All the world’s a stage/And all the men and women merely players/They have their exits and their entrances/And one man in his time plays many parts/His acts being seven ages. (From: As You Like It)
I estimate my actual 72 years of age to roughly correspond with 5 and a half of Shakespeare’s seven ages. Somewhere between the Justice, with his propensity for ‘wise saws and modern instances’ and the ‘lean and slipper’d pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch at side’.
For a while now, as a daily mental exercise to match the physical, I’ve set my muscle memory the task of learning some favourite pieces from the Bard’s work. There are different reasons for choosing each one. John’o’Gaunt’s ‘This England’ speech from Richard II for example because having founded and run a theatre company inspired by the word ‘demi-paradise’ and keeping this country diary as ‘This Other Eden’ it was high time to get the whole thing under my belt. Add a clutch of famous soliloquies from the mouths of Hamlet, Macbeth, Prospero, Richard III etc. and you get the picture.
Without the context of artistic process through company rehearsal and direction there’s still pleasure to be had in line learning for learning’s sake and the extra appreciation of the man and his work that results through private study and practice. And yet, one still feels the need of an audience, however minimal, to complete the exercise. Luckily a non-actor friend who has nurtured a lifetime’s love of poetry proved generous in giving me their time to meet that challenge. We agreed an outdoor setting was best. Having not yet seen for ourselves what had become of the sycamore infamously felled by person or persons unknown last September, we set out alongside the whinstone ridge to do so.
We perched in the lee of Hadrian’s wall overlooking the fenced stump of the iconic tree, reflecting on its meaning and great loss. That was followed by conversational recall of some of our favourite poems and blank verse before breaking off to enjoy a simple picnic. At this point we caught the sound of ethereal instrumental music from an unseen source. Suddenly, from the other side of the wide wall, three lanky teenage boys emerged carrying a ghetto blaster. Oblivious of our presence, we became their de facto audience, witnessing an improvised lament for the tree’s cruel demise. Ritual complete they got off their knees, laughed awkwardly and moved at pace up the steep side of the gap to disappear over the brow. We were left alone again, suitably bemused, yet happy to be upstaged by their singular homage.
Oh for a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of Invention. A kingdom for a stage, princes to act and monarchs to behold the dwelling scene….Mission resumed, I’d just started giving the opening Chorus speech of Henry V when the rival muse of air suddenly appeared to play its part by filling and blowing my empty sandwich bag away downhill at great speed. I continued the speech while running to retrieve the ballooning plastic. Returned breathless but triumphant, completing the run in both senses of the word, and thus we both fell about laughing.
More speeches were let loose on the breeze, as we ambled uphill and down on the way back, in between meeting and greeting fellow ramblers. Another unusual cultural foray on a dull winter’s day, getting those speeches out into the open and improvising freely around their delivery before my receptive, astute and amused audience of one. Valued in return the conversation that came of it. My friend’s life away before retirement was one spent in the higher echelons of the corporate business world, so many aspects of communication discussed around our complimentary career disciplines and ways of working. Hamlet’s advice to the players was in there too, echoing beyond our footsteps, before being borne away by the western winds….Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so o’erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature…
STEPHEN TOMLIN 