Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Early fail. But... SHAKESPEARE

This may be the earliest I've ever failed BEDA or VEDA in my two years of participating, but honestly, yesterday was one of the most hectic days I've had in a while. This whole week, really, has been nothing but a blur of hours rehearsing and memorizing Shakespeare. And if sacrificing BEDA is a result of getting really good work done and feeling confident in my scenes for class, then so be it.

But I'm back today, with far less homework and actual time to write about some things that have happened over the course of the last few months! I suppose I should start with Cabaret, shouldn't I?

I originally wasn't cast in Cabaret. When the cast list went up in December, my name wasn't on it, and I was a little hurt but ultimately in my head it made sense, seeing as who they did cast really deserved the parts. So I'd already made plans on how to spend my semester and was starting to get really excited about them, when the night before school started I was out to dinner with some friends and I got a text from the director saying that some people had dropped and he was wondering if I was interested in stepping in to the role of Kit Kat Swing/Dance Captain/Ensemble. I don't think I've ever laughed at myself so hard in my life. The concept of me being dance captain of anything was so absurd that I had myself convinced when I went into my meeting with him the next day that I was playing the role of Dance Captain in the show. No such role exists, and he actually did want me to be the dance captain of our production. Needless to say I did a lot of hard work that took up a lot of time. I knew all the Kit Kat girls' parts by opening, and had even stood in for one of them all during 10-out-of-12. Even though I never got to perform as a Kit Kat girl, I came away from that experience knowing that I could do pretty much anything I wanted on stage. I had achieved one of my acting goals, and that was to be sexy, something I had never previously thought myself capable of. While I am by no means the best at it, it's still a starting point that I can look back on and be proud of. 


All while that was going on, I was working furiously on my spring semester of junior year, which for BFA means Shakespeare. Literally the entire semester in both sections of BFA is dedicated to Shakespeare at this point in the program. I found myself completely thrown head-first into something I knew I was going to love, but I don't think I was anticipating just how frustrating, and in turn rewarding, this process has been.


The play we started with was the comedy, Measure for Measure, which I'd never heard of before, and honestly I feel it's one of those in-between shows in terms of genre. Technically it's a comedy since it ends with a wedding and all the obstacles have been overcome, but so much of what happens leading up to the end is highly dramatic that it makes it difficult to see the comedy in it. But I soon came to love the show, it's story and the characters. I played Isabella in both my scenes, and if you're familiar with the story at all, you'll know that it wasn't too difficult for me to slip into that role. While I'm certainly no nun, my lifestyle choices are pretty similar to Isabella's, so I was excited to play with a role that I might actually be cast as now.


Next was Richard II, another show that isn't as well known. I've always remained rather uninterested in Shakespeare's histories, since for a long time history as a whole struck me as rather uninteresting, but I've come to realize lately that there are certain periods that really interest me. Basically the whole of British history appeals to me, which is why I feel Shakespeare's plays about it have grown on me. Richard II was no exception. Part of what made it so much fun is that I got to play Richard in a scene. It's been played by a woman before*, and I just found it to be an amazing experiment in character exploration. I've played a few guys before, but always when I was younger. I've never had to think like a grown man, let alone a dethroned king, and found that I really took to the role.


Now we're doing The Scottish Play (if you don't know which that is, just google it), and I'm playing Lady MacB in both my scenes. We're not done with these scenes yet, we only just had our second showings of them today, but so far I'm simply mesmerized by the complexity of these characters. Not only are the characters so deep and in some ways contradictory, but the language itself is by far the most difficult thing I've ever had to memorize, and the most interesting. Lady MacB just holds so much power, and it's an amount of power that I don't think I've ever held before, in any friendship or relationship with another person. It's almost terrifying in its scope, but I'm really relishing discovering just how far it can go. I think I would love to do this role when I'm actually old enough to play her. It would be so fantastic.


Seeing as I have totally different Shakespearean monologue to score right now (Paulina from A Winter's Tale), I really should get off. I hope this didn't get too theatre nerdy for you all, but seeing as that's the life I'm leading and plan on leading, this shouldn't come as a big surprise.


I hope you all had wonderful Wednesdays (ah, alliteration), and I'll hopefully see you tomorrow!


HPRT:* It was actually Fiona Shaw, who played Aunt Petunia in Harry Potter, who played Richard II in a film production in 1997.
Current Book: Honestly? Still Macbeth.
Current Song: Somebody That I Used to Know (Glee version with Darren Criss and Matt Bomer)

1 comment:

  1. Dufrane made me do my 12th grade final paper on Measure for Measure. It's kind of hilariously awful, especially the movie version from goodness-knows-when.

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