Richard III and Twelfth Night have brought Original Practice back to Shakespeare’s Globe. Matthew Amer talks to actor Samuel Barnett and director Tim Carroll to discover what is so special about taking the Bard back to basics.
In an age when technology offers endless opportunities to create wondrous designs and break boundaries previously thought unreachable to theatremakers, why would you deliberately turn your back on such riches and stage a show with only the techniques and theatrecraft available in the 16th and 17th century?
For years under the guidance of inaugural Artistic Director Mark Rylance, Shakespeare’s Globe built its reputation on productions created with exactly that ethos. Rylance’s stock grew, as did his collection of awards, and it soon dawned on everyone that despite some initial scepticism the Globe’s productions were far more about artistic value and far less about playing up to the tourist crowd, though the chance to see Shakespeare performed ‘as was’ certainly helped draw in the capital’s visitors.
Under current Artistic Director Dominic Dromgoole the Globe continued to uphold its reputation as a bona fide theatre, stretching what could be done with its unusual space – charging through the crowds and suspending performers in the air – but waved goodbye to Original Practice, as the technique is called.
This summer, though, Rylance has returned. Following his world conquering run in Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem he is more of a draw than ever. And he has brought Original Practice back with him.
But what does that mean for a performer? It’s easy to see Original Practice, or OP as those in the know refer to it, in costume, music and sparse staging, but how does it affect the rehearsal room and performance? Samuel Barnett, original cast member of The History Boys, had never performed at the Globe before this summer. He had never professionally performed Shakespeare nor really felt the urge. He didn’t know what to expect on the first day of rehearsals.
“Then somebody asked a really pertinent question,” he explains. “Should we be trying to imagine that we are Elizabethan players? Should we be trying to imagine that’s the time we’re from?” He never really offers a decisive answer, but I guess no, as he goes on: “What I have learned from the process is that it’s all about bringing together the kinds of craft they had back then.”
“It’s thought that in those times the players didn’t really have a director,” he offers as an example. “Our director, Tim Carroll, has not directed this show in any way that I’ve experienced direction before. He’s been more like a coach. All we’ve done for the last seven weeks is work on the text, on the verse and on our voices. His process is almost obsessive when it comes to the language and that verse, but that’s what gives you the foundation to be completely free.”
Unlike most shows these days, Richard III and Twelfth Night, the pair of productions being staged in OP at the Globe and later at the Apollo theatre, haven’t been ‘blocked’. The actors don’t have prescribed positions on stage, they don’t have to hit marks. They know where they should enter from and they know their lines.
“If you strip everything back and all you have are the clothes on your back and the words in your mouth, something quite hypnotic and magical can happen,” says Barnett, who, like his former History Boys co-star Jamie Parker – currently appearing in the same venue as Henry V – has fallen in love with the Globe.
“It felt unwieldy,” Barnett says of first stepping onto the Globe’s stage, a semi-circular structure surrounded almost completely by an audience both standing and seated. “I felt that I would go on and feel really out of control. There are no sets. There are no props. There is nothing to hold on to. What I’ve discovered is I’ve never had the kind of relationship with the audience as I do on the Globe stage. It’s incredible. I can see all their faces. It’s daylight most of the time and it can feel very scary. But I’ve learned from watching Mark Rylance. It’s like the audience is the other character on stage with you. They give so much. For an actor that’s really potent and addictive. It’s a really heady mix because you’re getting instant feedback about what you’re doing.”
That is, of course, the same for any production at the Globe, not just those using OP. Yet with less set or imposed themes to stand between the audience and the players, the connection may be even stronger. Carroll certainly believes the shared experience to be a potent one: “If OP is working really well, there is that excitement of not quite fooling yourself that you have recreated everything exactly as it was, because we’ll never be able to do that, but the shared attempt to imagine ourselves back in time. It’s very theatrical. It’s an intense form of make believe.”
The master of everything OP is, of course, Rylance. He is an actor talked about in many shades of praise, by those who have seen him perform, but mostly by those who have worked with him. “You have to grab the time and space and you have to take your moment. He demands that of you,” explains Barnett. “It’s very challenging and muscular, almost competitive, but in a good way, in a playful way. It’s pushed me in ways that I didn’t know I needed to be pushed. As an actor it can be easy to play the roles you play using the tricks you use. You can’t get away with that with Mark. He demands truth and playfulness at all times and I love that. He brings other people up around him.”
That, in its purity, is what Original Practice must be about, stripping away the veneer of modernity, the layers of interpretation built up over the years and allowing actors to explore. As Barnett and Carroll describe it, it is far less about restrictions of a time and more about freedom to play.
For audiences, it is just another way of viewing a classic text, one which might just give us a little insight into how Shakespeare’s famous plays were originally performed.
“There’s so many ways of doing Shakespeare,” says Barnett, “and none of them are right, none of them are wrong.”
But only one of them has convinced him to have a bash at the Bard.