VIP INVITATIONS

Please email names and contact details of those you wish to invite to the Yer Bard performance to: caroline.pearce@newcastle.gov.uk

SCHEDULE UPDATE

The following dates are those agreed for Yer Bard rehearsals in the run up to the performance in November:

Thurs 16th Oct: 6-9pm
David & Gordon
Confirm project structure, content and running order.

Sat 18th Oct: 10am-4pm
Gordon
AM - ‘Block’ key scenes.
PM – Experiment with puppetry elements and stage effects.

Thurs 23rd Oct: 6-9pm
David & Gordon
Technical ‘stagger through’ of whole piece.

Thurs 6th Nov: 6-9pm
David & Gordon
Cast required to be ‘off book’. Run through whole piece.

Sat 8th Nov: 10am-4pm
Gordon
2 x Run through including all costume, props and tech effects.

WEEK SIX: ANONOUCEMENTS

Here are some important updates for Week Six of Yer Bard.

WEDNESDAY 8th OCTOBER

We will be watching the RSC's new performance of The Merchant of Venice. Please assemble at 7.15pm in the Theatre Royal Foyer. Tickets have been pre-booked and will be handed out by Teresa and Thom.

THURSDAY 9th OCTOBER

David Edwards will lead this session between 6pm and 9pm. Please re-read Act 4 Scene 1 and bring your scripts!

WEEK FIVE: DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY

Despite the reduced numbers at tonight’s session, I felt we made great progress in finally structuring our planned performance. Having collectively focussed on some key scenes from the play I now have clear ‘vision’ on how we might be able to, not only play with the various improvisatory techniques we have employed over the past weeks, but also how these, apparently disparate exercises can be brought together in order to create a meaningful interpretation of the play.

David started the evening off with a continuation of his session on language exploration – much impressive atmospheric work was created, all of which could be incorporated into our ‘final vision’.

We attempted to view a short clip from the opening of the Louis Malle film – ‘Vanya on 42nd Street’. (Several people gathered around a PC with limited sound was perhaps less than ideal – note to self: don’t buy Region 1 DVD’s!)

EMERGING STRUCTURE

The clip highlighted an idea I had for the opening of the show – a seamless segway from ‘real life’ into the ‘world of the play’. A rough structure emerged:

• ‘Cast’ meet and greet audience in the theatre ‘as themselves’
• ‘Production staff ‘David and Gordon?’ mingle with the audience and ‘place’ essential props into the hands of the ‘cast’ who begin to draw, on a central banner announcing the title of the play (‘The Merchant of Venice’) anti-Semitic graffiti. (The conversations with the audience are maintained throughout)
• ‘Shylock’ has perhaps been collecting the ‘ticket money’ and brings it to the ‘space’ to count. He ‘observes’ the graffiti.
• As he crosses a 2nd time to ‘store’ cash – he notices the graffiti artists wearing Groucho Marx disguises!
• Sfx of rain is heard and ‘cast’ collect umbrellas and begin a ‘stylised’ walk across the stage. (This ‘walk’ will resemble an earlier exercise we did where one is only allowed to follow straight lines across or up and down the stage)
• Out of the walk a scene emerges…

On Saturday Oct 8th when we meet from 10.00 ‘till 4 .00 all will be revealed – and puppets will be made!

Gordon Duffy-McGhie

WEEK FIVE: DAVID EDWARDS' COMMENTARY

THOUGHTS / MAJOR & MINOR STRESSES
For the first half of the session, we looked primarily at the text. First we broke a specific Act IV, scene i speech (Shylock's first) down into thoughts based on the major punctuation (.!?). For short thoughts the participants were allowed one major stress and for longer thoughts they were allowed 3 major stresses.

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The words that were stressed often created a short speech of their own and, as the two groups found, created two very different Shylocks - one the legal orator, the other a psychologically-abused man in need of revenge. Again, music and lights was used to enhance the effects of the speech.

David Edwards

WEEK FOUR: DAVID EDWARDS' COMMENTARY

INITIAL THOUGHTS ON ACT IV, SCENE I
For the last half hour of this session we tried some initial blocking of Act IV, scene i using various movement and music ideas to drive the opening of the scene forward. Even at this early point, the group found the barracking of Shylock could continue into the opening of the scene as the various members of the Court encircled Shylock before dispersing to their 'roles' in the legal process. The use of movement was primary however and this was obvious during a short run of the opening moments.

David Edwards

WEEK FOUR: DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY

Our earliest discussions on possible ‘structures’ for our performance have involved, what the RSC ‘training manual’ affectionately calls, a WHOOSH! The ‘Whoosh’ enables a potted play to take place in approximately 20 mins! David and I ‘Whooshed’ The Merchant of Venice together during our summer training sessions and, despite it’s name, I found it to be a rather clumsy, disjointed device, that neither informed my understanding of the play nor engaged me in any meaningful theatrical sense. It is a ‘useful’ rehearsal device, but I fear, not our solution to a possible performance scenario.

To be fair to the ‘Whoosh’ we only tackled the first 8 of a possible 24 scenes, but even so, those 8 short scenes didn’t seem to sufficiently stretch the talents of the group, or enable us to explore a broad enough range of theatrical devices and techniques. I am quite clear in my own mind on this key point – our focus during the project should be on the theatre making process and not the end product. In this way I feel we can ‘frame’ our different performance (and educational) interests in a way that both excites our ‘audience’ and stimulates our individual delivery of Shakespeare in the classroom.

Gordon Duffy-McGhie