Dunsinane Diaries

Monday 8th March

I appreciate that this week’s Macbeth quote isn’t ideal but I was running out of ideas and I had thought of calling this blog: “Duns-INSANE” as that’s what us soldier chorus lot had started to say when anything “crazy” happened. But I realise that inside jokes out of context are appreciated as much as Russell Brand in America, so I decided to keep with the theme.

Two days ago Dunsinane came to an end, much to the sadness of all the cast and crew and to the prospective audience members who were unable to get tickets. But the good news is that the RSC are still holding fort at the Hampstead Theatre with Dennis Kelly’s The Gods Weep, with a little known actor called Jeremy Irons, so start queuing for this one now!

The last show was particularly memorable: Siobhan came down to our dressing room and gave us an extremely heart-felt talk before we went on, Catherine provided a whole compilation of harrowing anecdotes for “story-time” and everyone felt at the very top of their game. But even before we started getting into costume I knew it’d be special as at the very end of our game of “keep-it-up” who decides to join us but Michael Boyd himself.

Brian Ferguson who plays Malcolm takes “keep-it-up” very seriously, and quite rightly, I think. And Brian thought that we should try and get to 200 for our last attempt and just as he said that, Michael Boyd walks in to wish us luck. For an Artistic Director he has a decidedly bendy arm and was surprisingly easy to persuade to join us. And guess what? We reached 200. Well with a little doctoring of the scoring. We decided that getting Michael Boyd to play “keep-it-up” was like getting a special character in a video game and therefore counted for 135 touches which when added together with our measly 65 that we managed to get came to a total of 200. Who said actors couldn’t do maths?

Perhaps still a little bleary eyed from the weekend and our last night shenanigans, I am now must finally bid farewell to this blog. Thanks for reading! I’m sure this won’t be last time you’ll be hearing about Dunsinane  - so keep your ears to the ground and your computer-screen-reflected eyes peeled. And thanks for taking my blogging virginity – I wouldn’t have wanted it to be anyone else.

R S C you later :)

Tom

Thursday 25th February

Somehow, inexplicably, we have just over one week left of Dunsinane. And I’m pretty sure this is the longest run any of the soldier chorus has ever done, so it’s quite a marvel that we’ve found it to fly by. In fact, I think we’ll all be so gutted when it comes to an end that we may just have to hold fort in the Hampstead Theatre’s rehearsal room (our dressing room) until we feel rehabilitated back to the real world. Otherwise we’ll end up wearing medieval costumes to Tesco and trying to speak Gaelic at the Post Office and we all know how that story ends…

What’s seemed to really help keep each night fresh and exciting has in fact a lot do with the backstage banter. As in any show, there are lots of little rituals that accompany each performance, from very conventional ones like the warm-up and the fight-call to more quirky additions of our own like playing hip-hop music as we get into costume and finding ridiculous names for the two female members of the cast who have to dress up as male soldiers for the first scene. But it’s probably ‘story-time’ that takes the biscuit for my favourite backstage activity.

For the past couple of weeks just before the 2nd half, whilst the five of us who play Scottish prisoners are tied together by a rope attached to our feet and shackles around our hands, Catherine (our Assistant Stage Manager) tells us some horrific story or other to get us in “the mood”. This ‘mood’ that I talk of is the ‘mood’ of 5 boys who have been captured by the English army on suspicion that they might be the Queen’s son, having burnt all the other men in town: fathers, brothers etc before their very eyes. So spine-tinglingly abhorrent anecdotes about stage fights going wrong, childhood accidents and real ghost stories are all in fact very appropriate for this part of the play. But it’s just the sheer pleasure that Catherine gets from telling these gruesome accounts that is probably what makes them so dark. And there always seems to be some very obvious moral tacked hurriedly on to the end of them like: “and that’s why you’re meant to wear hard-hats”, says Catherine with a beaming smile…

I’m not quite sure how this ritual began, but I think it was just the fact of having us all in her power, quite literally, that she thought she’d inflict on us tales of the highest morbidity: “Are you sitting comfortably?….” – most certainly not! This week has marked a change in the proceedings however, as Catherine felt she wasn’t getting her own fair share of guts and gore and so it’s been our turn to tell the stories. Highlights have included Martin’s parable of “The dead dog on the tube” and Jeremy’s explanation of how he came to be called “Testiclops” (you can try and figure that one out on your own). And I think I may have succeeded in bringing the bloodiest story of them all but it’s still early days and I’m pretty sure it’s not a bloggable anecdote in any case!

So when you come and see the show, and you witness the shocked/terrified/appalled faces of the Scottish hostages at the start of the 2nd half – yes we’ll be “in the mood” of traumatised boys who have just watched their fathers burn alive, but also, we’ll still be reeling from Catherine’s delightful addition to Dunsinane of ‘story-time’.

Until next time!

Tom

Hello there!

Tomorrow marks the end of previews and the odd event that is press night. I can’t remember who said this but, apparently, to look at the record of theatre history is really just to view one long list of press nights with the actual run and life of a play completely forgotten about. So in that vein, I’m just thinking about tomorrow as just another night in a run of many. But the one good thing about press night is that it marks the end of significant changes to the show, no longer altering from night to night (or minute to minute as in technical rehearsals). During the previews, you have to be constantly thinking about your entrance that has just been changed or that cue that has altered or that scene has been cut; so I’m definitely looking forward to some stability.

The last ten days has been pretty manic to be honest. You rehearse and rehearse a show in the rehearsal space and then for some reason as soon as you get onto the stage all that preparation seems to fall by the wayside – well, in my case anyway. I’m pretty sure for the first couple days of tech I dithered around the stage like I’d had a few too many and screwing my face up in deep confusion trying to reconcile my dyslexic tendencies to invert my carefully drawn stage-plan of entrances and exits with the real-life 3D version.

The tech also brought up a few other points of difficulty, in particular for some of the slightly older members of the company. In order to get to the downstage entrances, you are required to type a number into a key-pad – an act of precision and dexterity that is not at all conducive to panic and mania that was the backstage of Dunsinane at that time. I can assure you 24 people covered in mud, in full medieval garb with swords, axes and branches using an electronic keypad to pass through a hallway is a seriously disconcerting image. In fact, it’s caused certain members of the cast (not to name any names) so much trouble that their entrances and exits are now on the whole limited to upstage. The key-pad corridor is almost like our own Narnia as you’ll lose actors down there for a good ten minutes with nobody knowing where they’ve got to but when they return it’s with a face of sheer horror, sweaty brows and usually the line: “Um, Roxana, could I just enter from up there?” Things I’ve learnt this week: technology and actors – not a great combination (myself included).

As Hauk mentioned in the last post, the costumes and make-up in Dunsinane are pretty extreme (I won’t spoil my own particular bodily deformity but all of my intervals are spent with an always bubbly lady called Sandra in a broom cupboard pouring hot wax-like gel on my back – not quite as sexy as it sounds..). And at one particular giddy moment of tech on Tuesday night last week (that’s what 13hr days will do to you) the fire alarm went off in the middle of our fight call with all 24 of us in our extreme costumes and make-up, bloodied and armed to the nines, having to evacuate the building. At first we thought it was just a false alarm but as we heard the fire engines (extremely promptly) approaching Hampstead Theatre we thought it best to get out as quickly as possible. And as we- looking like a bedraggled group of leftovers from a particularly creative Stag party- approached Swiss Cottage tube station (the fire alarm meeting-point), Tony McGeever in an inspired moment, shouted: “See! I told you the time-machine would work!” Honestly, it could have been a scene straight out of Extras: us lot surrounded by rush-hour Finchley Road with a gaggle of people in the crowded sushi restaurant next to us looking genuinely worried that we were preparing for an  11th Century ambush to smuggle out hoards of shrimp tempura. You’ll be happy to know that we all survived unscathed and live to tell the tale and, apparently, blog it too.

But so far there have been no major hiccups, and we’ve been extremely fortunate that our previews have been pretty much sold out. So I’m going to suggest you book before it’s too late. You’ll be able to recognise me as I’ll be the only 11th century character with a laptop – blogging to you direct from the action itself. Oh, wait, actually a sword is currently approaching me at full speed as we speak - best run… How I love these new computer-come-shields.

Back soon!

Tom

Hey everyone, I’m Hauk -  one of Tom’s fellow soldiers in Dunsinane. As Tom was saying in his last blog we’ve really been thrown in at the deep end. We’ve just finished our second preview and we’re still being given changes. I think the main thing we were unprepared for is the amount of dirt and blood we get covered in. Showers don’t seem to make a difference. Many of us have showered twice in the same day and still managed to find spots that are just as covered in the black make up (that turns us from ordinary young men in to hardened 11th century warriors) and fake bruises as when it was first put on. In fact, I was even greeted this morning by Lisa Hogg (who plays one of Gruach’s attendants and the Hen Girl) saying: “Oh you’ve still got blood in your ear.”

Obviously I’m not talking about real blood; I am talking about really bloody though. The blood we uses is similar to golden syrup (yes, that’s ‘golden syrup’) and some of it is thicker and stickier and it gets absolutely bleeding everywhere and it’s even worse if it gets in your hair – which, when your hair is as long as mine (pretty sure I have the longest hair in the company - including the girls) it is bound to.
Well, so as not to give any more away I’m not going to explain why I’m covered in so much blood. So if you want to find out why, you’ll just have to come and see the show! Till next time… To bed, to bed, to bed!

Hauk

Wednesday 3rd February 

Hello again! It’s the last week of rehearsals (opening night’s a week today!) and only the 6th day for the ensemble/soldier chorus, so we’ve really been chucked in the deep end. Over the past few days we’ve had to grapple with swordfights, physical tussles, being shot by arrows, playing Scottish lords, and some of us have even had to learn a little Gaelic and Ceilidh dancing. But perhaps the most exciting part about this week has been getting to watch the play as we start running the acts in full. And I find myself constantly suppressing laughs (I have a bit of a cackle which I know to be decidedly distracting) and today I visibly squirmed, letting out a most macho of man-squeals whilst watching the fate of Poor Tom, the injured soldier. And just you wait until your turn, you’ll be man-squealing all over the place - even if you are a woman… work that one out!

Talking of women (seamless segue), I was speaking with Siobhan Redmond (who plays Gruach – the historical Lady Macbeth) and she was saying that Dunsinane has the largest cast of any production she’s been a part of in her entire career. And it’s discovering facts like that which make me realise what a unique play Dunsinane is and the significant role that the soldier chorus play in helping it to achieve those epic proportions. In the big fight sequence, that we spent the whole of Saturday choreographing, there are 24 bodies on stage either hurling weapons at one another, trying to escape or generally being beaten around and I was standing there (I’m on the “hill” part of the stage so I get to survey the scene) and just thought – well I’m pretty sure the Hampstead Theatre won’t have seen this before!

The four acts of Dunsinane each represent a season of the year, but despite the action spanning over a year, the pace of it is mind-boggling. That being said, I am a little concerned about the likely prospect (it hasn’t been 100% confirmed) of remaining as a dead body throughout the first act (Spring). As much as I enjoy the stage time, I’m quite a talker and a wriggler, so being dead might actually be my greatest acting challenge to date. If you work it out, including dress rehearsals, previews and performances it’s roughly 32 shows, that’s a total of 32 times half an hour of dead which is a whole 16hrs of being completely silent and still. I think it’s more than likely that you’ll start to notice the knock-on effects in this very blog and I’ll start writing about really irrelevant things like growing my facial hair. Oh no, hold on a minute…

OK, so while you’re asking: Day 22 on Beard Watch and I supposedly have to make an official amendment to last week’s blog as, according to a number of so-called “friends”, I do not look “a decade older” as previously stated but do actually retain my youthful face whilst having the beard of a middle-aged man. This then resulted in the nickname of “man-child”. I believe the creature comes from the same family as the centaur, liger and mermaid, defined as: one with the face of a child but the beard of a man. Thank you to all my “friends”. And the nicknames do not stop there. As for the cast, there are a few who have decided that I look like the actor playing Egham (Alex Mann) on account of our similar facial hair (which I should perhaps see as an achievement as his beard has had a good few weeks on mine), and this is how the endearing term of “mini-egg” was born. And so, in a final plea to the rest of the soldier chorus, stop with your secret shaves and baby-faces and come be a “mini-egg”/“man-child” with me!

More blogging from your very own Benjamin Button soon…

Tom

A very nice lady called Fiona from the RSC came into the ensemble’s first rehearsal last Saturday and suggested the idea of a blog. Now, despite my wariness of up-to-date technological ways of communicating (I haven’t quite mastered tweeting yet), I thought I’d give it a go. So, having read the script and two rehearsals down the line I’m happy to report Dunsinane is going to be epic – set over a year, a cast of 24 and battles galore (it isn’t in verse, that was just my poor attempt at 11^th century flair). In all honesty, plays like this don’t come around very often and “excited” doesn’t quite do it for a completely overwhelmed how-did-the-RSC-le-me-slip-through-the-ropes newbie like myself.

Yesterday was only the second rehearsal for the ensemble (even though it’s just over two weeks before previews) but this week we got to meet some of the other actors who play the principle soldiers – Jacob, Alex, Sam, Josh and Tony (that ball name-game clearly paid off). They joined us for a session with a Drill Sergeant who was teaching us some army protocol – a sharp wake-up call to the fact that perhaps the military is not for me. During these drills, I somehow managed to forget the fundamental principles of moving. Why I thought (or didn’t think) that marching was another world from walking is beyond me – swinging my same arm as leg and forgetting to bend my knees resulted in me looking more like a constipated duck than any sort of soldier. Ah well, it at least made me very grateful that Dunsinane is about guerrilla warfare rather than all that regimented stuff!

And while we’re on the topic of guerrilla war, it seems that the apes that I thought were associated with that kind of fighting, share the look I’m currently sporting. A couple of weeks ago we were called up by the always helpful and informative Kristi (our stage manager) and told that we were not allowed to cut our hair or shave. Now I should explain, as a blog can’t truly portray the phenomenon that is my facial hair, I’ve never grown a beard. Partly because I always get to that itchy stage and then shave it off and partly because I do genuinely start to look like a gorilla. I’ve always said that I could have a heart-shaped beard that went from my chin all the way up my cheeks and to my eyebrows…. You get the picture and it’s not pretty. So exactly 11 days after Kristi has told me that I cannot shave, I now look about a decade older and far more like the middle-stages of those Darwin Evolution posters you see… More on the trials and tribulations of facial hair growth in the future, I’m sure.

But just because it’s guerrilla war in Dunsinane, doesn’t mean we don’t have fancy weapons like swords and pickaxes and maces and daggers and crossbows and other medieval fighting equipment I don’t think have names anymore (I had to Google-image “maces”…).  And when Anna, our movement director, said “just pick up any weapon” when we were playing Scottish rebel soldiers, you’d have thought you had witnessed a bunch of teenage girls on hearing that Topshop has 50% off and we were promptly told that “that’s enough axes for now”. And honestly I don’t think I’ve ever felt more “kick-ass” or “bad-ass” (you can probably tell from this blog that those are not the most frequently used words to describe me) in my life than yesterday when our fight director, Terry King, taught us how to swordfight. So be ready for some more “bad-ass” blogging soon…

Tom