Session Six: Week 30

Tuesday

I was out of town during our last meeting, and I used some of my time to put together a list of potential cuts to the script. I have sensed the group wanting to move forward more quickly with staging, and growing frustration with the cutting process. They verified this when I asked them if my instinct was correct. I made sure to note to everyone that this was a list of suggestions, and that any/all of them could be rejected.

We ended up sitting in a circle on the floor going through the cuts, which gave us a feeling of camaraderie and the impetus for a lot of jokes – even more so than usual. I hadn’t really wanted to spend an entire evening making cuts, but it turned out to be pretty fun.

As we got to the scene in which the Murderers banter and then kill Clarence, the question arose of who would play the First Murderer now that the previously cast woman has had to leave the group. To our complete surprise, the woman who had told us in the fall that her extreme anxiety would likely prevent her from performing at all, and who about a month ago volunteered to play only a small non-speaking role, casually said, “I’ll play the First Murderer.” There was silence for a moment. “You will?” someone said. “Yeah,” she said, smiling a little. The group burst into applause and cheers. She looked down, still smiling, saying, “Don’t make a big deal about it, you guys.” We tried to contain our excitement, but this is absolutely huge. Not only is she going to get up on stage, and not only will she speak, but she has a good number of lines! I am so excited to see what this experience does for her.

Friday

As we checked in tonight, one of the women said she had something to share. She paused. “You know, I forgot it’s not safe outside of Shakespeare,” she said, telling us about something she said in confidence in her unit that was told to others and blown out of proportion. She is now living in an intensely uncomfortable situation, not knowing exactly how this got out, and not knowing exactly how to deal with it. She’s decided to try to hunker down until it blows over. “I’m just so glad I can come and talk here, and it doesn’t get out,” she said. “This is the one safe place I have here.”

As noted many times throughout this blog, one of the most valuable aspects of our program is that it creates a safe space in a place that otherwise feels unsafe – emotionally, physically, or both. It’s essential to our work that people be able to express themselves freely and feel supported in being their authentic selves. That’s the culture we’ve built over the years, and it’s overwhelmingly respected by participants.

We continued making cuts to our script now that our Duchess was present – our policy is not to make cuts that affect people who are absent, and she wasn’t there on Tuesday. We got through most of what we had left and then decided to work the Clarence/Brakenbury scene since we have new people in both of those roles.

I huddled with those women before we began the scene to make sure we were all on the same page with content and cuts. The woman playing Clarence nervously said that this would be her first time on stage. I encouraged her, for this first time, not to rush, but to avoid stopping to apologize for any mistakes and just plow through to the end. “Then the first time will be over, and you’ll never have to do it for the first time again,” I said. She smiled. The other woman agreed not to stop the scene. I then approached the group and let them know what the plan was, and they also agreed not to interrupt.

Although visibly nervous, the women got through the scene. Afterward, I let the group know that it had been our Clarence’s first time ever on stage, and we gave her a huge round of applause and lots of encouragement. I asked her how she felt. “I felt like I stumbled a lot,” she said. Others in the ensemble reminded her that everyone stumbles at first with Shakespeare. “You’re gonna be your own worst critic,” said one seasoned ensemble member.

Our Clarence, true to her emerging role as one of the group’s natural directors, then expressed dissatisfaction with the way they’d physically staged the scene and suggested some changes. We talked about the relationship between the two men – does Brakenbury know why Clarence is in prison? Does he have empathy for him, and, if so, how much does he express it?

They tried the scene a second time. “It got better,” one woman said enthusiastically. “It did. This time I felt more emotion from you.” Our Clarence said, “I sort of felt like I should kneel for the prayer.” Our Brakenbury then asked how she should respond to that. I encouraged them to follow their instincts in the moment – not to prejudge anything, but to spontaneously respond to each other, within the play’s parameters, and see where it led them. I pointed out that our Clarence had, at one point, reached out and touched our Brakenbury’s arm for emphasis on her line, “Ah, keeper, keeper…” She had instinctively responded to one of Shakespeare’s open vowels, which indicate emotion, and the repetition of a word.  No one needed to tell her to do that.

The third time through, they adjusted so that our Clarence didn’t sit on the bench, and then she knelt for her prayer. She said she felt better this third time, although she still wants to make adjustments. The growth in her confidence over just three attempts at the scene was remarkable. It is truly inspiring to see someone taking risks like that, and then to see those risks paying off.

Session Six: Week 29

Tuesday

Written by Frannie

We spent tonight collaborating to stage the ghost scene that I had written up from all of our ideas. I was engaged in a one-on-one conversation with an ensemble member during the initial discussion of how to put the scene on its feet, and as I returned to the group and heard the whispered, “Despair and die,” repeated again and again, I felt the energy in the room shift. Everyone was focused. The lines we’d honed in on came out one by one, and the choices we’d made seemed to really work. Physical positioning and movement was rough, but that was to be expected our first time through.

Afterward, I asked the group what they thought. Everyone was enthusiastic – it worked almost exactly as we had envisioned it. Our Richmond said, “Even with my eyes closed… Your voices really creeped me out. Like, I’m kind of having anxiety right now.” She laughed – she was okay, but we talked about the need to really differentiate the energy between Richard and Richmond. So we were glad that she spoke up!

We worked together to refine the movement in the piece, figuring out the best way in which to encircle Richard and then Richmond, as well as the most effective way to move between the two. We looked at Buckingham’s involvement in the scene – he is now essentially leading it, which is very powerful and effective. We then ran through the entire scene and let our Richard continue into her subsequent monologue. The whole thing was positively chilling.

This took nearly all of our time, and it was time well spent. “I loved this process,” said one woman. “It was so much more effective with the lines like that… Even though I didn’t see it staged [because she was on stage]. It transferred. It resonated. It was really intense.”

Friday

Written by Lauren

We got to the room, and it was very warm, which made it difficult to get anyone to start to do anything. Fortunately, after a few minutes, we were told that we could move to a different room that has fans. Everyone was ready to get to work after that!

We started the session with act 4, scene 4 when Richard enters. It was clarified that Elizabeth is Edward's wife. The scene between the two of them is the first time that someone isn't buying what Richard is trying to sell. Our Richard thought that the character should be touching Elizabeth in this scene. Our Elizabeth disagreed. It was discussed that Richard should then change his tactics to convince Elizabeth to listen to him. Our Elizabeth was getting visibly frustrated with our Richard, who was grabbing her arm and not listening to her. They got through the scene, though.

We went on to do a brief analysis on the scene. When asked what Richard wants in this scene, the woman playing him said that he wants Elizabeth to listen to him. When asked what Elizabeth wants in the scene, the woman playing her said that she wants Richard to know how angry she is. We then worked with the "power struggle" that happens between the two on the line "true love's kiss." They both did an amazing and hilarious job with the power struggle!

Session Six: Week 28

Tuesday

Written by Frannie

As has happened every year, we’ve recently lost a few ensemble members due to excessive absences. We began tonight by figuring out how to plug those casting holes.

When I discussed the possibility that we might have to do this with a small group last week, one woman who frequently talks about her lack of confidence and fear of performing mentioned that she might want to play Clarence, one of the vacated roles. I said that I was excited to hear that, that we would make our decisions as a group, and to keep thinking it over. Moments later, a woman who hadn’t heard that exchange mentioned to me that she was interested in playing Clarence – she’s been looking for more roles to take on for a while, and I have encouraged her to jump in when there was an opportunity. I thanked her for doing exactly what we talked about and mentioned that this other woman was also interested, reminding this woman, too, that our decisions would be made as a group. “Oh,” she said thoughtfully, “That’s really great that she wants to do that.”

Tonight, as we began discussing our casting options, the first thing that second woman said was, “I’d like to play Brakenbury.” We all nodded and wrote that down, thanking her for taking it on. As we did that, the first woman leaned over to me and whispered, “I’d like to play Clarence.” I whispered back, “I think you should say that to the group.” She then announced her intention to the ensemble, and everyone burst into applause, smiling and making sure she knew how proud we are of her, and how happy we are that she is taking on such a challenge. It is a very big step.

We then dove back into the ghost scene. Three ensemble members had edited the scene down to “the meat” – eliminating all lines that seemed non-essential. Another woman had drawn diagrams of her blocking ideas. We spent the next hour putting all of this together, including new ideas that were sparked by the discussion, and finding ways of honoring many individual ideas in our final concept. In our version of this scene:

•    Richard and Richmond are sleeping, one on either side of the stage.
•    Buckingham enters, holding a mask over his face that is white with a red X over the mouth (to reflect the voices of the ghosts that have been silenced), and says, “Let me sit heavy on thy soul tomorrow.”
•    Ten more ghosts enter from various parts of the theatre, whispering, “Despair and die.” They also carry masks.
•    The ghosts circle around Richard, saying lines that we’ve culled from the text. They then move to circle around Richmond in a “figure eight” pattern, say some lines to him, and, as they exit, Buckingham delivers his final lines.

We were pretty satisfied with this idea, but then one woman wondered aloud if having only one conceptual scene like this in the play would be strange and out of place. She had a good point. I asked the group if there were other opportunities in the play to bring in the masks. The ideas started flowing, and what we ended up with is that we will introduce the masks in our yet-to-be-written prologue, making it clear that the masks symbolize death, and then whenever someone in the play is about to exit to his or her death, ghosts carrying masks will enter, give that person a mask, and escort him or her off.

It was an exciting evening, to be sure. I was tasked with taking all of these ideas and coalescing them into a written scene. The goal is for me to write it over the next week, and for us to stage it next Tuesday.

Friday

Written by Kyle

Tonight started off on the slower side as there was a small turnout at the outset, with our Richard and Richmond both absent at the start.  We decided that we would start in Act 5, with Buckingham’s monologue just before he is killed.  This monologue is easily one of my favorites in this play, and, I dare say, one of my favorites in the canon.  It is a profound moment when the Duke of Buckingham, who has been Richard’s right hand man and chief co-conspirator, is betrayed by Richard and suffers the same fate he has been so quick to inflict on others.  There is a solemn moment before he is executed when he simultaneously muses on how the tables have turned and subtly takes responsibility for his actions.  It’s contemplative, yet sobering, and the Bard at his best.  It takes on a different dynamic in the context of the prison; it deals so explicitly with committing a crime and accepting the consequences, I almost felt nervous giving her notes and coaching her through it.  Principally, the actor and I had to tease out an objective, which meant we had to nail down whom she is addressing.  We tried it different ways, each with its own implications: If she is talking to the jailor on stage with her, what does that mean? If she is talking to herself, what does that mean? If she is talking to God, what does that mean?  If she is talking to the ghosts of those she murdered, what does that mean?  It seems a little tedious but I found the conversation to be really incredible.  For whatever reason it was not much of a group activity, and to be honest I feel badly that I didn’t try to include the group more.

After working that scene, we moved backwards to Act 4, scene 4, with Margaret, Elizabeth, and the Duchess.  This is another fascinating scene, in which the play’s major women find common ground in their hate for Richard. The houses of Lancaster and York have done unspeakable deeds to one another, but history doesn’t seem to matter in light of the present terror Richard has inflicted on both.  It’s a somber scene, and the characters have a lot of negative things to say to one another; line for line there are much more of those than of reconciliation, so it was difficult at times to even imagine bringing it to the forefront.  

There was a pretty significant disagreement between the actor playing Elizabeth and the actor playing Margaret about just how the scene should go.  ‘Elizabeth’ thought there should be more reconciliation sooner, and ‘Margaret’ didn’t think there should be any at all. I felt like there was a push from the actors for me to give them direction and be the tiebreaker, but I couldn’t.  That seems to be a real sticking point with a lot of the ensemble this year: collaboration takes time.  Democracy is more rewarding, but infinitely more cumbersome than a dictatorship. To their credit, most professional rehearsal rooms are run like a dictatorship; no matter how giving or collaborative a director can be, at the end of the day they have the option to pull rank on the actors.  It’s my experience that good directors pull rank sparingly, but lead the cast when necessary.  It’s quick and clean, but not one of the core values of Shakespeare in Prison; we have a commitment to collaboration, and it may not be timely, but ultimately it is what is most rewarding.  We spent the rest of the session on this one scene, which is only a few pages long.  One ensemble member even got frustrated with us at one point, saying that the performance was looming and we didn’t have time for this kind of debate.  I disagreed, and urged the actors to keep muddling through. In the end, we found a way in which everyone felt content with the scene.  Collaboration is not always easy, and not always timely, but it achieves the program’s aims such that real changes begin to take hold in our participants.  With Act 4, scene 4, it was definitely worth the wait.  The actors were able to show so much range, and such a clear journey from start to finish that is has become one of the scenes I really look forward to seeing in production. 

Session Six: Week 27

Tuesday

Tonight was all about cuts to the script. We began with the goal of staging Act One, scene three, but after reading through it once, we realized that a lot of it had to go. We made a series of cuts – some of them pretty dramatic – and then read it again. And then we realized that we wanted MORE cuts!

In the course of this process, we eliminated all of Dorset’s and Grey’s lines. The women playing those roles quietly voiced some resentment (they have so few lines to begin with) but rolled with the punches – they prioritize the ensemble pretty consistently. I mulled over this to myself and realized that Rivers still had a bunch of lines in the scene – and she (who is also playing Tyrrel) has been overwhelmed by the thought of memorizing as many lines as she has. I quietly asked her if she’d like to give some of her lines in this scene to Dorset and Grey. She liked that idea, so I asked the three of them to huddle and figure out how to distribute the lines.

After they had done so and shared with me, one of them prodded our Rivers/Tyrrel to tell me about a concern that she had. Tyrrel has a bit of a soliloquy, and the language is fairly complex, both of which were worrying her. We put our heads together and figured out how to cut nearly all of the speech. She was quite relieved!

At that point, we were so in the mode of making cuts that our Richard and Richmond both asked Matt and me to collaborate with them on honing down some of their monologues. It was a great exchange between the four of us – slowly going through those passages to figure out how much we could or should cut. We were able to make some significant changes.

I was concerned that not everyone in the ensemble was involved in the cutting process tonight, but when I conferred with the other facilitators (who hadn’t had their heads buried in a script for two hours), they told me that the others were either engaged in meaningful, reflective conversations or working on their scripts themselves. It was good to know that it had been overall a good, productive night for everyone.

Friday

We had low attendance tonight, which happens sometimes, and we decided to make the best of it by huddling around a table and working to adapt the scene in which the ghosts of Richard’s victims visit him and Richmond.

We have known that we would need to make adjustments to this scene, but we weren’t sure exactly how to do it. We began by reading through the scene to get a feel for the original writing and see what ideas came to us immediately. Aspects of the scene that stuck out to people included the brutality of some of the lines, the effectiveness of certain characters speaking in unison, and the number of ghosts in the scene. We determined that our goals would be to shorten the scene but preserve its intention and impact.

The group was a little stuck in the mode of simply cutting lines, but that kept presenting challenges that could only be overcome by altering the scene in a pretty radical way. I asked the group to go through it and identify key words and phrases that stuck out to them, beginning with the lines directed at Richard and then moving to the ones given to Richmond. We noted that the “Richard words” that struck us were dark, violent, and accusatory; the “Richmond words” were uplifting and encouraging. The core phrases we identified were “despair and die” (Richard) and “live and flourish” (Richmond). We also determined that Buckingham’s closing couplets are so powerful that we wanted to keep them to “drop the mic” on the scene.

I then asked the group why the scene is so repetitive – why did Shakespeare write it that way? There were several ideas about this that built on one another – that the device emphasizes the difference between the characters and that it drives home two points: 1) that what you do comes back to haunt you; there are always consequences, and 2) that Richard has a LOT of victims – not just one, but many lives. “This is one of the biggest parts of the whole play,” said one woman. “Yeah,” agreed another woman. “It’s like, you know how many people he’s killed, but this puts in in your face. We need to keep them all in. We need the magnitude.”

I asked the group why, in addition to the repetition, Shakespeare wrote the ghosts going back and forth between the two men. The group had several ideas about this: that it shows battles within and without; that it shows a shift in power from Richard to Richmond; that it makes the dichotomy between good and evil more dramatic.

So, I asked, what are the effects of the scene on each of the men? Richard is startled awake and has an incredible monologue in which he expresses doubt, fear, guilt, anxiety, and a feeling that he’s lost control. It’s his most human moment in the play. Richmond, on the other hand, feels encouraged, empowered, and energized (insert jokes here about how nearly every word we came up with began with “e”).

Then came the next phase – how did we want to stage this? One woman shared visions of the ghosts wearing tunics with images of how they were killed. We built on that by wondering if they could carry signs. Another woman said she pictured the ghosts wearing white makeup with black circles around their eyes. I pointed out that, while that would be visually very effective, it would be logistically very challenging. I asked if masks might achieve the same effect, and the group felt that that might work. Someone suggested bringing in a smoke machine, which I assumed wouldn’t be allowed and would be very complicated to use even if it were, and someone else suggested using fabric to simulate smoke. Another woman suggested that the ghosts wear “flowy ghost capes.”

Riffing on the phrases “despair and die” and “live and flourish,” we started to wonder if there was a way to stage this as a sort of protest. “Hashtag Ghost Lives Matter,” joked one woman. We started throwing ideas around. We all agreed that the ghosts should enter from all parts of the theatre, and we wondered if they should immediately speak or be silent at first. “This is people who’ve been silenced regaining their voices,” said one woman.

We thought of different types of movement. Should the ghosts move in a crowd? In a figure eight around the men? Should they stand in a line? Flip their signs or hold them steady? Or get rid of the signs altogether?

We struggled with how to put the words and phrases together but all agreed that Buckingham should end the scene. We also wondered how our adapted script would spur Richard’s monologue.

At that point, we realized we were out of time – the night went by very quickly! A few of us decided to keep brainstorming and write down our ideas to bring to the group on Tuesday, when we hope we can hash things out and finalize them.

It was a very exciting, engaging evening, and definitely an unusual one for us. We don’t often do collaborative writing like this – our interpretations are usually pretty straightforward. I’m excited to see where tonight’s brainstorm leads. We have so many good ideas!

Session Six: Week 26

Tuesday

Tonight’s check-in was fairly extended – pretty much everyone in the group was having a rough time and needed to share. Although what we were talking about was pretty dark, there was still humor sprinkled in, along with a great amount of support for one another.

A longtime ensemble member, who is an accurately self-described workhorse, came in during this check-in, realized what we were talking about, and promptly left. This caused me some concern, and when a friend of this ensemble member expressed that she was also concerned, I told her that the ensemble member has, over the years, frequently expressed that she would rather work on Shakespeare than talk about feelings, and that that is probably what caused her to leave. “But this is about so much more than Shakespeare,” she said. Another ensemble member nodded vigorously, saying, “Sometimes the check-ins need to be long. Today we needed to talk.” I agreed that this is an important aspect of what we do. The first inmate said, “We need that honesty, trust, accountability and team work… It makes it feel so good to be here. Not to mention the Shakespeare. I can’t tell you how much I love Shakespeare. It’s so accurate to our experience here – he uses the perfect words. I’m so glad I found this.”

We then decided to work on Act Four, scene two. There was some debate about whether we needed a coronation scene – since the goal is to perform this in 90 minutes or less, we don’t have much time for things like this. We eventually figured out an efficient, symbolic way to make it happen.

In this scene, Richard asks Buckingham to kill the princes. When Buckingham says he needs some time to think about it, Richard turns to a killer for hire, and then makes it very clear to Buckingham that he is out of favor. Buckingham decides to flee while he can.

We asked ourselves if Buckingham knows what Richard is asking from the get-go – is he deflecting, or does he honestly not know what he’s getting at? We leaned toward deflection, and we talked about the distance that immediately grows between the men, who have been so close throughout the play up until this point. I offered that the scene might largely be about the breakdown of that friendship. This was reflected in the women’s initial staging instincts – at first they drifted apart, and then Richard swooped back in to threaten Buckingham.

There was some confusion about the latter part of the scene – Stanley enters, has a brief exchange with Richard, and then stays on stage, saying nothing. We debated whether or not Richard brings him deeper into the conspiracy. We decided that if that happened it would give Stanley more impetus to go against Richard in the end, so we staged it that way – although we decided that Stanley should have some physical distance during Richard’s exchange with Tyrrel.

The woman playing Stanley was at first disappointed that many of her lines had been cut for time, but now she seems to be more enthusiastic about the role. She is certainly taking ownership of it. I’m really happy to see that.

Friday

Tonight we dove into Act Three, scene two, as our Hastings, who has frequently been absent due to work, was eager to get up on her feet. In this scene, Hastings is given a message by Stanley, who then enters the scene, about a dream he had about Richard. Hastings laughs off the danger. Some of our ensemble members found the scene a little obtuse, so we spent some time clarifying the content.

We had a bit of a debate about how entrances to the scene should work, and the scene’s Messenger, who also plays Dorset, spoke up again very strongly. This seems to be built upon the group’s positive reception to her voicing her ideas last week about Dorset – prior to that evening, she had been very quiet. It’s exciting to see her taking more of a stand now.

I have also noticed recently that one of our ensemble members, who nearly flaked toward the end of last season (we had legitimate concerns that she might not show up for our performances), has taken on more of a leadership role this year, becoming one of the ensemble’s most vocal cheerleaders and taking it upon herself to gently and kindly guide new ensemble members through unfamiliar territory. Tonight in particular, she helped a new ensemble member to understand the best way in which to do a cross and the reasons behind stepping downstage of another actor as opposed to upstage. It’s really, really great when that kind of advice comes from an ensemble member rather than a facilitator.

On Fridays, we are usually in a classroom rather than the auditorium, and this can lead to some confusion about our exact blocking. One instance was a brief argument over whether one person stepping backward would land her on the stairs leading to the stage, or if she would have room on the floor to make the move. We generally table these details until we get back in the auditorium. Despite the misunderstandings, things never got heated, and we laughed a lot as we tried to figure out what everyone was talking about.

The woman who is playing the Prince is extremely nervous about the amount of lines she has – she has fairly low confidence and giggled her way nervously through two minor roles in Othello last year. She had expressed a desire to cut the scene with Richard down as much as possible. After checking with the others in the scene, I asked another ensemble member, who is very good at cutting, to take a look at the scene and see what she could do to whittle it down.

Some of the women are already working on memorizing their lines. This is extremely early in the process for this to happen – in fact, I can’t remember it happening in years past. We applauded those women’s efforts and reminded them not to put too much pressure on – we still have three months until we perform. Several of the women have also been working lines and exploring scenes in their units, which, again, shows a lot of dedication that encourages others in the group to follow suit.