(Continued from p. 6 - Wade in India)

worked on Shakespeare monologues with intermediate acting students I am reminded how challenging it is for the novice to dive into Shakespeare. The more strategies the merrier. On several occasions, however, I have heard both Andrew and Cicely Berry caution against latching on to any one text exercise as the be-all-and-end-all.

The sights, sounds and smells of Mumbai were an education in their own right. One day I hurtled out of my room, compelled by the a recurring Pied Piper cry that rang rhythmically over the whole city block where my hotel was located. I circled the block to discover that the cry came from a turbanned fruit vendor hefting a basketful. He had found a way to trumpet his voice repeatedly over a large distance for hours on end. How? I lamented the language difference that kept me from asking him. People watching from my hotel room balcony and on my daily walks to and from the N.C.P.A. yielded both delights and sorrows. A Western woman in Western dress, walking alone, I went nowhere unobtrusively. I martialed my strength each time I went out-of-doors to confront the sheer numbers of people, the sounds, the noise, people cooking or barbering on the sidewalk, yellow and black cabs hurtling to and fro, goats tied up outside high-rise bank buildings, women and young children carrying rubble on construction sites, and beggars of every age and condition. I am haunted still by the little naked girl, 20 months old or so, who tottered up and grabbed my shirt tail for dear life. She wouldn't let go until, feeling monstrous, I firmly pushed her hand away. Other, older little girls approached me, crying "Mommy, Mommy!" plaintively. Although I knew the beggars were highly organized, this broke my heart every day.

After initial sessions with the entire group, Andrew worked alternately with three smaller sub-groups, developing what he had introduced in the large sessions. During the second week he invited each group to take charge of their own warm-up and to begin individual work upon entering the studio space. The entire group's participation was a testament to the effectiveness of the training and the comfort level of the ensemble. Andrew circulated among the group offering alignment checks here and relaxation of arm and shoulder muscles there. As vowel sounds became stronger and more consistent Andrew introduced consonant sounds as the muscular shapers and definers of vowels in words. The group plunged into a celebration of the feel and sound of consonants in the mouth, forming words without self-consciousness or affectation. Consonants appreciably influenced vowel length, and vowel sounds lengthened beyond staccato, rapid fire Morris code.

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With firm legerdemain Andrew skillfully led this group on a journey from breath to sound to language, and the group embraced the English language as their birthright. I have had to go back to my notes to determine when he introduced the first piece of Shakespeare text to the group, and I have discovered that a speech from CORIOLANUS was introduced on the first day, with a deceptive offhandedness. The sheets were tossed onto the floor with the words "It's only Shakespeare," and an exhortation to grab one, to move about the room while reading the text, and to lace it liberally with grand, Royal Shakespeare Theatre gestures. (Cicely Berry did the same thing at the Tempe workshop.) Afterward he asked, "How do you feel?" The group chorused "Great!" "It's a release!" "Cathartic!" and threw themselves into a passionate exploration of the words and thoughts in the piece, making physical sense, rather than cerebral sense. In short order a complicated speech which the group had only encountered moments before fairly vibrated off the page with energy, passion and commitment. Present as this process unfolded, I reckoned that some sort of language-Rubicon had been crossed, evidence of the group's evolving rapport with language.

Momentum carried the work forward. Andrew negotiated a balance of limbering work, including breathing in many guises, floor stretching, paired massage, back bends, headstands and bone props in the mouth, and more text work, which included passages from HENRY V, HAMLET and an A.L. Lloyd translation of a Lorca poem, "Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias." Andrew commented during one session that even the most extensive vocal warm-up is useless unless it is taken the next step into language. He has known actors to step on stage with voices warmed and ready to go, only to find their merely intellectual and sluggish rapport with words unequal to the task.

Andrew helped these Mumbai actors discover that Shakespeare is all about extremes, extravagance and survival, each word escalating meaning and begging the next word into being. This was vividly illustrated when he invited two actors in the group, whose native language is Marati, to do voice work on Shakespeare text translations in their own language. These individuals made palpable discoveries as they explored, discoveries which were felt by the rest of the group despite the language "barrier." In fact there seemed to be no barrier. One of these fine actors, Kishore Kadam, commented that Andrew's English-language text work had helped him to see things in his native language that he should have seen himself.

As the second week drew to a close Andrew held small group sessions in the N.C.P.A. Experimental

(Continues on page 12)