Even though risky to insert my own words into the work of a genius, "easy is hard and hard is easy" essentially defines my two weeks working in a small 12 person group with my first (of three) directors, Dominic. Full of energy like a coiled spring, Dominic's vibe was that of a pixie; a short, petite man, Dominic boasted eyes that seemed to be so full of magic and sparkle that I almost could have entertained the idea that he was an elf or fairy-like creature. The staple of his wardrobe are forest green pants and a bright green watch (surely from the Elf Forest) and his voluptuous hair seemed to literally defy gravity. But in all seriousness, Dominic's brilliance as a director comes from his ability to give depth and meaning to the (seemingly) easiest tasks and unite a group of twelve strangers.
Most days we begin our three hour scene study session with ensemble exercises. Especially for young actors, taking risks with Shakespeare's text will be only successful if you can dive 100% into the risk, and thus an environment of trust and respect is needed among those working. Dominic gave us a simple task:
"Walk around the room and live out here with us." Okay, sounds pretty basic. However, so many of us are unaware of our tendency to look at the ground (Dominic: "I swear guys, nothing is on the fucking floor." I would also like to point out that British drama teachers throw "fuck" or "fucking" around with the same frequency that they drink tea, so don't be alarmed.) and our hesitancy to make honest contact, with eyes or smiles or bodies, with others. Have you ever just wanted to hold eye contact for one beat longer than is socially acceptable? Too bad, you're going to come across as a creeper. Luckily, that instant response of disgust doesn't exist in a room full of actors. If you want to look at someone for 4 seconds instead of 2, go for it! If you feel the impulse to smile a little at someone as you walk by them, oh snap, go for it, you rebel! This is what "living out here with us" means: keep your head up and be open to communication with others. After all, how can you feel emotion in a scene if you're not open to feeling it? Once we mastered walking around in a space and not looking at the riveting and exciting linoleum floor, we challenged ourselves with tasks that seem simple but are actually kind of impossible.
Get into a circle. As a group, you will raise your right hand together and simultaneously, then, when you feel the time is right, you will all quickly drop your right hand, sit down, have a moment of stillness, stand back up, and repeat. But the trick is that nobody can lead and yell, "Okay, guys, on 3!" Instead, you must be aware of all the movements in the circle and listen to your own personal impulse that whispers, "Goddamn it, put your fucking arm down." When in true cohesion, the movements are spot on and there is only one flicker of all twelve arms dropping, not twelve separate movements. The other difficulty in this exercise is the deflection of the want to do superfluous movements, like adjusting your shirt or wiping your brow, or pushing hair behind your ear. Learn to focus, and yet at the same time notice everything that your peers are doing too. So after the previous exercise of walking to sprinting in the space, I had sweat literally dripping down my face. You have no idea how much I wanted to wipe the burning, acidic sweat out of my eye. But in that moment, that was not the task. The task was to focus and raise my arm, and drop it, and sit, and stand. It would not be fair to my peers, who are all invested in this goal, to get distracted now. Discipline is pretty cool, actually.
On Tuesday night, we attended Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, a space that has been triumphant in preserving a sense of itself from hundreds of years ago: no roof, no microphones, a partially standing audience, and two notoriously large and obstructive poles on the stage that block the view for some unfortunate part of the audience. I was standing three feet from the stage in the front of the standing audience, where all the peasants would have smelled of rotten vegetables and sewers, but still with an awesome view of the actors. I could see the sweat fly from the actors' faces during a fight scene, could pick out the seam that connected the pieces of their old-fashioned costumes, and witnessed a second possible tragedy that was cleanly avoided as the person standing in front of me dodged being hit in the face with a prop (we were that close). Once you've been working in depth with Shakespeare's neatly packaged yet puzzling language for a few weeks, it's almost like you don't have to untie the metaphors, rhyming couplets, and subtle (sometimes) sexual innuendoes of the time; everything just makes sense. All the lines that would muster up only sighs of frustration and doodles of boredom in high school English classes now held importance and my utmost appreciation, because Shakespeare wasn't meant to be read like a book in an uncomfortable wooden desk. It's supposed to be put up on a stage under a sky full of stars (and now planes) and acted with true emotion. That's what makes Shakespeare timeless: the relationships between the characters and the emotions. Any modern audience can relate to Macbeth's desperation to succeed and to gain power, or to Lady Macbeth's hope and certainty that her husband will in fact be victorious. Nobody speaks in sonnets, or in iambic pentameter, be we all feel and connect on some level with others, and as theatre-goers we've been that way for hundreds of years. The play closed in a semi-choreographed dance, accompanied by two violins and the clapped rhythm held by the audience. But the dance was special: the majority of the actors couldn't see their fellow actors up on stage. They didn't appear to be counting beats in their heads. They couldn't make eye contact or yell, "Oy, when I count to 3 we'll all raise our right arm!" Instead, they proved that they had mastered the art that Dominic had been directing us towards in our class: feeling the support and presence of your peers. So there I stood, my heels partially numb from standing for three hours, and I realized as these actors all raised their right hand to begin the dance, that they were doing what I was learning. The dance continued, and the actors never were out of sync with each other. Having struggled with it in class, I appreciated the bond and trust they must have created in order to pull off this act of ultimate connectedness.
When you think about it, life can always be a beautiful dance. All it takes is some feeling, some trust, and the risk of making honest connection.
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