4.1: My Life's A Miracle
One more physically and mentally gruelling rehearsal has left me both exhausted and inspired. Great things are happening, and almost so quickly that I can't keep track. I wish I had a video camera at each rehearsal, so I could play these runs back to the actors and say, "There! Exactly like that!"
We worked 4.1 tonight: the Cliffs of Dover, I call it, although it's a cliff of the mind, an invention of Edgar's, used to trick his blind father into surviving a suicide attempt. His harsh lesson culminates with the unexpectedly sublime assertion: "Your life's a miracle!" Pity it only lasts another half hour or so.
In this scene, we also get the mad Lear back again--only this time he has what Edgar calls "Reason in madness." Then Oswald stumbles in, tries to assassinate Gloster, and gets killed for his troubles. It is a scene with many different paces, tones, and colours, and when we started working on it (backwards, as so often seems to be the case), I really had no idea how it would all fit together.
Well, I had one or two tricks up my sleeve, like having Oswald die "spinning" around in a spiral, and having Gloster return to Lear the "button of authority" he lost two acts earlier (more on the button in a bit). But mostly, I was trusting my actors--Max, Peter, Dale, and Marsha--to tap into these characters, as they undergo their extreme, surreal tribulations.
My trust has not been misplaced. Max and Peter found the right tone for Gloster's jump, and for the near-reconciliation that occurs between them later in the scene. Marsha patiently endured multiple indignities, including her rotating death speech and a fireman's carry (got to get those bodies off somehow). And Dale was full of piss and vinegar as always, bounding around the stage like a kid who has escaped from his parents at the carnival...yet modulating that with some wonderfully sober moments ("They told me I was everything; 'tis a lie; I am not fever-proof" and the beautiful "When we are born, we cry that we are come / To this great stage of fools").
And did I mention the jokes? Ye gods, we're having fun. It was hard to restrain myself from giving the green-light to Max's rendition of the Sea Captain: "Hear ye speak, Sir; / Who arrrr ye, Sir?" Alas, rehearsal humour doesn't always translate well onto the stage; but our energy will--assuming it lasts to February.
We worked 4.1 tonight: the Cliffs of Dover, I call it, although it's a cliff of the mind, an invention of Edgar's, used to trick his blind father into surviving a suicide attempt. His harsh lesson culminates with the unexpectedly sublime assertion: "Your life's a miracle!" Pity it only lasts another half hour or so.
In this scene, we also get the mad Lear back again--only this time he has what Edgar calls "Reason in madness." Then Oswald stumbles in, tries to assassinate Gloster, and gets killed for his troubles. It is a scene with many different paces, tones, and colours, and when we started working on it (backwards, as so often seems to be the case), I really had no idea how it would all fit together.
Well, I had one or two tricks up my sleeve, like having Oswald die "spinning" around in a spiral, and having Gloster return to Lear the "button of authority" he lost two acts earlier (more on the button in a bit). But mostly, I was trusting my actors--Max, Peter, Dale, and Marsha--to tap into these characters, as they undergo their extreme, surreal tribulations.
My trust has not been misplaced. Max and Peter found the right tone for Gloster's jump, and for the near-reconciliation that occurs between them later in the scene. Marsha patiently endured multiple indignities, including her rotating death speech and a fireman's carry (got to get those bodies off somehow). And Dale was full of piss and vinegar as always, bounding around the stage like a kid who has escaped from his parents at the carnival...yet modulating that with some wonderfully sober moments ("They told me I was everything; 'tis a lie; I am not fever-proof" and the beautiful "When we are born, we cry that we are come / To this great stage of fools").
And did I mention the jokes? Ye gods, we're having fun. It was hard to restrain myself from giving the green-light to Max's rendition of the Sea Captain: "Hear ye speak, Sir; / Who arrrr ye, Sir?" Alas, rehearsal humour doesn't always translate well onto the stage; but our energy will--assuming it lasts to February.
posted by Scott Sharplin at 10:22 p.m.
1 Comments:
A bit late for this show, I suspect... but it's an intriguing idea for the future.
Also, if I got consent from the actors, I could kill two birds with one stone by turning some of that rehearsal footage into video resources for teaching drama through distance education. Hmm...intricate schemes begin to bloom...
But first, I got this show I gotta do.
Post a Comment
<< Home