Post by Lorannah on Aug 1, 2010 0:05:19 GMT
It seems they have Mariah doing the promotional trail at the moment, another interview here. Not quite as interesting as the previous one, but some nice insights into her Juliet.
* * * * * *
LOVING EVERY MOMENT
Royal Shakespeare Company actors Sam Troughton and Mariah Gale sloughed off the years to play the leads in the greatest love story ever told.
ROYAL Shakespeare Company actors Sam Troughton and Mariah Gale seem to have found a magic potion to wind back the years as the star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet.
Troughton, recently Much the Muller in TV’s Robin Hood, is in fact married and a 33-year-old father, but he’s not available for interview, so it falls to his tiny co-star Gale, 30 this year, to explain how she managed to find the inspiration to become 14 again.
“I thought maybe the most convincing way to be 14 was not to think about it. In a funny way, if you think about her level of experience combined with the situation in which she finds herself, I think you have who she is. I remember when I was 14, I didn’t think that I was young and I don’t think that Juliet feels she is either.”
Gale thought it would be doing a disservice to the character to disempower Juliet. “I thought I’ve just not got to patronise the character. It’s really interesting because I met the director Rupert Goold’s niece who is 14 and I met her quite far into the rehearsal process and she may not have had as much experience as I’ve had in the world, but she is very grounded and very confident and it’s easy to over-simplify. And I think we try to do that to 14-year-olds, who are very complex people,”
says Gale. The actress believes teenagers often more decisive then adults because there is less in their heads to corrupt their decision-making process.
She and Troughton didn’t discuss the challenges of playing much younger people for the RSC ensemble Newcastle season.
“I think you have to connect with your character and age is a funny thing. It’s like there’s your physical age and then there’s your inner age. There’s always a double time frame within practically all of Shakespeare’s plays. In some senses this play takes place within three days, but in other ways it feels like three years,” says Gale.
“I don’t think that it’s an accident that at times Juliet looks 14, at other times 40 and at other times 80.
She goes through a lifetime in the course of the play.
She goes from girlhood to womanhood, into and out of the other side into things that people don’t normally face. She faces her own death which she stages herself.”
Part of Goold’s version of events in fair Verona involves the star-crossed lovers dressing in the casual gear of today’s teenagers while the rest of the cast mostly retains the authentic garb of yesteryear.
Gale admits that discussions with Goold failed to pin down exactly why he required this distinction but explains that the director is, by reputation, never keen about using typical metaphors and prefers his audience to make up their own minds. “There was a lot of brainstorming from the start, but he does like to leave a lot of balls up in the air,” says Gale.
One idea quite literally failed to take off in the way Goold wanted.
In an early scene to display a teenager at play, he wanted Gale to fly a remote controlled helicopter or bird around the stage.
“I think it became a bird because there is a lot of reference to birds throughout the play,” says Gale. “We tried a few helicopters but I crashed two and they were broken, so we had to think what else we could use to represent the helicopter. I started using a rope (to spin around in the air above her head) and I liked it because it was weird and did what we wanted. It was a way for me to speak while silent.”
www.livingnortheast.co.uk/features/8281718.Loving_every_moment/
* * * * * *
LOVING EVERY MOMENT
Royal Shakespeare Company actors Sam Troughton and Mariah Gale sloughed off the years to play the leads in the greatest love story ever told.
ROYAL Shakespeare Company actors Sam Troughton and Mariah Gale seem to have found a magic potion to wind back the years as the star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet.
Troughton, recently Much the Muller in TV’s Robin Hood, is in fact married and a 33-year-old father, but he’s not available for interview, so it falls to his tiny co-star Gale, 30 this year, to explain how she managed to find the inspiration to become 14 again.
“I thought maybe the most convincing way to be 14 was not to think about it. In a funny way, if you think about her level of experience combined with the situation in which she finds herself, I think you have who she is. I remember when I was 14, I didn’t think that I was young and I don’t think that Juliet feels she is either.”
Gale thought it would be doing a disservice to the character to disempower Juliet. “I thought I’ve just not got to patronise the character. It’s really interesting because I met the director Rupert Goold’s niece who is 14 and I met her quite far into the rehearsal process and she may not have had as much experience as I’ve had in the world, but she is very grounded and very confident and it’s easy to over-simplify. And I think we try to do that to 14-year-olds, who are very complex people,”
says Gale. The actress believes teenagers often more decisive then adults because there is less in their heads to corrupt their decision-making process.
She and Troughton didn’t discuss the challenges of playing much younger people for the RSC ensemble Newcastle season.
“I think you have to connect with your character and age is a funny thing. It’s like there’s your physical age and then there’s your inner age. There’s always a double time frame within practically all of Shakespeare’s plays. In some senses this play takes place within three days, but in other ways it feels like three years,” says Gale.
“I don’t think that it’s an accident that at times Juliet looks 14, at other times 40 and at other times 80.
She goes through a lifetime in the course of the play.
She goes from girlhood to womanhood, into and out of the other side into things that people don’t normally face. She faces her own death which she stages herself.”
Part of Goold’s version of events in fair Verona involves the star-crossed lovers dressing in the casual gear of today’s teenagers while the rest of the cast mostly retains the authentic garb of yesteryear.
Gale admits that discussions with Goold failed to pin down exactly why he required this distinction but explains that the director is, by reputation, never keen about using typical metaphors and prefers his audience to make up their own minds. “There was a lot of brainstorming from the start, but he does like to leave a lot of balls up in the air,” says Gale.
One idea quite literally failed to take off in the way Goold wanted.
In an early scene to display a teenager at play, he wanted Gale to fly a remote controlled helicopter or bird around the stage.
“I think it became a bird because there is a lot of reference to birds throughout the play,” says Gale. “We tried a few helicopters but I crashed two and they were broken, so we had to think what else we could use to represent the helicopter. I started using a rope (to spin around in the air above her head) and I liked it because it was weird and did what we wanted. It was a way for me to speak while silent.”
www.livingnortheast.co.uk/features/8281718.Loving_every_moment/
