Barrel Roll Call

Stopped in early this morning for a peek at the set (lots of long beams leaning at impossible angles--it's going to be a real winner), and to help Doug and John Y. with props.

Doug is an expert carpenter, and he'd already designed and created a barrel for us to use during the stocks scene. The barrel is nearly round, but two or three planks have been left out, and the inner supports sheared flat, so that it won't roll or buckle when Kent stands on it. We discussed the other component in our unique stocks: a pair of manacles, which will drop down from the lighting grid to hold Kent's arms up over his head. Oddly enough, Walterdale has some manacles in its props storage, but they will need to be equipped with safety catches, so that the actor can escape from them if the barrel breaks or slips (nothing worse than leaving an actor dangling in the air with no lines to deliver).

I left the two props guys cheerfully designing stools, adjusting tables, and attempting to build bows. I'm sure glad there are people in the world (and in the theatre commmunity) who enjoy these sorts of practical challenges, because I'm all thumbs when it comes to construction.

The Sound, The Furry

Two meetings today, first with Melissa for the costume pull. We sorted through the Walterdale's impressive collection of shirts, skirts, coats, pants, hats, sashes, ties, shoes, boots, belts, and unspecified fabrics in search of the perfect scheme. It's a good start--it looks like we found several dozen highly useable pieces--but there's still a ways to go. Melissa has already hauled back her initial design quite a bit, largely because time is short, and because she doesn't want to spend every waking moment between now and February sewing and making alterations for my massive cast.

Costumes is, I must confess, an ongoing source of stress for me. It's not Melissa, or Walterdale, or anything to do with this show--everyone's been great, and I know I'm in safe hands. It's just me; I'm useless when it comes to fabric and colour. Ask me to match two items and I'd get them wrong. Sit me down in front of a sewing machine and I'd find a way to reduce things to their original component fabrics. Costumes are an incredibly important aspect of theatre--they communicate so much visually, and the actors depend upon them to develop characters and to do their jobs freely and comfortably. I must put my faith in the hands of those who, unlike me, can thread a needle to save their lives.

My sound design meeting with Mark felt more evenly matched. Mark is picking ambient electronic samples to integrate with realistic storm sounds. Cool. We still need bona fide instrumental music for transitions and such, and I told him to investigate some of the Russian composers, particularly Tchiakovsky and Shostakovich, in search of music with a militaristic mood. Suggestions are welcome.

Deadlines approach. In a couple of weeks, these random, fluttering ideas will need to be pinned down to the ground and forced to work in line with all the other bits and pieces.

Director's Notes

With deadlines looming, I wrote up some Director's Notes for the program of King Lear. I hate this job; although I normally don't mind writing about my plays (and if you ever needed evidence, this blog is it), but I don't like to be charged with the task of framing the play for spectators who are about to view it. Why can't the play speak for itself?

Well, anyway, here's what I came up with:

Like most of Shakespeare’s tragedies, Lear is about a family in crisis. It just so happens that the family is of royal blood, and therefore their calamities expand and magnify, resulting in terrible political and social catastrophes. But Shakespeare wasn’t really all that interested in politics, or even war (most of his battle scenes take place off stage). He turned his amazing insight directly onto the private hearts of his family figures: Lear and Gloster, the headstrong fathers; Goneril, Regan, and Edmund, the disgruntled children; Cordelia and Edgar, the loyal son and daughter.

It’s all rather like a fairy tale, but Shakespeare can’t help but give all of his characters psychological depth. Even a minor character like the Fool, whose lines are dense with riddles, songs, and outright nonsense, still plays as a human being, and a very touching one at that. In fact, as much as this is a play about grand heroes and villains, it’s also about minor characters. This is a world where a nameless servant can profoundly change the course of events, if she has the courage to stand up and speak her mind.

It’s been a privilege and a pleasure to watch this outstanding cast plumb the depths of one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. From those who, like me, have been immersed in Shakespeare since the womb, to those for whom this is their first exploration of the Bard, everyone has shown great insight, energy and enthusiasm in helping to tell this (often draining) tale. I hope you find our production thought-provoking, moving, and above all, relevant—because although most of us don’t have the family problems that Lear does, we all have families.

Unblock'd

I looked through the play to find out what hasn't been blocked yet. It's hard to know for sure (it's all been a blur), and heck, just because something was blocked doesn't mean it will stay that way. Actors will forget, or else the set or lights will necessitate changes, or--most likely of all--I will get fussy in the last days, and start messing with stuff.

But, barring all of that, we're in good shape. There are just bits and pieces left, mostly involving either prop placement, or business with Knights, Servants or Soldiers:

1.1: Knights' grand entrance and exit
1.2: Striking throne etc.
1.3: Lots of Knight business, in and out, following Lear's orders. Also possibly some of the Lear/Fool blocking
1.4: Simple business with Curan and Servant 1. Also, striking the table and stools from the last scene
1.6: The fight in this scene has never been completely integrated; we've worked Kent & Oswald, and Kent & Edmund, and Kent & Soldier 2, but I don't think we've run it with all four participants in the same room, which makes me nervous

2.5: This is the hovel scene, and I'm concerned that we may need to relocate our hovel once the set is complete. But that shouldn't take too much adjustment
2.6: Placing stools for 2.7 in blackout

3.4: Lots of Soldiers and this scene, and the Messenger pops in and out

4.2: Somehow, some skins or blankets need to get placed upstage for Lear to lie on. And then Lear has to get on as well (help me, lighting! You're my only hope!)

4.5: Lots of little bits in the final scene: Soldiers marching in and out, Soldiers carrying Regan and Goneril onstage after their deaths, and my secret coda with Kent and the Fool

Not bad. But not much time to devote to this stuff, either; it will have to get forced into the cracks somehow. Perhaps, in January, I can coordinate with Liz, and one of us can work out these pesky bits of blocking while someone else is supervising monologues or something. Every minute counts.

Taking Possession

Production meeting this afternoon. Heard from most of the major players, including set, props, lighting and sound designers. Jaclyn, our Production Manager, just wrapped up her own show yesterday, so she was a bit hung over, but none the less chipper and well organized. We're more or less on schedule and we've barely scratched the surface of our budget. But, of course, things are really only starting to get rolling...

Now that "You Can't Take It With You" has wrapped, the Walterdale Playhouse is ours. John H. wants to start building the set this week, and although he'll probably have to stop for Christmas shortly thereafter, I still find it reassuring that he's so keen to get started. His set is ambitious, so it will probably work better to do it in stages (heh...stage construction in stages....sorry. It must be late.) He also has a painter (Christianne?) who has some interesting ideas about a "Celtic spiral" on the stage floor.

Mark is still brainstorming sounds, but he promises to work on the storm over Christmas, possibly emailing me sound effects and clips as he goes. John Y. and Doug V. will have to scrounge a lotta swords, and maybe start to build the stocks. We'll be having a meeting later in the month.

I feel a bit like a supervillain, sending out his minions to construct a tragedy that will, when activated, topple Christmas. Bwah ha ha ha! (Yup, I definitely need sleep.)

P.S. Speaking of tragedies, Hamlet gets a post-modern Canadian sci-fi makeover in "Undiscover'd Country," which is playing at the Catalyst until the 18th. It's a phenomenal show. Check it out!

First Lap Done

Just like that? Six weeks of rehearsal are past, and I won't see most of these faces until January? Strange...but I think we're all leaving with a strong sense of expectation. We know we've got the potential for something really great here, but we have to take some time to let it brew before we start to serve it up.

Last night and tonight were both focused on the last scene of the play: a long, intense catastrophe which ends with more bodies dead than are left standing. I scheduled it last deliberately, of course, but also partly out of fear. I had hoped that, by the time we got around to it, the director's instincts would have kicked in, and the answers would have presented themselves to me. Well, not quite. What happened was, I blocked it fairly hastily on Tuesday night, and then spent most of Thursday trying to envision the stage composition (tricky, as I've said, with actors missing).

Yet, in spite of my fear and uncertainty, it played out very naturally. Apart from a few oblique lines at the start, when Edmund and Albany are engaged in a power struggle over the kingdom (and Regan and Goneril are engaged in a power struggle over Edmund), it is what it is: a scene where people die, and other people watch them die. In fact, the last hundred lines or so have a remarkable nested effect: Cordelia is dead; Lear is watching Cordelia be dead; Kent, Edgar and Albany are watching Lear watch Cordelia be dead; and the audience is watching them. So, staggeringly simple and mind-bogglingly complex at the same time. Welcome to Shakespeare.

Knowing that much of Thursday would be spent fine-tuning the blocking (and having Dale carry Anna-Maria onstage a dozen times), I paused at the end of Wednesday's rehearsal to scrutinize Lear's final lines. Dale, Max, Allan, and Keiran all paused with me, and we stood in a circle and spoke of it in hushed tones, as if we were discussing the passing of a loved one. In our version, Lear says:

No, no, no life?
Why should a Dog, a Horse, a Rat have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never.
Pray you undo this Button. Thank you, Sir.
Do you see this? Look on her—Look—her lips,
Look there, look there.

Lots of challenges and pitfalls for an actor here. How does one deliver a line made up of nothing but "nevers"? What's the deal with the button? And (the really big question): does Lear die knowing that Cordelia is dead, or thinking (once again) that she's alive?

Lear has a button, but by now, it is no longer in his possession (Edgar has it, and he will affix it to his own collar when he accepts Albany's offer to rule the kingdom). Why does he ask to have his button undone? Who is he asking? He has already rejected Kent ("Prithee away"), and doesn't seem to acknowledge anyone else on the stage ("Mine eyes are not o'th'best."). Dale had an unexpected suggestion: what about God? (Or Nature, if you want to keep the cosmology of the play consistent; but at this point, who's counting?)

Perhaps it is a metaphorical button--not unrelated to the real one, which stood for his earthly power. In order to rejoin Cordelia, he first had to overcome his guilt at banishing her, which he does in the storm by relinquishing his stranglehold on authority: "Come, unbutton here!" He cries, shifting from King to beggar in an instant. Much later, after he has passed out of madness, he does get to see Cordelia again, and she forgives him--and even though they are captured, he is happy to be with her. He wants to be her father, not her king. But Fortune has a final twist of the knife, and Cordelia is taken from her. How can he rejoin her now? By relinquishing his life: "Undo this button." And the "thank you, Sir" becomes particulary poignant, when contrasted with his formerly antagonistic relationship with Nature. He's come a long way.

As Dale admits, "It'll be hard to sell." But he's already starting to get there. And, as is often the case with Shakespeare, one solution leads to others. The decision to give up his life reveals the state in which he dies--he is not in anguish, nor is he deluded into thinking she revives. "Look there, look there" is looking up, where Cordelia is already waiting for him. And it even helps us to resolve the "Never, never, never, never, never," since that line can now help Lear move from despair all the way to acceptance--like all the stages of grief condensed into ten rhythmic syllables.

Ah, Shakespeare. Is there anything he can't do?

3.1: Women Turn Monsters

Ah, violence. I dreamt about it last night, in anticipation of today's fight rehearsal--the last one before our Christmas break. 'Tis the season to be gory.

We worked the blinding scene extensively today--first just the fights, with Andrew supervising. We also had one or two "virgins" present (actors who hadn't seen the blinding yet), so we could watch their reactions and gauge the gross-out factor. Lookin' good.

It's a very nicely balanced scene, because just as Cornwall goes overboard, Kassia's Servant steps in and tries to stop him. Then, as Regan steps in and cuts her (belly first, then throat), Gloster is watching with his one good eye, and gasping out his empathy. Then, as Cornwall finishes his blinding, we see two hardened soldiers (Igor and Andrew T.) turn away in shame and horror. The overall result pleases everybody in the audience: the gore-lovers get a triple helping, while the squeamish always have someone onstage who is reacting more or less as they themselves would react. Everybody's happy.

Regan is particularly happy. Tonight Brittany really turned a corner with her, discovering Regan's inner sadist. She starts out the scene under Cornwall's thumb, but by the end, she's thoroughly in control, and actively searching out new opportunities for cruelty. Her exit from the scene is triply dismissive: first, she orders the soldiers to turn Gloster out of doors, "and let him smell his way to Dover." Then, she adds (referring to the slain Servant), "Throw this slave upon the dunghill." Finally, she breezes coldly past her injured husband, leaving him to stumble out on his own.

And yet, for all that insensitivity, I didn't feel that Regan quite justified the Second Soldier's comment about her:

If she live long,
And in the end meet the old course of death,
Women will all turn monsters.

One more twist of the knife was needed. And we found it, quite literally, in Cornwall's final line: "Regan, I bleed apace. / Untimely comes this hurt. Give me your arm." Rather than simply snub him, I suggested that Regan hold out her arm...and the long, thin blade (Cornwall's own weapon, originally) that she had used to kill the Servant. Cornwall grasps the blade before he realizes what it is. Hoist on his own petard!

Brittany loved the suggestion. It's a very ruthless counterpoint to the moments in the play when characters reach out selflessly for one another (Edgar helping Lear or the Fool, the Fool helping Lear or Kent). At this moment, a husband, dying, reaches out for the help of his "dutiful" wife...and gets a handful of steel.

Boy. I think I'm gonna need a shrink after doing this show.

1.3, 2.4: Disorder'd, Debosh'd, and Bold

Man, Dale is amazing. Last weekend, he slipped while getting out of the shower and gave himself a concussion. When I saw him a couple of days later, I had a terrible fear that he'd lost his chops, and he would be too weak or fragile to perform a role as demanding as Lear. But he's bounced back, and then some: today we did two more scenes that are filled to the brim with royal ranting, screaming, howling, and cursing, and he was there for every second of it, stipping the paint with the power of his voice.

Mind you, he also has the gift of not taking himself too seriously as an actor. When he says to Goneril (of Regan), "When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails / She'll flay thy wolfish visage," up comes his hand, with his fingers like five tiny whips, poised to flay. "What an eccentric performance."

Tatyana has started to pick tunes for the Fool's doggerel songs, and has begun to experiment with assorted business that can exasperate Lear, his daughters, and his knights. They make quite a team: Lear bellowing, the Fool humming and skipping about, and Kent standing by all the while, barely concealing his exasperation with both of them. I think they're the secret second family at the heart of the play.

We also reassessed Lear's famous speech in the storm, and Dale found a very interesting approach to it--almost reversing the usual bellowing delivery.

Blow winds, and crack your cheeks; Rage, blow
You Cataracts, and Hurricanoes spout,
Till you have drench’d our Steeples, drown’d the Cocks.
You Sulph’rous and Thought-executing Fires,
Vaunt-couriers of Oak-cleaving Thunder-bolts,
Singe my white head. And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’th’world,
Crack nature’s moulds, all seeds spill forth at once
That make ingrateful man!

Is Lear calling the lightning down upon himself? Is he suicidal? Does he, in his delusion, think he can control it? Maybe all of the above, a bit...but Dale seems more inclined to play Lear at this moment not as king or madman, but merely as bloody fed up. His daughters have spat upon him; now the Heavens are doing the same. Enough is enough. The result is a very bitter delivery, with the high-poetic language coming across as very self-conscious, as if to say, "Oh, look at you, 'oak cleaving thunderbolts,' well, la-de-da."

Trust me. It's much better when he does it than when I describe it.

Reason Not the Need

Thursday night's rehearsal was a madhouse, as I tried to jam three nearly unrelated scenes into a single night. One was the battle scene, which we'd left half-completed last Sunday--and that alone could have kept me occupied for three hours. But I also needed to block 3.2 (with the freshly blinded Gloster) and I wanted to spend at least a few minutes revisiting 2.7 (Lear's "trial" scene). I managed to get through everything, although I think it resulted in a lot of "hurry up and wait" for actors.

Today went much better in that respect. We blocked 2.1, a big blast-up of a scene. Lots of bodies onstage, but most of the lines were either Lear's, Goneril's, or Regan's. We managed to block it, first in broad strokes, and then in more subtle ones, and once I got all the servants and knights sorted out, I let them go early to focus on the father-daughter stuff.

As always, it is wonderful to have so many "resources" onhand--I can send actors to Dave for line work, or to Liz to start blocking smaller scenes and units. Helen is diligently recording all my convoluted blocking as I go (which is no excuse for actors not to remember it themselves, mind you). It's feeling more like a well-oiled machine every day.

Who Builds the Arc?

Falling behind a little bit in my postings, so I'll try to recap before it all becomes a blur. On Tuesday night, we looked at a couple of short scenes from the latter half of the play--again, they are ostensibly information scenes, but they yield opportunities to develop the characters, especially Regan and Goneril.

In the first scene, Regan interrogates Oswald (Goneril's servant) about the budding relationship between Goneril and Edmund. This is the first time we see Regan after Cornwall has died; we need to know (in very short order), how her husband's death has affected her, and what she's after now. Shortly afterwards, there's a scene with both sisters plus Edmund (and, yes, Albany makes a brief appearance). Here, we clearly see the tension between the two sisters (who have barely ever appeared onstage together, and usually only to unite against their father).

The blocking was fairly simple, so we spent most of our time dealing with character stuff. Brittany (Regan) and Beverly (Goneril) are close to completing arcs for their respective characters, and I want to make sure they are clearly articulated before we break for Christmas.

Earlier, when I asked Beverly what she thought of Goneril, she replied, "She's a bitch." Now, however, she's starting to suspect that Goneril is missing some important things in her life, and that's what's driving her bitchiness. She has a husband who appears to love her (at least, until she starts behaving truly vilely), but it wasn't the husband of her choice (she's more attracted to bad guys, like Edmund). Since the marriage was arranged (by Daddy), she can never quite believe Albany when he shows affection for her. She wants choice, even more than power, which is why she's willing to share her power with Edmund.

Regan starts the play as a very submissive person--constantly agreeing with anyone who happens to be speaking, usually Goneril or Cornwall. We decided early on that Cornwall was probably an violent and abusive husband, which helps to explain R's psychology, I think. But something happens in 3.1 to bring her out from under his thumb. It's not his death, as one might think, that liberates her. Brittany has pinpointed it as happening in response to Gloster's vicious accusatory speech:

Because I would not see thy cruel Nails
Pluck out his poor old eyes: nor thy fierce Sister,
In his Anointed flesh, stick boarish fangs.
The Sea, with such a storm as his bare head
In Hell-black-night endur’d, would have surg’d up
And quench’d the starry fires.
If Wolves had at thy Gate howl’d that harsh time,
Thou should’st have said, “Good Porter, turn the Key:
All Cruelty’s forgiven.” But I shall see
The wingèd Vengeance overtake such Children—

When he says these things to Regan, she snaps. How could anyone accuse her of such cruelty? She's the victim, not the perpetrator. Well, then, if the world thinks she's a horrible person, she'll behave like one. She has the impulse to make Gloster suffer--and, almost on cue, Cornwall steps in to "do her bidding" by putting out the old man's eyes. The rest of the scene is Regan's violent tear--she urges C. to put the second eye out, she kills the Servant who intervenes, and she all but ignores Cornwall as he bleeds to death. She has gone from being the victim of violence to being its instigator.

The remainder of her scenes have a sort of bi-polar feel to them, careening from almost uncontrollable rage to Goneril-like manipulation. One gets the feeling that, if Goneril hadn't poisoned her at the end of the play, she probably would have self-destructed pretty soon anyway.