� In Conversation Mark Rylance Artistic Director / Master of Play in "Julius Caesar"

What qualities do you look for when casting actors to work at the Globe?

I look for players; people who have a playful attitude and skill. It is important that they have a respect for the text that isn’t too formal and isn’t too casual - but playful. I look at their skills, as well. It really is like looking for people to play a sport. I’m looking for actors who have the nerve to stand up and pretend to be someone else. I look for people who are comfortable at playing with the audience; who are not too closed off – actors who are confident being someone else and who don’t have to do that in an imaginary world that’s separate from the audience. During auditions I listen for an actors love of sound, their use of the words and the sound within the words. I look for actors that respect, what I think, is Shakespeare’s endeavour: to bring the natural way that people speak into these mythical stories. I’ll also look for just how connected s/he is as a person -how much s/he’s connected to his/her body, speech, thoughts and emotions - making sure that connection isn’t too formal or too casual but is true to him/her. I suppose I’m interested also in people who are digging for what’s true, and who are going to dare to play something that’s true. I look for people who are interested in ensemble work - acting isn’t like tennis, a single person sport, it’s a group sport - it’s more like a game of football or hockey. So I look for that kind of ethic in a person. But I find many more actors who have that than I need - a lot of people have these skills in varying degrees.

I also look for a line up of players that will be dynamic for the play. Because Giles (Block) and I are doing Antony and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, we look for a line up that will serve both plays. That pressure is good because it means we have to stretch people; we can’t just hire someone who’s great to play Brutus, we also need someone to play Charmian. So Danny (Sapani) was auditioned for a part he wouldn’t normally be auditioned for and probably for the first (and he says last) time ever, an actor will play both Brutus and Charmain. Part of the delight in acting and directing comes from being able to cast people who are right for the parts.

How would you describe the company that you’ve assembled this season?

It’s a very particular group: I’m pleased that there’s a wide age range. It’s very good to have older actors with experience as well as younger actors: the company ranges from an actor who has just left drama school to an actor in his mid 70’s who fought in the second World War - so there’s a lot of experience. I’m also pleased with the lead players. Paul Shelley as Caesar is a good lead player: he has extensive experience in companies and is calm and collected. Then there’s John McEnery who has played here before and Danny Sapani, who is a rising star of an actor… That’s good to have; to see movement of people coming into the leads. I’m also very happy with the number of former players who are here: Toby Cockerell, Ben Walden who is taking a series of small parts in Julius Caesar and then will play Octavius in Antony and Cleopatra. The fact that Ben has come in to play Octavius and is taking smaller parts in the first production is very generous: there is a good ensemble spirit from the former players.

It’s also very exciting to have an American actor, Mike Rudko. We’re always looking out from the rehearsal room to the things that are similar in the world around us - so that the world that we create in the play relates to events that people are witnessing in the papers and in their lives when they come to the Globe. The theatre has to connect, it has to take the reality that the audience brings and transform it into a story, to try and illuminate ethical questions in the apparent chaos of life. But if the play doesn’t have any connection at all, then the audience will distance themselves from it. So we have an American with the experience of what’s happened with American government, which is very good. I’m pleased that it’s a multiracial group, as well.

The company is being very faithful to me - they’re trusting me with the exercises I’m giving them and the way I’ve structured the process. The real gift is having a master of verse as well as a master of play. As master of play, when I call a rehearsal to develop the quality of play, I might call some people in the morning at 10.00 who might be finished at 11:30. I might not need them again until 16:30. It’s a big problem for directors because you need to keep actors involved - they don’t like to hang around. This season Giles (Block) can always use those people to do verse work. Under the normal system, a lot of rehearsal time is wasted because there’s only one person who can rehearse. But if you share out and have a master of dance, voice, verse, etc., then people can be working more of the time and you make the most of a short period of rehearsal. It also means that when the scenes come back to me, they’ve moved forward. The rehearsals consist of me refining and shaping scenes rather than prescribing them. The process is very enjoyable. The company is very creative, too; I’m very pleased with them.

Do you and Giles Block liase daily or do you have a more instinctive relationship?

I trust and believe in what Giles is working for in the verse. It’s as if he’s preparing the building blocks or materials - then I come in and mix them up a bit more. Giles is terrific, he’s a terrific partner. There should be a quality of ‘movement’ through the verse – that’s what we’re both hunting for. At a certain point, Giles might say, ‘I don’t feel this person is yet taking advantage of the feet’. There are feet in verse and they’re called feet for a great reason: they’re to do with movement. The word ‘eloquence’ is really to do with the fluency and the force. I guess, in a sense, I work on the force, Giles works on the fluency, and the actors bring the appropriateness; they adjust the appropriateness of how they say their lines. Sometimes Giles and I work in the same room, sometimes we work in two separate rooms.

How do you, as master of play, like to approach the rehearsal process?

I like to begin playing right away: I don’t like to talk about something before you do it because I think sometimes naming a thing makes it frightening. It’s like pulling a plant out of a green house before it’s ready to come out. I like discovering things in play, so I try to encourage the actors as much as possible to jump in and make mistakes. We’ll discover from inside the play rather than look at it and say, ‘right I’ll make out this path and I’m going to go in and I’ll walk the path’: by saying that, you’re doing what’s happened already. I think in a lot of theatre it seems that people are playing yesterday or they’re playing what happened months ago in rehearsal. I want this company to develop their own skills so that when we play, we play live and direct and are open to all possibilities. For example, there is a servant who comes in to talk to Antony at the end of his speech to the people -this scene can be played in two ways, the servant can come on the stage and then Antony can say ‘How now, fellow’or he can stay off the stage so that Antony has to call him, ‘How now fellow’. Both are real; no one is better than the other. If the servant feels that Antony is getting complacent, I would tell him to just stay off stage. We have to keep each other awake because the hardest, hardest thing (and why a lot of people go into film and television) over a long run, is to keep the play alive, as if it’s happening for the first time. I like to develop different possibilities.

As another example, let’s say a messenger arrives with a message or something in the middle of a scene - he interrupts a conversation that would normally carry on. So sometimes I’ll say ‘don’t come on’ to the messenger and I’ll let the players carry on the conversation. By the time the production is performed, they are initially expecting to be travelling down one road and then when the messenger does arrive they’re set off in another direction. It has a very different effect from saying ‘I am going down this road and now I’m going to stop because I know the story will go this way’. I’m trying to look for spontaneity in the play and indeed, Giles is trying to develop spontaneity in the way the actors speak the verse. The work really is to try and bring life into the play.

What is the most exciting or surprising thing to come out of the rehearsal process?

Every day goes by like a dream; it’s just so enjoyable… to mention one thing would be to disregard so many other things… I have to tell you, it’s a wonderful thing to spend twelve, fourteen hours a day with Shakespeare, going back over the scenes, digging. It’s a bit like digging in a mine, or going into an Egyptian tomb: there’s all these different tools and objects in there and you say, ‘this would be good, bring this out or bring that out’. You take them out for a production but they’re always there for other productions, as well.