Detectives find the Bard’s glam

The Globe’s latest production puts a modern twist on Shakespeare but still calls on its actors to conquer the Bard’s early modern English, Rebecca Fox finds.

For Patricia Pantleon performing Shakespeare is as much detective work as acting.

Pantleon, a scholar of Shakespeare, has found the experience of performing on stage to be very addictive, especially the Bard’s work.

"You have the text but very little else. Figuring out what your character is meant to do, where you are going, who you are saying your lines to half the time, it’s all part of the fun; I really enjoy it — it’s detective work as well as acting."

As Orlando in the Globe’s latest production, Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Pantleon’s real test is the number of monologues and interactions with other characters. It is also a long time since she has had a role with so much text to learn.

"Exploring how my character interacts with them to make it as organic as possible. You are always a slightly different person depending on who you are talking to, so to show that while at the same time being the same character throughout has been quite interesting for me."

To Pantleon’s advantage is that she is no stranger to Shakespeare, having studied his work during her English literature degree and for her thesis.

"I found Shakespeare easy to understand so I thought it was something I could easily get into."

She believes her bilingual background — she is German and English-speaking — meant Shakespeare’s language is quite intuitive. So concentrating her studies on his work made sense.

"The construction of the sentences, the grammar and a lot of the artificial word constructions he uses I had no trouble understanding first time around."

Pantleon has always found Shakespeare quite "fun and easy" to memorise.

"You have the meter and the rhymes to keep you going."

Her first foray into drama was with Dunedin’s Summer Shakespeare programme. She has taken part in three productions and has been in one other Globe play.

"I’ve approached drama from the text side."

It does mean she has a particular interest in the written word and has been reading the annotated version of As You Like It to understand it better.

"I’m very interested in what we are actually saying, rather than just shouting out the words not knowing the context and what is implied."

She is also a big believer in seeing the plays performed, not just studying the words, as so much could be missed.

"If you just read them without seeing them you are missing a very important aspect and dimension. Plays weren’t written down to be read, they were written to be performed."

Her character is an interesting one. Director Thomas Makinson chose to cast Pantleon as Orlando as she was the best fit based on her portrayal during auditions.

"I’ve played male characters before."

The decision was made that no effort would be made to hide that she is a woman to make it obvious to the audience that Orlando is a man who was born as a woman.

"In one scene of the play Orlando is proving himself as a man and trying to grow as a person, so we’ve combined that with the modern sense of transgender person of assuming a new identity and trying to prove to the world this is who you are and what you want to be."

And while she has done some sword play before, this is her first attempt at wrestling on stage.

"I don’t have a lot of experience with hand to hand so it’s been quite interesting to figure that out."

Having had the first full rehearsal the play is coming together nicely, she says.

"It was absolutely beautiful to see it all put together for the first time."

The Globe had originally planned to run a Shakespeare film festival, but Makinson decided instead to do a Shakespeare production. While the choice of As You Like It was more by chance, it turned out to be the perfect for the "twists" Makinson, whose last directorial project was A Respectable Wedding by Berhold Brecht, had in mind.

A comedy, As You Like It is believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in 1623. It tells the story of Rosalind and her cousin who escape into the forest and find Orlando, Rosalind’s love.

Disguised as a boy shepherd, Rosalind has Orlando woo her under the guise of "curing" him of his love for Rosalind. Rosalind reveals she is a girl and marries Orlando during a group wedding at the end of the play.

"Two words come to mind: gender confusion," Makinson says.

"It also brought to mind David Bowie: ’70s glam, vibrant, colourful, loud."

So he decided to transform the Globe’s stage into a white box to highlight the colorfulness. A shiny white false floor has been brought in which reflects the disco lights and the walls have been painted bright white — quite a contrast to the usual dark walls of the Globe.

"We’ve had a lot of fun transforming it. The lights look amazing."

As the play is Shakespeare’s most musical, Makinson says it called out for live music just like it would have had when first performed.

So he enlisted the help of Tobias Devereux, who composed the music, Makinson describing it as a mix of "folk and glam rock".

"It allows the actors and musicians to play off each other a bit more. But it’s not a musical, it’s a play with music in it."

Makinson also decided to keep the language as written by Shakespeare, so all of the actors have had to learn its quirks. While having cast members like Pantleon’s as unchanged as possible.

"We’ve been having a ball with the weird spelling of words and what they mean and there are some great Shakespearean insults."

With a cast of 21, bringing them all together and scheduling has been quite a challenge, especially as some of the cast have been taking part in the Fringe Festival and Jersey Boys. Added to that the play is three hours long, so requires quite a bit of rehearsal.

"We’ve had understudies for the lead roles so we can continue to rehearse while those things are happening."

To see:

As You Like It, Globe Theatre, May 18-27