Theatre in Education (16) - Rehearsals, Script and Final Stages

Script:   

Recently we have been doing full runs of our version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", but we have timed it and realised that it is rather lengthy and still contains huge chunks of dialogue, which would put us at risk of losing our audiences attention. Therefore, due to timing and engagement (and that Shakespeare is a real challenge to learn and maintain - especially when we are playing multiple parts rather than just one each, as we would if we had a larger cast), we have made the executive decision to trim more of the script. The main sections we cut were repetitive details within large monologues or details that weren't essential - however, when cutting, we had to bear in mind that Shakespeare often wrote in couplets, so we had to ensure that the lines still rhymed if needed.

We also cut down long duologues so that audience didn't lose interest, feeling like they are just watching a long conversation. Therefore, we cut down the argument between Demetrius and Helena, but also added more physicality to the remainder of this scene to make it more comical. Moreover, we cut the characters Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth and Mustardseed by ending the scene between Bottom and Titania on Titania's line, "thou shalt like an airy spirit go". We cut the rest of this scene as it wasn't essential to our plot - as it is a side-story and doesn't help progress the main narrative. We also didn't want to over-complicate our piece by having even more multi-rolling and another group of characters. Also, when I speak to the fairies earlier in the play, I act as if they are invisible: I can see them but the audience can't.

In addition, we also cut from the end of Puck's monologue on page 68 to page 78. Instead of having pages of Shakespearean dialogue that is complicated purely because of the actual story at this point, we thought that we should cut them and replace these pages with a movement piece which shows the Puck giving the potion, and the lovers falling in love with the right partner and them becoming friends again. Our movement piece involves accumulation, unison and counterpoint relationships to make the piece look aesthetically pleasing, as well as serving the purpose to educate, as this is another method of story telling, which we are using to avoid reeling off pages and pages of potentially over-whelming language. Our penultimate scene is the mechanicals getting ready and then Bottom returning and then we jump straight to the prologue and do the mechanicals play.

Final stages:

What we have left to do is as follows:

• full run of our new adapted version with lighting and no scripts
• make / gather all costumes and props, and rehearse with them
• put music we use in a playlist on a laptop (perhaps adding more music in places to make the piece more atmospheric and immersive).