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Something Written in the State of Denmark: An Actor's Year with the Royal Shakespeare Company
Actor and official Royal Shakespeare Company member Keith Osborn tells the story of the company's extraordinary 2008–9 season in Stratford and London, with much drama on and off the stage. Also contains new material covering the early parts of the season, with many rehearsal and production photos taken throughout the season.
192 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 15, 2011
The author performed in the RSC's 2008/9 season and kept a blog of his activities. This blog forms the text of the book, with some additional material about the early season and some end matter: production and rehearsal photographs, credits, plot summaries, blog responses (all from women, oddly) and tweets. (No index though.)
Osborn played Egeus in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Marcellus in "Hamlet" and Marcade in "Love's Labour's Lost". He also had significant understudy work - notably as Claudius for Patrick Stewart - and a few side activities, including forming a band with members of the cast. He takes us through the entire season, from initial rehearsals in Clapham, on to the main productions in Stratford, and back to London for a winter run, closing with an epilogue about the later filming of "Hamlet" for the BBC.
Osborn's writing is engaging and unfussy (if a little slapdash here and there, as might be expected in a blog). The great value of this record is in revealing the depth and diversity of work that is applied to each production: puppetry workshops, maskwork, dialect coaching, fight calls, singing lessons, voice sessions, costume fittings, technical rehearsals, and on and on. Without seeing a moment of any of these stagings, the reader can be in no doubt as to the professionalism and creativity brought to bear. Sometimes the players are performing two plays in rep while rehearsing for their third!
The book is less revealing if one seeks celebrity titbits: what we learn of Patrick Stewart, David Tennant, or indeed any of the cast, is that they are all jolly nice people. I dare say, but a little good-humoured bitchiness and ribaldry could have drawn a more particular and lively picture for us. Look elsewhere for witty banter.
The sadness of the end of a run comes across naturally, along with the ephemeral nature of a company of actors, dispersing to the four winds, perhaps never to meet again. On the whole it's a great insight into the intense work of a top theatre company, shot through with the excitement of live performance.
Osborn played Egeus in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Marcellus in "Hamlet" and Marcade in "Love's Labour's Lost". He also had significant understudy work - notably as Claudius for Patrick Stewart - and a few side activities, including forming a band with members of the cast. He takes us through the entire season, from initial rehearsals in Clapham, on to the main productions in Stratford, and back to London for a winter run, closing with an epilogue about the later filming of "Hamlet" for the BBC.
Osborn's writing is engaging and unfussy (if a little slapdash here and there, as might be expected in a blog). The great value of this record is in revealing the depth and diversity of work that is applied to each production: puppetry workshops, maskwork, dialect coaching, fight calls, singing lessons, voice sessions, costume fittings, technical rehearsals, and on and on. Without seeing a moment of any of these stagings, the reader can be in no doubt as to the professionalism and creativity brought to bear. Sometimes the players are performing two plays in rep while rehearsing for their third!
The book is less revealing if one seeks celebrity titbits: what we learn of Patrick Stewart, David Tennant, or indeed any of the cast, is that they are all jolly nice people. I dare say, but a little good-humoured bitchiness and ribaldry could have drawn a more particular and lively picture for us. Look elsewhere for witty banter.
The sadness of the end of a run comes across naturally, along with the ephemeral nature of a company of actors, dispersing to the four winds, perhaps never to meet again. On the whole it's a great insight into the intense work of a top theatre company, shot through with the excitement of live performance.
July 11, 2012
Just great fun with a myriad of insights behind the scenes at The Royal Shakespeare Company. Keith Osborn is funny and informative and this diary/blog recording of a year with such productions as Hamlet (David Tennant,and Patrick Stewart) and A Midsummer Night's Dream is a light approach but it is most informative. The insights into the sheer hard graft of being part of a production of such high quality not only as one of the company (with both main and under-study roles) costumes, set productions, rehearsals is just revealing to one who often wondered what actually goes into a RSC production. The RSC is without doubt the crème de la crème and this comes across with ample evidence in the exhaustive preparation of a production. I found this at a Sally Ann shop and feel so luck to have found it.
April 18, 2013
What is delightful about this fly on the wall account of an actor's involvement of a full year long season across three plays in Stratford upon Avon and London, is the detail, the minutiae, and the insider's knowledge of day to day living as a company member. The rehearsal process, the text analysis, the staging, the singing, the combat, the design and so on... all this is described with relish, understanding, affection and approval. What emerges throughout the book as a whole is the under the skin experience of a man who loves his craft, and attempts at each turn to deepen it. We share the author's personal nourishment as he engages with three contrasting plays in the Shakespearean canon. A definite must read for anyone who wants to know what it's like to work for the RSC.
February 3, 2016
I wanted to like this more. I think it's slightly better at portraying the life of a working actor than it is portraying the creation of a play production, which is what I was hoping for. Osborn was in three different productions during the season he writes about, but was in smaller roles, so there were many, many scenes he didn't appear in. What I did find unique in this book was the information on understudying roles; Osborn understudied major roles in a couple of the plays.
June 3, 2010
It's written well, and gives some amusing stories into the RSC. Quite light though, don't expect too many blinding insights.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews