John Peel
For the first time in the Midsummer Night’s Dream period, selections were taken from one of Peel’s Radio 1 shows. The file I heard was only 52 minutes long, so apart from the selections that have already been uploaded, I don’t have much to tell you about this show. One record which didn't make my list of selections was Lickin’ Chicken by Jackknife which featured on their San Francisco Beauty Queen double 7-inch EP released through Sympathy For the Record Industry. The notes that came with the record said that San Francisco Beauty Queen was the 187th release on Sympathy For the Record Industry, a fact which delighted Peel who remembered them when they started in 1988 and doubted that they would get past 5 releases.
It wasn’t on the recording I heard, but ahead of this show, Peel appears to have got his hands on a reissue of The Transformed Man, the infamous 1968 album recorded by William Shatner from which he played Captain Kirk’s version of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. I didn’t hear it on Peel’s show, but have a distinct memory from that time of hearing both that and his version of Mr. Tambourine Man on Radio 2’s Sounds of the Sixties.
Apologies are due again to Superchunk, who once again made the shortlist for inclusion here, but their Peel Session track, Let It Go failed the longevity test. It was the only track from my initial list of selections from this show, which failed to make it on to the metaphorical mixtape.
Me
A Midsummer Night’s Dream was staged at Falmouth Poly (then known as Falmouth Arts Centre) over 9-12 December 1992. Unlike The Comedy of Errors which my school had staged as a “traditional” Shakespeare play, the action in this production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was updated to 1930s New York, a task which was made much easier once we discovered that there was an Athens in New York state. Duke Theseus became a Mafia don, Demetrius was a Mafia soldier, the mechanicals who stage the play as part of Theseus’s wedding revels and are tradespeople in the original text were the heavies etc. It was an idea which crossed over very effectively, though it gave the actors the dual problem of trying to interpret Shakespeare with American accents. I was playing Oberon, the Fairy King (stop sniggering). Given that fairies were seen as universal beings, we were allowed to play the roles in our normal accents, which helped us a lot once the play got to the stage.
In rehearsal, the cast was split into three groups: The lovers/Mafia court, the mechanicals and the fairies. Each group had a separate director working on their content, which was fairly easy to do as, for the majority of the play, the three groups play out their actions separate from another. The course administrator, David Gregg, only came in to oversee the parts of the play where the groups overlap such as Bottom’s discovery by Titania after he has had his head changed into that of a donkey by Puck or the final scene of the play in which the mechanicals perform Pyramus and Thisbe at the wedding revels and the fairies end the play by blessing the proceedings. Unfortunately, the fairies were pretty much left to their own devices as our director only ever seemed to turn up 2 days out of every 5, and when he did take a rehearsal with us he always seemed to be getting into confrontations with the actresses who were part of Titania’s entourage. I was beguiled by K, the girl who played opposite me as Titania, though she had fairly quickly gotten into a relationship with one of the mechanicals, and I recognised that it was better to leave my admiration for her unspoken. Some other members of the group were not so circumspect and it came back to bite them. Nevertheless, I still remember the surge of surprise and adrenalin when during one of the rehearsals, one of the course tutors suggested that I, as Oberon, try and seduce K, as Titania, in order to try and (unsuccessfully) gain the upper hand in an argument that the two characters had over who got custody over a young Indian boy. And as I kissed her neck and felt her start to yield into me, I clearly remember thinking, “I love drama. I wouldn't be getting to do this if I was doing any other type of course.”
Although the fairies didn’t have to cope with playing Shakespeare in an American accent, we did have to endure body paint to an almost ridiculous degree. David Gregg had initially suggested that the fairies should be almost nude and body-painted in order to distinguish us from the mortal characters. But this was deemed impractical and none of us particularly fancied standing around for long stretches in virtually no clothes at the start of December. Eventually, we were all given distinctive costumes. Mine may well be the best I’ve ever worn in a show: A long leather coat with tails cut into it, a leather string vest and leather trousers over black boots and purple spats. K’s boyfriend, Martin, gave me a remarkable make up job to go with it: white base and black streaks which made me look like a monochrome Green Man. I looked and felt amazing. Martin left the course in the new year, just before we took the play out to be performed to drama students at a couple of local schools. As a result, I had to do my own makeup and Oberon looked as though he was in the process of recovering from a nervous breakdown. Every other spare bit of skin had to be covered with body paint and they also sprayed black hair dye into my brown hair. The girls had it worse than me, but for the whole of the production week, I was taking baths at 11pm and sleeping with a towel on my pillow to protect the pillowcases.
The production was well supported and the feeling among the company was positive at the end of the run. But the feedback we received suggested that the production was a slight failure. I remember a lot of complaints about the American accents, which several people felt obscured the text. For myself, I felt the show was too long, despite the fact that cuts had been made to the script, it felt a like a long night. I didn’t help with this given that I decided to sing Oberon’s last speech, which I wouldn’t repeat if I ever played the part again. There was a lot of good stuff in the production, many good performances, great production values which captured the Mafia vibe and innovative use of a scaffold and dry ice helped to conjure up the magic of the forest into which the lovers, mechanicals and fairies combine to such wonderful effect.
On a personal level, I felt I’d taken a step forward as an actor. I felt my performance was less “stagey” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream than I had been in The Comedy of Errors. The size of the role helped, with so much more to work with, I was able to trust the text without feeling the need to impose any “Shakespearean” tones at inappropriate moments. I enjoyed the challenge as well and combining that with the wonderful look of the costume/makeup, I felt for the first time that I was fully absorbing a role on stage. I looked forward to more such challenges in 1993, both onstage and off. By the end of 1992, I was relishing how I spent my time, enjoying the people I was spending that time with and gradually, gently starting to embrace life and this would continue on into the next 12 months.
Coming next - the definitive John Peel mixtape for A Midsummer Night’s Dream followed by my Festive Fifty for 1992.
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