Shakespeare

After two rehearsals with Spur of the Moment Shakespeare Collective I am happily back on the Bardolator bus – and by that I mean, I’m spouting Shakespeare again!!! (Yes three exclamations for that!)

The last time I did Shakespeare was… yeesh… that long ago. I think at least two years? Really? Huh. See why I used 3 exclamation points? I missed the Bard. Missed him dearly. Sure I got to write a play for Humber River Shakespeare Co. Sonnet Show (which goes up May 24th) but writing and being inspired by Billy Wiggle Stick is much different than acting him out.

Spur (for short) is doing a couple different things with the teams they have collected from auditions. They have us not only doing the Shed Shows @ Fringe Fest, but traveling around doing shows at hospitals, nursing homes, and whomever else wants to have an immersive Shakespearean show. I really dig the Shakespeare-in-Hospitals part – it is kinda the coolest thing. Even cooler than that I got to pick some monologues that I am very excited to explore:

First is Richard III Act 1 Scene 1

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smooth’d his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barded steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other:
And if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mew’d up,
About a prophecy, which says that ‘G’
Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here
Clarence comes.

 

CHILLS. I love that speech! And the allowance to explore it is a gift. So excited!

Next is Queen Margaret when she has to say good-bye to her lover, Suffolk, because King/husband is starting to figure things out so Suffolk needs to leave now or lose his head!

 O, let me entreat thee cease. Give me thy hand,
That I may dew it with my mournful tears;
Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place,
To wash away my woful monuments.
O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand,
That thou mightst think upon these by the seal,
Through whom a thousand sighs are breathed for thee!
So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief;
‘Tis but surmised whiles thou art standing by,
As one that surfeits thinking on a want.
I will repeal thee, or, be well assured,
Adventure to be banished myself:
And banished I am, if but from thee.
Go; speak not to me; even now be gone.
O, go not yet! Even thus two friends condemn’d
Embrace and kiss and take ten thousand leaves,
Loather a hundred times to part than die.
Yet now farewell; and farewell life with thee!

So vulnerable. So honest. She is so much better at her goodbyes than Juliet any day! Speaking of… I have to play Juliet (gasp/shudder/horrors upon horrors/no really) in the balcony scene no less! I know right? But still – Shakes is good times, even if you’re a whiney snively teenager. My other scene ROCKS MY SOCKS. It’s the Iago and Othello scene where Iago says “beware the green-eyed monster” and plants the seed of jealousy in Othello’s mind. *insert maniacal laugh here* I get to play the baddy and I can’t wait.

So in short – I’m excited to be barding it up this summer. I hope you can catch some of this at Fringe or maybe around town. Watch the calendar for where and when. Until then, I’m perfecting my spear wiggling 😉