Year of the King: An Actor's Diary and Sketchbook - Twentieth Anniversary Edition (28 page)

`It's not Wimbledon!' cries Bill. `And you're wafting! I don't want to
see any wafting! No ghost acting!'

The ghosts are going to come up out of the tombs, which have secret
back entrances, so each new ghost joins the group from behind. This
means the others have to sense his presence and make a natural parting
for him. Inevitably, ghosts crash, trip, get tickled and goosed, Blessed
burps and farts.

`English actors,' laments Bill afterwards, `English actors are so selfconscious. There'd be no problem with that scene if you had continental
or American actors.'

MOTHER SCENE (Act rv, Scene iv) We have a brief look at this vital
scene. Bill has a nice image for when Richard calls for his drummers and
trumpeters to drown her out: `A petulant boy turning up the hi-fi.'

PRINCES SCENE After further consultations with Tucker, we have
decided to abandon the piggyback ride and go for the Brando/gorilla
version instead. The young York says, `Because that I am little like an
ape, he thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders!' ... Richard's
face goes blank, he rises slowly, pauses, and then defuses the tension with
the gorilla act.

One of the older boys, Rupert Finch, says, `Wouldn't it be better if you
turned away so that we couldn't see what you're thinking? As if you were
shunned. And then suddenly turn back and be the gorilla. It would be
more surprising.'

He's quite right. It is much better. `So wise, so young, they say ...'

SOLUS The nightmare speech. Bill says, `It's about fear in a very personal
way. We mustn't talk about it too much. Anyway there's not a lot I can
say. I know what it means to me, but it's got to be your personal expression
of terror. We must just let it happen gradually.'

A stocktaking on the disability. As I'm coming off the book I'm experimenting more and more with the polio walk.

`Oh it's polio, is it?' says Bill. `I've been wondering what you've been
doing. Lucky we're having this discussion.' He feels it's too disabled, too
extreme a difference from the speed and agility on the crutches. He'd
prefer the disability to be less specific - he suggests bone damage caused
by the difficult birth - but basically strong and capable.

I feel no sense of wasted research. Everything seeps together. The new
walk, for example, immediately becomes slightly spastic, which I thought
I had ditched as an option.

ARDEN HOTEL BAR With Bill and Roger Allam, who is a joy and one
of the best verse-speakers in the Company. I call him The Voice Beautiful
and he calls me The Body Busy (the other day he said, `I wouldn't like
to see you in Whose Life is it Anyway!'). I outline Monty's theory about
Richard and his mother. Bill is very taken with this.

QUEEN MARGARET SCENF. This morning Bill comes in and talks to
the cast about finding more tribaL'animal behaviour. Getting away from
the stiff formality of history-play acting.

Bill has always been open about how uncomfortable he feels with
improvisations, workshops and exercises. Unfortunately, for something
like this, it's the only way. Instead Bill suggests running the scene, `trying
to be more bestial'.

The result is a disaster. Behaviour not from the animal world but the
world of pantomime. Cackling laughter, food being thrown around, sinewy
`wicked' acting. Although I'm participating and probably responsible for
some of the worst excesses, I can hardly bear to watch the others. Have
to bury my head on the crutches for much of the scene. In one fell swoop
there is a vision of how ludicrous this play can be if we don't get it right.
The endless suffering, squabbling and cursing. Unintentionally, we've
made it funnier than the Liverpool production, which was trying to be
funny.

The rehearsal ends with extreme dishonesty. We all mutter the usual
bullshit ('Well, we've got a good basic shape to work from') instead of
sitting down and saving, `That was terrible, that was embarrassing, we
must never be so had again.'

On to the King Edward scene (Act u, Scene i) and then the scene with
Clarence's children (Act ii, Scene ii), and worse and worse it gets. These
are difficult scenes - people are dying left, right and centre, news of death
being broken to brothers and children; wives and mothers in grief. So
much acting going on. We're only at the beginning of Act Two and already
every emotion known to man (or rather those unknown to man, but loved
by actors) has been laid bare on the stage.

Feel very shaken by lunchtime. I fear that it's partly my fault. I've been
acting too much too soon, starting with all that shouting at the read-through.
People might be taking their cue from me: emoting instead of investigating.
But we have also uncovered a dangerous trap in the play; it gives many
of the characters A Big Moment. And, as actors, we love this - our chance
to do a mini-Lear, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Coriolanus, Volumnia. That
must be resisted or the story won't be allowed to flow. And anyway, we'd
be laughed off the stage.

Find Bill and pour out all of this. His eyes glaze over, the flesh on his face drops at least an inch and turns to putty. He says, `It wasn't that
bad. You're over-reacting. You must allow everyone their own rehearsal
process.'

I go away realising that this has been another symptom of the fear. The
scenes were terrible, but there is no need for panic yet.

I must steady myself.

We are at that tricky stage: we're putting down the scripts, the lines are
dragging in our heads rather than dancing. Everything feels exposed and
faintly embarrassing. The scripts have been little shields up until now.

Blessed says, `It's the time to be brave.'

Go into rehearsals determined to take things slower, to act less, to question
more, particularly the moments of horror.

The result is a much better day.

STRAWBERRY SCENE (Act III, Scene iv) Long discussion about what
Richard does here. He has to burst into the Council Chamber saying that
he's suddenly been bewitched, produce his withered arm as evidence and
accuse Queen Elizabeth and Mistress Shore of witchcraft. Shore is
Hastings's lover and so in this roundabout way Hastings is implicated and
condemned to death. It makes no logical sense at all. It's pure bravado
on Richard's part. Ironically, this does demand acting of the most spectacular sort, all guns firing, so impressive and so fast that no one has a chance
to say, `Hang on, you've always had that withered arm.'

It's generally agreed that the way we've found of doing this - smashing
one of the crutches down on to the council table, Richard imagining this
thing to be a withered arm - is effective in the way that the scene demands,
and not ludicrous.

To increase the illusion of Richard being possessed, I suggest that he
should come in vomiting - he's not above putting a couple of fingers down
his throat for effect. But Bill feels that this would be going too far.

Thus we proceed with caution, step by step.

HASTINGS' HEAD SCENE The budget cannot stretch to another Tucker
creation, but we are assured that the Prop Department will excel themselves. It will have the correct weight and floppiness of a freshly severed
head.

How to bring it on stage? Bill A. suggests it is stuck on a pike, covered by a cloth which is then whipped off. This will surely get a laugh. It will
be like a magic trick. His next suggestion is that it be uncovered on the
pike dripping into a large tray underneath. Bill D. feels this will be too
much like a kebab. He suggests one of the soldiers carry it on by the hair.
Better.

What about the business of putting the head into the mayor's hands,
and passing it about? This will definitely get laughs. Are they valid? Not
sure. All I know for certain is that we must be able to shock when we
want, make them laugh when we choose. My fear from yesterday's terrible
rehearsals is us being laughed at.

BAYNARD'S CASTLE Still tedious. Why, why, why?

FIGHT REHEARSAL I hate to say it but I'm losing faith in the idea of
the crutches. They get in the way so much. I can't reach for things or
carry anything. They are very disabling (which I suppose is the point, but
also a drag). Will it get easier with practice? More to the point, are the
sodding things a good idea and worth pursuing or not? The main worry
about losing them altogether is the point Charlotte made about the
disability: it's safer when played on crutches.

We have all agreed that if they are to work they must be employed early
on in the play as weapons. The earliest opportunity is the beginning of
the Lady Anne scene when Richard stops the funeral procession and is
challenged by the guards. Shakespeare doesn't indicate a fight here but,
with a tiny snip at the text, one is easily contrived. It needs to be short
and vicious. Richard's blows must be sadistic beyond the call of duty.

Stage violence is one of my bugbears. You hardly ever see it done well
enough. Because the fights have to be choreographed so carefully and the
blows pulled or cheated, a kind of balletic stylisation takes over. Most
stage fights are rather graceful. They lack the scrabbling ugliness of real
violence. Also a shorthand develops in playing pain. We often forget to
consider the agony that a mere stubbed toe or bumped head can cause.
Actors will take bone-crushing blows, do a token `Argghh!', get up and
stroll away.

But Malcolm Ranson is one of the best fight directors in the business.
The usual problem - where to strike on the body? He devised a very
effective metal backplate for Chris Hunter, as Oswald in King Lear, so
that his back could be broken with a staff. One of the guards can have
this. The target is large and I can swipe at it with full strength. With the other guard we devise a jerky scrabble across the stage - when animals
fight those little charges and retreats are as vicious as the actual contact.
But then the problem is where to hit him? We are face-on so all the targets
are delicate areas. Eventually settle on a jab to his stomach. He can
catch the crutch as I swing it and then control the impact of the blow
himself.

The monks carrying the bier suggest that they could have crash helmets
under their cowls and I could lay them all out as well. Bill says that he
has no intention of playing the rest of the scene, one of Shakespeare's
most famous, among a pile of dazed monks.

Malcolm Ranson is disappointed to hear we won't be doing a big fight
between Richard and Richmond at the end. He wonders whether the
structure of that last section of the play doesn't demand a piece of action.
(Shakespeare does indicate a fight here.) But Bill is convinced that if we
can find the right image for a ritual slaughter of Richard, that would be
more effective.

LADY ANNE SCENE Excellent rehearsal. At one point Penny gets angry
with herself and says, `I'm acting too much!' I could hug her. Bill being
very helpful to me today, curbing over-acting. Yesterday's fiasco is proving
valuable. He reminds me how dangerous animals are when they become
very still and poised.

At the end of rehearsals he whispers to me, `Beware this scene doesn't
peak too early.' The instant rapport Penny and I have as actors is causing
things to fall into place too easily. What a pity there aren't more Richard/
Anne scenes throughout the play. He suggests we lay off the scene for a
while.

Poor Bill is in agony. He's done something to his back - someone said
it's the Richard III curse - and has to rehearse while clutching a hot water
bottle behind him.

I'm very pleased with my work today. I'm using my uncertainty with the
lines to be quieter, to investigate more, to think and feel. It's an unfamiliar
way of working, but rather good. Will pay dividends.

s O L v s Embarrassing doing these speeches sometimes. You feel like
you're auditioning.

We work on `I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl'. Bill has a nice
image - it is The Story So Far. A lovely idea, but a light and jokey one. Moving further and further away from the man's pain. There is still this
basic contradiction to be solved.

KING RICHARD'S COURT SCENE (Act iv, Scene ii) This begins our
second half. It's where Buckingham gets the elbow and Tyrrel is hired to
kill the Princes. Bill's idea of having Lady Anne sitting there, white and
semi-poisoned, is going to work marvellously. Shakespeare doesn't have
her in the scene, but it will be a strong image - this silent, sick presence
at Richard's side. Penny sits with eyes opened, but sightless. `Valiumed
out of her mind,' as she describes it. She also talks about a practice in
Australian aboriginal witchcraft - `pointing the bone' at someone to
make them die (the power of suggestion). She says that Lady Anne has
inadvertently done this to herself: in her first speech one of her curses
against Richard was directed at his future wife.

Driving into Stratford to meet the Bills for another visit to Chris Tucker's.
A pink smoky dawn, mist billowing across an icy field of rape and up the
side of Meon Hill where black magic killings take place.