Costumes: Cossacks?

I had an impromptu meeting with Melissa today. We didn't talk much about Lear (we're both teaching right now, so we spent most of the time complaining about our students), but as we parted ways, she mentioned that she was going to revisit the whole "pre-Russian revolution" thing, and do some more research, because it wasn't quite sitting right with her.

"What about the Cossacks?" I asked.

She blinked. For a moment, neither one of us knew what I was talking about. But as I talked through it, my sudden suggestion began to make more sense. "Lots of furs and layers to strip away...a military feeling, but one that's barely civilized, as if the society can still remember a time when everything was anarchy. That could be Lear and his Knights. The new generation is more civilized, and doesn't understand the danger that anarchy can pose.



She agreed to look into it (although she might have been humouring me; we'll see). I still kind of like the idea, but it would have to be abstracted somewhat, so that we don't settle too firmly into one time and place.

The only difficulty I foresee right now is with respect to weaponry. It's incongruous to picture great big burly Cossack horsemen wielding skinny little fencing foils. But swords...well, that's a whole other issue right now, and one I'll have to address fairly soon.

Whom to Cast?

Starting to think about casting some more. It’s still almost a month before auditions, but I can’t help myself. I’m at the point now where it’s almost impossible to think about the show in abstract terms. I need images of costumes, sets, and faces to fill in the blanks.

How similar or dissimilar should the three sisters be? Their characters all contain reflections or aspects of Lear’s own: Goneril’s imperious authority, Regan’s passion, and Cordelia’s stubbornness and plain-spokenness. But should they resemble him physically? Should they resemble each other? I don’t want Goneril and Regan to suggest “evil step-sisters” to the audience as soon as they walk on stage. Like Lear, they all need the potential to become heroes or villains.

How young should Cordelia be? That’s a tough one...the temptation is to cast her very young, to make her appear fragile and innocent at the outset. It would also make her arranged marriage seem more unacceptable to a modern audience, and thus help to build sympathy for her. But by the end of the play, the chick is commanding armies—possibly even fighting alongside them. She either she needs to have a bit of maturity to start with, or else she needs to grow up in an awful hurry.

For that matter: how old is Lear? In one line (which I’ve cut), he claims he’s “four score and upward, not an hour more nor less.” That’s pretty specific (so specific, you have to doubt its accuracy). But can an eighty-year-old actor really handle a part as strenuous as Lear? Advanced age helps us to accept Lear’s madness, but it weakens his authority in a lot of respects.

I wouldn’t mind casting Gloster as a bit older than Lear, since his authority (over his household) seems more precarious, as if he’s taken it for granted for so long that it naturally slipped away from him. Then it makes sense that, whereas Gloster has nearly run out of steam by Act Four, Lear is still able to spring about in the daisies, and outrun a troop of soldiers (that’s always been a weird moment for me).

Edgar and Edmund can be younger, of course, but what about Kent? A man of 30 or 40 seems about right, but it would also work to show a bit of grey in his hair, too. I guess, when you get right down to it, the play is about a very strict generational divide, so it makes sense to clarify that through the casting. That means Lear, Gloster, Kent and all the Knights have to suggest that they’re past mid-life, whereas Goneril, Regan, Edmund, Edgar and Oswald can all be younger—spring chickens waiting to inherit the coop.

And what about the Fool? I have no bloody idea.

First Production Meeting

Had our first production meeting, with Helen, Jaclyn, and Sarah (director of productions), plus reps from set, lights, sound and text. I gave them copies of the rough schedule, and I showed them Balance (or part of it; the Walterdale's computer was too slow, and it loaded all herky-jerky).

I also gave them handouts with what I called "Directing Principles," so they could start to get a sense of how I work and where I want to go with the show. First, I listed four "core ideas" for this production of Lear:

1. Balance and Imbalance
2. Vortex/Whirlpool
3. Nothing/Sightlessness
4. The Animal Within

Then I listed my general directing principles, ie. the principles I try to abide by no matter what show I'm working on (or even what position I occupy). They're also principles I try to encourage in the actors I work with:

1. Respect (ie. the text, the space, your fellow artists, your audience)
2. Resolve (ie. commit to your work and to your character; make your choices matter)
3. Relish (ie. sink your teeth in. Get excited about the text and the process. Have fun)

Then three rules that I think apply to all Shakespeare work:

1. The simplest solution is usually the best
2. Every movement must mean
3. Go big or go home

Then, this fancy little diagram showing the four interrelated components of Shakespeare's text. The arrows move clockwise, but really you can start at any point in move in any direction, so long as you spend time on each one.
Finally, I put down a summary of the system I've been hashing out on this blog. I called it "SUSS-WALK-BLOCK", as in:

1. Stand and Deliver the lines in a circle
2. Understand what the lines mean and choose your intentions
3. Status (figure out who the boss is)
4. Step through the scene (to reflect the status of the boss and work out the balance of the scene)
5. WALK through lines individually (while the Director blocks the boss)
6. BLOCK the scene collaboratively, using status and balance

They probably thought I was nuts. But they seemed excited overall, and contributed some interesting first thoughts. Our next meeting is in about three weeks, at which point we'll firm up deadlines and departmental budgets, and start to build the show's concept as a team.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Wow, you disappear for a week or two, and everything's different!

Lear has not been cast yet. The auditions are October 23-24, and I can barely wait to see who turns up to play. (If you're lurking and you'd like to audition, email Helen, my stage manager, and she'll book you a slot.

That's right, I have a stage manager! I also have a text coach, a lighting designer, a set designer/ master builder, and no fewer than two sound designers! I guess I should back up a bit: recently, my set and sound designers both bailed out on me. Well, the sound designer didn't bail, he backed out gracefully. The set designer bailed. I was getting pretty frantic, but Jaclyn, my production manager, came through in spades, and now I have a splendid and talented production team, including:

Helen Walls (stage manager)
Joanne Lantz (lighting design)
John Henoch (set design/master builder)
Phil Kreisel (sound designer)
Mark Senior (sound designer)

Plus of course Melissa and Andrew, who have been on board for awhile. We're still not sure how Phil and Mark will collaborate on sound, but we'll work something out.

Everybody seems enthusiastic, which just makes me even more excited. I'm not sure how I'm going to restrain my glee for another month and a half!

Work Proceeds Apace

I feel as though I haven't posted for a dog's age, although it's barely been a week. Too much on the go. Walterdale's season has now begun (our first show opens in less than a month!) and any spare time I've had to think about theatre has been devoted to more pressing matters than Lear.

But I'm still thinking. And searching. Specifically, I'm still searching for a stage manager, darn it. When I was with my last theatre company, Sound & Fury, I had a fantastic, reliable stage manager with whom I worked every chance I got. But then I left the company in his hands, not considering that it would leave me one SM short.

But I had an interesting conversation last night with a would-be SM. She couldn't do it--too many other commitments--but she was very enthusiastic, and commented that it would be a fantastic way for her to learn about the play. Turns out she'd never read it or seen a production. That's probably not as unusual as I think; it's not nearly as well-known as Hamlet or R+J, and it's rarely done in Edmonton (I can think of only two productions in the last 20 years).

I find it strangely comforting to think that there are thousands of people who don't know the first thing about King Lear--and dozens (hundreds?) who will discover it for the first time though my production.

Yeah, comforting...and intimidating. Don't screw up.

Images II

Images, vignettes, stage pictures, moments in time...

Lear comes in from hunting in Act 1, Scene 3. His knights bustle around him. He moves around the stage, calling for his supper and his Fool (and his fiddlers three). He takes off his hat, and holds it out--a knight collects it. Same with his cloak. There's always somebody there to catch whatever he's about to drop. But towards the end of the scene, his knights have all been sent on errands; his support is gone. He instinctively drops an item behind him (maybe a wine goblet)--and is startled when it crashes to the ground. No one there to catch it any more.

Kent in the stocks. Instead of a split board, they are shackles which hoist him up into the air. As a n extra touch of cruelty, Cornwall shoves a barrel under his dangling feet. He spends the night engaged in a painful balancing act--the visual embodiment of shaky ground.

Gloster and Edgar on the "cliffs." Oswald comes charging in, following Regan's orders to execute Gloster. Maybe he's queasy about the job; he might be feeling a bit overwhelmed these days. Edgar defends Gloster with fearsome determination--but he doesn't have a weapon. Only Oswald is armed. The result is an almost comic cat-and-mouse, with an aggressive "madman", an armed coward, and a blind man caught in the middle. Gloster may even become a prop, an obstacle for the two combatants to dance around, over & under.

(Perhaps that's making light of Gloster's misery. But I suspect Shakespeare had that in mind--or at least accepted it as a possibility--when he had the blind old man topple off a non-existent cliff (THUMP!). In any case, there's got to be some lightness in the second half of this play.)

Then there's the battle. Edgar brings Gloster on ("Here, father, take the shadow of this tree...") and leaves him alone while the battle rages. Soldiers rush on, brush past him, and meet their deaths. A whirlwind of carnage, with Gloster in its still centre, hearing everything but seeing nothing. Or perhaps the whole battle should be done with only sounds--war from the perspective of a blind man.

The Fool's Final Exit

I’ve been thinking some more about the Fool’s untimely exit from the play. In my version of the script, his final appearance coincides with the end of the first act. I toyed with the idea of using him somehow to herald in the intermission—maybe have him lead the audience out into the lobby, and then entertain them while they had their drinks. He is sort of meta-theatrical, as I’ve observed, so it wouldn’t be completely out of line.

But it didn’t really appeal to me. I kept thinking about what the Fool has been up to, and where he might be expected to go next. Previous productions have found all sorts of creative ways to dispose of the Fool: in 1982, for example, the RSC production had Lear stab him in a violent fit during the “trial” scene. Often, he hangs himself, or else is found hanged (due to an ambiguous line of Lear’s near the end of the play, “And my poor fool is hanged”).

If I were going to kill the Fool off, I’d rather do it with a whimper, not with a bang. I’d rather see him contract pneumonia from his time out in the storm. He has very little to say while they’re in the hovel, and his last line (“And I’ll go to bed at noon”) suggests he has some foreknowledge of his own death. That could be more meta-theatrical prophecy, but it could also be a frail, sick man feeling the fever come over him. One can imagine the end of the scene: Kent and Gloster helping Lear out of the hovel, Edgar trailing behind, soliloquizing...and then everyone forgetting about the poor Fool, who remains by the fire, too weak to move, as the lights go down.

Okay...but consider the content of Edgar’s soliloquy:

How light and portable my pain seems now,
When that which makes me bend makes the king bow.
When we see our own betters bearing woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
Who suffers solo, suffers most in the mind,
Leaving free acts and happy shows behind.
But when our grief has mates and fellowship,
Then does the mind much suffering o’erskip.
Whate’er befalls tonight, safe ‘scape the king!

His concern is focused on Lear, so it makes sense that he might overlook the Fool. But the speech is about charity. It would be a terribly ironic gesture to have Edgar make this marvellous discovery about human compassion, and then walk offstage and leave a dying man behind.

So why can’t he help him? Say the Fool is upstage shivering and swooning as Edgar delivers his speech to the audience. When he’s done, he goes to exit, and we wince as we notice what he’s overlooked. But then he pauses, turns, and goes back to help the Fool along. That would be a nice, simple gesture, wouldn’t it? Somebody—one person in this godforsaken play—has learned to look out for the little guy.

Block the Boss

New plan. Based somewhat on what came before, but with an important distinction: if it’s all about status, then the blocking has to emerge organically from the character who has the greatest status at any given time. Find the top of the pyramid, block him or her, and then the rest of the blocking should fall into place.

First, I’ll explain how I got here. Then, I’ll put forward a rehearsal methodology.

Last week, I was feeling once more overwhelmed by the sheer number of all-important concepts. I was reading “The Actor’s Guide to Performing Shakespeare” by Madd Harold, and I kept coming across concepts that all seemed critical. Breath? Yes, of course. Scansion? No doubt. Intention? Well, naturally. Discovery? And so on...

Nearing my saturation point, I sat down and wrote a list. Steps to Mastering Shakespeare. Then I prioritized them, roughly, knowing that I would not have time to cover every point with every actor in every scene. Here’s what I came up with:

• Who are you speaking to?
• What do the words mean?
• What is your status?
• What is your intention?
• What are the important words?
• Are your lines verse or prose?
• How does the verse scan?
• What are your tactics?
• Where are the antitheses?
• Where does your breath fall?
• What sounds are important?

There’s probably more than that, even, but it’s a start. Notice that I put status third, after issues of basic comprehension. I sometimes forget that actors may not have spent much time immersed in Shakespeare’s language, so they may not know what words mean, or how Shakespeare used words differently from us.

Is there an efficient way to get through all of these points and still have time to block a scene? I don’t know. But I realize now that I’ve been coming at the question of status (and blocking) backwards, using points (like scansion) that are way down on the priority list. In the time it would take actors to go through their lines and mark off all the beats and stresses, I could probably block the scene thrice over.

So here’s my proposed methodology. It alternates between actors working individually (with support from me and an AD) and coming into a group.

Step One: Standing Read-Through
In a group, all the actors stand and read through a scene. They should listen carefully to all the language in the scene (not just their own), and mark any words or lines that don’t make sense to them.

Step Two: Comprehension
Individually, actors scrutinize their own lines, and accomplish the following:
• Decide who their lines are directed to;
• Look up the meanings of odd words;
• Highlight the key words in each passage;
• Choose an intention for each line (using the simple, status-based formula which I used to call Step One)

Step Three: Status Steps
The actors reconvene. The director asks the question: who has the most status at the top of the scene? The actors point at who they think is the boss (this will usually be Lear, Regan, or Goneril; towards the end of the play, Edmund may also get fingered). Then, we read through the scene again, with the status character in the centre of the space. As the others play their intentions (vying for status, relinquishing status, supporting the status of others), they step forwards, backwards, or around the high-status character. Just one step per line—no formal blocking yet.

Step Four: Block the Boss
Individually (with help from the AD), actors practice walking their lines. This involves:
• Sorting their lines (verse or prose);
• Scanning their verse lines;
• Walking their lines (using scansion and grammatical strucutre to find a physical movement that reflects the line);
• Incorporating their intention (forwards, backwards, around) into their walk;
While all of this is going on, I would take the high-status character and block his/her scene formally. I’d probably have to work this out in advance, which is fine. This actor would have to do some scansion too, but as I discovered earlier, most of the time the high-status character has clean, smooth verse, so his/her scansion won’t take as long.

Step Five: Balance Blocking
Collectively, the actors read the scene again. They now have movements worked out for each of their lines, and they know how they should move relative to the boss. But, if characters always moved when they spoke (and only when they spoke), the scene would look awful—stagey and stolid.

So I bring in the concept of Balance (I’d prepare them for this with a series of exercises, plus I’ll show them that awesome film). When they read the scene this time, they will imagine that they share a precarious space, and that the angle and movement of the floor is determined primarily by what the boss is doing (he/she’s the heaviest). They have to gauge their own movements on and around the boss’s movements—advance when he advances, circle when he crosses, orbit him if he needs support.

Because they won’t know where or when he’s going to move, the actors will need to stay on their toes. As the “Balance” film shows, if you’re not careful, you can end up getting knocked right off the gameboard. Now the actors have intentions, and ways of moving; but when and where they move will be organic responses to the movements of the high-status character.

I’m sure it will be messy the first few times around. But I’m hoping that, once the actors get the hang of the Balance Blocking, they’ll embrace the opportunity to block themselves with gusto. There are other things to consider—like, what about the many scenes where more than one character has high status?—but it feels like a strong yet flexible method, and I think I can make it accommodate the needs of the play.