To be or NOT to be

I had prepared my submission to the Artistic Panel the week before and they had passed it as worthy enough to go before the whole company on the second Thursday in January 2008. The director has to persuade the whole company or at least a majority to vote for their proposed production. I had dithered before the submission to the Artistic Panel and been persuaded that my idea was a good one by both family and friends. I liked the idea of directing again and had researched the play. I had given a lot of thought about the characters and the style I wanted to adopt. Some ideas for design and setting were buzzing around in my head. With my usual self confidence and panache, I would at least make the company pay attention. I had a good product and a good idea.
So what happened then? For a week I felt tired and sleepy. To such an extent that I had to have naps in the late afternoon. This is nothing new and in winter I have always thought it would be nice to hibernate. Wrap oneself up in a duvet and stay indoors until the spring creeps over the windowsill. Unfortunately I do have a habit of sleeping if things aren't right. I am not one for struggling through the pain barrier. Man flu must have originated with me. Anyway it is a defence mechanism my psychology and my body have devised to deal with problems. I didn't feel particularly unwell. just sleepy. However it was enough to alert the Best Beloved that something might be amiss and she did express concern. This in turn made me think and inspect myself carefully for any other symptoms other than sleepiness. We have to give a weekly account to Debbie, our cardiac rehab phase 4 exercise leader, of any changes in medication or symptoms. I thought hard about it but, other than organising a cholesterol blood test at my GP, knew there was nothing medically wrong.
However I did feel pressurised - not exactly stressed - but feeling I was struggling to keep abreast of all my interests. I do need to be better organised and am reading an organisational manual at the moment to help me out. I suspect I do this every new year and know I did last year. I don't work and need to organise my expenditure more carefully in the past as I am no longer earning. I still have the same spending habits though as when I was at work. My week has acquired a structure of its own without too much forethought or planning by me. Monday is domestic matters with the Best Beloved (as she doesn't work on Monday). We tend to leave the weekend free from years of habit and years of spending at least some part of the weekend or most of Sunday in fact doing school work, marking or preparation. Natty Chap, our son in law, has occasionally to call off a Sunday family meal because of college work or marking needing attention. That lad works really hard - he is directing "Attempts On Her Life" by Martin Crimp at the moment for the Bench., which involves a couple of nights a week and a solid chunk of Sunday. I am mightily impressed by his labours as a difficult text is coaxed into life and action by Natty Chap and his cast. He has come from an imprisoned murderer in "Frozen", an unfaithful husband in "Dead Funny" and a feckless father in "The Wild Duck" in 2007. Like all of us, his passion is the theatre (and Pompey of course as it goes without saying!). Natty Chap was also going to be my Hamlet and was a piece of pre casting, of which I would have to inform the company as part of my pitch. The company is not fond of pre casting but with Hamlet I thought it was perfectly understandable to have done so and certainly Natty Chap would make a superb one!
I sat down on the Thursday afternoon to finalise what I was going to say in my pitch with this heavy feeling which wouldn't lighten or go away. I didn't think the feeling was particularly the fault of "Hamlet" but it was certainly present that afternoon. I could visualise certain members of the company in the main roles and I could see variations in the casting to make it interesting for them and for me. The play is marvellous material and I had begun the task of cutting it down and had enlisted the help of David, my mate, to help me finish off the task long before we got to audition stage. I didn't want to do a dialogue from the play as part of my pitch and was toying with the idea of showing the work done on cutting Act 1 Scene 1 down to size. The company tends to expect sight readings from proposed plays at a Club Night pitch. These can be asking for volunteers to read but not everyone is a gifted sight reader (the Best Beloved and David are truly exceptional in this respect - and i am not too bad either) and sometimes this can be detrimental to the director's pitch. I thought Shakespeare might exacerbate the problem especially in the absence of David on holiday and Best Beloved as member of Artistic Panel. Also the company might see this as a further example of concealed pre casting.
The problem was putting possible faces and names to the less prominent roles. I was spoiled for choice for Gertrude and Ophelia, although I would like to have persuaded Herself /"Bob" to have read for Ophelia. I could also find a Player Queen, although if I was doing it Jacobean, strictly speaking the Player Queen should be a young boy. I needed a dozen men and good actors if they were to double/treble up as required. Our membership is probably as big as it has ever been and regularly thirty or forty people attend the club nights. The Bench has always prided itself on having a larger number of men than is the case in lots of non professional theatre companies. However I feel that the numbers of men have slightly declined and certainly the availability of the men has reduced noticeably. They are all too busy in their working lives and have to carefully ration their participation in theatre these days, as she can be a demanding mistress. I felt I could gather together an excellent nucleus of leading parts but would find it difficult to find a strength in depth. You then enter the realm of reluctant spear carriers who mean well but need an awful lot of work to bring them up to standard and their reluctance to put in the time and effort to be brought up to standard just makes it really tough to be director. There is also the realm of begging actors to take part despite their obvious reluctance to do so and usually with very good reasons pertaining to work and family commitments. You then end up as director feeling you have dragooned them into helping and are grateful to them for even turning up at rehearsals. I like directing, I like working with actors keen to explore a piece of text, I like creating stage pictures and analysing characterisation and body language. I like solving technical problems through up by a piece of work. It makes me feel alive and necessary. I know this isn't what directing is all about and as the Best Beloved says "you gotta take the rough with the smooth!" in her best RP.
However the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I didn't have to take the rough with the smooth. Once upon a time that might have been the case and if I was desperate to do a show that would still be the case. I wasn't driven by the need to do Hamlet and planning it, thinking about it, had become a chore. The project wasn't energising me and so I was going to find it difficult to energise the company. On that Thursday afternoon I decide that I wasn't going through with the submission. I don't know whether I just chickened out and couldn't face the hard work needed. Whatever the reason, once I had decided not to proceed, I felt considerably relieved almost immediately and that a weight had left my mind and shoulders.

Later at the anti-climactic Club Night listening to the other directors pitching, it did occur to me that I could have offered a modern contemporary play such as "Love or Money" by Dennis Kelly as my directorial re-emergence (It was November 2000 that I directed "Racing Demons" by David Hare for the Bench). It might be easier to find a way in with a smaller cast and spend budget on royalties rather than costume.
Anyway that is how the Bench Hamlet July 2008 as envisaged by me never saw the light of day. I now have this extra blog link. I intend using it for my reviews of theatre I see this year and I hope to see lots! My reviews will also appear in the Benchpress, a newsletter for members and supporters, the Backbenchers.
I also intend using the blog for screaming frustratedly at Pompey. I will try to help 'Arry Redknapp and his chairman, Mr Gaydamark, in their selections and dealings by offering my advice and opinion.
I hope you, my reader, will stay with me on this adventure into theatre and premiership football. Without you, these strange ponderings at 5.00 a.m. in the morning would be consigned to a writing pad on my bedside table.
I trust, dear reader, that you will do me the kindness every now and then of commenting on the material and thoughts expressed. The silence just encourages me to continue in the same vein and perhaps that is not always a good thing.
Fare thee well, sweet prince!