Directing Journal Entry One: Summer Camp and Lessons Learned

This summer, I went to a camp called YCTC (Young Company Theatre Camp) at the Blackfriair’s playhouse in Stanton, VA. There, I acted in a shortened performance of the second part of Antony and Cleopatra, and during those three weeks I spent working on the show, I made many mental notes on what I liked and disliked from directors, actors, and stage crew, as well as what shapes and images I liked to see on stage.

In Antony and Cleopatra, I played a vast number of roles (8), ranging from Mardian the eunuch to Decretas to messengers and soldiers. While I understood that the situation of the play—way more characters than actors, and many characters with very small roles—I generally prefer when actors are single or double cast. If a single actor comes on stage in so many different costumes as so many different characters, the audience begins to get confused. Even my own parents, who were honing in on me throughout the performance couldn’t keep my characters straight. I think if I were to direct Antony and Cleopatra (with an unlimited number of actors at my disposal) I would leave Mardian as Mardian and Decretas as Decretas. I wouldn’t double cast those characters, partly because it requires a difficult quick change, and partly because their loyalties are in completely different places, and to double cast them would be to confuse the audience. Also, because there is so much side-switching built into the plot of the play, I would try to eliminate as much doubling as possible that crossed between camps. I would try not to double cast a supporter of Cleopatra as a supporter of Caesar, and if it was truly necessary, I would make it obvious that it was an actor playing two roles and not a character who had switched sides through very different costuming and physicality. I would also try to help actors with multiple characters create a different personality and physicality to distinguish them, not only for the audience, but for the actors themselves.

Another tricky thing about Antony and Cleopatra is the scene where the wounded and dying Antony is lifted up into Cleopatra’s monument. How to get Antony onto the balcony in a realistic way seemed impossible, and we were all stumped. However, we employed a bit of mime work and some trickery to make it work. Cleopatra and her maids were on the monument with one rope, and Antony in the discovery space with another. A person stood behind the curtain in the back of the discovery space with the second rope, and as Cleopatra dropped hers, the boy behind the curtain dropped his, in perfect timing with the lines. A servant then helped tie Antony into the knotted rope, and as Cleopatra began to pull her rope “taut,” the boy behind the curtain pulled his completely taut, again, timing by the lines. Then, the two people holding open the curtains to the discovery space closed the curtains, Antony pulled himself out of the rope and booked it up the stairs to the monument and tied the upstairs rope to himself while Cleopatra and her girls covered with lines. Then, they “pulled him up to the monument,” while he lay on the floor, hidden by the balcony, eventually standing where he could be seen.

While I’m not sure if there is a better way to perform this almost impossible feat (one wonders what in the world Shakespeare was thinking), I do think the method our director employed was too indirect a science. We worked entirely based around a few lines, and the two rope holders could not see one another. Also, while the audience could hear both groups well, the two groups had a harder time hearing cue lines from one another because lines aimed outwards to the audience were having trouble making it through the floor to the people below in the discovery space. Because there were so many variables in the action, a line could be dropped, or someone could move early, the whole illusion could easily have been shattered. Though I have heard of a cast who tied a rope thrown over the balcony to Antony and pulled him up while he also pulled himself up, I think that is also a difficult way to perform it, though there are less variables to worry about botching. When I first read the scene I imagined a group of soldiers holding Antony on his back above their heads in a style akin to “light as a feather, stiff as a board.” I then imagined Cleopatra looking down to him over the balcony when they speak, and making her “how heavy weighs my lord” comments in response the shaking arms of the soldiers lifting him up. I think my imagination miss-judged the height difference between the floor and the balcony at the Blackfriars, though, for what I imagined next was him being lifted up by the soldiers on the ground and soldiers up above into the monument. This would be possible if I were able to design my own set, but not at the Blackfriars. However impossible it might be at the playhouse, I love the image of Antony being lifted by his soldiers above his head in a way that seems to symbolize death. It might be how he would have been carried after he died from the wound he has already given himself, reminding the audience that he is about to die.

All-in-all, the experience playing in Antony and Cleopatra was a fun one, a chance for me to improve my acting skills and play with different physical traits and voices. I was given a chance again to study the way boys walk, sit, talk, and stand as opposed to the way girls do, for all of my characters were male. I also got to see professional performances of Othello, Taming of the Shrew, and Wild Oats, and take notes about what I liked and disliked. I discovered an annoyance with actors who note one another or argue with a director, and discovered that I cannot stand when an audience begins to clap along with a song, for while it shows enthusiasm, it makes me and other audience members cringe about how some people can’t keep a rhythm. Another thing I dislike during shows is lines—unless the line is well-done, and formed purposely to create a certain image, the actors should avoid standing in one, for an unintentional line is usually slightly off, and it looks as if the actors have tried to do something and failed, while in reality, they only forgot to try not to do something.

Altogether, I think I gained some great tools to begin work on this directing study!