Today we decided to work on the scene in which Antonio convinces Sebastian to kill Alonso and Gonzalo, even though the participant playing Sebastian was not present. The woman who is playing Antonio is fairly new to the group and hasn’t had many opportunities to perform, so we all felt it was important to get her on stage. One thing that was really great in this session was that one of the participants brought a copy of the No Fear Shakespeare “Tempest” with her. She actually does this every day, but she usually doesn’t use it. She used it today, however, after she called it “cheating” and I reassured her that it absolutely isn’t – it’s using a tool she has at her disposal.
We talked a lot about why Antonio is motivated to manipulate Sebastian into killing his brother. What does he get out of it? One of our new participants volunteered that maybe this is only part of the plan – maybe Antonio is setting up Sebastian to take the throne so that he can, in turn, kill Sebastian and take all of the power for himself. Everyone seemed to really like this idea, including the participant playing Antonio.
The participant playing Antonio is having some difficulty with the language, but her main issue is that she reads aloud very quickly. She kept stopping and expressing her frustration, and the rest of the group kept reassuring her that all she needs to do is slow down, read it aloud more often, and it will get easier. There was no judgment or frustration coming from everyone. Just support.