The Taming of the Shrew in rehearsals: Week One
Rehearsals for The Taming of the Shrew have officially commenced!
The first week of rehearsal has been likened to an intensive Shakespeare training boot camp. Each day was a roster of mind and body conditioning, with back-to-back workshops with the creatives. Each day starts with the good and glorious game of Keepie Uppie – getting everyone on their feet, alert, playing together and working as a team, generating a high, playful energy that sets the tone for the day. This is followed by physical work, getting the body ready for the demands of the show.
The casting has been announced, and the actors have been working tirelessly on knitting them themselves together into a fine weave building the world of the play; exploring the anthropology offered by the text, the characters, their relationships, and the events. We have used all of the space in the room- the floor for jogging and Suzuki stamping, one wall for the images that inspired the play offered by Chiara Stephenson, the designer, one for the script, one for the impressions of characters and scenes hand-drawn by the actors, one for the costumes and props and another for the flats to represent the Globe stage entrances and exits. Only the ceiling was left alone, that even that space is working hard, absorbing all the bass of the rousing Irish bodhrán.
It has been a week rich with offers: Emma Martin has been working with the actors almost daily to develop a choreography that reflects the weird and wonderful world of a mythical 1916; Joe Dieffenbacher, the physical comedy director, worked everyday with the actors to provoke them to respond to the space and to each other in hilarious new ways; voice with Martin McKellan, with Giles Block on text, and work on the body with Glynn MacDonald. Olly Fox, the musical director and Morna Reagan, the dramaturg, worked on a haunting song of the production with the actors, as a group and one-to-one with Kathy Rose O'Brien.
The quest of discovering this show has begun, and the full week of work has helped everyone to fall in love even more with the playing of the play. There is certainly a sense that you can never be too prepared for a show in the wooden ‘O’… so the playing hard and working hard continues…
The Taming of the Shrew opens in the Globe Theatre on 13 May. Find out more about the production and book tickets.
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