Third Rehearsal
It's been a long day. I started the morning with a study session for some students at breakfast, then administered a three-hour final exam, then went to rehearsal, then came home and wrote another exam that I'll be giving tomorrow, this one for my Advanced Placement class and modelled on the format of the actual AP test, so it has 35 multiple choice questions (the AP has more, but I got tired) and three essays about everything from Beowulf and King Lear to Samuel Johnson, Jorge Luis Borges, and Italo Calvino. My brain hurts.

But anyway. Caliban. Right. We did the ending of the play, which we hadn't done before, then returned to II.ii and III.ii to adjust the blocking and show Trinculo what we'd done yesterday.

I arrived a bit early, having forgotten that it doesn't take as long to get to Tamworth when the roads are clear. The director was working on building some set pieces, and we chatted a bit. He asked one of those questions to which I never feel like I can answer adequately: "So what's your conception of the character?" To answer truthfully, I would have said, "I dunno, I just try stuff and see what feels right and hope it works." Instead I talked a bit about trying to figure out for myself why Caliban was so torn between a desire to be subservient and a desire to be free, and I said I thought he represented a kind of half-civilized being, a creature that could move between pure nature and the world of Prospero. I think this at least convinced the director that I was thinking and not just reciting lines, though I'm not sure if I convinced myself.

II.ii and III.ii are coming along well, and we're at the point already where we just need to get the lines down and get the books out of our hands. That won't be happening before the weekend for me. I found myself thinking a lot about vocal tone and patterning, because I could feel myself falling back on old tricks. This always happens early in rehearsals, because we can only build from what we know, and it's not a bad thing as long as the actor is aware of it and fights against it when possible. A two-and-a-half week rehearsal period inevitably causes some falling back on habit, but there can be more subtlety than a lot of people would expect possible. I actually tried to play against the poetry today, to push my speeches as close to regular talk as I could get them. I've also been forcing myself into a more Americanized accent than I typically have, one with sharper A's than are part of my own accent, because I want Caliban to be a contrast to Miranda, who's played by a young British woman (whose own name is Miranda -- she was in As You Like It with me a few years ago, and I kept wondering if she'd get cast in the role with her name on it, because she's just right for it, and not merely because of her name). I don't want to make the contrast huge and comical by doing something like a southern accent, but I think being more clearly American than I normally am (for instance, I normally say "aunt" as written, not as a homonym for the insect) will be enough.

I also began to get a feel for the physicality. I expect it will grow and continue, but for the moment I hover a lot between all-fours and standing up. It probably looks pretty ape-like. I'm also trying to be as flexible and relaxed as possible, which emphasizes the animalism of the character. I had one moment where I was resting against a platform and thought, "Oh yes, this is Caliban." Now I just need to find that feeling for every moment.

For the moments when Stefano feeds me liquor, I'm often underneath the bottle, and so I thought of how my cat likes to drink from a running faucet. It's all in the tongue.

After III.ii, Caroline told me it was looking great and the chemistry between me, Stefano, and Trinculo is already marvelous. "I was born to be subhuman," I said. She laughed and said John, who has done many of the Advice to the Players shows in the past and directed Much Ado this past summer, thought the casting of me in the role was perfect. It's nice to know that when people are trying to cast tragicomic, bitter, vengeful savages, they think immediately of me...

Today's music was Radiohead (the live album) on the drive up, and a mix of various stuff on the way back. One song was by Tom Waits, and sounded like something Caliban might sing, so now I've got to figure out how Tom Waits would approach the song in II.ii (I think that's the scene -- too tired to look it up). 

¶ 10:10 PM