Behind the Arras

And so this is an Actors' Shakespeare Project rehearsal. The past week has been incredibly interesting, as it represents not only my first outing with ASP, but also my first opportunity to see a professional rehearsal process for one of Shakespeare’s plays. For me, as Assistant Director and first timer with ASP, this process is doubly exciting because All’s Well That Ends Well is a virgin text; having never read it before my interview with Benjamin Evett, I had no preconceptions about the text. For me, it made this first week of rehearsal, when everyone gathered for “table work,” all the more fulfilling.

After the first read-through, the biggest surprise for everyone seemed to be how unproblematic this problem play was. Yes, the central conceit an audience must accept is that of a devoted and worthy woman loving a seemingly unworthy man. But as Ben pointed out to me during my incredibly formal interview in the Central Square Au Bon Pain, “Who doesn’t know a person dating someone completely unsuitable for them?” Relationships are rarely perfect, affections rarely meted out evenly. But as a listener, I had dismissed those concerns in by act 1, scene 3; so caught up was I in Helena’s quest (as she gallops on horse from Rousillion to Paris to Florence to Marseilles to Rousillion again it feels nothing but epic). Instead I felt satisfied with the neatly tied plot ends that, while I fear I’m giving too much away, lead some scholars, as Ben noted, to think this play is the lost Love’s Labor’s Won. While it contains all the problematic quick turns of affection (Romeo and Juliet), complex virgin-swapping (Measure for Measure), and tangential plots overtaking the main story (Twelfth Night) which dog Shakespeare’s most popular works, it is a sweet, mystical tale of love won with clear modern parallels. Why isn’t it done more often?

What a treat it is to “unpack” the text. Before being allowed on their feet, the cast sat for an entire six days (with intermittent musical rehearsal) and worked through the text. Some time was devoted to parsing out the characters. All’s Well That Ends Well doesn’t exist in a quarto form; it wasn’t published until the 1623 Folio. Ben remarked before the first reading that many scholars belief this work unfinished; two of the main characters are referred to in the text as the brothers Dumain, but labeled only as Lord 1 and Lord 2, not to be confused with the also appearing First Lord and Second Lord. So one of the orders in reading through was to decipher when it made the most sense for a line to be spoken by Paula Langton’s Lord 1, as opposed to Greg Steres’ Lord 2 as opposed to Risher Reddick’s Second Lord. Some time was devoted to paring down a few speeches and scenes for clarity. When Helena replies to the king that she can cure his disease in two days time, perhaps three poetical repetitions of different images for 48 hours are unnecessary; the king is suffering from a fistula, not a mental impairment.

But some of the most exciting time was devoted to interpretation of certain words in the text, which are recorded differently in different editions. For example, in Helena’s monologue in act 3, scene 2, where she curses herself for having chased her husband from the haven of court into the Florentine war, she pleads that the bullets will “fly with false aim, move the still-peering air that sings with piercing.” At least, that was the reading in the text that was printed for the cast. Some members of the cast were using the Arden Shakespeare that replaced “still-peering” with “still-piecing,” which was also featured in the Norton edition. In that reading, piecing was reported to mean “constantly closing itself up again.” Some were of the opinion that “still-peering” connected back to an earlier section of the soliloquy in which bullets were compared to amorous glances. Others like the repetition of the word “piecing.” Still other consulted the Folio, and found that the word has originally spelled “pearing” and sided with that footnote which held it to be a shortened form of “appearing.” I personally like motif of the air as “peering” but honestly preferred whichever version kept the hard “pear” instead of the soft “piece,” which didn’t seem harsh and warlike enough for this section of the monologue. So there you have it: fifteen minutes of discussion, at least four different texts and fourteen different brains, all consulted on one word. What could be more invigorating? Having a scholar David Evett in the room is another luxury, as often he is able to provide context (information on the Florentine-Sienese War of 1512, for example) that only makes the text richer. This table work plants some very intriguing seeds that I am excited to see bloom (did I mention this show’s flower imagery) in the coming weeks.

So, now that everyone has the beginning of a mental landscape, the next layer is the physical. Tomorrow we move from the downtown rehearsal space to the Waltham hinterlands; the nomadic nature of the Actors’ Shakespeare Project definitely reinforces the notion that people, both actors and audience, make a theatre—not the edifice. Ben is reinforcing this idea of traveling players with his conceptual framework for the show; I love the idea of taking the challenges before the company and turning them into strengths. But that probably needs to be left for another post.
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