Brendan O’Hea is directing our touring productions: TwelfthNight, Pericles, and The Comedy of Errors

Brendan O’Hea is directing our touring productions: TwelfthNight, Pericles, and The Comedy of Errors. A company of eight actors, two stage managers and one wardrobe manager are taking these tales of home and belonging across the world, performing toaudiences familiar and brand new.In this blog Brendan talks aboutthe importance of these plays, performed by this cast at this moment in timeand in particular in Refugee Week.                  ______________________________________________________________Shakespeare is an internationallanguage. I discovered this when I toured A Midsummer Night’s Dream toRussia and China. Everyone knew his plays. I met a self professed hitman inEkaterinburg who was incensed at the length of time it took Hamlet to killClaudius. And I was introduced to an eleven year old in Shanghai who was ableto quote the entire role of Fluellen at me. But it was my work with GlobeEducation that really opened my eyes. Over the years, I have had the privilegeof teaching hundreds of students from across the world, and have constantlybeen dazzled by their open-heartedness, enthusiasm, and encyclopaedic knowledgeof Shakespeare. His words cross borders. It was this that made me dream aboutforming an international company.We were aware that this year’s touringshows would be playing at the Globe during refugee week, and so we chose TwelfthNight, Pericles, and The Comedy of Errors. All three plays involveshipwrecks, displacement and an examination of how one absorbs and adaptsoneself into other cultures. They are an exploration of otherness andassimilation. Shakespeare is always relevant, but these three plays feelparticularly timely. When countries are becoming more isolationist and inwardlooking, it seemed like a good idea to investigate what links us, regardless ofwhere we come from. I also find something poetic in the idea of a companytouring the world performing plays that explore the idea of home. I’ve always approached Shakespeare’splays as orchestral scores. There are trios and duets and arias, and there’sprose and verse and rhyme. It would be a pretty dull orchestra made up entirelyof violins. We need different instruments. So when casting, I’m alwayslistening out for the blend of voices, seeing how they might work together.Touring - especially touring three shows - forces one to be economical with theset, costumes and props. But this means an even heavier reliance on the actor’svoice (and body) to communicate the play. And so the actors we auditionedneeded to be vocally (and physically) flexible. For their auditions, the actors wereasked to prepare two characters - one part they felt was a natural fit forthem, and one they could never imagine playing. Depressingly, too many actors -and predominantly young women - would say ‘the part that I can never see myselfplaying is Viola or Adriana’. And when asked why, they would say ‘Because I’mthe wrong size, or I’m not attractive enough.’ I found this profoundlydepressing, as this was young people at the start of their careers, who werealready putting limitations on themselves - or at least allowing others to put limitationson them. We can be whatever we want to be. (Incidentally, I rarely know whichpart the actors will play when I invite them to join the ensemble. This is donemuch later, once I know they are on board. And this is a testament to thecurrent touring ensemble - they all accepted the job on faith, without knowingwhat line of parts they’d be taking on).Someone asked me the other day how my ‘littleplays’ were going? There is nothing ‘little’ about touring three plays acrossthe world. We have two wonderful stage managers who shepherd the ensemblethrough airports, put up the set and are always the first to arrive and last toleave each venue; a superb wardrobe manager who, in Pericles alone,juggles seventy eight costume changes; and an extraordinary troupe of eightactors - some fresh out of drama school, some speaking in a language other thantheir mother tongue, or some playing an instrument for the first time. And alleleven of them committing to the work with a passion, good humour and grace. Thereis nothing ‘little’ about what they’re doing. I think they’re pioneers.Refugee Week 2019 runs from 17-21 June. Globe on Tour will be at the Globe in this week before continuing their international tour.Photography: The Comedy of Errors and Pericles, photographed by Marc Brenner.  -- source link

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