Don John rehearsal blog pt 4

With the kind permission of Kneehigh Theatre, we're reproducing Carl Grose's rehearsal blog. This is the fourth part of five. Don John is on at Northern Stage from the 27 - 31 January.

Week Four

Craig Johnson is an idiot.

There. I said it.

Actually, that’s not as harsh as it sounds. In fact, where I come from, this is perhaps the highest praise I can give him (and believe me, I’ve tried to give less). I don’t mean that Craig is a dunderhead or a pratt or a pranny or a brainless, gibbering nincompoop. No, no. I mean that he is an idiot in the finest, and most theatrical sense.

Right now, I’m sitting out front, watching him bust some moves in the rehearsal room. He plays Derek the vicar – a man who preaches to an empty church, and who cannot reach out and touch his poor wife, Anna. Anna (played by fantastic Icelandic actress Nina Dogg Filippusdottir) stands beside her father’s body and mourns. She has had a dark dalliance with our anti-hero Don John and demands her ineffectual husband act on her behalf. Craig hollers into the air, “Ohh! I’m going to do… something!” Craig then leaps into the air (sort of), and rolls clumsily across the floor. Action-movie style, he tries to crawl under a chair but gets his head caught. He then tries kicking the door open. It doesn’t budge. So he has to open it by hand, and then bolt out into the darkness to find his man. It’s heartbreaking, pathetic and hilarious all at the same time.

Being an idiot is what is partly required of us as performers in Kneehigh. It does not essentially mean being randomly stupid. It means allowing yourself to be foolish and naughty and free when rehearsing, in the hope that you might hit upon something truthful in the telling of the story – although, if honest, the stupidity does tend to infectiously take over. The director has to rein us in a little (scratch that – a lot). But when it hums, and this self-imposed playfulness is unbound, we sometimes reveal our most human flaws - ridiculousness is celebrated. That’s the idea, anyway.

I’ve gone all worthy. Enough of that! Want some more examples of sublime unrestrained foolishness at work?

Gisli Orn Gardarsson wears a floral dress and skips gaily about the room, singing a sickly sweet wooing song whilst trying to seduce Emily from Cscape. She’s not having any of it. Mike Shepherd’s character Nobby takes my character Alan out on an impromptu stag-do, ties me up, puts a pair of women’s pants on my head, rubber gloves on my feet and a funnel down the front of my trousers. Patrycja Kujawska plays Zerlina the Polish cleaner. She dances about a seedy hotel room with her vacuum whilst dusting and reading a book – it’s sassy and very funny. We’re practising the songs. Dom Lawton (singer extraordinaire) looks to me and says proudly, “I’m going to sing like an otter!” And by God, he does.

What a bunch of idiots.