Post by Queen Mab on Sept 30, 2010 10:04:55 GMT
www.chroniclelive.co.uk/entertainment-in-newcastle/theatre/2010/09/27/preview-romeo-and-juliet-theatre-royal-72703-27356275/
ROMEO and Juliet opens this year’s RSC season in Newcastle tomorrow. Entertainment Editor Gordon Barr meets Mariah Gale, one half of the star-crossed lovers.
She may be 30, but for actress Mariah Gale’s latest role she is playing a ‘woman’ half her age.
This is not just any woman though: it is perhaps the theatre world’s most famous female – Juliet Capulet.
Mariah stars alongside thirtysomething Sam Troughton (Romeo Montague) in a stupendous production of the tale of the star-crossed lovers, which is at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle from tomorrow until Saturday.
It’s no mean feat to carry off a 14-year-old when you are 30, but the Royal Shakespeare Company is known for taking risks, and this is one that it pulls off with finesse.
“You do feel the weight of what has preceded you and in a way you have to find a way of forgetting about that,” says Mariah about taking on such a big role.
“The only way to do that is to think about who is this girl and what circumstances is she in and in a way not to tell your story as an actor approaching that part, but to tell her story.
“She’s a girl in a situation where she’s forbidden to love who she chooses. You have to just let the character shine through who you are and trust that that is enough.
“I thought maybe the most convincing way to be 14 is not to think it. In a funny way if you think about her level of experience combined with the situation she finds herself in 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.
“I think it would be doing a disservice to the character to disempower her. I thought I’ve just not got to patronise the character.
“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.
“I think we try to do that to 14-year-olds, who are very complex people.
“I think you have to connect with your character in that situation 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.
“I don’t think 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 the other side into things that people don’t normally face.
“She faces her own death which she stages herself.
“With Juliet there is certainly a sense she is a stranger in her own world and from the first scene her mother and nurse those two women have experiences she feels very alienated. There is miscommunication going on, there is awkwardness. It is not a happy domestic scene.
“Rupert gave me an amazing note – he said ‘can you play this scene as though you don’t exist yet?’.
“It’s Romeo who brings her into the world really, that’s when she ‘breathes’ for the first time. There is something inside her like a ticking bomb that gets detonated and that’s it – there’s no going back.”
I saw the production in Stratford-upon-Avon and both Mariah and Gale give astounding performances.
Romeo and Juliet of course tells the story of two people falling in love. Impulsively, they marry in secret, but in a divided city their innocent union is threatened by a bloody family feud. Shakespeare vividly captures the beauty, intimacy and ultimate fragility of young love in a hostile world.
One scene involving Mariah and a rope is particularly memorable. “Rupert wanted me to fly a remote controlled helicopter or bird around the stage,” she explains.
“I think it became a bird because there is a lot of reference to birds throughout the play. So 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 spinning a rope above my head and I liked it because it was weird and did what he wanted. It was a way for me to speak while silent because it’s all down to what you do with the rope,” she adds.
ROMEO and Juliet opens this year’s RSC season in Newcastle tomorrow. Entertainment Editor Gordon Barr meets Mariah Gale, one half of the star-crossed lovers.
She may be 30, but for actress Mariah Gale’s latest role she is playing a ‘woman’ half her age.
This is not just any woman though: it is perhaps the theatre world’s most famous female – Juliet Capulet.
Mariah stars alongside thirtysomething Sam Troughton (Romeo Montague) in a stupendous production of the tale of the star-crossed lovers, which is at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle from tomorrow until Saturday.
It’s no mean feat to carry off a 14-year-old when you are 30, but the Royal Shakespeare Company is known for taking risks, and this is one that it pulls off with finesse.
“You do feel the weight of what has preceded you and in a way you have to find a way of forgetting about that,” says Mariah about taking on such a big role.
“The only way to do that is to think about who is this girl and what circumstances is she in and in a way not to tell your story as an actor approaching that part, but to tell her story.
“She’s a girl in a situation where she’s forbidden to love who she chooses. You have to just let the character shine through who you are and trust that that is enough.
“I thought maybe the most convincing way to be 14 is not to think it. In a funny way if you think about her level of experience combined with the situation she finds herself in 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.
“I think it would be doing a disservice to the character to disempower her. I thought I’ve just not got to patronise the character.
“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.
“I think we try to do that to 14-year-olds, who are very complex people.
“I think you have to connect with your character in that situation 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.
“I don’t think 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 the other side into things that people don’t normally face.
“She faces her own death which she stages herself.
“With Juliet there is certainly a sense she is a stranger in her own world and from the first scene her mother and nurse those two women have experiences she feels very alienated. There is miscommunication going on, there is awkwardness. It is not a happy domestic scene.
“Rupert gave me an amazing note – he said ‘can you play this scene as though you don’t exist yet?’.
“It’s Romeo who brings her into the world really, that’s when she ‘breathes’ for the first time. There is something inside her like a ticking bomb that gets detonated and that’s it – there’s no going back.”
I saw the production in Stratford-upon-Avon and both Mariah and Gale give astounding performances.
Romeo and Juliet of course tells the story of two people falling in love. Impulsively, they marry in secret, but in a divided city their innocent union is threatened by a bloody family feud. Shakespeare vividly captures the beauty, intimacy and ultimate fragility of young love in a hostile world.
One scene involving Mariah and a rope is particularly memorable. “Rupert wanted me to fly a remote controlled helicopter or bird around the stage,” she explains.
“I think it became a bird because there is a lot of reference to birds throughout the play. So 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 spinning a rope above my head and I liked it because it was weird and did what he wanted. It was a way for me to speak while silent because it’s all down to what you do with the rope,” she adds.