Standing Up For Bastards

One on one with Gino tonight, working on Edmund's soliloquies while the rest of the cast took the night off to see the preview performance of "You Can't Take It With You" at Walterdale (check it out; it's running until December 10).

Gino is a director's actor; he loves to plunge into the text, he loves to experiment with different approaches to staging and characterization, and he loves to incorporate props and costumes when it suits the scene. He'd also be quite happy if we kept exploring and experimenting for another six months, or six years. I keep warning him that everything will change once there's an audience out there, but it's still too far away for either one of us to really conceive.

Here's a reprise of the work we did on Edmund's famous "Thou, nature" speech in 1.2. We'd already done some rhythm work (confirming that the scansion was completely insane), and I'd already managed to convince him that the soliloquy (and, by extension, his character) is essentially all about sex. So far so good. Next, we broke the speech into thoughts and I got him to speak them, then walk them, then "shape" them, creating physical forms that expressed each idea.

Thou Nature art my Goddess, to thy Law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, or permit
The curiosity of Nations, to deprive me?
For that I am some twelve, or fourteen Moonshines
Lag of a Brother?

The shapes began to take on certain patterns, and some relationships began to develop between the ideas in the speech. First, we established that Edmund was obsessed with the difference between himself, as the Bastard, and his brother. Gino "shaped" Edgar as a puffed-up dandy, and he created two different shapes for himself: one "Base" (closed posture, hands clutching arms) and one related to "Nature" and sexuality (open, arms out, leading from the crotch). Finally, there's the "plague of Customs and the curiosity of Nations," which refers to the scorn and derision that he receives as an outcast in society (lots of sweeping gestures and pointing fingers--Gino's not afraid to implicate the audience in this).

With these four image clusters ("Legitimate," "Base," "Nature," and "Plague of Customs"), we were able to clarify most of the rest of the speech. I think the only new idea/shape that comes in near the end is on "I must have your land" ("land" being the same as "Our father's love").

Why Bastard? Wherefore base?
When my Dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true
As honest Madam’s issue? Why brand they us
With Base? With baseness? Bastardy? Base, Base?

Next, we explored the shifts in the speech. Twice, Edmund gets obsessed with the language of "baseness," and then both times he shifts into language that deals with his sexuality ("my Dimensions," and later, "the lusty stealth of Nature"). We built those shifts into the blocking (he goes over and sits on Lear's throne, which is still onstage from 1.1), and used his body to reinforce the shifts in his voice (hunkered over and closed off on "Wherefore base?", then all Calvin Kleiny on "my Dimensions").

Gino had earlier suggested using a pair of panties as a prop in this soliloquy, and since I'm never one to turn away an outrageous idea, I decided we'd give it a shot. On this next transition (out of "Base, base?") he collects himself, internalizes his anger, and then brings out the knickers to show the audience what baseness is really all about: sex and power.

Who in the lusty stealth of Nature, take
More composition, and fierce quality,
Then doth, within a dull stale tired bed
Go to creating a whole tribe of Fops
Got ‘tween sleep and wake?

By now we were getting quite carried away with the sexual imagery. I won't give everything away, but suffice to say, Edmund graphically delineates the difference between "Bastard sex" (hot 'n' heavy) and "Legitimate sex" (a dull stale tired bed)--again, building on the image/shapes we identified for "Nature" and "Legitimate." I just hope Lear has somebody wash his throne for him every night.

Well then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land,
Our Fathers love, is to the Bastard Edmund,
As to th’ legitimate: fine word: Legitimate.
Well, my Legitimate, if this Letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top th’ Legitimate:

Here, the skivvies disappear and the focus becomes Edmund vs. Edgar. His language is obsessive; Gino had already figured out what each of those five "legitimates" mean (yup, they're all different). Since there is so much frantic shifting here between Edmund-words and Edgar-words, it became impractical to use the actor's whole body, so I suggested using his hands instead. On "Our Father's love is to the Bastard Edmund / As to th' Legitimate," he spreads his arms wide, like a balance scale. One hand is Edmund (a closed fist), and the other becomes Edgar (limp-wristed and weak).

"If this letter thrive," heralds a new prop: the letter, which will lead to Edgar's estrangement from his father, Gloster. "What does the letter represent?" I asked Gino. "Is it you or Edgar?" He said Edgar (since it is ostensibly written by him), so we use the letter to emphasize the soon-to-be-growing rift between the two brothers. On "Edmund the base / shall top th' Legitimate," Gino drops the letter, watches it drift down to the stage floor, and then towers over it, as high as the heavens. "I grow, I prosper." He thought about stomping on the letter here, but we agreed it isn't necessary, since Edgar has already been brought low (in the metaphoric little scene we've created).

That brought us to the famous final lines:

I grow, I prosper:
Now Gods, stand up for Bastards.

Gino really didn't want to do this up to the grid, like "STELLA!" I suggested a few alternatives (gleeful, ironic, or back to the old reliable sexual innuendo (get it? "Stand up"? yeah, yeah)). Finally, in rehearsing it, he chose a casual, almost plaintive delivery, as if to say, "Come on guys, I could really use a break here." We agreed immediately that, after all that pomp and circumstance (and sex), it would be a lovely, unexpected little coda. Because let's face it, no matter how much he might talk about "his Goddess," Edmund honestly isn't expecting any help from above; he knows that, if his plots are to succeed, they will do so through his own fiendish will, and not from heavenly intervention.