Sweet Sorrow(42)

What range? I turned another page and saw Benvolio’s name above a great slab of text, and why had Helen been asking Fran for money, why was she grinning? Why were they all looking at me now? Because it was my line.

‘Gregory on my word, we’ll not carry coals.’

The role of Gregory was read by Helen and it helped somehow to exchange lines with someone who, if not worse, was certainly no better. ‘No, for then we should be colliers,’ she mumbled and we trudged on until it was time for this Benvolio character to speak.

I’d adopted a strategy of saying each word as simply as possible, one by one, like stepping stones across a river, with no variation in speed or emphasis: ‘Part. Fools. Put. Up. Your. Swords. You. Know. Not. What. You. Do.’

But someone was shouting at me: Lucy Tran, playing a character called Tybalt who also didn’t like me very much, judging from the way she hissed each line, jabbing at my elbow with her pen.

‘What? Drawn and talk of peace? I HATE the word as I hate HELL, all Montagues and THEE! Have at thee, COWARD!’

Clearly Lucy had decided to discard Ivor’s ‘no acting’ guidance, but I continued to dole out the words as if feeding change into a vending machine.

‘Madam. An. Hour. Before. The. Worshipped. Sun. Peered. Forth. The. Golden. Window. Of. The. East …’

Then straight into another scene with Romeo, a seemingly endless dialogue in which Miles sighed and scoffed and laughed, the kind of unreal laughter that is spelt out, ha-ha, ho-ho. The rain had stopped drumming on the glass and there really was no need to shout like that, but on he went, taking loyal Benvolio with him into the next scene and the next, more and more lines for me and I started to think, my God, this part is practically the lead. Why can’t I have fewer lines? Please, let me do less.

Polly, the nice lady who owned the house, was next, taking us on a road trip of the British Isles, from the East End to the Midlands, Newcastle and beyond, and I realised that the Nurse was ‘comic relief’. Then another sticky patch as I described Tybalt’s death, distributing the words like a child dealing a pack of cards, and after that, thank God, Benvolio finally shut up and I could allow myself to watch and listen until, finally, many hours after we’d set off:

‘… for never was a story of more woe/Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.’

Some silence, an awkward shifting. Pages closed. Ivor, in a sombre voice, said, ‘Well – that was a lot of acting. Clearly there’s work to do. We’re … we’re going to have to pick the bones out of that one. Okay, everyone. Fifteen minutes, everyone. Take fifteen.’

The company stood and stretched and for the first time, I caught Fran’s eye as she gave a closed-mouth smile: well done you! I was too embarrassed to cross to her, and besides, here was Romeo barring my way.

‘So, Benvolio – what did you think?’

‘Great. You’re very good.’

He waved the praise away. ‘First read-through, so I’m still digging, you know? I’ll get even better. But look …’ He placed a large hand on my shoulder. ‘We’ve got a lot of scenes together, yeah? I mean, a lot.’

‘Yeah, I noticed that.’

‘So, can I just check – you’re not actually going to do it like that, are you?’

I wasn’t going to do it at all. In the intervals between stamping out the words I’d taken in the performances and even a non-expert like me could see that this thing was doomed, with or without my involvement.

First, there were the non-actors, the anti-actors, the ones who had nothing on our side – myself, Helen and Bernard. Then, the largest group, actor-impersonators, with their posh voices roller-coasting up and down, strange pauses and stresses, their posture imperious even when seated. It reminded me of the earnestness that small children bring to playing at kings and queens in the playground. Perhaps this was what acting was, playing at kings and queens, but what audience would watch this of their own free will?

As to Fran Fisher, it’s possible that I was not entirely objective. But at that time, in that greenhouse, I thought she was easily the greatest actor that I had ever seen and her brilliance, it seemed to me, resided in all the things she didn’t do. She didn’t pose or posture or strain, she didn’t put on a wildly different voice to the one that she spoke in. Unlike Miles, she didn’t pause in … all the … wrong places then skitter forward in a fake version of natural speech, but neither did she mumble or throw things away. Somehow the words at which I’d stared, stared and stared, and which had seemed nonsensical to me, suddenly sounded eloquent, urgent and real. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, towards Phoebus’ lodging! she’d said, and though I’d struggle to tell you where the horses came from, why their feet were on fire or where Phoebus lodged, in that moment I had somehow thought, yes, I know just what you mean.

Talent was not something I felt drawn towards – probably the opposite was true, and I was inclined to resent or jeer or run away from people who were good at things – but every time she spoke, the whole room leant in closer. A character that in my head had been an illustration, a girl on a balcony, now seemed funny and passionate, smart and wilful, rebellious and – a word that my sixteen-year-old self would writhe at – sensual. How could you act those qualities if they weren’t at least a part of who you were? To perform them and not possess them would be like expressing a thought you’d never had. Next to Juliet, Romeo was a whiny lunk. What did she see in him?