We reconvened after the weekend of rest or, in my case, selling frozen yoghurt outside the National Theatre (well, it's the next best thing to actually working INSIDE the building) and began with a dancing warm-up led by Clare Buckingham, or Bucks to you and me, who plays the Herald. After some very competitive games involving tapping hands on the ground, Mike read to us. But these were no bedtime stories, rather they were tales from inside Bedlam, London's notorious asylum. In this den of medical iniquity, patients wore only blankets and were barefoot; they longed for the outside world and were fascinated by visitors and windows; mattresses were never entirely dry (either through incontinence or simply because they were washed but not aired) and bedwetting patients were incarcerated in the cellars on straw and tortured by the more sadistic wardens.
Cheery stuff, I think you'll agree. Then again, not all asylums were of the torture dungeon variety. By the end of the 18th Century, there was a European-wide movement to make things a bit more pleasant for patients, notably in the Asylum de Bicetre in Paris under physician Philippe Pinel and his successor as superintendent, Jean-Baptiste Pussin, himself a former patient of the hospital. These two took a slightly more humane approach to mental health, banning the use of chains, making patients rooms brighter and airier, and using the ingenious treatment known as "talking to the patients" in order to diagnose and treat them. Still, well into the 19th century the number one treatment for "female hysteria" (a myriad of conditions including sexual dysfunction and general melancholy) was masturbating the victim...I mean patient, whether she liked it or not.
All useful stuff in creating an idea of what life was like inside the walls of Charenton at the time of our play. The lovely Mauricio, our assistant director, had brought a sackful of hats, sheets, masks and other assorted items of clothing for us to play with. We selected one or two items each, departed to a space in the hall and gradually dropped back into the character we had explored last week. The clothes helped us add that extra layer of life to them as we walked about the room. Then Mike allowed us to actually make eye-contact with each other, encouraged certain characters to follow others and, eventually, told us we could say ONE line of our dialogue to the other characters about us.
It was fascinating to see the inmates of Charenton beginning to take shape: The four singers banded together like a mercilessly mocking bunch of oversexed trickster clowns; Charlotte Corday practically floated above the floor in a dozy haze; Duperret, the erotomaniac portrayed so devotedly by Robbie, had one hand down his pants at all time; and Helen's poor, simple Simonne followed my paranoid Marat around like a loyal servant, dying to please him. As for Marat, I began to find a certain weight to his movements, a purposeful vigilance and, surprisingly, a high-pitched giggle that may emerge more as we carry on the process. I don't want to give to much away about where the characters have come from but hopefully by the end of the month they will all have taken shape. I certainly hope that Bill keeps Polpoch's hat: half Carmen Miranda, half Little Bo-Peep, it was enough to break anyone's concentratey 'improvising face'!
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I think I found my inner lizard". Claire Hughes discovers that Rossignol isn't just a hooker with the voice of a nightingale.
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