I hate the first day of rehearsals.
No, I love the first day of rehearsals, sure its the start of a new job!
Both statements are true.
The thing about your first day on the new gig is that its a serious mixture of fear and excitement. On the one hand your buzzed to be starting a new job and meeting all these new people for the first time. On the other you’re scared shitless because there’s a room full of people you don’t know;
‘Hi I’m Jamie, I’m playing whatever. How’re you?’
And that’s where the conversation ends because you don’t know the person well enough yet to have that matey witty banter. And worst of all you have to do a read through in a minute and you know everyone in the room will judge you straight away on your reading of a script which you probably haven’t read. Actually that last bit is only true if you’re me, most actors have the cop on to read the fecking play before the first day of rehearsals. Not me though. But then again not every actor has just arrived back from a week and a half long session in the Déise the day before. Priorities my good friends, priorities. So like every other first day of rehearsals I hit the road (to Clapham to start Much Ado About Nothing) with a knot in me stomach. I wasn’t too bad because I actually knew a couple of people in the show. Now that always helps! About a month before we started I read in the online edition of that most famous Waterford rag, the Munster Express, that a young actor from town was doing well in England, aw do they mean me? Not a sign! I guess I don’t qualify for the ‘Young’ bit any more. They were doing a bit on Andrew McLoughlin (Stage name Andrew Macklin). Now I remember Andrew from his days in Waterford Youth Drama cos I wrote the music for a few of the shows he was in. Grand chap, good actor and I knew he had hit the road to train in Bristol and then moved to the London and here in this article it announced that he was about to be in Sir Peter Hall’s production of Much Ado About Nothing. Well feck me so was I. Nice one, good to have another blue on board! Then, while I was still hungover at home, I got a text from Richard Stacey, the lucky fecker who got Beckett in the West End last year. He was in the show too and had seen me name on the contact list. Ah deadly! Top head this guy, I had worked with him on a show two years ago. Y’know the one that no one saw except that guy that recognised me at the call centre. Now apart from being an all round nice guy, he’s a classy actor, so it was well excellent to be working with him again. So that was deadly that I knew a couple of heads on the first day, surely that would make the ordeal easier. Again, not a sign. First days are bad enough on their own.
They’re even worse when there’s a film crew in the room as well.
The South Bank show were doing a special for Peter Hall’s 75th birthday and we had been forewarned that there would be cameras in the room on the first day. But Jesus, it was like these guys were filming a summer blockbuster with all the gear they had in the room. Now I may be exaggerating but I tell ya, it really seemed like the case at the time. The first half hour, which is always the ‘meet and greet’, was now spent ducking the cameras. I do want to do more telly, but this was not the right time! But I got caught. I was over talking about old times with el Stacey when I saw Sir Peter making a beeline for me to say hello. The minute he got to me and shook the hand I had a camera in me face and a boom mic over me head. He was very nice and welcoming and said he hoped I was in good voice. And to that I replied:
‘Oh yes. I’m grand, I’ve been back singing in Ireland for the past week sure.’
I’m some pleb. It was some lie because I wasn’t singing I was drinking and it was just a fucking cat thing to say anyway. Where was me trademark witty retorts? Nowhere to be seen! Of course this may now be broadcast to the nation in November. The funny thing is, as much as I don’t want my spastic mumblings to be seen on TV I would get paid if it was shown. Ah well, no one I know watches the South Bank show anyway, just give me the cash! The cameras then stayed for the day which was excruciating. We sat down to do the read through and they set themselves up around us. It didn’t turn out to be a read through in the end as all the way through Sir Peter would stop us and give notes on the delivery of the text. The worst thing ever happened then. One of the actresses was reading her speech from act one and she was stopped, given notes and asked to do it again, and again, and again. He was adamant about how she should speak the lines. Now this is grand and normal practice but the minute Sir Peter started giving her notes the cameras swooped in. There was one on him, another on her and a mic over her head. Time seemed to slow down while all this was happening and we all started to feel a bit queasy and just thankful it wasn’t us. But fair fucks to her she weathered it and didn’t leave it get to her and really just got on with it every time he stopped her. Brave brave lady. Funny thing is I thought she was delivering it really well in the first place. Shows what I know I guess. When they got to my first bit (all 10 lines of it) I tried it in me best RP but got a bit stuck on the ‘TH’s. Of course this doesn’t exist in the Déise accent, they all become a hard ‘T’ or a ‘D’. So my line, which was;
Note this before my notes
There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.
when you cross Rice bridge becomes:
Note dis before my notes,
Dere’s not a note of mine dat’s wurt de notin’ ........ boy
So its a sound that me mouth just isn’t used to making and I used to get killed for it in drama school. So Sir Peter suggests that I do it in my own accent. That’s cool so, but I’m a bit annoyed as I’m pretty good at accents but that just made me seem like a pleb. Shite on it anyway.
The following day the cameras were gone thank god, but the read through was still going on. We got to the part of the play with the comedy Watchmen, and I was giving my watchman as well as my Balthazar. I lashed into those lines with real vigour, and in me best Congress Place accent. Afterwards Sir Peter commented that he liked the Irish accent for the Watchman so would I mind doing Balthazar in RP? Good stuff. I was getting a chance to redeem me English accent so. Sound. Actually he really really liked the Irish accent, so much so he asked the rest of the people in that scene to affect an Irish brogue. Now I’m not saying I was influential but I was an influence (although of course there was another blaa in the room, Mr. Macklin). The Irish had invaded the world of Will Shakespeare. Actually accents are nothing new to the bard, sure I did Midsummer Night’s Dream as if I worked in Kervick’s, but still I was pleased that I had made some little mark in the rehearsal room.
Now lads I have to state this for it really is the case; I had a really small bit to do in this show, and that beacame all too apparent when we did the two day read through. I sat there agog at some of the other actors (because there was some serious heads in that room let me tell ya.) but really had fuck all to say for meself. Needless to say I was hankering for more lines.
I got more lines.
This happened in two instances. One good, one bad. As always, good news first. When I got this gig I knew it was small and the main reason for the part of Balthazar was to sing one of Shakespeare’s more well known songs, ‘Hey Nonny Nonny’, sing along if you know it. When I browsed through the script before the audition I found that there was another song in the show. Ah that must be for me then. Well not nessecarily, because the lines before it belong to the Claudio part, and the song is attributed to no one so it looks like it should be Claudio singing it. So we came to that bit in the read through, this was the moment of reckoning. Did I have another song? It would have made the job a bit sweeter if I did. As fate would have it I was sitting beside Claudio at that time. I had highlighted all my lines in the script except for that song because I didn’t want to tempt fate. I glanced across the table to find that he had highlighted his lines AND the song. Ah well, he must know something I don’t. I resigned meself to the fate of only having one song. Not a sign. As we got to that bit, Claudio said his lines and just as he was about to speak the song Sir Peter did proclaim;
‘And now we have a song from that well-known Irish tenor.’
Now the well-known and tenor bit was inaccurate but that fact that he said Irish and was pointing at me left me in little doubt that I was gonna be belting out that comeallye in the show. Nice one, the little bit I was doing all of a sudden had more bits. Then the bad instance happened. As I said, as well as playing Balthazar the singer I was also contracted to play one of the comedy watchmen, and these boys had lines. Grand. There was two Watchmen with lines, ingeniously called Watchman 1 and Watchman 2, and No. 1 had more to say than the other. Of course I was hoping that I’d get the meatier bit, but as it transpired it was given to someone else. No hassle. I had my bit and was happy with me lot (and two songs). But that wasn’t the end of it. After the first read through we sat down to read it again and just before we got to the Watch bit I saw sir Peter having a chat with Watchman 1 and telling him that, in the first scene at least he had to give his lines to one of the older actors. Gutting. Now it had shag all to do with anything he was doing because this guy is a class actor, but Don Pedro Hall wanted a more senior gent doing that bit. And that’s how shitty this business can be, you have feck all to do in a show and you find that they can even take that feck all away from ya. At least he had the lines in the second watch scene. Well no, he didn’t. When we got to that scene Sir Peter pointed at me and told me to say those lines. Aw fuck. But what do you do? Its not like you can tell the director that you think the other fella should do it. I felt like a bastard but it wasn’t my fault. But I still didn’t stand up to Sir Peter. How could I.
The part was shitty but the real reason I was in that room and had waited a brain numbing, call centre working age to do this job was to work with Peter Hall. Let me tell you, you knew you were in the presence of a legend in that room. I sat there (not saying anything because I had fuck all to say) and took it all in. Now I’ve done Shakespeare before, I mean I was feckin nominated for best young classical actor, but in that room I realised I didn’t have a clue. After a couple of days he sat us down and gave us a lecture on how to deliver Shakespearean text and this was from the boy who wrote the book on it (no seriously he did ‘Shakespeare’s Advice to the Players’ by Peter Hall, available at all good bookshops). I realised in that couple of hours that I had really just busked it and got lucky the last time I did a classical play. Now it was all laid bare and it made a lot of sense to me because he described it in musical terms, the rhythm of the verse, how at a line ending you should pause ever so minutely, like taking the foot off the sustain pedal when playing the piano. Lovely. It was an acting lesson I was getting paid for. Sound!
So after all the waiting it had finally begun and within the first week I had gotten more lines, another song, learned how to speak the Shakespeare, and made a whole scene feckin Irish. As they always say;
‘There’s no such thing as small parts, only small players.’
Too right boy.
