How did they do it?

If there were indeed no rehearsal, how might Shakespeare’s first actors have done it?

It seems inconceivable in this modern, post-Stanislavski world that actors could have produced coherent, engaging performances with fully realised characters without the rehearsal process understood and expected today. Yet the modern, radical technique of “Cue Script” acting created by Patrick

Tucker in the 1980s, and perpetuated in the UK and USA today, certainly does work. So how does that happen? For the curious, here follows a review of the main arguments, with a little supporting scholarship.

1. Familiar repertoire

Tiffany Stern (possibly the foremost researcher into parts and cues) observes that the companies’ large and oft-repeated repertoires of plays facilitated the running of a professional theatre without regular, thorough group rehearsal:

[…] a system of instantly changeable repertory meant that if a play proved unready for performance, another could always be put on in its place: a play thus did not necessarily receive a fixed amount of group rehearsal, but as much as was appropriate (or possible). […] the appropriate number of collective rehearsals necessary could occasionally be as little as none.

This supportive body of repertoire suggests that a sufficiently familiar play could be staged with little or no rehearsal.

2. Everything you need is in your part

Don Weingust (another eminent researcher and Tucker enthusiast) sums up the approach to Renaissance actors’ relationship with their cued parts which currently prevails:

This way of reading Shakespeare suggests another way of producing theatre: one where there is no director, but rather a highly developed dramatic text, from which observant and creative actors can craft […]

Regarding the parts used by the players in Renaissance playhouses, the current assumption on the function of parts is everything needed for performance was in the lines and cues (and occasional stage directions). “Everything” in this case covers information on characterisation and blocking, both necessary to shape a performance.

Renaissance parts allegedly contained lines and cues only. Many modern actors and theatre practitioners, as well as researchers, refuse to believe that any creditable performance could be staged from this amount of information, and without substantial group rehearsal. However, as Stern observed, this system was clearly effective, as it was not only maintained into the Restoration theatre and beyond, but supported the thriving Renaissance commercial playhouse culture for over fifty years. In her seminal book on parts and part-based acting, Stern naturally focused on the nature of the actor’s part and its function for the performer:

It might be called ‘part’ or ‘parcell’ -- both titles that acknowledge it as a segment of something larger; or it might be called ‘scroll’ or ‘roll’ (from which the word ‘role’ perhaps derives) -- titles that suggest that the fragment is being treated as a self-contained whole: players did not necessarily feel the need to know more than their words and cues.

How could parts, even in theory, be capable of directing a player’s preparation and performance?

1. Movement on stage, or “blocking”

In a modern rehearsal room, days can be spent on the moves (or “blocking”) of a play. Actors often scribble their blocking into their scripts during rehearsal; the moves are also noted by the stage management in the production’s “book” script.

Where there is an expectation of a set pattern to the moves, and rhythm to the lines and actions, and any disruption of this rhythm could derail a performance, this discipline is reasonable. However, it is not necessary to block actors who know how to build a stage picture together, and are familiar with the stage on which they were playing (where the sight lines are good, where’s the best point to command the scene, etc), removing the need for imposed blocking and helping experienced acting companies to block themselves and each other.

One theory, put forward by Shakespeare translator Richard Flatter (and used by Tucker and Shake-Scene), is that a convention applied in Renaissance playing in which only the speaker could move on stage, while non-speakers had to stand still – a technique known to the company as “No Walking Without Talking”. This works reasonably well and can help with the overall clarity of the stage picture. There is another theory relating to the use of “you” and “thou” pronouns on stage, most specifically when a speaker speaking to one person switches from one pronoun to the other. Flatter, originally an interpreter into German, noticed significant use of these two pronouns, and in particular significant changes in their use, which he saw as “a change that often enough amounts to a veritable stage-direction”. Flatter interpreted these changes to suggest a change of physical proximity (“you” for away, “thou” for closer), and emotional tone (“you” for formal, “thou” for intimate or disrespectful):  “One might almost say that the change from ‘you’ to ‘thou’ always indicates physical nearness, no matter whether that means an embrace or a friendly pat or, as in the case of Othello, strangling.” Researcher Leslie Thomson was intrigued by Flatter’s discoveries and carried out her own examination of various scenes and speeches, concluding:

I gained a heightened sense of the second person singular pronouns thou, thee and thy, which led me to wonder if their presence in players’ parts could have functioned as a method of blocking that would have needed no stage directions […]

Beyond the purely theoretical, Tucker advocated this as a practical approach, and it has been a useful and effective part of Shake-Scene’s cue-based work; as a practical technique for self-direction, it can be seen to have some value. Whether it were intended as such is an unanswerable question, as there is currently no Renaissance corroboration for them.

2. Characterisation

Modern rehearsal processes (to overgeneralise shamelessly), with weeks at their disposal, expect to cover in-depth analyses of psychology and motivation, “peeling the onion” to discover the core of the character. Theatre traditions which do not accommodate an extensive period of rehearsal have to condense or skip this process. As John Gielgud recalls his time as a young actor at the Old Vic in the 1930s: “one simply had to trust the verse. There was no time to examine the text in detail or discuss motivation – something that American actors love so much (and a great many English directors love, too). But I have never believed that long sessions of talk beforehand from an intellectual point of view are ever very constructive. The important thing is to bring the play over the footlights to the audience.”

Gielgud relied on the structure of his verse, the meter and punctuation, to help his discover the flow and give a sense of direction to his lines: “in both The Winter’s Tale and Measure For Measure, I was alarmed to find that so much of the verse was very obscure; but I tried to trust to the sweep of every speech, and to mark the commas and full stops and semi-colons, and if I observed these correctly, as a bad swimmer begins to trust the water, the text seemed to hold me up.” This theory, that the meter and punctuation can assist an actor in identifying moments of change, like key and tempo changes in music, which can act as tips towards characterisation, is found useful by actors in developing a characterisation.

3. Type-casting, or “lines” of parts

Modern actors both love and hate being type-cast – it is limiting creatively, but does tend to ensure employment.. It is possible (even probable) that players kept to a “line” of roles to facilitate preparation and characterisation. As researcher Jakub Boguszak considers it:

Modern experiments with part-based performances have shown that parts representing the same type have almost certainly been approached and learned in the same way. A part is a difficult text to read and requires much imaginative work; recognising a particular dramatic type in the text is already a useful limitation of an actor’s imagination and cognitive effort.

Boguszak goes on to explain the practical assistance of keeping to a “line” (or “type”) of role:

An actor who could connect the part in hand with familiar parts that shared the same type would have been able to infer what the new part had to offer and what was expected of him on stage.

This is possibly true, and as this style of casting is formalised in Victorian practices, as well as still being a very active part of the modern casting mindset, there is no reason to disbelieve it. Set or standardised gestures and movements have also been posited as an essential and separate skill for the Renaissance player, first to learn then to apply, and that these standardised behaviours would also have reduced the need to rehearse – like putting together known moves in dance or fight choreography into new sequences.

Victorian theatre practice (considered more closely later in this chapter) allocated very little time for rehearsal – sometimes only hours. Victorian actors kept to “lines” of roles, including leading man, heavy man (usually the villain), juvenile male lead, ingenue or female juvenile lead, first old man, first and second low comedian. Michael R. Booth successfully applies the “lines” of a Victorian company to the parts in Hamlet; yet another strong similarity between the Victorian and Renaissance. This structure of line-casting continued into the twentieth-century repertory companies, with their system of weekly repertory – an unimaginable luxury of time for the Victorian or Renaissance company.

4. Self-cuing from your part

As observed by Thomson, and familiar to cued part users, playwrights of the Renaissance, who knew the way their plays would be prepared by players, used “self-cuing” to tell the players what their characters needed to know, do or say. Explicit directions frequently have the character declaring what they are doing or about to do, for example: “I will walk up and down here and sing”, “I will kiss your hand, and so leave you”, “I will hide me behind the arras”, and a whole speech by Julia in Two Gentlemen of Verona where she directs herself to tear up a letter, then collect and handle the pieces of the letter in great detail.  Implicit directions are based on things like the emotional state or relative social status of the characters speaking to each other and the behaviour that would create. For example, a Messenger may enter a scene and begin his lines “Good my Liege”, a form of address requiring specific behaviour from the speaker to illustrate the status of himself and the addressee – he must at least kneel.

5. Explicitly cuing others

Part scripts often involve characters telling others what they are to do, providing blocking without rehearsal or directorial intervention. As Thomson observes, “Whereas dialogue could have been memorized by each player on his own, action requires co-ordination and collaboration.” In the case of cued parts, what it mostly requires is listening. Thomson is very nervous about Macbeth putting on his armour and issuing conflicting instruction to Seyton in the process: “The Seyton-player would have had to know in advance what to do (or not to do) for this business to be effective.”

From the perspective of cued part performance, this is erroneous. If Seyton has not had the opportunity to run the action with Macbeth, and is unprepared for the instructions, the character is seen not to know what he is to do, which enhances the moment of created confusion on stage as Macbeth is seen to be losing control. If the Macbeth player had specific ideas for the sequence, then a brief discussion with Seyton, possibly involving the costume and props, would have established enough for performance, if there were no time to rehearse the sequence formally. However, it remains that without rehearsal, the sequence would still play provided this involved were listening to each other closely.

Also, Queen Margaret directs the action preceding the execution of the Duke of York in Henry VI Part III with all the competence of an experienced general, making it very clear to those around her who was to do what, and (presumably) indicating the position of the molehill:

Brave Warriors, Clifford and Northumberland,

Come make him stand upon this Mole-hill here […]

A Crowne for Yorke; and Lords, bow lowe to him:

Hold you his hands, whilest I doe set it on […]

Frequently used by Shake-Scene in training workshops, this scene is an excellent exercise for actors new to cued parts to experience the clarity and ease of co-operation that can be achieved without rehearsal – provided actors are clear in their intentions and all on stage listen to each other, smooth blocking is achieved.

Some plays also have lines requiring moves to sit or to seat others which appear to need rehearsal, or may have been covered by directions in the actors’ parts. However, overall, the dialogue tells all those involved who sits where and when – provided, again, everyone listens. One example of this is the banquet scene in Macbeth, where Macbeth invites the thanes to sit and tells them what action will be expected of them:

Macbeth: You know your owne degrees, sit downe […]

Both sides are even: heere Ile sit i'th' mid'st […]

Macbeth must address the Murderer next, so after identifying where he is going to sit, he steps aside, never taking the designated seat. Banquo’s Ghost is directed to enter, and presumably takes Macbeth’s seat (there is no direction for this in the First Folio “book script”, but the Ghost clearly knows what he is to do), given the reactions of Macbeth, who clearly cannot sit down despite being invited to do so:

    Rosse:                 Pleas't your Highnesse

To grace us with your Royall Company?

Macbeth: The Table's full.

   Lennox: Heere is a place reserv'd Sir.

Macbeth: Where?

Macbeth clearly tells himself he does not take a seat, thus the lines of those requesting him to sit are spoken as genuine invitations, and the scene proceeds.

Misconceptions

6. Thomson, arguing hard in favour of Renaissance rehearsal, is exercised regarding the giver of cues:

[…] it is also important to be aware that a cue-line might be spoken by [a character] […] who is speaking to someone else. A player could learn his dialogue and cues working on his own, but once on stage, he also has to know (a.) to whom he is speaking and (b.) who is speaking his cues.

Practice suggests that this is not a practical issue for cue-based performance. On reading this, I conducted an informal poll among Shake-Scene’s experienced part-based actors, and the response was a unanimous negative. Nobody felt the need to know in advance who gave their cues. Comments included: “You can often work it out but be prepared to be wrong!”, and: “[it] sounds like one more thing to remember in the moment and to commit to memory when I am learning my lines.” Listening for who is cuing you is simply part of the performance experience for the actors involved.

Stern raised another concern regarding characterisation and available information not included in parts but provided in the rest of the play’s lines, and frequently used by modern actors to flesh out the nature of their character – as in the system proposed by Stanislavski, that while studying a character, the actor should list what the character says about themselves, what they do, and what others say about them. As Stern considered this:

The part-based actor has scripted and in his possession everything he says, but not everything that is said to or about him […] What can a term like ‘characterisation’ mean when looking at actors who learn only what their character says.

Stern uses an example from King Lear, stating that under the parts system, the actor playing Lear would not know Goneril’s observation that he does not know himself. Stern suggests this would adversely affect the Lear actor’s characterisation, as he would not know this comment on his behaviour; however, this is not the case in practice. Goneril may be wrong in her assessment of Lear; if she is correct, Lear still behaves with confidence in his own understanding and capabilities – he need not appear to act without self-knowledge. It is also possible that the Goneril and Lear players conferred before performance. Thus, the absence of this information from the strictly regarded limitations of Lear’s part need not hinder characterization.

So, where does that leave the idea of parts and parts only informing performance, with no need for group rehearsal? More on that in later posts…