We’ve been in rehearsals for the Brave Spirits Histories project for about 3 months now, and you’ve read my castmate Zach’s thoughts about the Viewpoints and Michael Chekhov work that we’ve been doing as part of our ensemble-building and rehearsal process, and you’ve read what two of our dramaturgs Emily and Claire have noticed during our tablework sessions for the three Henries in this first half of the cycle, and you’ve read what my castmate Brendan has been grappling with in preparing to play the legendary Henry V… but what about that first play?
Actor Gary DuBreuil will appear as Richard of Bordeaux in “Richard II,” the opening chapter of the Histories project
The truth is, if it seems like we’re thinking about all of these first four plays at once, it’s because we are. Developing Richard II, the first chapter of our eight-part epic, is uniquely challenging because of the nature of this project. We can’t afford to be single-minded in our development of this one show, we rather need to think of all four as one ten-hour production. Though single productions of Richard II may consider the play in the context of the Henriad, we’re going to be actually producing all those plays too, so we’ve got to do more than consider. We’ve got to put in broader work that will influence those plays as much as they will Richard II.
For instance, before focusing on Richard II in rehearsals, we worked the three climax scenes from each of the first four plays and then performed them in sequence one Sunday afternoon. It was an illuminating exercise that laid out the dramatic structure of the Henriad in a way that gave me ideas about both what Richard II (the play) and Richard of Bordeaux (the character) represent in the Histories. We’ve also been developing a common physical language to support our storytelling and unite our characters in the world we’re building, and learning original musical themes (by our composer and music director, Jordan) that will appear and re-appear throughout the next several plays to enrich significant storytelling moments and convey the changes in our world as we move along.
It’s a lot of hard, good work – and it certainly benefits Richard II as much as the rest of the plays in the Henriad – but I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a little anxious energy in the room when we got to our Richard II Design Run on Tuesday (our first full run-through), because true blue scene work, where we start to get really specific with moments and relationships (and my favorite part of any rehearsal process), has had to take a bit of a back seat to larger-scale ensemble- and world-building.
Fortunately, the Design Run was incredibly formative – and a really promising progress report! As expected, the integrated gesture work and musical themes established the world and captured the atmospheres of the play as we had drawn them up on paper, but less expected were some of the achievements, many quite tiny, in character work, relationship-building, and ensemble storytelling. I think many of us, though we understood important storylines and relationships on paper, felt them and truly connected to them for the first time. It was a galvanizing experience.
There’s still plenty of scene work to be done and character decisions to be made, but even at this point, it’s clear that some of the small things that we’ve been working on (and even just chatting about during breaks or carpools) have begun to come into clear and brilliant focus. Some may even turn into highlight moments in our production.
What I’m really picking up at this checkpoint in our process is that we can’t approach this project like a normal play, or even a normal rep. Both the large-scale, world-building work and the small-scale, moment-building work contributed to that terrific Design Run, and we must embrace both at once to be successful in both the epic undertaking that is the Histories project and its incredibly complex and nuanced opener Richard II. In allowing both types of work to share our rehearsal room, we’re creating a truly unified collection of plays, which will each be filled with thought-provoking and memorable moments.
I’m eager for the next phase of the Richard II rehearsal process and excited to see how all the work we’re doing for this play, our first chapter, will be echoed in the next seven. I think you will be too – I hope you’ll join us in January for the first performances!
– Gary DuBreuil
You can catch up on everything that’s been happening with the Histories project in our previous blog posts or follow behind-the-scenes on our Facebook and our Instagram!