by Antony Sher
Talked about Donald Wolfit playing Falstaff. It wasn’t particularly successful, Ronnie said, and his padding was excessively big. As Wolfit’s dresser, Ronnie had the grim task of trying to dry it out between performances.
‘You’d better warn your wardrobe people,’ said Ronnie.
‘I will,’ I replied: ‘I’ll tell them I’ve had a tip-off from Donald Wolfit’s dresser.’
He said that when his hit play The Dresser was on, Ralph Richardson came to see it, and commented, ‘Well, you’ve ensured that Wolfit will be remembered long after the rest of us aren’t.’
Probably true. I was startled the other day when two of the younger members of the company asked me to identify the photos on the stairways of the Clapham rehearsal rooms. ‘That’s John Wood in Sherlock Holmes,’ I explained; ‘And that’s Susan Fleetwood in As You.’
I felt like I was talking about actors from a different age.
Monday 20 January
Week four.
Worked on two of Falstaff’s early scenes, the first one with Hal, and the robbery at Gad’s Hill. I was expecting us to be on our feet, roughing them out, but we were still sitting in our chairs – playing our own parts, yes, talking about motivation, yes, but not staging anything. Normally I like hiding behind the table, and the script, for as long as possible, but not this time.
We need to be up.
We’ve only got seven weeks to go (I think).
For two plays.
I’m really quite worried.
Don’t know whether to say anything to Greg.
Tuesday 21 January
Second fat-suit fitting.
Actually I’m getting to dislike the term – fat suit – it sounds like something you can buy off the rail at those plus-size shops. It’s glib, it’s cheapening, it’s as unhelpful as that other term, Comic Role. I’m going to ban both of them. I’ll say ‘Falstaff’s body suit’ from now on.
Anyway, it was even better today, but quite a bit heavier. (What will this do to my back?) A useful discovery: it looked great on its own, but when we put clothes over it – just a shirt and trousers from stock – it lost all its detail, and was just like any old padding. The solution, we decided, was to make the clothes quite tight, so that the different shapes, like the moobs and belly, create their own clear folds, with distinct rises and falls.
In the afternoon, our fight director, Terry King, came into rehearsals, and we started to work out how to do the Battle of Shrewsbury. What weaponry, and so on. In fact, Shrewsbury was famous for the fact that it’s the first time that English longbows were used on both sides. Otherwise, as Terry explained, the weapons varied from the broadswords and shields carried by the nobility to the pitchforks and staves with which Falstaff’s ‘scarecrow army’ were armed. The most dangerous fighter is Douglas, and Sean Chapman wants to make him an SAS-type killer, working his way round the battlefield with lethal but unconventional weapons. Terry suggested a kind of club/hammer and slicing knives. Of course, Douglas has to kill Falstaff – apparently – and Greg wants to make this as convincing as possible. One of his favourite things as a Shakespeare director is what he calls Crossroads, injecting new tension into plot lines that are overfamiliar. What if you could convince an audience that things might go differently this time? Juliet might wake up in time, Macbeth might not do the murder, and indeed Falstaff might really have perished in the chaos of battle…
Wednesday 22 January
Good exploration of what we’re calling ‘the hangover scene’ (Part I, Act Three, Scene Three): it could be early morning in the tavern – empty except for Falstaff and Bardolph still seated at their table; they haven’t been to bed. I wonder if this is an opportunity to show Falstaff desperate for the first drink of the day? But, like on Monday, we could only discuss this – we couldn’t try it out. And then that was me finished work for the day, and I went home. Of course, there are many scenes without Falstaff, and they need time too. But from a selfish point of view, I want to be rehearsing round the clock. I feel frustrated and a bit frightened. I must talk to Greg. But when? This week’s schedule is already planned.
Thursday 23 January
The scarecrow-army scene (Part I, Act Four, Scene Two), when Falstaff describes how he exploits the press-ganging system, by accepting bribes from the best, most able recruits to be released from service, and substituting them with the dregs of humanity.
On my feet at last!
But my joy was short-lived. Greg was using the rehearsal to test out whether the limited number of actors available for my wretched army – most of them female – could create a constant stream of soldiers, by running round behind the set before plodding into view again, now as a different scarecrow person. It was a recipe for disaster. As I attempted to do the speech, everyone in the room began laughing at what was going on behind me: the Art of Coarse Acting run riot. This was upstaging on an industrial scale. I had to stop – I couldn’t compete. Greg instructed the others to cut out all characterisation, and just be neutral figures. But the exercise was still hilarious. It’ll be fine in performance – the army will be half-lit in the background, and you won’t see them galloping round the back – but I don’t know how we’re ever going to rehearse it.
Friday 24 January
Morning. An archery teacher, Adrian Thomas, came in to talk to us about longbows, and to demonstrate – so that we can show them being used at Shrewsbury. He’d set up a target at the far end of the room, with padded protection around it. He asked for volunteers. Many of the guys, and gals, were up for it. Teaching them to aim, he made a fascinating observation. In everyday life, we aim all the time, effortlessly. ‘Look at that exit sign,’ he said: ‘look at that tree out the window. You’re doing it without thinking, spot on. But try and aim, and it goes wrong. Trust your subconscious, it’s an expert – your conscious is an idiot. Get rid of the idiot, use the expert.’ A good rule for creative work too, I think. Instinct is more reliable than intellect.
All week, the assistant director, Owen Horsley, has been rehearsing some the younger actors in a performance, which they showed the rest of us this afternoon. It was of The Famous Victories of Henry V by an unknown Elizabethan playwright: a popular feature in the repertoire of the Queen’s Men company. We know they played in Stratford in 1587. Did the twenty-three-year-old Shakespeare see them do this piece? At any rate, he certainly knew it – the parallels can’t be coincidental. The timescale of the action is from the Gad’s Hill robbery through the death of the old King to the Battle of Agin-court and the wooing of Catherine. So basically both parts of Henry IV plus Henry V condensed into one play, and further condensed by Owen and his cast, who performed with great energy and humour. Some intriguing material. You see the ‘box o’ th’ ear’ which Hal gives the Lord Chief Justice – much referred to in Part II of Shakespeare’s Henries, although (annoyingly) he omits to show it. And in the famous rejection scene, it’s Poins who is spurned by the newly crowned Hal, not Sir John Oldcastle – the Falstaff figure here. I was astonished by the play. It was like seeing some sketches done by a minor artist, which inspired a genius to steal the ideas, improve and expand them, and produce three major works!
In terms of the box o’ th’ ear, Greg is thinking of ‘doing a John Barton’: lifting the sequence from Famous Victories and slipping it into the end of our tavern scene. He’s also having to change the names of two characters, because they’re confusing. The setter (a man who plans robberies) at Gad’s Hill is called Gadshill – now he’s Rakehell. And there’s a Lord Bardolph in Part II – now he’s Lord Randolph. When dealing with things like this – which seem like lazy writing – Greg will cry out, ‘Oh, Shakespeare!’, with the kind of exasperation you only feel for loved ones. (Meanwhile, Shakespeare himself had to change his original name for the Fat Knight, Oldcastle, to Falstaff, after complaints from the descendants of the real Sir John Oldcastle, a fifteenth-century proto-Protestant martyr.)
Saturday 25 January
If I wasn’t
in a relationship with my director, this is the moment I’d fire off a worried message to him or her. In the old days, it would’ve been by fax (I was quite notorious for my faxes), now it would be by email. Instead, after we’d breakfasted this morning, I said, ‘Can I have five minutes? And can I break the house rules?’ (We never discuss work at home.)
We went to his room, and I launched in. I said I felt we were already running out of time. And yet I hadn’t properly started work on Falstaff. I could do an impression of him – his voice, his character – but it was like an outline, a cartoon. I have to find the real man. It’s vital – otherwise the part can just consist of bluster.
Greg was thrown, even a bit shocked. He asked why I hadn’t mentioned these anxieties before. I said they’d crept up on me during the week: times when I wanted to be playing scenes, not discussing them; times when I only rehearsed for a couple of hours in a whole day. ‘And it’s happening again on Monday,’ I said, holding up the call sheet; ‘We’re doing my first scene for an hour and a half, and then that’s it, I’m through.’
‘There’s a lot of other scenes to be…’
‘I know, I know. I just wish we had more than three months to do this. I wish we had six months. They rehearse for six months on the Continent, why can’t we here?’
‘Because our budgets would never allow it.’
‘Why not? You’re running the company now – change the system. Why can they make it work in France, Germany, Russia, but we…’
‘Because they get bigger state subsidies,’ said Greg passionately; ‘Because they value their theatre more! So don’t talk to me about changing the system!’
‘All right, all right, sorry,’ I said, and we both caught our breath; ‘Let’s just carve out some more time… can we work evenings, can we work Saturdays?’
He said all that was possible, but wasn’t necessary yet. He assured me that he had a big game plan mapped out, and that we did have enough time. ‘And I promise you, when we get the scenes onto their feet now, you’ll find the text full. The last four weeks haven’t been wasted.’
‘Of course they haven’t. You know I don’t think they have.’
We went quiet. He was looking lost. I didn’t like seeing that. I regretted my little panic attack. The leading actor has to be as strong as the director, not just for the morale of the company, but for one another.
Later, he came down to my study/studio, where I was doing lines, and said, ‘I feel I’ve let you down.’
‘Not at all,’ I said; ‘I’m just ahead of myself. I’ve been working on the text for months – I need to do it now – but the others don’t, they’re not ready. Look, I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’
‘No, you should,’ he said; ‘You must always tell me how you’re feeling.’
Monday 27 January
Week five. Which is now in Rehearsal Room Two.
Because the Roaring Girls season in the Swan needs more rehearsal space, we’ve had to move from Clapham. Greg was offered a variety of alternative places, and, not surprisingly, chose the Union Chapel in Islington, since it’s just a few minutes’ walk from our house. This will give him an extra hour and a half – our commuting time – each day, to do work on his other job, as Artistic Director.
The new room is much more characterful than the last one. It’s huge and high, with an upper level, a three-sided balcony, and a beamed ceiling. Although it has tall windows, it’s not a bright room, so we have spotlights, and also the fierce yellow-red glow of several large heaters positioned around the acting area. These create a fireside atmosphere, but on a grand scale. There’s something of The Boar’s Head Tavern about our new home.
We start by staging – yes, on our feet, without scripts – the first Hal/Falstaff scene. Alex Hassell is happy with the idea of this being in a bawdy house, so that’s how we’re doing it. He’s in bed with two prostitutes, they leave, and then I emerge from under some blankets on the floor. Alex is also happy to help me experiment with Falstaff’s alcoholism:
He offers me a bottle of sack. My hands are shaking so badly, he has to take the cork out, and lift the vessel to my mouth. Later in the scene, when I become angry and resolve to ‘give over this life’, I pour away the contents. But then I cheer up, and when Poins enters with a new bottle, I greedily quaff away at it again.
I’m pleased to discover that all of this can work, without drawing too much attention to itself and taking over the scene. But I’m still just testing out the idea, just trying it step by step.
Alex never does the same thing twice as we rehearse the action again and again. This is an acting technique which I first encountered when I joined the Liverpool Everyman in 1972, and saw Jonathan Pryce in action. Although it wasn’t natural to me, I liked it, and tried it, and indeed used it for many years. It’s particularly useful if your character has to be dangerous and unpredictable – like, say, Leontes. But as I’ve got older, I’ve reverted back to the other way – where your moves are more planned and set – just as a safety mechanism. So Alex and I will have to find a way of negotiating our different methods, which is fine – actors do this all the time. I certainly don’t want to restrict his instinct, because it gives Hal the energy of a big, irrepressible puppy, which is perfect for the beginning of the story.
Tuesday 28 January
The tavern scene (Part I, Act Two, Scene Four). Greg wants The Boar’s Head to be as populated as possible, so the whole company are participating. Those who haven’t got speaking parts and are extras (or ‘warm props’ as Jim says) must decide who and what they’re going to be. Difficult for the women. A respectable lady wouldn’t be here on her own, so are they servants or whores? It’s been decided that Doll Tearsheet shouldn’t be in this scene – we want to save her for Part II.
Greg: Now we don’t want any ‘wench acting’.
Nia Gwynne: We can’t be Nancy in Oliver! then?
Greg: Definitely not.
Sean Chapman: Can I be the man peeing in the corner? In every print we’ve seen, there’s a man peeing in the corner. Can I be him?
Greg: Definitely not!
Greg always says that directing is tyranny disguised as democracy. Today was a good example. He encouraged people to offer their ideas, and then started to rough out the action in a way that he’d probably already half-planned. It’s a huge scene – lasting about thirty minutes – and a huge job to get it on its feet.
Wednesday 29 January
Each day begins with a group vocal warm-up, taken by Emma Woodvine, who is a new RSC voice coach (recommended by Patsy Rodenburg, one of the great voice gurus in the country, and now on the RSC Board). Must say I’m very impressed. Emma has a relaxed, and relaxing, manner, and radiates a sense of wisdom. This is essential for a voice coach in this company, because of course it’s not just about voice; it’s about text, it’s about Shakespeare. I love the sessions: half an hour of stretching, yawning (good for opening the throat), humming, maa-may-moo-ing, percussive consonants, and tongue-twisters. And then we finish with a favourite poem which one of us has brought in. Today it was my choice. Philip Larkin’s ‘This Be The Verse’. There was something delightful about a roomful of classical actors launching into the infamous opening line: ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad.’ Emma pointed out that the structure is like a nursery rhyme; it has a simplicity, an innocence, that beguiles you into its subversiveness. Afterwards, she told me that she’d been introduced to the poem by her mother.
I said, ‘Clearly the message didn’t work then.’
She laughed. ‘No – she just said it could all be sorted out by good parenting.’
Staged the hangover scene (Part I, Act Three, Scene Three), trying the ideas we discussed last week. Early morning in the tavern; Falstaff in a foul mood and Bardolph patiently putting up with it. I felt an immediate rapport with Josh Richards, and I think we’re going to be a good double act: Falstaff garrulous, restless, temperamental, Bardolph deadpan, still, endlessly loyal.
Falstaff say
s, ‘my skin hangs about me like an old lady’s loose gown.’ Is this the shakes? Talks of how his life is ‘out of all order’. I think this is one of those moments of awareness, of horror, in an addict’s life. (I remember them from my cocaine days: the terrible hangover I’d get after a session – I called it a coke-over.) In public, and well-oiled, Falstaff can be the life and soul of the party. But in private, at the end of a binge, and before starting another, he is frightened, furious, blaming everyone else – in this case, Bardolph – and determined to break the cycle. We’ve seen him like this before: in the first scene, he says, ‘I must give over this life’, and blames Hal for it.
Today we tried Falstaff roaming round the tavern, drinking the dregs from tankards left on the tables from last night. Then throwing it all away (‘I’ll repent, and that suddenly!’). Then accepting a fresh cup from Bardolph, and immediately feeling better: the shakes stop, his good humour returns.
So – again I find myself questioning whether it’s okay to play a realistic portrait of an addict, including the struggle with himself.
I don’t know if this has been done with Falstaff before; I’ve certainly never seen it. Robert Stephens could’ve brought that aspect to the role, but I don’t remember any mention of it in the reviews. I never saw his performance. Which is just as well now, since it’s regarded as the best of recent times.
Greg encourages me to keep exploring the idea, with one proviso – ‘We can’t fear for him, we can’t sit there thinking, “If this man doesn’t get to AA immediately, he’s going to die!”’
Thursday 30 January
Stage management have brought piles of weaponry, jugs, caskets, bags, and all sorts from the RSC stores – to be used as rehearsal props until the real ones are selected. Today, Jonny Glynn (playing Warwick/Rakehell) dug out something from a heap in one corner, and said, ‘Tony, isn’t this yours?’ I went over. It was one of the black crutches I’d used as Richard III. A bit dusty and scuffed, but unmistakably the thing itself. God. If I think of all the time and trouble that went into this object: the discussions about whether it was a very good idea or a very bad one – to play him on crutches – the tests to make them strong and safe enough. To say nothing of my investment in that role, my dreams and fears. (It’s the story of my first book, Year of the King.) And here it is now, an old prop in a rehearsal room. A timely reminder as I attempt another of Shakespeare’s great roles: it’s not life or death; it’s just theatre, which is ephemeral.
