unmarried mothers-to-be, the initial challenge for the cast was that none of us had ever been pregnant.
Fortunately, many of the female staff at the New Vic are very keen on having babies and gratifyingly generous in their openness regarding all aspects of labour, various physical changes during the nine months and how your movement and mood may change.
We have all sat wide-eyed (and occasionally wincing) at their vivid memories, from waters breaking to holding their newborn for the first time.
Our fake ‘bumps’, crafted expertly by the Wardrobe Dept, have induced others to respond courteously and gently in and out of the rehearsal room. Indeed, actors working on other shows have instinctively offered us their seats during a tea-break.
So, armed with background knowledge we have embarked on Amanda Whittington’s script in rigorous detail, revelling in music of the 1960s, while our movement director, Lucy Hind, creates a physical narrative where words end.
Director Sarah Punshon is keeping us on our toes, genially demanding specifics and intuitively shaping the scenes.
The New Vic itself is a remarkably open building, consistently friendly and lively with a dedicated creative team who are delighting us with period costume, props and an ever shifting sound design.
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I’ve just come out of a morning performance of The Wizard of Oz. The auditorium is packed, and the show, which is just beginning its final week, is in great shape. Despite the long run it’s tight and polished; the performers are in total control; everything’s looking good. It was a real delight to see – I found myself enjoying it, and the children’s reaction, enormously, then feeling a little bit tearful to realise that, after this week, the show and the cast will be gone.
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With the end of the run approaching, we’ve all been debriefing on The Wizard of Oz. It’s something we try to do towards the end of every show. We wait till the long working hours and anxieties of getting it open are over, then, once we’ve achieved some calm and perspective – usually not till the final week of the run! – we sit down to review the process and explore how we can do better in the future. We have two debriefs: one with the acting company, when we ask questions about, for example, the casting process (what perception did they have of the company during the casting? Did they receive enough information of the right kind prior to interview or beginning rehearsals?); pay and working conditions; the expectations we have of the actors, and so on. The second debrief is with the permanent staff who worked on the show, where we take the opportunity to discuss whatever issues had been raised prior to the show and review how we dealt with them – for example, the way we work with children and chaperones; the technical schedule; how the building responded to the design process; the effectiveness of our technical equipment in meeting challenges.
They’ve both been useful meetings, with lots of positives and also lots of points where we can improve our processes.
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