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The painting is "Ophelia," by the artist Ernest Hebert (1817-1908).
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I moved to Los Angeles, wanting to act like so many other dreamers. Unlike most of the other dreamers, I wanted to be a distinguished character actor, and eventually help found an American National Theatre. I should have gone to New York, but I’ve always felt claustrophobic there, and I hate the weather.
There’s a lively small theatre scene in L.A., but actors work virtually for free (as little as $7 per performance, no pay for rehearsals), trying to get casting directors and agents to come see them. The play’s NOT the thing for most L.A. actors; it’s about getting discovered for movies and television. Productions of “The Classics” are rare – everybody’s looking for something “commercial” to showcase their talents.
And everybody’s in a workshop, honing their “craft.” I was lucky to find two actors who were also great teachers, and both of them had knowledge and appreciation of the Greeks and Shakespeare. I was never able to earn a living from theatre, but the skills I learned were surprisingly useful in my paid work.
The books that I used over and over preparing to play Shakespeare, aside from the plays themselves, are: “Who’s Who and What’s What in Shakespeare,” Ellen Terry’s superlative “Four Lectures on Shakespeare,” and “Acting: The First Six Lessons,” by Richard Boleslavsky, which for my money is the best book ever written about acting.
I once played Ophelia in a very bizarre production of Hamlet (our director was insane, and also playing Hamlet.) The problem in playing Ophelia is that you have to find a bridge between the "sane" Ophelia at the beginning of the play and the Ophelia who will in madness take her own life.
Eye focus was the way into the character for me. I thought about a trusting young girl who discovers that everyone around her except Hamlet is lying at least part of the time, and she's trying to sort out the truth from the lies.
Words become meaningless -- she starts listening to their breathing, and intonation -- their eyes are a trap, so she must not look in them. She focuses on their mouths, watching for the lies to come out.
The only person she trusts is the man she loves -- Hamlet.
In the "Nymph in thy orisons" scene, her father is hidden and listening, so she's trying to speak a coded warning to Hamlet, but he seems not to understand, and worse, he hurls accusations at her, deliberately hurting her.
She's confused and frightened. She thinks he’s gone mad: “Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!” But then in her mind, there's an insidious whisper: Has Hamlet stopped loving her? Maybe he never did. Maybe he's just another liar.
She stops looking in his eyes, and watches for the lies to come out of his mouth. And there they are, in the "Players" scene:
HAMLET Lady, shall I lie in your lap? [Lying down at OPHELIA’S FEET]
OPHELIA No, my lord.
HAMLET I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA Ay, my lord.
HAMLET Do you think I mean country matters?
OPHELIA I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.
OPHELIA What is, my lord?
HAMLET Nothing.
OPHELIA You are merry, my lord.
HAMLET Who, I?
OPHELIA Ay, my lord.
HAMLET O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do
but be merry? For, look you, how cheerfully
my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.
OPHELIA Nay, ‘tis twice two months, my lord.
There’s no one left to trust. Rosemary for remembrance…..
In that same weird company, we next rehearsed “The Merchant of Venice.” Our mad director was also playing Shylock, and I was cast as Portia.
I read a history of Venice, sniffed perfumes and essential oils until I found “her” scent, looked at paintings of Italian aristocrats in Renaissance art books, listened to period music, and studied books on clothing, religion, old maps, food, a book about the impact of the vastly increased printed material available during the period – I checked out everything I could find at the library.
In Portia’s first scene, she is with her waiting woman, Nerissa, lamenting the terms her father set for her marriage, which she must follow: “…O me, the word “choose”! I may neither choose who I would nor refuse who I dislike, so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father…”
Our director kept telling me “to swirl the ends of the lines.” When I said I didn’t understand what he meant, he flew into a rage, roaring “Just swirl the ends of the lines!” over and over, as if loud repetition would make all clear. I said I would try, and just did a different reading, which he said was better, but now I should REALLY swirl the lines, so I tried something else, which made him all smiles. I still have no idea what he meant, or what it was I did that he thought was “swirling.”
Perhaps what's most intimidating about playing Shakespeare are the famous speeches, which have already been done (and often recorded) by many world-renowned actors to whom your audience will inevitably compare you.
“The quality of mercy” speech is not for the faint of heart. Even Ellen Terry, probably the most famous Shakespearean actress of her day, prayed “that I may be able to do some justice to these inspired words.” Her ideas about the trial scene made total sense to me, so I used them. If you’re going to steal, steal from the best!
Portia and the learned Bellario have spent a lot of time (offstage) going over Venetian law preparing for the trial, and found statutes which would punish Shylock, but found no way to prove the bond invalid which required the pound of flesh.
Ellen Terry believed the two of them planned out “the learned judge’s” speeches up to pronouncing sentence, but that when Portia says “Tarry a little; there is something else” THAT’S when she has the inspiration for “This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood,” which saves Antonio.
But after so much preparation, the insanity of our director finally went too far over the edge, and the company echoed Lear: “O, that way madness lies; let me shun that; No more of that” and we broke up. So this “Merchant” never made it to opening night, and my “quality of mercy” was never tested.
It was not too long after this that I began directing.
˃˃ Special Thanks to martianexpatriate. I was already writing “Decoding Shakespeare,” but if you hadn’t commented on your problems with alien eye focus, I’d never have thought of writing this Part II.
According to legend, when the famous Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean was on his deathbed, someone asked him how he felt. He responded: “Dying is easy; comedy is hard.”
He may not actually have said it. But it’s a great exit line.