How do you play a real person on stage?
George Nichols is the Assistant Director of Tom Stuart’s new play, After Edward, a response to Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II for which George is also the Assistant Director.
In this blog he looks at key characters from After Edward that were real people. At the heart of this he and the cast have been asking how much they should impersonate these real people and how much they should interpret them.
As we get on with rehearsals for After Edward, one of the questions that we’ve been grappling with concerns how closely each actor’s performance should resemble the real life character they are portraying. This is because there are several characters in After Edward who come from real life. The mantra we’ve come to is that an impersonation is only dramatically interesting for a short while, whereas an interpretation remains engaging for longer and fits the world of the play.
However, that doesn’t mean we haven’t delved deeply into their lives. In this series of blogs I’m going to share some of the things we’ve found and introduce you to three of the central characters in After Edward.
Gertrude Stein
A novelist, playwright, art collector and poet, Gertrude Stein was a significant cultural figure in the first half of the 20th century. Although born in America, she spent the majority of her life living in Paris, where she hosted a salon (a gathering of people led by one host who aim to amuse and educate each other) for figures such as Cezanne, Picasso, Ernest Hemingway and F.Scott Fitzgerald.
Stein’s inimitable writing style was both funny and intellectual. Her work reads like a stream of consciousness evoking ‘the excitingness of pure being’ and has been described as the literary equivalent of movements like Cubism that occupied many of the artists that attended her salon. After Edward playwright, Tom Stuart’s writing effortlessly includes Stein’s literary style into her character and we’re lucky to have Annette Badland playing Gertrude with such poise and charisma; her performance is worth the ticket price alone.
Like the other central characters in After Edward, Gertrude Stein was homosexual. Stein’s relationship with Alice B. Toklas was one that lasted until her death in 1947, and they both wrote much for and about each other. Gertrude called Alice ‘Baby Precious’, in return Alice called Gertrude ‘Mr. Cuddle-Wuddle’. Stein left most of her estate to Toklas, but as their relationship was not legally recognised Toklas did not manage to keep what Stein left. Tragically, Toklas died in poverty.
Gertrude Stein was not afraid of living her life. She relished her salon, where she nurtured and mentored other artists. She seemed to take a real joy in living, and she and her friends would eat and drink exquisitely and heartily. In rehearsals we’re really starting to get a sense of her personality, as Annette’s version of the character fills the room with her energy and a love of life.
Reading List:
By Gertrude Stein:
Q.E.D.
(1903)
Fernhurst
(1904)
Three
Lives (1905–1906)
The
Making of Americans (1902–1911)
Word
Portraits (1908–1913)
Tender
Buttons (1912)
The
Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933)
About
Gertrude Stein:
Gertrude
and Alice. Souhami, Diana
(1991)
The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book. Alice B. Toklas (1954)
Two Lives
(Gertrude and Alice). Malcolm, Janet (2008)
Listen to Gertrude herself reading out some of her work in these recordings made in the 1930s.
After Edward II photography by Marc Brenner. Annette Badland who plays Gertrude Stein is on the right.