One of the really interesting parts of this journey has been my solitude. I mean, I see my fellow artists at rehearsal and around the apartments, but for the most part I am by myself most of the day. I feel a strong ambivalence that comes with this solitude. I am grateful that I have a place to myself where I can work and spread out and don't have to negotiate having roommates and all that entails. However, not talking to anybody for most of the day, or rather, have anyone talk to me makes me miss my family even more. I am living in a world of silence I haven't known since 2001. But largely, it's been refreshing to have the quiet I need to work on the text and to freely go about all my worldly needs on my own.
I find myself with three days off in a row this weekend as they tech "The Tempest." Jason (who plays Othello and I are meeting daily to go over our stuff though). Fortunately, Rusty (who plays Roderigo--and is my favorite person here...you know how I am, I always have a favorite) bought me a wonderful book for my birthday. (for those of you who are looking for a great fantasy-genre trilogy, pick up "Jade City." I tore through it in a couple of days and finally got the second book today.) With reading that, and bingeing Succession, I have been able to take some mental breaks from Iago with these beautiful distractions.
The show is in that awkward stage, where everybody is finally getting comfortable in the roles, but just finishing getting off book (aka the end of my career stage of the process). These sorts of rehearsals can be frustrating for all involved. The person calling for line is frustrated for not knowing that thing they knew a few hours earlier when they thought they clearly knew it, and the one in the scene with them is frustrated because the one part they really know and ready to crush is being hindered by the one who doesn't know it. And, fun fact, we alternate between being both people. But the bones of the work look good. The cast is really talented, kind, and giving. It's remarkable that a group of people, most of whom didn't know one another, could come together so quickly to form a company.
There are some stark differences in my Iago from the last time I played him, and I love that. Our director (also Artistic Director) is setting out to decolonize Shakespeare and make sure the work and company are clearly anti-racist. So for his first season at the helm, he chose to take on Othello and The Tempest. Two of the top three Shakespeare plays that focus on "the other." That which is not homogenous. And that individual is looked down upon as something less--this other--simply for being other. I can't speak to how that's going in The Tempest because I'm not in that show, but for Othello this is being tackled by rooting out the sad tropes of racism, to make the world of the play look more like the world in which we live. One in which overt racism is still prevalent, but subtle racism and the benefit of white privilege are clearly seen. Shakespeare wanted us to hold up a mirror to nature, and the mirror we are holding up looks a whole lot more like our world today than that of his time.
How successful we will be, I will leave that to you to discover.
To read more about decolonizing Shakespeare, here's an article: https://medium.com/the-sundial-acmrs/decolonizing-shakespeare-toward-an-antiracist-culturally-sustaining-praxis-904cb9ff8a96
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