Shakespeare Off-The-Cuff

In preparation for this weekend's three-part Princeton Shakespeare Company (PSC) Festival, director Georgie Sherrington '08 banned her actors from studying the plays being performed and did away with the pesky practice of holding rehearsal. The method may seem unconventional — or even downright crazy — but Sherrington aims to present the Princeton community with authentic renditions of some of the Bard's most beloved plays, all performed in the tradition of Shakespeare's original acting troupes. The festival, PSC's first performance of the year, is cleverly titled "As He Liked It," and will feature performances of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" on Thursday, "King John" on Friday and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" on Saturday in Dod Courtyard.

"It's not just about performing Shakespeare, but about bringing it into an entirely exciting context," PSC publicity manager Lovell Holder '09 said. "We're always looking for ways of demystifying Shakespeare and making it new and fun and something that's very much alive."

The experimental production is the brainchild of Sherrington, a seasoned performer, director and president of PSC, whose love for Shakespeare was nurtured in her native London. For her fall-term junior paper, Sherrington explored how actors in Shakespeare's companies were able to memorize tremendous numbers of lines in very little time.

"In those days, actors would get out of their performances and it would be dark, so they would go drinking in the taverns," Sherrington explained. "Then they would wake up at 10 a.m., giving them just two hours to learn their lines and two to rehearse the lines before they were to perform."

The project sparked Sherrington's interest in the methods of original Shakespearean actors, so she decided to stage a theatrical experiment in which Princeton undergraduates would learn and act in much the same way that Shakespeare's actors did. "We set some ground rules, gave some basic guidelines, but for the most part, the actors are basically on their own," Sherrington said.

The 26 cast members were given tailor-made scripts containing only their own lines, with threeto four-word prompts as cues. Very few stage directions were provided, and blocking — the art of placing and moving actors across the stage — was practically nonexistent. In fact, the very first time the actors will run through the scripts in full will be on each play's opening night.

"For an actor, [this project] is phenomenal," said Laura Fletcher '10, who plays Anne Page in "Merry Wives" and Blanche in "King John." "It's less of a performance and more an academic exercise in performance ... You have to listen really carefully because everything that happens in the scene informs how you're going to act out your own lines." Fletcher added that she's both nervous and excited to see how the production turns out. "I think it will be exhausting because I'll be on edge the entire time I'm on stage," she said. "But I also think there will be some really neat moments and little epiphanies for the actors."

Kut Akdogan '10, who plays the title role in "King John," Fenton in "Merry Wives," and Demetrius in "Midsummer," said that his biggest struggle is learning his lines without the help of his fellow actors. "Usually, actors learn most of their lines during the rehearsal period," Akdogan said. "You get an idea of the context. Working with lines in your room — it's different."

While actors have not gathered to rehearse the actual plays they will be performing, they have participated in a number of improvisational workshops and exercises to prepare themselves for what promises to be a taxing opening night. In one workshop, they ran through Shakespeare's "Cymbeline" with as little preparation as they will have during the festival.

"I learned more about the scene by watching the actors work through it than I ever did by studying it," Sherrington said. "You really pick up on how expertly written [Shakespeare's] plays are."

For the sake of authenticity, Sherrington opted to use the less common folio texts of the plays, which she said are more problematic in grammar and detail but provide the closest interpretation of Shakespeare's works as they were actually enacted on stage.

Sherrington pored over the texts and attempted to make sense of them, making theatrical any clue she possibly could. In the end, however, she's leaving much of the interpretation to the actors.

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"I'm really trying to minimize creative input on my part," she said. "One of the great things about this project is that it gives complete creative ownership to the actor. They're really going to surprise each other out there."