This afternoon I sat in on a rehearsal for A Man for All Seasons. I'd done the same the previous day, because it was ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derspatchel's first day out on crutches; I haven't yet seen the full cast, only scenework from Act II. No Alice, no Norfolk, no Wolsey, half a dozen lines for Margaret if she was lucky. Just beginning to try out costumes, props here and there. (Rob wears my glasses when the Common Man needs to read from his book. Of course the prescription works for him. It's a common one in the Outer Antipodes.) Actors kept drifting up to me, apologetically hoping I wasn't bored; I kept telling them that I find it interesting to watch things being put together and I wouldn't spent hours somewhere that bored me—seriously, I'd have gone and read at the back of the church if the rehearsal wasn't holding my attention—but I am afraid they thought I was being polite. I watched new scenes and new actors and took notes in the form of a letter to derspatchel:
I like seeing what different parts illuminate about the same person—Ron has very fine bones especially around the eyes and cheekbones and More's contemplative manner enhances them, when I have never thought of him as particularly delicate before, but it's a nice clarity for a saint; not ascetic (he's not thin enough for that), but modeled.
(You're the same. I remember Hebble Tyson with his eyes screwed tight, a kind of willful indignant blindness, fretting with his handkerchief and his hands always trying to wave the situation away; a man with a lot of his guard up, but none of it very good. Most of what I remember about the Provost is those slumped, overburdened shoulders and the rest of him dropping straight down from them; it was the first role where I could see how long-legged you were—long-wristed, too—a hopeless heron-stalk. Matthew's a lot of mouth, wried and brow-quirking; a lot of eyes wide, but not innocent. Big kitten disingenuousness.)
Your Cromwell makes his age and his heavy voice work in the part's favor: there an iron harshness in him, the visible threat of the "dockside bully" More calls him on; he has a hanging look. I would like to see him play something light, to see its effect on him.
Roper is very clear and very transparent and very young: I notice that he colors easily, that his trim little beard makes him look a little prim, especially when he folds his mouth to go with his pious hands; that when he is arguing with More he looks even more adolescent, lanky in his Bible-black gown.* Rich is young, too, touchily: that round face, that beard that suits it even less well than Roper's. I think he might be taller than he stands.
Oh, good: Henry with his ruddy face and his tight golden hair, bullish; a splendid never-thought arrogance in his voice.
I am waiting for a sense of Margaret. Nothing to be done about Alice or Norfolk today.
Cranmer is very neat. He looks like a Roman statue, except for the beard. Maybe a Greek one, if Athens ever went in for portrait sculpture. It's something about his neck. Little else so far besides his smoothness and convenience.
Physiognomy isn't character, but I like watching people use one in the other's service.
You may consider this an advertisement for the upcoming show. Rob is playing the Common Man, which means he's playing about six different roles, and even with crutches he is an excellent shape-changer. What I've been able to see of the rest of the cast is splendid. Andnineweaving will remember the director from the Anarchist Society of Shakespeareans' Measure for Measure, where he made a very fine Angelo in tight leather pants, but I like the way he works with his actors. He gets interesting things out of people. I'm all for it. Goes up January 10th.
Otherwise my day was kind of ass and involved a lot of dishes and laundry, but hey: art. There's something I need to mention tomorrow (no one's been to the ER, it just deserves its own post). But first, sleep.
* Do not feel too bad for Roper; he also looks a lot like Tom Hiddleston in one of his fair curly-haired modes. I likened him to Prince Hal when he gave us a ride home on Saturday. He said he gets the Hiddleston comparison a lot, but not specific roles. I felt useful.
derspatchel's first day out on crutches; I haven't yet seen the full cast, only scenework from Act II. No Alice, no Norfolk, no Wolsey, half a dozen lines for Margaret if she was lucky. Just beginning to try out costumes, props here and there. (Rob wears my glasses when the Common Man needs to read from his book. Of course the prescription works for him. It's a common one in the Outer Antipodes.) Actors kept drifting up to me, apologetically hoping I wasn't bored; I kept telling them that I find it interesting to watch things being put together and I wouldn't spent hours somewhere that bored me—seriously, I'd have gone and read at the back of the church if the rehearsal wasn't holding my attention—but I am afraid they thought I was being polite. I watched new scenes and new actors and took notes in the form of a letter to derspatchel: I like seeing what different parts illuminate about the same person—Ron has very fine bones especially around the eyes and cheekbones and More's contemplative manner enhances them, when I have never thought of him as particularly delicate before, but it's a nice clarity for a saint; not ascetic (he's not thin enough for that), but modeled.
(You're the same. I remember Hebble Tyson with his eyes screwed tight, a kind of willful indignant blindness, fretting with his handkerchief and his hands always trying to wave the situation away; a man with a lot of his guard up, but none of it very good. Most of what I remember about the Provost is those slumped, overburdened shoulders and the rest of him dropping straight down from them; it was the first role where I could see how long-legged you were—long-wristed, too—a hopeless heron-stalk. Matthew's a lot of mouth, wried and brow-quirking; a lot of eyes wide, but not innocent. Big kitten disingenuousness.)
Your Cromwell makes his age and his heavy voice work in the part's favor: there an iron harshness in him, the visible threat of the "dockside bully" More calls him on; he has a hanging look. I would like to see him play something light, to see its effect on him.
Roper is very clear and very transparent and very young: I notice that he colors easily, that his trim little beard makes him look a little prim, especially when he folds his mouth to go with his pious hands; that when he is arguing with More he looks even more adolescent, lanky in his Bible-black gown.* Rich is young, too, touchily: that round face, that beard that suits it even less well than Roper's. I think he might be taller than he stands.
Oh, good: Henry with his ruddy face and his tight golden hair, bullish; a splendid never-thought arrogance in his voice.
I am waiting for a sense of Margaret. Nothing to be done about Alice or Norfolk today.
Cranmer is very neat. He looks like a Roman statue, except for the beard. Maybe a Greek one, if Athens ever went in for portrait sculpture. It's something about his neck. Little else so far besides his smoothness and convenience.
Physiognomy isn't character, but I like watching people use one in the other's service.
You may consider this an advertisement for the upcoming show. Rob is playing the Common Man, which means he's playing about six different roles, and even with crutches he is an excellent shape-changer. What I've been able to see of the rest of the cast is splendid. And
nineweaving will remember the director from the Anarchist Society of Shakespeareans' Measure for Measure, where he made a very fine Angelo in tight leather pants, but I like the way he works with his actors. He gets interesting things out of people. I'm all for it. Goes up January 10th.Otherwise my day was kind of ass and involved a lot of dishes and laundry, but hey: art. There's something I need to mention tomorrow (no one's been to the ER, it just deserves its own post). But first, sleep.
* Do not feel too bad for Roper; he also looks a lot like Tom Hiddleston in one of his fair curly-haired modes. I likened him to Prince Hal when he gave us a ride home on Saturday. He said he gets the Hiddleston comparison a lot, but not specific roles. I felt useful.
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