Theatre Experience, Part 2

Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare, MFA Acting Spring Repertory

Shakespeare's plays are fascinating. There are several reasons for this: he was the most popular playwright of his age, his plays centred upon ideas and emotions still deeply thought about today, his language and style have a very likable quality to them, approachable and yet transcendent. Which is why people will often read them first as stories, then read or enact the plays or portions thereof, with the culmination in watching the play itself unfurl on stage, with the words, jokes, soliloquies and puns that the man himself penned. Probably that's why the acting class usually ends up using one of his plays for their repertory, an important performance sequence that effectively forms their Master's thesis.

Of course, the experience of watching theatre depends on the skill of the performers, and for someone like me, who has had very limited experience of theatre, every performance inspires new thoughts and new ideas within me.

The performance that I attended was preceded by a talk about the play itself, in this case, Twelfth Night. The talk was given by one of the faculty members of the School of Theatre and moderated by the director of the play. I've forgotten his name. He professed himself a big fan of Shakespeare, and especially of this play, which he thinks has a deeper significance that what people usually accord it. Most people just see it as a comedy, a funny play with funny characters, funny lines, and pranks. However, as with all of Shakespeare's plays, it has a deeper significance at several levels, and carries more serious themes that usually perceived.

For one thing, it's about death, although it references it in a very subtle way. All of us go through life, and every story told by writers and bards is a journey, through the events of life. But what is the destination? Death. Inevitably, inexorably, we move toward death. We may walk, run, leap, trudge, with or without burden, but the journey continues, step by step, ceaselessly. All our life we run after fulfillment, from one goal to the next, but the overall goal, whether we recognize it or not, is death. This is very subtly referenced in the play, in one simple line that often goes unnoticed because it follows some six lines of description of prior events, by one of the characters.

A contract of eternal bond of love,
Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands,
Attested by the holy close of lips,
Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings;
And all the ceremony of this compact
Seal'd in my function, by my testimony:
Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave
I have travell'd but two hours. 

The last two lines are the ones to think about: "Since these events, my watch tells me, I have travelled but two hours toward my grave." Cunningly enough, by the time this line is spoken, about two hours have passed from the start of the play.

This leads to thoughts about how we make this journey. Essentially, we run from one fulfillment to the next. Human beings have an appetite; an insatiable hunger for love and contentment that never goes away, no matter how many times we satisfy it. It's true for something as physical as food, and it's equally true for something as abstract as love. You eat, you feel full and happy, and the next day, you're hungry again. It's the same with love. The pleasure of contentment is sublime and deep, but it is fleeting; we run back over and over again for more, ceaselessly all along the journey to death.

The title of the play has a very subtle relation to this. At first look, it doesn't have any connection to any of the actual content of the play - "Twelfth Night" - what does that even mean? It refers to the last night of the twelve days of Christmas; in other words, it's the culmination of the festive season, the last day of satisfying the appetite, spiritually speaking. It's the end of one journey, and the beginning of the next. What does it have to do with the play? Nothing really, except that it was intended as an entertainment for that occasion, and it attempts to inspire a feeling of cheer in the audience.

This much I learned from that talk. The play itself had some eye-openers for me. Theatre is very different from cinema; each has their own challenges, and their own advantages. I've only ever seen movies, and theatre is still very new for me. The most striking thing was how perfect the actors have to be. There is no scope for mistakes in performing one's part - you can't go again if you flub a line or burst out giggling, you have to have perfect timing especially for a comedy, you're so close to the audience that they can see the wrinkles on your face. You have to memorize and speak a couple of hundred lines, which you can't rehearse in between, while portraying expression and body language in accordance with the character and situation.

It's not just about lines and how you speak them. There can be action sequences as well - in this case there were swordfights, juggling, singing, playing of instruments and more. Fight and dance sequences are carefully choreographed - every movement is well thought out in terms of motion, duration and position, and must be executed exactly. Songs and musical sequences must be in tune, and the compositions must be rendered according to the spirit of the play. This play involved one specific sequence, where two characters are juggling, and what's more, they pass the balls between them as they juggle. And they aren't just clowning around to make the audience laugh - there is serious dialogue between the two at the same time, and there are very specific word cues, according to which the balls had to change hands. Juggling is easy to learn, but it requires practice, and it requires some measure of skill to be speaking dialogue and emoting, alongside the juggling itself. That is by no measure easy, especially when there is no scope for mistake.

And none of these actions are written in the original play. Playwrights don't write in actions like that. Those are bits that the actors and their director must add in, to give form and spirit to the play. Playwrights don't write in a screenplay for dances or fights; the players must imagine and execute those. Playwrights don't write songs or music for a play, unless it's a musical. That too has to be taken care of separately. This is why people gain so much in terms of personality when they enter theatre - you have to stretch your imagination so far and wide. Theatre people aren't good at only memorizing and speaking dialogue; they will almost always have a repertoire of other artistic talents too.

An actor has to be able to sing, dance, juggle, fight, perform acrobatics and stunts, play musical instruments and do a dozen other things, apart from just speaking dialogue or emoting on stage. A director must give position to the actors, direct their movements, add in music, dance, fights or other sequences as needed, and bring out the personality of the characters through the actors, by giving shape to the play. This perfection in performance is why theatre people almost always perform extremely well before the camera as well - such rigor is not required in a movie, where you can have several takes for each shot.

I did not have much regard for artistic performers when I was younger - I used to think that they are hyped too much, and given way too much attention. My views have improved a great deal now, thanks to my experiences, both in India and here. I still think most cinema actors are overhyped and given too much attention, talented though they may be. But I have a lot more respect now in general for performers - be they from theatre, music, dance or the fine arts. These fields are more diverse than I originally imagined them to be, and their exponents are usually good-natured, down-to-earth, intellectual and talented people with a passion for their art, which equals any passion that I see amongst the scientific and technical populace for their respective fields.

(My experience courtesy the MFA Acting Class of 2011 at the School of Theatre, University of Southern California, Los Angeles)