The Lear Lounge

Combat work tonight, mostly tightening some of the smaller fights (Kent vs. Oswald and Oswald vs. Edgar). It's easy for me, as a non-combatant, to forget how much energy goes into this sort of work; since I was only around to give the occasional thumbs-up, it felt like down time for me. I spent the first half of the evening working with Max on Edgar's soliloquies, then circulated a bit--dropped a bug in Peter's ear about Gloster's pre-blinding speech, chatted with Dale (who dropped in unexpectedly), and started fiddling with the rehearsal schedule for January. I was hanging out with my pals in the Lear Lounge.

Edgar is a rare challenge. Max really wants to take his first soliloquy as far as he can, transforming his persona so that the final line, "Edgar I nothing am," has a ring of truth. But he is hampered somewhat by a lack of onstage support; not only does he have nobody to talk to but the audience, but he has no literal mud to spread on his face, and I'm certainly not going to ask him to poke real thorns into his skin.

I guess, like his later speech describing Dover, this monologue resides mostly in the imagination. Edgar is transforming physically, to disguise himself from the men who are hunting him; but the most drastic and terrifying transformation is within. That's a difficult place for an actor to get to, but it's a worthy goal, and I think Max has already started to find clues and tactics in the rhythms and the imagery of the speech that will allow that to take place.

Naughty word of the day (courtesy of Keiran): whoreskin.