Peripeteia returned to the Dogs Bollix in December 2006 determined to push Elizabethan theatre practices further, this time by only using cue scripts to learn Much Ado, and by giving ourselves an Elizabethan rehearsal period - that is to say, barely more than a week. We did five performances at the Dogs Bollix, and learned a great deal about the power of magical thinking - using and allowing the (many) accidents that occurred to be happy ones, gifts from the universe. Stuart Devenie encouraged us to think more about context than subtext - the underlying anxiety and stress of the circumstances of hosting Don Pedro's occupying army, for example, and all the hierarchies and mini-hierarchies that the characters are trying to fit into (and perhaps, that Beatrice and Benedick are resisting fitting into). We created rules, manners, for the world that the characters were in - so we weren't worrying about creating a character, but allowing the combination of the words and our response to the rules to create the character (apart from anything else, this was really all there was time for). We were becoming hunters for the thrill of surprising and being surprised, live on stage, by the other actor.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
at The Dogs Bollix, 12th - 16th December 2006
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CAST
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LEONATO.....................................Stuart Devenie
ANTONIO............................................Jon Brazier
DON PEDRO.....................Gareth Tiopira-Waaka
BENEDICK.............................Trygve Wakenshaw
CLAUDIO.........................................Ora Simpson
DON JOHN................................Jacob Tamaiparea
HERO............................Rachael Dyson-McGregor
BEATRICE................................Madeleine Hyland
MARGARET..................................Bronwyn Turei
BORACHIO / URSULA..................Colleen Davis
DOGBERRY..................................Barnie Duncan
FRIAR / VERGES...........................Nisha Madhan
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Directed by Stuart Devenie
Produced by The Company