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THE TEMPTER AND THE TEMPTED
It's not often that Mike and I see the same play twice on consecutive evenings, but that's what happened with the Donmar's Measure for Measure (why? It's a long story; don't ask). And as this production gives us an abridged version of the play from two different perspectives, in effect we saw Shakespeare's play four times over two evenings!
We approached the Director's Forum performance with our own experience of the play, and with the awareness of our group's interesting and varied reactions to it, and we were eager to hear from the actors about their experience of performing it. The Donmar's Literary & Editorial Manager Clare Slater chaired the discussion, with Hayley Atwell, Jack Lowden, Nicholas Burns, Helena Wilson, Ben Allen and Raad Rawi generously giving up their time to talk to us.
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The question had to be asked: what was it like both rehearsing and performing two different versions of the same play? Hayley said that she hadn't been familiar with the play, apart from a few of the well-known speeches, and that it felt like a huge challenge. She had loved the process: Josie Rourke, the director, had rehearsed the same scene with her and Jack Lowden swapping their roles, and that enabled them to examine all the textures of the play. It also gave her and Jack the chance to steal from each other in their interpretations! To her, the idea was less about a gender swap than about two characters being developed in different ways.
Jack agreed: rehearsals were wonderful, but also the hardest part (as they should be). He knew of no precedent for working in this "role reversal" format, and he felt that it was great to have someone else in the room making mistakes for him. Understudies are necessary, he added; now he wants another actor to come into rehearsals to play his part, so he can watch and notice the mistakes and cherry-pick the best bits!
Clare wondered what it was like for the other actors playing the same parts while the principal roles were reversed; how did this affect their interpretation of their roles? Nicholas explained that...
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