April Reflections

How was your April? Did you manage to spot any bluebells, or go for a walk in the rain? Whatever you did with your April, I hope it’s been full of happiness and creativity. Here are a few little things to share with you this month…

Quotation

‘Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

 And thus the native hue of resolution

 Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

 And enterprises of great pith and moment

 With this regard their currents turn awry

 And lose the name of action.’

- Hamlet, William Shakespeare

Or, in other words – overthinking is the enemy. This is so true in regards to the creative process. Often we have great, expansive ideas that we feel are safer from harm and criticism in our heads. Perhaps, we think, if we never write them they can never fall short of this ideal. But to fret over our ideas is to lose action, as Hamlet says. Make May the month you choose to be bold, brave and take action on your creative thoughts!

Reading

This month I went back into the weird and wonderful world of Muriel Spark, one of my absolute favourite writers, with The Comforters. The central character, Caroline, begins hearing the tapping of a typewriter and an authorial voice narrating her actions and innermost thoughts. This was Spark’s first novel and you can already see her unique voice developing.

Writing

This month I’ve been seeing the benefits of putting into practice the mantra of ‘don’t get it right, get it written.’ Sometimes all you can do is write what you want to say in the most basic, boring way you know. This foundation allows you to embellish and reshape later on, when you can see clearly what’s missing and what needs to be said.

Focus on…Well-being Spring Clean
I mentioned this before in my Six Ways to Enjoy Spring post. Spring is a great time to freshen up mentally. Take stock of the habits you’d like to get rid of, or habits you’d like to adopt for the better. Start the month by making a list of how you want to feel this May, and the actions you can take to achieve that feeling. If you want to feel grateful you could send someone a letter of appreciation. If you want to feel calm you could download a guided meditation.

Three things to look forward to in May

1. ‘April showers bring May Flowers’ – stocks, freesias, peonies, snapdragons to name a few.
2. Planning a lazy, luxury bank holiday breakfast.
3. Making pretty, pastel fairy cakes for May Day.

How has April been for you? What are you excited for in May?

Review: Great Shakespeare Actors by Stanley Wells

When in Rome do as the Romans do. When in Stratford-upon-Avon, purchase everything you can that’s Shakespeare related, i.e. everything. This is my mantra anyway. When I went this summer I treated myself to Stanley Wells’ Great Shakespeare Actors which lay on the Shakespeare themed table in Waterstones so temptingly.

In his book, Wells has chosen thirty-nine masters of Shakespeare. Not simply actors who can act Shakespeare but artists who bring something new or profound to the work. Wells explains how these great Shakespearean actors translate the works to us in the audience. So many people get turned on to Shakespeare by a particular performance or performer, in this way the actor has a crucial role. Wells has a difficult job in that he must recreate what it was like to witness watching the actors in performance. To do this he draws upon contemporary accounts, reviews, and autobiographies of the actors and, for some of the more recent entries, his own memories of seeing them in the flesh. In brief flashes he brings the experience of watching the actors to vivid life. He goes to great lengths to help us envision the voice and movement of these actors- we’re told of Georgian actress Sarah Siddons’ black eyes which could ‘flash with ferocity’ and of Paul Schofield’s gravelly, nasal twang. This is particularly beneficial for those performers we have no audio or visual record of.

The stories that emerge are colourful, theatrical and full of monumental egos. Anecdotes include: George Frederick Cooke’s drunken performance as the ghost in Hamlet to the alarming tale of Drury Lane favourite Charles Macklin murdering his co-star backstage. As the book is assembled into mini, readable essays per actor it means you can dip in and out quite happily, flitting between time periods. These entries give a quick but in depth analysis of the actor’s life, major roles and noteworthy characteristics of their style. This format makes for a great starting point for further reading, with its tantalising glances of these figures. You’re bound to be attracted to some actors more than others. I found myself drawn to the intelligent and womanly actresses of the Victoria era such as Ellen Terry and Helen Faucit. Faucit was keen to engage with the characters she played on a real, empathetic basis. Wells quotes her thoughts on Ophelia’s childhood envisioning it as one ‘with no playmates of her kind, wandering by the streams, plucking flowers, making wreaths’. Gratefully, there is plenty of backstage gossip thrown in too- we hear about the sexual appetites of Edmund Kean as well as the bitchy rivalry between theatrical heavyweights Donald Wolfit and John Gielgud.

At the heart of the book is a centuries long conversation between actors about how the lines should be delivered. Wells tells us that in one camp we have the actors who think of their craft as ‘an imitation of how people behave in real life’ versus an exaggerated, majestic style favoured by actors ‘acknowledging the artificiality of what they are doing.’ Throughout the book styles pendulum between these extremes, at times co-existing together. Preparatory methods also seem to be a crucial factor. Wells talks about the actors who transform themselves to look like their characters, the greatest example being Laurence Oliver as a hunchbacked, prosthetic everything Richard III. In the other camp are those who adapt the character to their own appearance and quirks- Gielgud remarked he wouldn’t stoop to impersonation. Written chronologically, the book charts the fashions of acting and casting over time. We meet the first great female actors to bring us the bounty of Shakespeare’s women. He highlights other trailblazers –Ira Aldridge, the first Shakespearean black actor as well as those championing the bard further across Europe and in America.

Stanley Wells is a rarity in that he has a gift of being able to tread the fine line between academia and accessibility. He reminds us that Shakespeare is there to be performed, heard and seen. The dedication of the book is to all great Shakespearean actors not mentioned in the book which I take to be a disclaimer that Wells has not intended this to be a definitive list. A whole host of names don’t make the cut- Patrick Stewart, Vanessa Redgrave and Helen Mirren to name a few. For the book’s younger readers, it is disappointing not to see mentions of the heroes of our generation like David Tennant, for example. Above all, the book emphasises that great Shakespeare acting is like the plays themselves, something woven into history- growing, regenerating, changing and modifying as times goes on.

For anyone interested in Shakespeare, acting and theatre this is an essential. Shakespeare sticky notes, Shakespeare colouring pencils and Elizabethan player’s masks probably aren’t - but I’ll keep buying them anyway…

Who would make your list of Great Shakespearean actors? What have been your favourite productions of Shakespeare?