For one night only Duomuži present their two person adaptation of Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra. Actor Luke Robbins and director Colleen Sullivan discuss their production coming to The Bread & Roses Theatre on 28 November.
COLLEEN: Hi Luke.
LUKE: Hello.
COLLEEN: Here we are back on Skype again. So, that’s my first question, can you talk a bit about our 9-month long rehearsal process on Skype for Antony & Cleopatra?
LUKE: It was a fascinating beast. It was a necessity given our locations and our separation -- oddly enough separation is a huge part of the play — but having that extended time was really helpful. The phrase that kept popping up during our process was this "A&C stew." We had months to think about these characters who were so complex, that defy logic and were so frustrating. We had a lot of time to spend with them individually. It was really interesting to find how personal Skype rehearsal could be.
COLLEEN: What do you mean by “personal”? What does that mean to you?
LUKE: Staring at a computer screen that was entirely Ronald’s face and getting to whisper to him was a really wild experience. Because most of the time I was alone in my apartment so I was feeling isolated on my side. In many ways, it was so much easier to tune everything out and just see him, just hear him. And I could hear everything. It was really nice to be able to play in our tiny, tiny miniature rehearsal space. For such a long time. And then to see it expand out when we were in person. The two spaces we were limited to on Skype helped shape the staging of the play.
LUKE: Hello.
COLLEEN: Here we are back on Skype again. So, that’s my first question, can you talk a bit about our 9-month long rehearsal process on Skype for Antony & Cleopatra?
LUKE: It was a fascinating beast. It was a necessity given our locations and our separation -- oddly enough separation is a huge part of the play — but having that extended time was really helpful. The phrase that kept popping up during our process was this "A&C stew." We had months to think about these characters who were so complex, that defy logic and were so frustrating. We had a lot of time to spend with them individually. It was really interesting to find how personal Skype rehearsal could be.
COLLEEN: What do you mean by “personal”? What does that mean to you?
LUKE: Staring at a computer screen that was entirely Ronald’s face and getting to whisper to him was a really wild experience. Because most of the time I was alone in my apartment so I was feeling isolated on my side. In many ways, it was so much easier to tune everything out and just see him, just hear him. And I could hear everything. It was really nice to be able to play in our tiny, tiny miniature rehearsal space. For such a long time. And then to see it expand out when we were in person. The two spaces we were limited to on Skype helped shape the staging of the play.