The Tempest | Rehearsal Diary
Assistant Director Anna Mors takes us inside the rehearsal room of The Tempest
Even before rehearsals started, a beautiful symmetry between The Tempest and it’s venue already existed: the Bard’s last solo play will be the first ever Shakespeare for the Print Room at the Coronet. Themes of ending old life and starting new, of directing a spectacle, of mysterious noises, and of withdrawal from reality are strangely intertwined and correspondent with the Coronet’s history as a theatre and cinema, and this play.
There is evidence that Shakespeare asked for The Tempest to be placed at the beginning of the First Folio publication, which has inspired us to consider the meaning of this play to its author.
A father with magic powers, a beautiful daughter, their immediate family, including a fairy and a monster, a shipwrecked king and a grieving prince; The Tempest is a story of many perspectives: for Miranda, it’s a coming of age and love story, it is a test of endurance for Ferdinand, a story of revenge and punishment for Alonso and Antonio, for Prospero, it’s a tale of justice and forgiveness.
The celestial and the domestic, the magical and the mundane, and the cruel and the humane co-inhabit the island and its characters, and in the short space of two hours (the action of the play happens almost in real time), the audience has the opportunity to witness a thrillingly theatrical mixture of events and emotions.
It’s no wonder we were all excited to begin exploring this masterpiece, and the first day of rehearsal was filled with an atmosphere of anticipation, joy, and curiosity. There were nearly thirty people gathered in the rehearsal room: apart from the main cast, there is the creative team, the Print Room’s producing and technical staff, and a Community Chorus. The Community Chorus gives local residents a chance to be part of a professional production and witness the art of theatre-making first hand. The Chorus spent two evenings with the director, Simon Usher, developing the physicality of the spirits and the mariners in the play.
The first week of rehearsals sees the actors read through the play. This is followed by few days of text analysis, and the first, tentative steps into scene composition. The opening scene, in which the sea’s tempest nearly destroys a ship and its crew, left some of participants (the author of this diary for one) with bruised knees, but ecstatically happy, like children allowed to run though the puddles of water after rain. After long days of detailed text analysis and precise stage choreography it’s easy to forget that creative process is inseparable from our ability to play.
“To play” is (from the old English) “to exercise”. However it is also to engage in games and activities, to take part, to embody a character, to cooperate, to make music and produce sounds. I think we tackled all of this in our first week.
The Tempest | 21 Nov – 17 Dec | More Info