School Work: After Miss Julie

For our scene study project this term we are working through scenes from After Miss Julie by Patrick Mauber (author of Closer and Dealer’s Choice). A rewrite of Strinberg’s Miss Julie,  and relocated from 1888 to 1945, Mauber’s After Miss Julie, like the original is about sexual power struggle played out between Miss Jullie, daughter to the Master of the house, and the chauffer/valet, John. Set on the night after the British Labor Party had their landslide victory, this piece touches on sex, class, politics and more.

I was a little dissapointed to find out that in the scenes I got I was playing Christine, John’s long term, sort-of fiance. A cook in Miss Julie’s household, Christine is the moral touchstone of the story. Compared to the wild Miss Julie, I thought Christine would be a piece of cake, but the more work I put in, the more of a person Christine becomes and I can see that it’s no small task. It really brought home for me that I should not dismiss a part because I do not find it particularly exciting. It is up to me to make it so.

School Work: The Cherry Orchard

One of the big projects this term is a cut down version, about an hour and forty minutes, of Anton Chekovs The Cherry Orchard.

Synopsis: After five years abroad Madame Luyba Ravneskaya returns to her family estate, only to find that it is up for auction due to her large amount of debt. There she reunites with her daughters, Anya and Varya, her brother, Gayev, and family friend Lopakhin. Lopakhin, the son of a peasant of the estate, worked his way to riches. He continuously tries to rescue her throughout the play and gives her a way to make money and preserve some of her land. However it means cutting down the cherry orchard and her old home, in which the play is set. Frozen by her emotional connection to the only place where she has actually ever been happy, the death of her son, and by her own sins, she does nothing. Auction day comes and Lopakhin outbids the competition and buys the Ravneskaya estate. The ending scene is the family and servants saying good bye to their home as they get ready to leave for the train. They do so to the sound of the orchard being cut down.

Debated to be both a tragedy and a comedy, this show is often said to be one where ‘nothing’ happens. The focus of the play is in the subtext, which is rich and full of emotional depth. This is a brilliant play on which one should practice any scripting tecniques, because the moment you look past the words there is a mine full of gold nuggets to plunder and one quickly becomes engrossed in the absolute humanity of the relations. Also there is a very intersting parallel between the characters and the socio-political scene of the turn of the 20th century Russia, where the status of the aristocracy and the now ex-serfs were changing drastically.

I am playing Luyba Ravneskaya. Described by wikipedia as

“Ranyevskaya is the linchpin around which the characters revolve. A commanding and popular figure, she represents the pride of the old aristocracy, now fallen on hard times. Her confused feelings of love for her old home, and sorrow at the scene of her son’s death, give her an emotional depth that keeps her from devolving into a mere aristocratic grotesque. Most of her humor comes from her inability to understand financial or business matters.”

Review: Much Ado About Nothing at The National

The National Theatre’s Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

Director: Nicholas Hytner

Benedick : Simon Russell Beale

Beatrice : Zoë Wanamaker

Hero : Susannah Fielding

Claudio : Daniel Hawksford

This version was well worth the wait. I had to stalk the theatre in order to get a seat! I was very lucky to get a student cancelation ticket (the last seat in the house) for only 10 quid! Despite the fact I was up in the back of the dress circle in the Oliever Theatre (a drop-dead stunningly gorgeous amphitheatre) I heard every word of this performance. However, being far away did nothing to stop me from fully investing in the very real, albeight somewhat older, characters and the love/hate relationship between Benedick and Beatrice, both of which were played with suprising and refreshing vulnerability. Despite having both read the play and seen the movie, I walked away from this performance with a completely new look on the relatioship between the two witty would-be lovers. Dont let my talk of sentimentality fool you, the shows comedia is not to be forgotten. One of my favorite moments in this play was a humorous, almost slapstick choreography where Benedick and Beatrice ‘overhear’ their companions discuss the love one has for the other. The audience was in stitches! Simon Russell Beale was particularly brilliant at melding the characters vulnerability with absolute hilarity. If there is one thing that I will take away from this peformace, its that comedy, many times, comes from showing absolute vulnerability.