Oh I was so happy with myself for getting myself into an early scene. “Lodovico should surely be in the senate in Venice,” I expostulated, but I was needed for my singing. So I proposed a version of the scene live where Lodovico sings and then comes into the scene. And it worked. So now I’m at least going to be visible to those many friends of mine who have never seen a Shakespeare and are going to end up watching Othello to see what the fuck this guy they know who sorts out the screws is gonna do with iambic pentameter.
But it means I’ll be in rehearsal first thing tomorrow morning. For “cloak work”
When I auditioned for Guildhall I was asked about what theatre I’d been to recently. I had been to Hong Kong and watched a group of dancers rehearsing a cape dance in a shopping mall. It had fascinated me to the extent that I’d watched it for hours. The director was a tyrant. The dance was relatively simple but the precision demanded was nigh on impossible to the extent I felt it was much more about the ego of the person demanding the precision than it was about how possible the precision was.
Watching and then later in class with Wendy I tried to be amazing at cloak. Halloween walks in a riding cape for years added to my activation. I know cape work. I’m very good at it.
Tomorrow, the morning after my fiftieth birthday, because I got myself into the scene, I’m called first thing to do “cape work” with the movement director for an hour before I have nothing else for the rest of the day.
You make your own fucking bed.
Still I’m thrilled. I’m in a scene I wasn’t in. I didn’t want to just show up at the end and be in a totally different energetic place.
But it means I’m off to bed. Drinks and food with friends tonight who I won’t see on Saturday. Friends on Saturday. If you are reading this and are wondering why you haven’t been invited it’s because I’m avoiding social media. You ARE invited if you can text me and ask me where and when. x
AlBarclay 