Listening to: "What You Own" - Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal, RENTOkay, I'll blame BakerShake for my couple month hiatus. Theatre really consumes whatever free time you have left. This year was different because we had a director from the Actors from the London Stage, Matt Radford. I didn't want to do too much on the production side especially since I had some tough classes and was still bitter about getting a tiny role (the Sexton). However, with my roommates as producer and assistant director, I wound up lending a hand whenever I could. It took a while for me to feel like part of the group, but when it got down to the last weeks of production, we were really tight. I mean, we'd end up hanging out after rehearsals even though it was late at night. While I'm proud of learning how to play the accordion and hand bells in less than a month, music rehearsals sucked big time. I'm glad Jacob, our musical director, had faith in my abilities, but no one else did. Let's just say that my singing abilities should be confined to karaoke.
Much Ado About Nothing is a great play in itself, but Matt's interpretation made it so much more awesome. Beatrice and Benedick will always be perennial faves, but our version finally made Hero more than a pretty face and Claudio really had to work for forgiveness. Even the more minor characters had personalities: the flirtatious Margaret became a social climber and Conrade became the scary one-eyed Machiavellian instead of just a minion to Don John. Matt would add these little touches that made a certain line become so much more understandable or a certain scene become even funnier. My top 3 favorite scenes:
1) Don Pedro's proposal to Beatrice - We made him serious about it so it's kind of sad to see such a dashing prince get rejected (though Beatrice is better off with Benedick). When during the first run-through, every girl went "Awwww." Then all the guys started laughing at us. Jerks.
2) Hero and Ursula tricking Beatrice into thinking that Benedick loves her - The girls carried parasols, and they had so much fun with those. There was a really silly gag involving the girls hiding behind the parasols and making sound effects. Beatrice had a bird and flower design so she coo'd like a pigeon. Hero had butterflies so she went, "flutter, flutter." Ursula had fish, and she thought the idea was stupid but since Hero is the boss, she ended up saying, "Splish, splash" (in a deadpan voice).
3. Dogberry's "I am an ass" speech - That whole "trial" scene is hilarious, and it was hard for me to keep a straight face (the whole time I had to think about how annoying this wannabe lawyer who can never say the right words is). Thank God I was already off-stage when he did the monologue. Barron, the actor who played Dogberry, was a first-timer, but you would never believe it. Everybody else contributed little things, such as Verges acting like the slimy suck-up that he is, the Watch agreeing/disagreeing with their boss' claim, and Boracchio and Conrade trying to outsmart their captors and failing by chance.
Man, I never got tired of doing the show or watching backstage. It was truly an unbelievable performance, and we all learned something. This post is already pretty long so I'm going to continue with cast and crew shenanigans next time.
Quote of the day:
"Dost thou not suspect my place? dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But, masters, remember that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass." - Dogberry, Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
BakerShake recap part I