#tim ocel

Well, our director has left us. Here's a nice little promo vid he did for the theatre.

…is done, and it's going wonderfully. Tim is teaching a master-class in directing, as far as I'm concerned. He knows the play inside and out and works with us and it with as much respect as he would on Hamlet. It's moving, and funny, and disturbing… it's unburdened by gags, or apologies, or cop-outs.

Some examples from my own work… 1.1 we've focused a great deal on the argument; Valentine is not just teasing Proteus about sticking around to woo Julia, he's really upset. He doesn't come right out with it, as he doesn't know it's going to come up, but when it does he fires: you are throwing away your life for a girl that doesn't even know you exist, and in so doing you're abandoning me! 2.1 we've added an attendant lady who is spying on Silvia; it's a wonderful device as it so clearly brings out the danger in the scene… and forces Silvia to carefully maneuver this charming device she's come up with. 2.4 when left alone with Proteus, much of the poetic language about love becomes an apology to him for berating him before. In this way the language becomes active, and connected to the changes Valentine has gone through. 3.1 is an incredible cat and mouse game in which Valentine's pride does not immediately blind him; the Duke plays a complicated game of disarming his suspicion...

…I'll break off hear to address what Tim calls "turning the corner" which I've found an excellent way to term the changes and developments of thought in a scene; you don't know the room you'll end in, but corner by corner you move through the scene, until at last… 3.1 is a perfect study of that. Look at each corner they turn...

…and a cool little connection: we've looked at Valentine's despondency and lack of identity after his famous speech as very Beckett like; a very early taste of Lear and Gloucester in the fields; which Scott Wentworth and I were just last week discussing as the origin of Beckett (he's currently playing a brilliant Gloucester at the Stratford Festival).

…and then 5.4, the famous, and very controversial close. I won't address this yet, as we've only sketched it. But I do think we're telling an honest and complicated story, without apologies.

So an update as to my work through the end of the year:

Up next I will be playing Valentine in The Two Gentlemen of Verona at Indiana Repertory Theatre. The production will be directed by the wonderful Tim Ocel (with whom I just worked on Hotspur). It will be my first experience at the theatre, my second go at Valentine, and my third show with Tim, all of which excites me greatly.

Directly on the heels of that I leap over to New Jersey to play Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. The production will be directed by the inimitable Scott Wentworh and staring himself and his glorious wife, Marion Adler. It will be m first experience at the theatre, my second with the show (the first time through I played Don John), my third with Marion, and my fourth with Scott. Fucking. Awesome.