6-27-12 - The first half is blocked

First there was a read-through on Sunday.

Then...in 12 hours of rehearsal over the last three days, we have the entire first part staged.  Crazy.  We have the framework set for part one.  (Part one is this case is Act I, Act II and most of Act III.  Intermission will come after Act III scene iii.)

What is great about working with this particular company is that they hardly cut anything when it comes to a Shakespeare play.  The director forces you to struggle with the really hard lines and fairly archaic jokes, rather than just cut them.  Our actor playing Othello has played the role a few times before and he said that there are lines he is saything this time that he has never said before. 

Part of today's rehearsal tackled Act III scene iii which is one of the longest scenes of Shakespeare you will ever see.  This led to an interesting discussion about what are the actually longest scenes in Shakespeare.

The longest scene I have found so far... and I think it's the longest of all... is Act V scene ii of Love's Labor's Lost which is over 900 lines of text.  The entire play is only 2700 lines! 

Or...  Comedy of Errors is under 1800 lines total.  The entire play is 1800 lines and that one scene in Love's Labor's Lost is over 900! 

Hamlet is the longest play with around 4000 lines.  Othello is around 3550... so it's a long one.

Anyway... Act III scene iii is over 500 lines.  It's a big chunk of the play. 

I've never worked on Othello like this before... I've never lived with it this way... so it is fun to learn how the play works.  What is fascinating is that, here we are, more than halfway through the play, and it subtly seems like not all that much has happened. 

Act I - Othello and Desdemona secretly get married and we're sent from Venice to Cyprus to fight a war.

Act II - We arrive in Cyprus... find out that a storm took out our enemy... there's a party... Cassio gets really drunk and loses his position.

Act III - Cassio tries to get his position back and asks Desdemona to help him.  Othello begins to grow suspicious of Desdemona and Cassio.  Emilia grabs Desdemona's special handerchief.

And who's the character I haven't mentioned?  Who's the third biggest character that Shakespeare ever wrote???  Iago.  Iago is just subtly, craftily, making all of this happen.  It's so smooth.  Iago is actually the driving force behind this first half but it really doesn't seem like much happens in these first 90 minutes....but what is really happening is we're just following along with Iago as he sets up his plan for destruction....

And then we come back from intermission and in the next 70 minutes....  Rodrigo... dead... Cassio... maimed...  Desdemona... dead... Emilia... dead... Othello... dead...  We even find out Desdemona's father is dead!

I mean... the first half of the play could almost be a companion piece to Much Ado About Nothing.  It feels, at times, more like one of  Shakespeare's comedies.  Then BAM.  Iago's plan takes hold and all hell breaks loose. 

The work for me today was kind of a continuation of discoveries from yesterday.  Cassio gets really drunk and then gets in a fight and gets stripped of his position.  He sobers up pretty quickly and almost immediately goes off to ask Desdemona to help him get his position back.  So the trick is to keep that disheveled, up-all-night (and it was a HELL of a night), kind of feel to Cassio throughout the first act from the fight to intermission.  That journey certainly will inform choices.  How happy can my character ever appear to be now that he has been stripped of his position? 

HAHHAHAA   It's only day four!  On the other hand...  there are only 17 rehearsals left.  This play isn't called Cassio so I can't count on an abundance of time being devoted to scenes that I am in.  I need to figure things out as quickly as possible.

Tomorrow we already start to move into the second part of the show.  We won't look at the first half again until Sunday so I need to make sure that I am taking good notes and rehearsing on my own in such a way that I can remember and build upon all of the good work we did on part one.

Side note:  Tomorrow and Friday Indianapolis is potentially going to experience the hottest weather it has ever had in the month of june since 1988.  1988?????  Ronald Reagan was president!  Thankfully we have moved our rehearsal tomorrow to an indoor venue but come on. 

"Highs could reach 106 in some places and at least make it to 102"

AT LEAST 102? 

I used to do Shakespeare in Kansas City and there was a rule that, if the temperature at the start of the show was 100 or over, you could take off outside layers of your costume.  haha

Shakespeare in the summer... love it!

Side note two:  This has nothing to do with anything but my dog was in a magazine.  Here is the most ridiculous dog picture you will ever see.  She's the one in the pink get-up.  Amazing.