The Rose Readathon: A Unique Experience

If I were ever invited to appear on the TV programme ‘Room 101’ I know what at least one my nominations would be: people who qualify the adjective ‘unique’.

 

The definition of unique that there is literally nothing like the object, experience or whatever being described. Nothing, therefore, can logically be described as ‘very unique’, rather unique’ or ‘a bit unique’ – it either is or it isn’t. If a comparable thing exists, uniqueness is lost.

 

Which means there are actually very few unique things in this world: but on Saturday I experienced one of them. For – until and unless another is discovered – The Rose Theatre on Bankside is the only remaining Elizabethan theatre in the world – on the globe, I nearly wrote, but that would tread on the toes of its near neighbour, which is of course – ha! – just a replica.

 

Of course, The Globe does boast a few things The Rose lacks – walls, a full size stage... not to mention heating and toilets. But at The Rose one is in the presence of the actual, original, sixteenth century theatre – admittedly only the foundations, but the intention is that once these remains have been excavated and properly preserved, visitors to what will be a museum and working theatre will be able to stand almost literally in the shoes of Shakespeare, Marlowe and other great figures who trod the boards here.

 

To support The Rose Revealed Project towards this aim, the theatre hosted its second Readathon on Saturday: anyone who wished to was invited to sign up to take part in or watch the reading of one or more of six plays which were performed, one an hour, from 2pm. Five Shakespeares and one Marlowe.

When I turned up for the first Readathon last year I expected trained actors to be on hand to take the main roles, with those who had effectively walked off the streets to be offered something like ‘Second Soldier on the Left’.

 

Not a bit of it! Every person who has expressed an interest drew a slip from a hat bearing the name of a character so each actor had an equal chance of playing Hamlet, Lady Macbeth or Dr Faustus.

 

This did result in a few amusing castings, such as a strapping young man playing Ophelia while a petite lady played opposite him as Hamlet, but the actors and audience took this all – quite literally – in good part, and if anything it added to the enjoyment and entertainment.

 

Although billed as a Readathon, and although there was no requirement to do so, most readers performed as well, so rather than, as it could have been, a static readthrough, the effect was that of an early rehearsal of a play at which the cast had not yet had time to learn their lines.

 

As an audience member for one play, I found I could disregard the fact that the actors were holding scripts and for the main part enjoy it as I would enjoy a play in performance. As a reader for other plays, I thoroughly enjoyed not knowing exactly how others would interpret their roles, and acting and interacting with them.

 

The experience of performing on stage in the very theatre where such luminaries have acted, speaking lines written over 400 years before, yards away from the stage on which the writer once stood – now that truly is unique.