One of the Greats

The Shakespeare Memorial in Stratford-upon-Avon (Shakespeare's birthplace and the home of the RSC). You see Falstaff in the foreground, Lady M to the left, Prince Hal on the right, Hamlet is behind the column, and Shakespeare is sitting on it

I finished Year of the Fat Knight AS my train pulled into the station after work last night. There I am, standing up, book and pencil in hand, both crying and laughing because I am so incredibly inspired by his story and his love of Shakespeare and this amazing part he's tackled and his amazing career... Basically I am a hot mess. But I feel reinvigorated! Not just for Martyr'd Signs, which you all know I was feeling a little bit...frustrated with, but also as I prep to tackle one of Shakespeare's biggies myself. I start Tempest rehearsals in a week or so and Prospero is always up there. Listed as one of the big Shakes roles every middle-aged actor wants to play. And I get to. At 30. As a woman. I'm kinda feeling overwhelmed.

I know the show will be truncated (they're hoping to cut it down to about 75 minutes), but Prospero is definitely the lead and he's onstage for, I'd say, 85% of the action. Even when he's not onstage, he's usually orchestrating the interactions of those who are. There's gonna be lots of line-learning. It'll also be super important to find the father(mother)/daughter relationship with whoever plays Miranda and toe the line of the master/slave/co-conspirator connection with Ariel. They're cutting Caliban completely (that's always a problematic part of The Tempest to me, so I'm OK with it. Even though we'll lose the Sycorax bits and cutting him makes me wonder if they're also cutting Stephano and Trinculo... hmmm... Hadn't thought of that... they have the best comedic moments. I guess I'll just wait and see). Knowing the show so well and playing Ariel fairly recently is definitely going to help me tackle Prospero, but it also means I know just how important he is to the show's success.

Tuesday's Martyr'd Signs rehearsal reminded me that Marcus is a good part. Maybe even a great part. And even in this cut of the show, maybe ESPECIALLY in this cut of the show, he's the heart of the Andronici. He's the only one who listens to Lavinia, really listens, and he always seems to have his heart in the right place, even though things are constantly exploding around him. I am still unsure whether or not this crazy workshop/experiment will succeed, but I'm happy to say I'm feeling better about the part I get to play in the whole thing. It's not unusual, though, one month out, to feel overwhelmed and doubtful that it'll be able to come together, even in shows with a more conventional rehearsal schedule. So, I'm making no judgments. Yet.