Much Ado About Nothing

#0015

“… They were supported by some excellent performances, especially by James Tomkinson as Don John's evil sidekick Borachio…” – The Sentinel (July 14, 2014) 

As a dyslexic who didn’t enjoy any but one of the Shakespeare plays I had to study at school, it feels a little strange that I’ve been on stage performing in my second Shakespearian play and have thoroughly enjoyed it once again.

I’ve entered a new area of characters as my first villain, Borachio in Much Ado About Nothing. With just shy of nighty mines most of which were grouped in long speeches this was by far the most I’ve had to learn for any production. Focusing on slowing down my speech and emphasising certain letters proved to enhance both my diction and the evil nature of the character.

Another aspect of the role was my gestures. By making deliberate, pointed and slow indications I could give the character a dangerous manner which on person commented on as being “spider like”. This was all the more important as Borachio’s behaviour needed to change in his last scene to convey his remorse.

Now, corpseing on stage is any actor’s nightmare. Thankfully that didn’t happen to me during this show but one line in particular was the source of much hilarity during rehearsals. The line in question was:-

Dogberry: I do not like thy look, I promise thee.

Our director had Dogberry and Borachio nose to nose with each other for this line. However every time we practised it both myself and the actor playing Dogberry would fall about laughing. This went on for about a month’s worth of rehearsals until finally we figured out how to control the situation. If he stared at my chin and I at his forehead we could get through that line in character. Up until then we had been staring directly at each other resulting in one of us corpseing every time. Although we’d found a way around the problem it was still a worrying moment of hoping that we could keep from laughing on the first night. Fortunately we managed this confrontation on all six nights.

Now it’s all over. I’ve realised that I’m as much a victim of after show blues as anyone else involved in theatre. Now the waiting for the next show begins.