Sunday July 1st
Show Title: Volpone, or The Fox
Director: Mary Finch
Assistant Directors: Miranda McPherson and Chase O’Neill
Production Intern: Abraham Joyner-Meyers
Rehearsal Room: Old Masonic
What we did
We started our rehearsal by integrating our new costumes and props into the large market place scene. We have bottles of medicine, arcane books, a stage-within-the-stage, and more. In many of the scenes, Finch began to discuss the ideas of focal points, since without scripts, the actors can comfortably make eye contact with the listeners. The cast deftly put Camp Director Lia Wallace’s eye contact workshop into practice in their scenes..
Quick and Quotable
From the play
LADY POLITICK: I have a little studied physic; but now,
I’m all for music, save, in the forenoons,
An hour or two for painting. I would have
A lady, indeed, to have all, letters, and arts–
Lady Politick’s well rounded education would have been unusual for a woman, especially for a woman in Venice. She uses it to her advantage as she sues to be Volpone’s heir.
From the director
FINCH: [Describing Lady Politick] You’re a proper Victorian woman… in Venice… in the Wild West…
From the cast
CHASE: Want to go shame the state of Venice with me?
[I know RDA Chase isn’t a member of the cast, but I needed an excuse to include this quote.]
Production Insights
In any good Shakespeare play (by which I mean all of them) no character deceives the audience. The same is true for Volpone, where mastermind Mosca reveals his plan to undermine the title character while speaking directly to the audience. The revelation that Mosca may be working for his own interests arrives only late in the play, and adds the atmosphere of a heist film where in each scene the audience looks forward to the antics and cons that the characters execute in order to procure Volpone’s fortune.
Abraham Joyner-Meyers
Abraham Joyner-Meyers is a fiddler, a juggler, and a huge Shakespeare nerd. He completed watching the Shakespearean canon in the fall after seeing ASC’s production of The Fall of King Henry (Henry VI, Part 3). His passion for the Bard also led him to attend ASCTC for two summers, where he acted in Two Gentleman of Verona and Much Ado About Nothing. When Abe is not furiously reading, seeing, or acting in Shakespeare plays, he’ll often be found teaching himself to play new instruments, dancing at contras and with Morris teams, or training with his school archery team. He just completed his freshman year in the dual degree program between Harvard University and Berklee College of Music.