Lear Year

Post-Script

2006-02-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

The most gratifying comment about this production came after the fact, when a patron whose opinion I value highly told me that he found the play both briskly paced and highly accessible.

We got a smattering of criticism about a lack of "tragic depth"--ie. not going far enough with the emotions of the piece. I've received this criticism for previous productions also. Personally, I think most people's idea of "tragic depth" stands in direct opposition to the "fast and accessible" approach; when they think of Shakespeare in the grandiloquent RSC style, they imagine slow, leaden productions where actors emote their lines into ponderous oblivion.

I'm sorry, but give me fast and accessible any day of the week. Isn't that a greater accomplishment than "tragic depth": to deliver a Shakespeare play--especially one as complex and as bleak as Lear--in a way that doesn't make the audience feel like they've been through a comparable ordeal? To make them feel like they've understood the story and the themes, and to send them out of the theatre feeling like their time has not been wasted?

I don't mean to pat myself on the back here--at least, not too much--but I think I chose the more sensible, and more fulfilling, road.

OK, now I'm really done. Come visit me at Stage Whispers!

Last Performance Tonight

2006-02-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

I'm wrapping this up. I may end up adding one or two final thoughts, if they occur to me; but having made it through most of the run without feeling any serious misgivings, I think I'd rather end this journal on a positive note, instead of labouring to come up with lessons learned, etc.

Thanks, everyone who participated in what has been an amazingly smooth and completely fulfilling process. And thanks as well to those who participated in this electronic experiment; I don't know whether it helped the show or not, but it sure did help to keep me sane. Next time, I hope I can encourage both show participants and curious observers to contribute more to the discussion-- because, as much as I love the sound of my own voice (or the shape of my own pixels), I enjoy your feedback even more.

And, speaking of next time...the Walterdale adventure continues at the end of March, with Alex Hawkins' production of Thornton Wilder's Skin of our Teeth. And the blog adventure continues right next door, where you'll find a sneak peek at Walterdale's next season, and my next directing project. It's all up in the air right now, and very hush-hush, of course, which is why I've chosen to call it Stage Whispers. See you there!

The Little Things

2006-02-10T15:04:00.000-07:00

Saw the show again on Wednesday night. It was a strong, solid run; the audience was very quiet at the start, but the cast seemed to know what was needed to light a fire under them, and they were much more animated, laughing and squirming and gasping on cue, in Act Two. Good for them; that's the sort of finessing that many professional casts can't even manage.

Getting to see the show for the first time in a while, as well as seeing it without my director's hat firmly attached to my head, I was able to notice details that had either evolved in my absence, or else which had always been there but I just didn't spot them. I didn't take notes, but here's what I remember:

Introducing the love test, just before "Goneril, our eldest born, speak first," Lear's gaze lingers on Regan--and then his index finger points away from his gaze, taking Goneril by surprise. Keepin' the kids off-balance.
Kent has a prop ring which he gives to Gargrave during the storm. I knew that Kieran was using this ring to signify his rank, and that he was going to remove it during his soliloquy ("Now, banished Kent..."). This time I also saw Kent fingering it unconsciously in 1.1, while he was summoning up the nerve to confront Lear; and again, once he'd been banished.
And then, on his "Now, banished Kent" soliloquy, he put a finger to his lips, as if to beseech the audience not to give his true identity away. That's awesome; audiences love to be complicit in secrets, and there are so many of them in this play, I lose track.
Albany kneels to Lear ("My lord, I am ignorant of what hath moved you"), but Lear stalks off without seeming to acknowledge him. Goneril is upstage, rolling her eyes--now, as soon as Lear is off, she slips downstage and hauls Albany up onto his feet. Her embarrassment in having to associate with this "milk-liver'd man" is already palpable.
Cornwall's repressed rage at his own wife erupts in slightly different ways each night. Now he's taken to cutting off her lines in 1.6, which probably drives Brittany crazy, but which does the right thing in keeping Regan powerless and unsure.
Gloster re-enters after following Lear out into the storm. "The king is in high rage," he says, and then attempts to convince Cornwall and the daughters to relieve him. Up till now, Peter has delivered these lines with the same slightly befuddled consternation that typifies Gloster at this point in the play. This time, the lines had a real edge to them, and I realized that the near-sighted old man was actually starting to clue in; he could see the parallels growing between Edgar, his own allegedly unfaithful son, and these "unnatural hags" who didn't care a whit if their old man got washed away.
Out at Dover, Lear enters giggling with a wreath of flowers, berries and ribbons on his head. Tonight, by choice or accident, he came out with the wreath on backwards, so the red ribbons hung in front of his eyes. Gloster is already onstage at this point, with a blood-stained bandage covering his own "bleeding rings." What a lovely visual parallel, intentional or otherwise!
At the end, when Lear enters carrying Cordelia, Allan as Albany does some outstanding physical acting (actually, everyone onstage is great, but most of them have been instructed to stay very still). When he sees Lear, he is facing upstage. He bends over, almost double, with the shock of what he sees (which conveniently allows us to see it also). Then he stumbles backwards, averting his eyes and remaning closed off to the audience. He ends up standing stage left, still hunkered over, and he looks for all the world like a blasted tree or an ancient statue worn down by the elements. The other actors, also "men of stone" have similar postures of distress. Lear is surrounded by corpses and broken men--no one has the strength, or the power, to alleviate, or even share, his pain, and so he cries alone.

There's lots of other great bits. And then there are the bits which, I'm told, change every night, like the Knights' shenanigans in 1.3, or Kent's visual illustration of the infamous Lipsbury Pinfold (I'm a bit anxious to see where these improvised bits go on closing night; things could get ugly).

As I've said before, I enjoy seeing new things occur onstage. When I think of being in a four-month-long production run at Stratford (or--god help us--Cats), where nothing is supposed to change, nothing seems more dull, more untheatrical. And Lear, of course, is the sort of play on could do for ages, and constantly discover new things that work.

For better or worse, theatre is ephemeral (although we will be video recording the final show). Our work on this show must stop after 12 performances. But I certainly have lots of tricks and lessons to take with me into the next grand enterprise...about which topic, more anon.

Lunch in France

2006-02-06T08:48:00.000-07:00

Sunday the cast had a 2pm matinee. I met them briefly for brunch, then stayed behind at the bistro to meet a couple of potential directors for next season. Half-way through my first coffee meeting, I look up and see a familiar face at the bistro counter, ordering soup. Anna-Maria...Cordelia. I look at my watch. 2:30pm.

Panic, followed by irrational anger. What is she doing here? Was the play cancelled? Did she forget about her call? Is the cast back at the Playhouse, struggling to re-invent the play sans Cordelia? I suppress the urge to stuff her under my arm and race back to the theatre.

Then it dawns on me. 2:30 is a half hour into the show...which means they're on about Act 2, Scene 1...which means that Cordelia is in France. Anna-Maria got banished fifteen minutes ago, and won't be needed onstage again for at least another hour. She's getting soup in France. She smiles and waves, and I wave back, abashed.

I'm glad I'm not in charge of things anymore.

Evolution

2006-02-04T11:47:00.000-07:00

I wasn't at Thursday's show, and I came late to Friday's, so I only saw the second half (I heard the first half on the sound monitor in the lobby--man, those thunderclaps are loud!). What I saw was great; the energy was high and the audience seemed thoroughly involved. Once again, I marvelled at how easily and honestly they laughed; but I also enjoyed watching them squirm during the blinding, and watching their still silence when Lear carries on Cordelia's body at the end ("O, you are men of stones!")

After the show, Keiran said something that made my heart soar. He observed that the cast had reached the point where they were willing to try new things onstage, making little discoveries about their characters and scenes within the moment, rather than trying to work it all out in advance. This is great, because it means the actors really trusts each other. When you try something different, you are running the risk that it might fail--but they trust that the other people on stage will help them to recover if an experiment goes wrong. Similarly, they trust the rest of the cast to react appropriately and believably to their new tricks.

For example: a couple of nights ago, Gino added something to the top of 4.5, when Edmund has captured Lear and Cordelia. Before he says "Take them away," to the guards, he steps forward and touches Cordelia's chin. We can see, in this moment, Edmund the power-hungry general debating silently with Edmund the lecherous bastard; he is thinking, "I had both of her sisters; what a shame it will be to kill off the third without having her too."

Last night, Gino went to make the same gesture--but this time, Dale stopped him, putting his hand out (quite gently, I thought), and wordlessly informing him that there was no way in hell Edmund was getting anywhere near his beloved daughter. This, of course, made Edmund's decision much easier, and gave his "Take them away" line an extra layer of nastiness, as he now relishes his revenge against Lear the chaperone.

Simple moments, but watching them evolve is precious. Because--and I have no way to prove this, but I know it's true--the audience can sense the difference between a pre-blocked and rehearsed gesture, and something which passes organically between characters for the first time in front of their very eyes. What a privilege! That's the energy that can make theatre infinitely superior to recorded media like film: witnessing something happen for the first time, and sensing that has changed everything forever.

Or, at least, until the next performance.

First Night

2006-02-02T12:56:00.000-07:00

A good opening. Apart from one inexplicably late entrance and an almost imperceptible lighting/sound mixup, everything flowed like clockwork.

The audience reactions were very positive, and wonderfully varied. I heard praise for a number of different cast members, including some who were playing smaller parts. A couple of patrons said they were impressed with the fight direction. Several enthused about the set--but none of this in a way which suggested to me that they were overlooking the play itself.

I think what gratified me most was the laughter. It came early (even before Edmund pulled the knickers out of his coat), and returned often. The scene at Dover between Gloster and Edgar had a wonderfully varied tone; people started laughing at G's early line "Methinks the ground is level," then got serious for Edgar's description of the cliff; they chuckled when Edgar said "Fare you well good sir" as if from a distance; then they sobered up for G's "As flies to wanton boys" speech. The jump itself received a titter--as if people weren't sure whether this was serious or comic--and then, of course, G's line "Away, and let me die" (pulling his blanket back over his head) got a laugh, as did "Alack, I have no eyes."

This gratifies me because it is honest laughter. They're not mocking the characters, or the production; they know that Gloster has been through hell, and so I think they are looking for opportunities to redeem his story through joy. It means that they are one short step ahead of Gloster himself, when he says, "I do remember now. You gentle gods..." and abandons his plans for suicide.

I also remember hearing a wonderfully gratifying gasp when Edgar inadvertantly reveals himself to his father, near the end of the same scene. I wasn't sure if anyone would catch that; but it really strengthens the next moment, which is a veiled reconciliation between father and son. (And then, of course, Oswald enters, humour returns, then seriousness, then humour...it really is a roller coaster)

I wish I could see every show of the run, to observe how these reactions change. But the cast needs to know that I'm no longer out there, watching them. They need ownership over what they've created, or what they continue to create, together with their audiences. It really is a magical process: you get a bunch of strangers together in a bare room with a bunch of people speaking words they didn't write, and pretending to be someplace else entirely...and somehow, a thoroughly unique and intimate experience results. As I have often said, the thing I love most about the theatre is that, when it works, the whole is always much, much greater than the sum of its parts.

Previews #1 and #2

2006-01-31T23:10:00.000-07:00

Our two live previews have come and gone. Both went well, I think; I was quite excited by the energy generated by the cast's first encounter with an audience. Monday's crowd was small but supportive (mostly friends and relatives), and Tuesday's was a bit bigger (invitees from Walterdale's "Art in the Lobby" series). It's a nice way to start the run, I think: sort of easing our way up to what will, I think, be a very packed house on opening night.

I know that some of the cast are struggling to maintain their energy through each performance. It is a very demanding play, and Dale in particular is not interested in delivering anything short of a tour de force every night. At this point, it's very important that they remember two things: a) they're not alone out there; they have each other, and when one person's energy (or lines, or cues) might flag, the others will be there to support them; and b) the audience is on their side. They want them to succeed.

It's hard to read an audience during a play like this (are they stunned and awed into silence? Or are they bored to tears?), but based on my surreptitious observations, I think they are following the story, and are invested in the action. So they, too, should be seen as a safety net, not a hazard.

Tomorrow's the big night. Break a leg, everyone!

Lessons and Issues

2006-01-30T15:42:00.000-07:00

I've been distracted and useless for most of the day, getting pre-premiere butterflies as I often do. As an exercise, I've started sorting through the issues I had to face during this rehearsal process, in an attempt to derive a few personal lessons. I'm not such an old dog that I can't learn a few new tricks.

1. Themes
Early on, I looked at "three themes" in Lear--the familial, the political, and the cosmic. I decided my work with the actors would focus mostly on the first theme, and that I would leave the other two spheres to the designers, or just let Shakespeare take care of them himself. I think I made the right choice. Rather than spend a lot of early rehearsals examining outdated political or philosophical concepts like the Divine Right of Kings or the Great Chain of Being, I found a familiar hook for both the play's major plots (Lear and his daughters, Gloster and his sons).

The thing I learned here was that, once I'd settled on the family approach, I didn't even need to seek outside analogies. I don't think the cast needed to locate parallels in their own family histories, or correlate stories they'd heard about tremendously dysfunctional families. For the most part, they just used each other, trusting that the faces they saw each night they came to rehearsal would, inevitably, coalesce into a family unit. And that's what happened, and happens with any well-oiled ensemble. What I mean to say is that Dale's interpretation of Lear did not suffer from his own personal lack of daughters...because by the time we were ready to mount the show, Dale had "adopted" Beverly, Brittainy, and Anna-Maria as surrogate daughters.

When you feel close to your cast-mates, you don't need to replace their faces with imaginary or remembered ones. You just use your imagination, play a bit of "what if." "Now that Anna-Maria is like a daughter to me, how would I feel if she rejected me in public?" The game of make-believe becomes almost ridiculously easy from there.

Not every show (or even every Shakespeare play) has family placed so centrally. But in any play, you want relationships to be intense and feelings to run deep. Part of the reason actors have acquired the reputation of being flaky is their professional commitment to the cast of each production; in order to act well, they essentially need to fall in and out of love every time they do a show. It's actually a lot of work.

2. Status and Rank
I obsessed about this quite a bit in the first weeks of rehearsal, but I can now see that, like the family dynamics, issues of status tend to work themselves out naturally on stage. Part of that process happens late in the game, when costumes arrive (and Melissa's costumes say a lot about individual ranks, which is exactly what I asked for).

But mostly, it happens early, and not because of any hierarchy within the cast itself (strong casts tend to be extremely democratic; I don't think I've identified any divas in this group). Near as I can figure, it has to do with blocking. When a character is speaking, they gain in status--usually because they are vying for status through their words. The same is doubly true of movement, if you agree with my axiom that "every movement must mean."

So I think what happened here is, my cast patiently endured all my unnecessary status exercises, waiting for the time when they could see each scene spread out upon the stage. Once it was clear who was standing upstage, who was downstage, and who was moving at what time, their sense of status and rank just settled into place. If I asked Oswald (for example) to move during one of Kent's lines ("That such a slave as this should wear a sword"), the actors onstage understood implicitly that this meant Oswald had a higher status, even though he was not delivering any lines at that moment.

Status isn't unique to Lear, or Shakespeare; it's intrinsically woven into all good drama, and having an instinct for detecting shifts in status is one characteristic of a great actor. Some scripts make it super-duper-easy to see status see-saws going on (Albee's Zoo Story comes to mind). If Lear turned out to be a bit more complex, all that meant was that the actors waited until their blocking was in place, and then played the cards I dealt 'em. Simple as that.

But that brings me to...

3. Blocking
Can a play block itself? Some Shakespeare scholars believe that the King's Men had no rehearsal time whatsoever; they just learned their individual parts and strode out onto the stage, come what may. I thought I could devise a system that would enable the cast to work out their own blocking, using status shifts as a sort of miracle equation. I'd managed to pull off a similar feat, albeit on a much smaller scale, when I directed Othello in 2003.

It didn't work with Lear, mainly because I chickened out and just went ahead and blocked things the old fashioned way. But I can now see, based on what I just observed about status, that I was using the wrong tools. If actors use blocking to determine status, then it's no good asking them to use status to determine blocking. Maybe if I'd done way more table work, or come right out and "assigned" status shifts in each scene...but if I'm going to spend that much time on status, I might as well spend time blocking instead.

In other words, the blocking-status equation turned out to be a chicken-and-egger, and so it's probably a good thing I backed out before I wasted too much time on it. I'm not sure if this means all hope is lost, and a play this big and complicated will simply never block itself...but I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board if I really want to find something that works.

Why am I so desperate to circumvent this stage of the rehearsal process? Partly, I want to buy myself more time for text and character work, because I know there are way more juicy secrets buried in a script like Lear, and I think we barely managed to scratch the surface during this process.

But I also have to rely on my previously stated axiom: "Every movement must mean." Actors need to feel a sense of ownership of their bodies and their blocking. These are the keys to characterization, and on a much more primal level than voices and lines. And yet, what use is my axiom, if I, the dictator/director, tell them where and when to move? Obviously, I try to explain why I want Oswald to move on Kent's line. And I know that good actors are adept at inventing motivations for whatever crazy blocking notions their directors have dropped in their laps. But there will never be the same sense of ownership that comes when an actor moves of their own volition, because their character MUST move, because if they don't move they'll explode.

With small cast shows, there is usually more time to let actors explore their options. And with small cast shows, the repercussions are usually less dire if an actor decides he must alter his/her blocking (ie. there are fewer fellow cast members to confuse). Here, I feel as though I have failed to afford this cast the opportunity to take possession of their physical selves onstage--and that means their world will never be as real, as complete, as self-contained as it deserves to be.

The good news is: the memory of an actor's body is more durable than the memory of an actor's mind. That means they will continue to move as I've directed them long after they have forgotten how each bit of blocking came about. And by the end of the run, no doubt they will feel ownership of ther movements, as they already do of their lines, their characters, and their props (watch Ron fondle his cane, and you'll see what I mean). So, for now, the solution to my self-derived conundrum seems to be: block 'em early, so they can forget that it was you who blocked 'em. Hardly ingenious, but it will have to do for now.

Tech Dress Rehearsal

2006-01-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

Friday night, I called Joanne (who was at the theatre, adjusting lights, perfectionist that she is) and asked if we could make one or two adjustments to the lighting for the battle sequence. I knew that to do so would consume a lot of precious time, because that sequence involves a boatload of pre-programmed follow-through cues, all of which would have to be reprogrammed individually. But she cheerfully agreed to soften up the spotlights and lengthen the transitions from snaps to 1 second fades. Very subtle changes to the untrained eye, but she and I both knew that the overall effect would be to "loosen up" the battle, make it look rougher, more haphazard, more chaotic.

And that's what it all comes down to, with a play like this...carefully choreographed chaos. The battle sequence, like the storm in the first half, is meant to occur organically--to deceive the audience into thinking it has erupted unbidden from the underworld (or the heavens) of the play. The last thing you want to do is make the audience break out of the Lear world and think, "Oh my, what a clever battle sequence." But in order to achieve the effect of that spontaneity, you need to exert hours of careful planning and choreography. There's an awful lot of "then" that goes into creating the wow of the "now."

Saturday's tech dress went well, and, although it was a long day, the cast & crew cooperated to make it smooth and enjoyable. Ron and Beverly coordinated a delicious potluck brunch which kept us going all the way till supper--which was pizza supplied by Jaclyn, our production manager. Somewhere in the middle, we ran through the play with absolutely everything in place (except an audience). Melissa fixed Edgar's 4.5 mask at the last minute, so it looks a bit more imposing, and is less likely to fall off during his swordfight. John put a lovely metal "whirlpool" design on the back of Lear's throne. Helen painted the map so that it reads clearly from the audience. Lanterns were lit. Makeup was applied. Sound cues found their final levels. Everything has drifted into place.

The run itself had the same ups and downs as Thursday's (and had almost exactly the same running time). Cues were tight in this scene and loose in that. I can now see that I was extremely remiss in not scheduling at least one Italian run; if I'm going to be this hard-assed about pacing, then I need to provide the opportunities for my cast to improve that aspect of the show. I know it will improve during the run, but likely only gradually; and that's a shame, because nothing tickles critics like a Shakespeare show that just flies by.

I guess I can't really call them "my" cast any more. I'll keep giving them notes after the previews on Monday and Tuesday, but I'm certainly not going to suggest any radical changes; and, indeed, I have already encouraged them to take the play's artistic evolution into their own hands. As I told them, when I come back and see the show later on in the run, I want to see new moments, new discoveries, actors taking risks onstage with the security of a supportive ensemble around them. As an audience member, seeing that energy is by far the most exciting part of theatre. But as a director, it means I'm now officially a fifth wheel.

Tech Run

2006-01-26T23:19:00.000-07:00

Things are running smoother now. We finished our QxQ on Wednesday night and, although we didn't have enough time to fit in an Italian run, I was pleased with what we accomplished. The actors adapted to the lights and sound very well, particularly in complex sequences like the battle (about which more below).

Tonight we had a tech run--no costumes, but pretty much everything else--and I warned the actors that if they couldn't shave 10 minutes off the first half of the play, I'd have to start cutting scenes. They managed to shorten it--just barely. The first half currently runs 1 hour and 19 minutes, which is still longer than I'd like (1 hour and 10 was my grail, but I'll settle for 1:15). But I'm not cutting anything... except maybe the blood effects in Gloster's blinding. Yeah, who needs blood, anyway.

The cast started to do some tremendous things tonight. Instead of lurching from cue to cue like frightened animals, they really took control of the pace and flow of the play, creating an environment in which their characters could interact. It sounds abstract and philosophical, but it really has to do with energy. The energy of the runs has felt wild and unbridled for a long time now, and it is finally coming under control. The audience will know where to look; they will know which characters love or hate or fear each other; they will know when to lean forward and when to let out their breaths. Too often, actors don't realize that the audience is waiting eagerly for this energy, for these cues; they want to be controlled and manipulated and drawn into the world of the play, however bleak and ugly that world might become. Actors are powerful people, when they know how to wield their power properly.

I'm looking forward to watching that energy grow and tighten. We have only one more run before audiences start to appear, and so whatever we run on Saturday is what we're sticking to. This, therefore, is my final chance to meddle. Luckily, I have very few regrets. If I could go back in time and re-structure something entirely, it would probably have to be the battle...it's not the cast's fault, or anyone's really, it's just one of those complex lighting-sound-blocking-heavy moments when the whole ends up being rather less than the sum of its parts. But I really ought not to get pessimistic about anything at this point. Miraculous things have been known to occur in the final days before curtain.

Cue to Cue, Day One

2006-01-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

If you're not familiar with the term, a "cue to cue" is when you leap haphazardly from one sound or light cue to another, so that the technicians can work out the timing, adjust the levels, and write down the specifics of each cross-fade, spotlight, and thunderclap. Lear is not a tremendously complicated show, tech-wise, although there are rather a lot of thunderclaps. But even with a reasonably simple show, it takes time to bring the various elements together into an aesthetically appealing whole. And, just as actors drop a cue from time to time, sound cues skip, fingers slip on boards, lights burn out, and so on.

This is a frustrating process for the techs, but at least they're in control most of the time. It's twice as taxing for the actors, who find themselves bounced around from cue to cue, often thrown into the middle of a complicated scene with very little context (my favourite example was when they were asked to skip ahead to the line "Ay, my lord." They all just stared out blankly at the darkness in the house). My cast were troopers, though, and cheerfully repeated scenes, and fragments of scenes, over and over while the lights flickered above their heads. (I had a little fun with them at one point by asking Andrew to repeat the line "Most savage and unnatural" for a minute and a half.)

But if it's rough on the techs, and twice as tough on the actors, I have to say that cue to cue is ten times as troubling for a director who's become thoroughly accustomed to calling the shots. Yeah, yeah, I know, poor megalomaniacal me. But just as the actors started their penultimate major adjustment on Monday (inhabiting the set, and the costumes, and starting to build an ensemble both onstage and off), I'm now in the throes of my second-last transformation. The show is not mine anymore, not really; I can still pull rank when I have to, and I did that a few times, cutting sound cues which clearly weren't going to work with the world of the play. But the artistic authority I had even a week ago is seriously tempered, not only by the practical realities of our technical set-up, but also by the artistic visions of my bevy of designers--all of whom have just as much claim to this show as I do.

I keep seeing little opportunities to exert my authority--sneaking in an extra line here or there, or trying to add another quickie blocking bit. Some of those impulses have artistic merit, but I suspect that most of them are merely meddling; and I'm not helping anybody by sticking more stuff into the show, especially if it means a longer running time (don't get me started on the running time...). The actors have more than enough adjustments to make; and the more I tamper with things now, the harder it will be on the technicians. What I need to do is think about retiring gracefully, like Prospero; not throwing tantrums like you-know-who.

Dress Rehearsal

2006-01-23T22:52:00.000-07:00

A quick note here, although a lot happened this evening. We got onto the set (which is completed and looks fantastic), and we got to see the costumes--mostly complete, and looking splendid as well. Nice to see the ranks and relationships come through clearly thanks to Melissa's careful strategizing. Of course, as with any dress rehearsal, things went wrong--props were forgotten, actors tripped and stumbled, bits of the set got kicked around. But that's what this is for--and by the time audiences see the show (one week and counting!), most of those growing pains will have passed.

After the run, Dale confided his dissatisfaction to me. Nothing feels right, he said. I'm just standing and shouting lines, he said. My first suggestion involved our discussion about "confusion" as the thing which Lear most fears. I said that, usually, when people are confused, the first thing they try to do is convince others that they're not confused. So maybe lines like "This is a dull sight" need to come out with some measure of confidence...

But as I was saying it, I realized that here I was, just slapping more layers onto a characterization that was already bursting at the seams. I'd already coached Dale into playing "rage" and "fear" simultaneously; now he was supposed to add "confusion" and "certainty"? Who the hell can play all that?

So I suggested something else--an out-of-left-field tactic that has occasionally worked in the past. Two years ago, Dale played Harold Ryan in Walterdale's production of Kurt Vonnegut's Happy Birthday, Wanda June. It was one of the first plays I saw him act in, and one of the roles that convinced me that he had the chops for Lear. Ryan is a misogynist, you see; a brash, boastful, egomaniacal, unapologetic asshole to everyone around him, including his wife. He never doubted that he was right, and he didn't care that everyone except himself disagreed with him. He was, in short, a totally unlikable character--which is why audiences liked him.

So I told Dale to go back to Ryan. Put the rage and fear and doubt and madness off to the side for now, I said; you can always recover it later, if this tactic doesn't work. But for now, I told him to approach Lear's authority from a vantage that he already knows he can portray successfully. If it works, it will give us a whole new Lear--which is a big risk, in a lot of ways, but one I think the cast is ready to take.

The Multiple Personality Play

2006-01-22T20:11:00.000-07:00

The actors had the day off, but tech week has already begun. Yesterday we set light levels, so Joanne was in today making adjustments to the hang. John, Alli and Christiane were painting the set, and Doug came in to "dirty" up a bunch of props (and fix the shaky pikes). Melissa was cutting and sewing, and Andrew was working with Max and Gino on the sword fight (perfectionist). But I saw most of this in passing, since I was officially there to set sound levels with Mark and Matt.

The sound design has ended up being an unusual hodge-podge. We've got traditional storm sounds, and then we've got experimental and expressionistic stuff as well. We've got Shostakovich's 5th and 12th symphonies, but we've also got modern chanting, and music from Peter Gabriel's "Passion." We've got sound cues that represent thunder, and sound cues that represent horses & drums, but kinda sound like thunder. We've got sound cues that represent rain, and a sound cue that can either represent fire or rain--or both.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure what it will all add up to. But since there's nothing that strikes me as being definitively out of period, I think the only thing to do is to let it all play out. After all, my costumes are realistic and period-specific, but my set is abstract and expressionistic; and some of the lights are meant to convey real details, while others are purely for emotional effect. And isn't Shakespeare's script a mix of "real" prose dialogue and heightened poetry (not to mention doggerel rhymes and insane babble)? Is there anything in this play that is just one thing?

Does any here know me? This is not Lear.
Does Lear walk thus? Speak thus? Where are his eyes?
Who is it that can tell me who I am?

Tragic Topography

2006-01-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was at the playhouse early, helping Joanne to set light levels on the newly painted set. As she often pointed out, the two of us were frighteningly sympatico, and usually, when I made a lighting suggestion, she'd already made a note to that same effect. We got everything done before noon, apart from some bits of the storm and the last two scenes of the play. She finished the latter bit up during our run-through, and everything looks great. The storm will, unsurprisingly, be the last component to come together.

Because of the lighting work, the actors still had to do their run-through up in the rehearsal hall (it's never a good thing when you get an unexpected blackout in the middle of a swordfight). This was the last out-of-venue run; on Monday, we storm the set (yeah, pun intended). I think we're in excellent shape. Everyone seems very comfortable with their lines and blocking, and that's essential for the transition we're about to make. If you don't know your blocking very well before you move into the space, then it usually mutates beyond recognition by opening night.

My general note for this run was "Go big or go home." Most of the cast took me at my word (and went big, I mean. I wouldn't have let them go home, despite the implied choice). They put a lot of energy and relish into their lines, and I think they were a bit dismayed when, afterwards, I told them, "Very good. Now let's double that level again."

It's not about doing every single line at the top of your lungs, or even at the height of intensity. A good production needs a lot of peaks and valleys, and a harrowing play like this definitely needs moments when the audience can recover their breath. But when we do hit those peaks, then by the gods, they need to soar. This is not a Glastonbury Tor play--this is a Mont Blanc, a Kilimanjaro, an Everest. What I'm trying to do now is set the actors' sights on that sort of elevation; and then, if each one of them can get there once or twice in the course of a performance, they'll create the necessary topography to make the play succeed.

But, having said that...I invited a director friend whose opinion I greatly value to see the run-through, and she told me afterwards that I had everything I needed to make the play fly: a clear story filled with interesting, robust characters and many precious moments. And, of course, she saw the play without set, lights, sound, or costumes. So it's nice to think that, no matter what occurs during the final week of rehearsals, we definitely have a show on our hands.

The Poster

2006-01-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

The photo is by Tyler Bindon.

On Your Feet, Soldiers

2006-01-19T23:13:00.000-07:00

First run-through tonight. We ran very long, mostly due to dropped cues. But it's nothing that can't be fixed by an Italian or two (or three, or five). I asked the cast to spend this run very actively watching and listening and communicating onstage, and I think they took that to heart: the strongest scenes were certainly the ones where the relationships between characters came immediately to the forefront.

Meanwhile, the set has been erected, and although much of the styrofoam "cliffs" remain whiter than Dover, the parts that have been painted look astounding. The first coat of paint went down on the floor today as well. It looks...well, grey. Hard to know how stage floors will end up looking, though; once they get hit by stage lights, everything changes, and my colour sense is lousy on the best of days.

Most exciting is the slow addition of costume bits. Our dress run is scheduled for Monday night (four days--eep!), and I think it will probably be a real awakening for much of the cast. Once you have costumes, you have a world to inhabit. Of course, you also have the rigours of quick changes and set snags and trying to sort out whose damn sash is whose...but unless you're doing naked Hamlet, that's all inevitable; and I tend to see it as part of the fun.

Screamy

2006-01-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

I went to tonight's rehearsal feeling pessimistic--and more than a little sick. But by the end of the evening, both my spirits and my health had improved. We started with a brief primer on stage makeup, courtesy of Anna-Maria, and then plowed into a stop/start run of Acts 3 and 4. A bit surprisingly, it turned out to run much more smoothly than the first half did. There were one or two momentary scares (such as the pike that tried to decaptitate Igor--man, I knew those pointed sticks were a bad idea!), but people found their entrances and made their journeys clear.

Even 4.5 ran pretty darn well, all things considered. The dead body portage might just work after all. Once the run was through, Dale, Keiran, A.M. and I worked on 4.3, the reconciliation scene. Dale had made the discovery that Lear's awakening was not at all a gentle thing, but rather something confusing and frightening. We tried it with Lear recoiling from Cordelia's face in horror, pressing himself against Kent's legs, trying to escape what he thinks must be a hallucination, or a spirit come to torment him. I told him to scream as he pushed himself away. It's turning out to be a very screamy couple of acts--but if every scream, like every movement, means something to the audience, then it won't seem gratuitous.

Bodies and Blades

2006-01-18T13:12:00.000-07:00

Rehearsals are all all-calls from here on in. We're finished with scene work--if I had any intention of doing any more fine-tuning, the boat has sailed. It's up to the actors now, to keep exploring and experimenting as we race towards opening night.

Last night we started by blocking the curtain call. Then I gave a brief outline of the next week and a half, explaining that, once tech begins in earnest (this Friday), the actors will find themselves consigned to lower positions in the theatrical hierarchy ("meat props" was Max's expression) while the designers sort out their technical issues. It's often during this time that tensions run highest, not only because of the proximity of opening night, but because actors (fragile and beautiful things that they are) get nervous when attention isn't focused upon them. I'm hoping that my cast will keep their heads, and make the week a productive one by working through their various challenges and issues on their own time.

Once that was said, we plunged into 4.5. It was slow going. Keiran wasn't available, so we couldn't work the final beat of the scene (between Kent and the Fool). That means, I guess, that it will be a surprise even for me. Brittany was unwell, and Allan tripped on a sword at one point (both he and the sword are still intact, thank goodness).

But even if these had not been the case, it would have been a frustrating night. Ideally, the last scene of this incredible play should be twice as incredible as anything that comes before it; it should be the last, breathtaking blast of heartwrenching beauty and tragedy. What it was last night was a lot of blades strewn across a stage, and a lot of actors struggling to carry other actors here and there. In other words, a very awkward, mechanical scene. Nobody had the energy to act much, and I certainly didn't have the energy to inspire them.

Very frustrating, to be heading into run-throughs with no clear sense of how the play will conclude. I can feel the moments slipping through my fingers. I must have faith that, if I cannot catch them, the actors may be able to recover them without me. Although I joke about their diminishing importance, at this point, it's really more their play than mine.

Lear vs. Storm, Lear vs. Lear

2006-01-16T22:20:00.000-07:00

More thoughts about Lear and the storm. One idea which Dale
raised on Saturday involved Lear's privileged relationship to
nature & god, and the final betrayal he felt when he realized that
even god was against him now. I still like the idea, but I wasn't sure
how well it would play to an audience for whom the "divine right of
kings" is a meaningless archaism.

But then I was reading some descriptions of past productions of
Lear (something I do when I start to get desperate), looking for
clues or other approaches. I read this piece of commentary and
something seemed to click.

"The quality of Lear's resistance in this unfair contention--unfair
because he mistakes his antagonist and wastes his force on the
assault of the elements while suffering ambush from within--is
determined by his design in the total action."

It's that middle bit that intrigued me. What if the storm is really a red
herring? Lear seems to have a habit of blaming the wrong party,
especially as a form of self-denial.

Dale has started to find ways to explore the fear and loss of control that
underpins Lear's wrath. Perhaps the key to the storm scene is not the
rage, but the fear of madness. Look at his second passage:

Rumble thy bellyfull! Spit, fire! Spout, rain!
(seems like a continuation of the last angry volley. But maybe something is
already changing here...)

Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters.
(a rare moment of dissociative clarity. He knows that he's angry at the wrong
thing)

I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,
You owe me no subscription...
(The subtext: "Why, then, am I screaming at you like a bloody lunatic?")

Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man.
(I've given everything away; I've lost my mind and my strength; and no one is
coming to save me. I'm going to die out here.)

This also informs your next line: "No, I will be the pattern of all patience. I
will say nothing." The "no" doesn't seem to be responding to anything the Fool
has said (or sung). Maybe he's responding to his own internal rage (not
unlike earlier: "Down, down" and "Patience" etc.). Maybe the fight has shifted
altogether, from Lear vs. Storm to Lear vs. Lear.

We're Not Barbarians!

2006-01-15T19:51:00.000-07:00

Today was the first of this week's many hectic all-call rehearsals. 17 out of 18 actors were on time and ready to go; hurrah! You guys rock. We warmed up, then ran through the fights, and then plunged into a stop/start run of Acts 1 and 2. This is where the actors try their best to concentrate on their lines and blocking while their director is yelling "STOP!" every few seconds, and adding new material to their increasingly full plates.

It went well, although nerves were beginning to fray by the third hour. Most of the adjustments needed to be made in the busy scenes, especially 1.1 and 1.6. I'm trying to make choices that will simplify at this point--repetitive blocking for minor characters, or simply gettin' 'em offstage early. Transitions, which are a big deal with Shakespeare plays, are rough, but I'm not worried about them; in the time we have, I think we can get them flowing smoothly. Ditto with cues.

For the last hour of rehearsal, we worked the blinding. I've asked Anna-Maria to whip up some stage blood for this, but while we wait for that, we tightened up the violence. Andrew G. says we need to think of the entire scene as a fight sequence, with increasing speed and tension, and with the precise attention to detail that fights demand from actors.

One thing that really made a difference today was the addition of sounds. Like the battle we worked the other night, this sequence involves a lot of poking and stabbing and slicing, and usually, when people receive those sorts of wounds, they make noises. So Peter went from his initial cries of outrage (as in, "Hey! Watch the thumbs, buddy! Some of us need our eyes, you know!") to harrowing cries of fear and pain (as in...well, as in, "All dark and comfortless"). Ron, the walking foley artist, had no trouble shouting and grunting and coughing his way through Cornwall's death. Now we just need Kassia (the Servant) to give a cathartic, ear-punishing shriek when she gets disembowled, and we'll have ourselves a peach of a scene.

And yes, it's really as grotesque as it sounds. We have violence warnings on the posters. What did you expect? It's a tragedy.

Andrew G., observing the chair which Gloster sits in when interrogated and tortured: It's very nice of you guys to give the guy you're blinding a nice cushion to sit on.
Ron S.: Hey, we're not barbarians.

This Is Not Lear

2006-01-15T19:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was another non-day off for me; two hours of monologue work with Dale, and then some read-throughs of scripts which Walterdale is developing for our Evening of One Acts in May. Dale seemed off-kilter with his speeches, and he finally confessed that our recent work on 2.1 ("O reason not the need"), and our earlier work on the storm scenes had left him unsure of a lot of things regarding Lear's characterization. He's certainly got the hang of yelling at his daughters, and I think he understands that it is meant to be uncomfortable...but he didn't know where all that rage was supposed to go once he got into Act 2. "When I'm yelling at the storm," he said, "It just feels like I'm shouting up at the grid. It feels silly."

I pointed out that he still hasn't "met" his partner in this scene (Mark is supposed to bring in the storm sounds this week). But I suggested that part of the problem he was facing was distinguishing "the real Lear" from the character he has now become adept at portraying. Has Lear always been this selfish, this unstable? Regan says "He hath ever but slenderly known himself," but can we take her word for it? As I told Dale, "A character who is unpleasant and out of control right from the beginning doesn't interest me. But somebody who turns into that character is much more intriguing."

In other words, the raging "dragon" isn't the real Lear; it's "Lear's shadow," and even Lear himself must recognize it at some level. He sees himself losing control, he opens his mouth and hears all this venomous bile pour out, and his helplessness is terrifying to him. The challenge for Dale, as I explained it to him, is to find a way to show the audience that the real Lear, the human Lear, is still in there. The actor's challenge is to play both Lears at once--the violent and vituperative dragon and the scared and helpless child.

Amazingly, as early as this afternoon, Dale has started to experiment with this. When he's yelling at Goneril and Regan in 2.1, his voice is still angry, but he chokes himself off more often; and his body language is no longer aggressive, but more restrained, as if his hands are trying to find some sort of purchase as he's swept about inside his own mental storm.

And that's really the key, I think, to making the storm scenes work: the understanding that, for Lear, the storm starts several scenes earlier than it does for anyone else. He has already spent several scenes listening to peals of thunder, and fearing for his health; it's simply that the thunder has been issuing from him.

Bloody, Bloody Battle

2006-01-13T14:21:00.000-07:00

"This scene isn't even in the play," was my fight director's comment as we assembled to finalize the choreography for 4.4, "The Battle." He was partly right; there is a scene in Lear that corresponds to it, and the dialogue is pretty much unchanged. Edgar and Gloster come on, and Edgar tells his blind poppa:

Here Father, take the shadow of this Tree
For your good host: pray that the right may thrive:
If ever I return to you again,
I’ll bring you comfort.

Then the battle takes place, after which Edgar re-enters to inform Dad that:

Away old man, give me thy hand, away!
King Lear hath lost, he and’s Daughter taken.
Give me thy hand: Come on.

The only thing I've effectively changed is the nature of the stage direction which comes between these two segments. In the original, it just says "Alarum and retreat within." In other words, the battle occurs off-stage, and is signified only by noises. At the start of last night's rehearsal, I thought this was a cheat--an easy way out that no self-respecting director ought to take.

Three and a half hours later, I was inclined to agree with Shakespeare. Battles are for backstage, not onstage. Which is not to say it did not go well. I gave all the combatants (Edmund, Albany, France, the English Captain, one French soldier and Gargrave, Lear's last knight) sashes to tie around their waists, as a sort of badge of office. I counted off the beats which, in the production, will be indicated by pulsing spotlights, illuminating tableaux and brief skirmishes between various combatants. Andrew swooped in regularly to adjust the fights, while I distributed advice on how to die effectively. By the end of the night, it looked great, and sounded even better: lots of shouts and howls and death rattles, with Ron's Captain chuckling maliciously as he cleaned his blade on Gargrave's tunic. I think it will do all the things I need it to do: punch up the energy as we near the end of the play, and illustrate the horrors of war that Goneril, Regan, and Edmund have brought down on England.

None the less, I couldn't help wondering if the time would have been better spent on scenes that Shakespeare actually had a hand in. All in all, the battle will last about two and a half minutes when performed--that means (I think) that we rehearsed each minute for 1.4 hours last night.

Ah, well. Counting up opportunity cost at this point in the process is a waste of even more time. We're definitely in high gear now, with tech week eight days away. What gets polished, gets polished; whatever doesn't get finalized will be left to the actors. And it's better, in nearly all respects, to let the actors flounder through a speech or two than fumble their way through anything involving swords and pointed sticks.

The Tantrum

2006-01-11T22:28:00.000-07:00

More multi-tasking at the start of tonight's rehearsal. First, we tested the stocks. The barrel upon which Kent is standing needs to be stabilized, but the manacles seem to work. I also checked in briefly with Andrew, Max and Gino before they launched into their three hour swordfight marathon. Then it was upstairs to work on 2.1, which I originally titled "The Rage" but which I now realize is more accurately called "The Tantrum."

Lear sees that Kent has been stocked. He throws a fit. Regan tries to calm him down, and he starts spouting venom about Goneril. Then Goneril enters, and Lear starts yelling at both daughters. By the end of the scene, he's pretty must just yelling at the sky. He almost cries. He runs off into the storm, leaving a lot of characters standing uncomfortably on stage.

Discomfort is, in fact, the key to the whole scene. Nobody likes to see an old man lose his cool, and it's even more unpleasant when he is (or used to be) your king. Lear knows he's making a fool of himself, but he can't seem to stop it. In fact, as I described it to Dale, he has reached a point where, whenever he opens his mouth, he has no idea what sort of bile is going to pour out. I told Brittany and Beverly that the best way to deal with this sort of tantrum is to give him nothing--no energy, no openings, no excuse to keep going.

The scene was hard to work. First of all, it involves a lot of characters standing around for a long time, and I always feel a bit guilty about making actors give up their evenings to that sort of task. Secondly, the three principals were not totally off-book for this scene, so it was slow going, with a lot of frustrated repetitions of "Line!" I'm just thankful we haven't run into more scenes like that; it's actually rather astounding at how much of the play these guys seem to know. But this scene still needs work, and everybody sensed it.

Oddly enough, though, when you're doing a scene about discomfort, and you end up feeling uncomfortable because you can't recall your lines...well, it's not exactly method acting, but I guess it could be worse.

I could say more about the scene, about its weird spikes and drops of tension, but I'm too tired. Tomorrow we have to get that great big battle sorted out...and then on Sunday, we're running Act 1 and 2...and by next Tuesday, we're into all-calls. I think things are going well, I know things are going well...and yet, I find myself thinking about the Fool's advice to Kent: "Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it."

A Comedy of Terrors

2006-01-11T12:59:00.000-07:00

The title for this post came from Peter, who was commenting on the unlikely resurgence of humour which seems to have arisen in Act 4, and particularly 4.1, the "Cliffs of Dover" scene.

Okay, I admit; it's mostly my fault. I knew right from the start that I wanted to be on the lookout for any and all opportunities to lighten the mood in this generally bleak (and sometimes downright nihilistic) play. Having read about the unexpected laughter which issued from audiences at the recent Globe production of Lear (2001), I felt justified in looking at the play as a tragedy with dark comic undertones. And, as the director, I was within my rights to nudge those undertones a little closer to the surface now and then.

Hence my bawdy opening sequence, with Gloster and Kent discovering Edmund in flagrante with a maidservant behind Lear's throne. And hence the soldiers who show up to collect Lear in 4.1 (who developed more than a hint of Three Stooges as we blocked their schtick). Some actors have helped a lot. Dale improvised a delightful little bit for Lear in Act 3, when he awakes and follows an imaginary butterfly off-stage. That isn't even black comedy, although the humour does arise from Lear's insanity, I guess. More importantly, it doesn't feel black, and because of its lightness it almost seems sublime.

However, the character who has been forced to adopt the red nose the most often has been Gloster. Peter has borne my suggestions for comedy like a trooper, acknowledging that, yes, certainly, at the beginning of the play, Gloster comes across as a lech and a gull. But I think Peter hoped that, once Gloster's story took its tragic turn (ie. the blinding), I would keep it in that vein. Making fun of the recently blinded Gloster is dark fun indeed. When I tried to turn the scuffle between Edgar and Oswald (in 4.1) into slapstick by having Gloster wander blindly into the fray, the choreography itself seemed resistant (we found a way to make it work, but I don't know if it's going to get a laugh).

Anyway, last night, we were working on Gloster's suicide attempt. Edgar has deceived the blind man into thinking he is at the top of a cliff, and when Gloster hurls himself forward and meets only the level ground, Edgar then pretends to be a passerby at the foot of the cliff. "Ten masts at each would not make up the distance / Which you have perpendicularly fell," he tells Gloster, concluding that "Your life's a miracle" and encouraging the blind man to accept his lot in life.

While finalizing the blocking for this sequence, I was fighting two contradictory urges. I wanted to make Gloster's character arc clear, and this was obviously a key moment--a 180 degree reversal from suicidal ideation to "my life's a miracle." I think the moment is also thematically crucial, for it is the point at which Edgar is able to share his own personal discoveries about empathy, and the value of perseverence in the face of pain.

But, for all that, I couldn't seem to escape from the absurdity of the whole thing. Gloster thinks he's leaping off a cliff, when really he's dropping from his knees onto his chest--less than three feet. It looked funny. I gave Peter a blanket, asked him to lift it up before the "leap" and then let it settle over him. It gave the "plunge" a bit more gravity (no pun intended). Then I noticed that the blanket seemed to settle over his head--even better, I thought. It looks like a shroud.

Then along comes Edgar. "Sir, what are you, Sir?" He asks, and very naturally, Max pulled the blanket back to expose Peter's head. Gloster's next line is, "Away, and let me die." How do you dramatize this impulse, I wondered? Well, if I were Gloster, I would probably want to shut out Edgar altogether, along with the cold air on my face, and all other signs of life. So I suggested that, on that line, Peter try to tug the blanket back over his head.

I could tell from Peter's reaction that I had gone too far--that a gesture like that would almost certainly solicit laughter, and deflate the moment. But he tried it, and he found a way to make it work for him--playing Gloster's frustration and helplessness rather than sheer denial. But now the whole thing has left me wondering: what is the purpose of humour in a play like this? Are we laughing the characters or with them?

I'd like to think that, whereas the audience laughs mockingly at Gloster in 1.1 while he boasts about his infidelities or gets sucked into Edmund's plots, the audience finds occasion to laugh with Gloster in 4.1--and it has to be a bitter laughter, because they were there when he was blinded, and they know what he's been through. Perhaps you reach a certain point, a nadir, after which there's nothing you can do but laugh. Perhaps the audience can give Gloster the cathartic chuckle that he needs to move through his own pain, and come out the other side.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. With this sort of stuff, there's just no way to know how it will play until there's an audience to play it to. And they will probably react differently from night to night. It's partly why this stage of rehearsals is so frustrating; we know we're not quite ready to face the public yet; but I'm sort of running out of things to fix.

A Knight to Remember

2006-01-09T22:27:00.000-07:00

Back into scene work tonight. One of the scenes I most regretted not having blocked before the break was 1.3--"The Knights," I call it, although they only occupy the stage for the first half of it. But their presence is still felt, since Lear and Goneril argue about the Knights' behaviour, and Goneril unilaterally dismisses half of Lear's entourage (can she do that?). Most of the Lear/Goneril stuff got blocked, as did the Lear/Kent/Oswald scrap near the top of the scene...but substantial gaps were still in evidence during yesterday's stumble though, as I watched one or two disoriented knights stand blinking upstage, wondering if Lear was yelling at them? Or was he just yelling...?

As I choreographed the chaos, two things occurred to me. The first was, "man, this show has a lot of blocking." That's what happens, I suppose, when you have so many actors; but it's more than that. Back in August, I set out to create a system whereby the show could block itself--and, more importantly, where the actors could find their blocking organically and naturally by relating their own status to that of other characters onstage. It didn't work--I think I chickened out, to be honest, but the few times I did try it, it usually just ended up being halting and repetitive. If Lear's world is a world out of balance, then it requires a lot of shifting to reflect that. And it can be hectic shifting, it can be chaotic overall, but the individual movements of each actor needs to be precise in order to create the effect of chaos. And that equals blocking. Damn it. I just wish I could be spending all this crucial time on lines and characterization, instead of "Stand here. Move here."

But as I was bossing my knights around, a second discovery occurred, and this one made me feel a bit better. I told the four actors who were playing the knights (some of whom are among the least experienced in the cast) that Lear's knights were more like his buddies than his servants. They could afford to be unrestrained--and, indeed, Goneril describes them as "disorder'd and debosh'd." With that in mind, I let them invent some upstage business of their own, to fill the space between their (meticulously blocked) entrances and exits. Delightfully, they took this idea and ran with it. The freedom to ham it up a bit, to relax and goof off, and to let that goofiness become an organic part of the play, really seemed to energize the scene--in fact, it was the component that added the chaos and disorder that my careful blocking had very nearly eliminated altogether.

So blocking is good, but so is giving the actors some latitude.

Other good things happened, including some great bits between Goneril/Albany and Lear/Fool. And I also checked in to see that the set is coming along much faster now (phew). Even the stocks are almost complete--the manacles that will bind Kent's arms hang menacingly over centre stage, like a sword of Damocles.

"I Stumbled When I Saw"

2006-01-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

If I had to pick the two words most feared by actors, it would be a close race between "off book" and "stumble through." Scariest of all is the fact that the two phrases often arrive at the same time. My cast were asked to be off-book last Monday, when we returned from the holidays. For the most part, they were; but Helen and I were willing to overlook the occasional script in the occasional hand. This afternoon, we had our first stumble through of the entire play, and it was also the day when Helen laid down the law and told the actors to leave their scripts behind.

It went very well. With some shows, it's like kicking baby birds out of the nest before their ready to fly, and it's an agonizing process, sitting helplessly in the house and watching them plummet. But this cast was ready. They called "line" a lot, but not so much that they got frustrated with themselves. The blocking was also fuzzy, mostly in the scenes which we were never able to work adequately before Christmas. But they stumbled along, which is what stumble throughs are all about. The important thing is not getting every bit of blocking; the important part is reaffirming within their frightened little baby-bird souls that they have a show, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end; and if they just put a few more weeks' worth of work into it, then it will be something spectacular.

Now for the less heartening news; our production meeting confirmed that set construction is about a week behind schedule. This is will also, by necessity, put painting behind schedule; and then we will have a very, very tight window of time in which to prevent lights, sound, and, ultimately, the actors behind schedule. For me, as director, it all comes down to the actors. I certainly want all the other components of the show to look and sound as good as possible, and they all take time, and it was foolish to expect that everything would end up finished right on schedule.

But there's a domino effect here. If the actors don't have the opportunity to work on the actual stage, with the actual lights, and sounds, and costumes, and props, then in their minds, they aren't really doing the show at all. When you drop a big, complex show onto the set one or two days before opening night, the actors will still be adjusting--and not just physically adjusting, but psychologically adjusting, still convincing themselves that they are really in the Lear World, so that they can turn around and convince the audience of the same thing.

In respect of which, I'm glad that outside circumstances helped to get us into the theatre for today's stumble through. Even though we're going back up to the rehearsal hall for the next week (or two ... or two and a half), they all got a chance to see the (half-completed) space, to move around in it, to create it for a few hours. Hopefully, they'll carry that memory inside them, and it will serve to help them adjust more rapidly when we get to move downstairs again.

"Day Off"

2006-01-07T23:19:00.000-07:00

Not really a day off. Melissa was sewing up a storm all day long, and I was down in the theatre with John, Doug, and several hardy volunteers, working on props and set pieces. I'm hardly handy, so I wasn't able to be of very much assistance (in fact, I managed to staple gun my hand). But it looked as though John was able to make some progress in spite of my ineptitutde, which is great, considering I'm stealing the theatre space from him tomorrow to do a stumble-through.

Gear Change!

2006-01-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

Things are happening quickly now. Last night we had a power-combo rehearsal: costume fittings and fight work, with some line runs to fill in the cracks. Melissa's costume horde is shaping up; I particularly like the red coats she's created for Edgar and Edmund, and I'm looking forward to seeing the other bits she's planning to build. She was in need of black fabric for Regan & Goneril's dresses, so I convinced our Technical Director to part with a few of our old black drapes. Very nice fabric.

So that's under way, although M. and I both admit there's a long way to go. Fights are also in fairly good shape. We didn't get a chance to work through all of them, on account of several absent actors. Although some absences have been more than justified, it seems as though there is a strain of truancy at the moment which has forced me to revise our schedule for the next couple of weeks. Maybe my mistake was in starting up so quickly after New Year's.

Well, there's nothing to be done about it now. This is the stage of rehearsals I enjoy the least. In a week or so, we will all be in high gear, and things will be moving quickly and (I hope) efficiently towards our tech and opening. But right now, we're in the gear shift; the machinery is straining to push ahead, and everyone is adjusting differently to the swifter pace and the multi-tasking which this sort of show demands. I expect we will have at least a few more cases of whiplash before the weekend is out.

At least one "good" thing has come out of the chaos. Fixating on an off-hand joke at last night's rehearsal, our fight director has announced his intention to create and produce a musical stage version of Disney's classic CGI anthopomorphic masterpiece, Tron. I expect we'll run for 1 1/2 nights, before the Disney lawyers shut us down. Everyone's invited.

Pointy Sticks and Emendations

2006-01-04T21:56:00.000-07:00

Today we revisited 2.7, the "Trial" scene, which is now officially the most (perhaps the only) over-rehearsed scene in the play. When the only note I can think to give is "Act more exhausted," I think I've said my piece.

Then it was on to 3.4, a scene I fabricated in which Kent and Gargrave get "captured" by France's army, and reunited with Cordelia. Short and sweet, with a nice bit of pole arm blocking in the middle. Walterdale has some lovely pikes in props storage, so I figured we might as well use them. They certainly look more menacing than swords (still waiting for swords...).

We briefly visited Lear's monologue at the top of 4.5 ("Come, let's away to prison..."), and found a much nicer way to block it (before we had Lear standing behind Cordelia and pointing over her shoulder towards an invisible "prison" space out in the audience somewhere; now he sits her down on the stage (in front of Edmund and some shocked soldiers) and creates their blissful isolation right there and then. It's got a lovely intimacy--and a heart-breaking poignancy, if you happen to know that this will be their last few minutes on earth.

Then there's 4.3, the "reconciliation" scene, where Lear wakes up ("You do me wrong to take me out of the grave"), recognizes Cordelia ("Thou art a soul in bliss..."), and she forgives him ("No cause, no cause"). This scene was a maudlin masterpiece in the Victorian era; Lear would be carried on in a raised chair, awoken to soft music, and would touch and even taste Cordelia's tears to confirm their corporeality.

Our scene is very much the rough 'n' ready version: Lear is flat out on some blankets on the stage floor (one of them is actually a curtain--very Gone With the Wind), and only has Cordelia's kiss to awaken him. No attendants, aside from Kent and France--and I have them keeping their distance, letting Cordelia do the work. I honestly don't know if it will have the emotional effect it ought to have, but I feel as though I don't have any resources to help improve it. I really do think it ultimately comes down to Dale and Anna-Maria; once they're comfortably off-book, I think it will start to shine.

Before we left, Anna-Maria lobbied to have one half-line reinserted into 1.1:

Good my Lord,

You have begot me, bred me, loved me;
I return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you--
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say they love you all?
Haply, when I shall wed, that Lord whose hand
Must take my plight, shall carry half my love with him,
Half my care and duty. Sure I shall never
Marry like my sisters.

To the end of this, the Quarto version of Lear adds the half-line, "To love my father all." It's not in the Folio, but nearly all modern versions include it. It certainly does a good job of rounding out the line, since it balances out the earlier repetitions of "half."

My reasons for not including this half-line go all the way back to May. I had Cordelia's psychology all worked out, and then along came Anna-Maria, shrewd and observant and totally self-sufficient. She had Cordelia figured out at a very early stage, and when she happened to be reading through various editions of the play over Christmas, she came upon this extra line which fit much better into her characterization than it did into mine. As she explained it, "To love my father all" is a final jab at the two sisters, but it's also the straw which breaks Lear's back, and provokes his extreme reaction.

She makes a good point. It's certainly less ambiguous, and in a play like Lear, that can never be a bad thing. It just goes to show you that the first ideas are not always the ones you keep.

Lipsbury Pinfoldin'

2006-01-03T22:14:00.000-07:00

Mostly worked 1.6 today--the scene where Kent attacks Oswald (which one?) and then gets his own butt Lipsbury Pinfolded into the stocks by Swiss Cheese Brain Man (aka Cornwall). As you can tell, it was a pretty goofy rehearsal, with everyone in good humour (and, again, remarkably off-book. These guys rock).

We were missing a couple of key players tonight, so we couldn't work some of the other scenes I'd hoped to get around to. Unfortunately, the more that happens this week, the less likely it becomes that we're ever going to get a chance to focus on them in isolation. From here on in, it's runs, runs, runs. Luckily, I also expect the cast is going to be pretty good at thinking on their feet. I'd just rather not put them through that.

Had a sound meeting with Mark. Lots of thunderclaps and surreal ominous soundscapes. And I talked a bit with John and Christienne about the set. Sounds like John could use a few knowledgeable helpers this week and next while the set comes together. Handymen (and women), step forward!

Stormy New Year!

2006-01-02T22:31:00.000-07:00

Tonight we resumed rehearsing, and we moved into the Walterdale space for the first time. Helen and I met there early to set up; she'd already laid down spike tape on the floor of the rehearsal hall, so it was mostly just a matter of moving unnecessary furniture out of our way, and starting to create a props table.

Things have not been totally quiet in the Playhouse over Christmas. Melissa has been making costumes, and John has been making huge curving cliffs out of 2x4s and PVC (the papier mache comes later). Now, the actors have arrived, and they make...well, they make a lot of noise, most of the time.

I was nervous that people would not be off-book, and that they would have forgotten all their blocking. Looks like I needn't have worried. A few quick runs of 2.2, 2.3, and 2.5, and the storm was back in motion. Mark and Joanne were both present, taking notes for sound and lighting. It sounds like we are all on the same wavelength about the way the storm should work, so I think it's going to come together very quickly from here.

Barrel Roll Call

2005-12-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

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

2005-12-20T20:31:00.000-07:00

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

2005-12-14T21:39:00.000-07:00

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

2005-12-12T21:51:00.000-07:00

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

2005-12-11T21:09:00.000-07:00

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

2005-12-08T22:19:00.000-07:00

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

2005-12-06T22:35:00.000-07:00

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

2005-12-05T22:39:00.000-07:00

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

2005-12-04T21:55:00.000-07:00

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?

2005-12-01T16:35:00.000-07:00

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.

Standing Up For Bastards

2005-11-28T22:02:00.000-07:00

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.

4.4: The Battle, Part One

2005-11-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

There's something of the masochist in me, in that when I am directing Shakespeare, I often fixate upon tiny scenes, or even scenes that don't officially feature in the script, and elaborate upon them until they're gigantic. When I directed The Merchant of Venice, I felt compelled to choreograph a bustling opening sequence featuring all 13 actors weaving around one another up and down the Rialto to the tune of "Funiculi Funicula." All silent, all technically unnecessary.

Here we are again, in the second last scene of Lear. In this scene, Edgar brings blind Gloster on and tells him, in a nutshell, that he must sit tight while the battle rages on. Edgar exits, and then there is a simple stage direction: Alarum and retreat within. Shakespeare knew he couldn't simulate an entire battle onstage, so he just gave us the last couple of sound effects, and then Edgar comes back in to tell Gloster (and us) that the war is over, and France has lost.

Today we blocked about half of the battle that Shakespeare was too smart to include in his play. We're doing it somewhat stylistically, relying on lights and sounds to suggest most of the carnage. But the series of vignettes we blocked today tell some important stories, including the unheralded deaths of several supporting characters. It also gives Gloster something more definitive to react to (his lines after Edgar re-enter suggest that the ambient horrors of war have, once again, sent him into a funk).

I say we blocked about half of it, because we only had about half of the necessary actors there. Bodies, once again, were absent. But I'm going to try to catch us up later this week, on a night when I'd only scheduled scenes we've already blocked.

Time is getting precious; I can feel it starting to tug the rug out from under me. As Edgar says, "Ripeness is all." And logically, I know that means I should not be squandering any of it on gratuitous scenes like this one. But, hey... there's no going back now.

Second Leg

2005-11-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

I just completed a draft of the second leg of rehearsals (from January 2nd to our previews on January 30 and 31st).

Man oh man, is it gonna be tight. I have just barely enough time to spend a couple of hours on each of the major scenes before the whirlpool that is tech week drags us in. Tech week is the great, inevitable bugbear of the rehearsal process; for directors, it represents the time when the production is torn from your arms like a child being stolen from its mother. All you can do is bite your lip and hope that it has grown enough to survive on its own.

Obviously, it isn't there yet. And presumably, it will get there in time. But...yeah. Tight.

Ready, Set...

2005-11-25T16:22:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention our special guest last night: John Henoch, our set designer, with a scale maquette in tow. I wasn't thinking ahead, or I would have brought along my digital camera. Next time I see him (and I think there's a production meeting in a week or so), I'll get a photo for the blog.

It looks good. There's a spiral design on the stage floor, leading into a gentle curve which rises up along the rear right wall, interrupted only by a narrow gap for entrances. In the upstage corner, the curving wall flattens out, and then plateaus across the rear left wall, forming a--well, a cliff face. John also envisions a white sheer backdrop with trees painted or projected on.

I'm not describing it very well (it's not my forte). But I like where it's headed; I think the curling floor designs, combined with the sheer face of the rear walls, will create a delightfully unsettling mixture of claustrophobia and vertigo.

Of course, as the design comes closer and closer to reality, it means making adjustments. I have been blocking with a wide open circle in mind, but now I realize it's going to end up being more like an oval, as the walls will intrude upon the x-axis quite a bit. I'm also concerned about the width of the entrances. Not only do I have a lot of actors coming and going, but I've also got broad props, like Lear's throne, being shuffled on and off the stage. Can we achieve a sense of enclosure, but still give actors and props room to make their practical "escapes"?

3.4, 4.3, 4.5: Birds i'th'cage

2005-11-24T22:12:00.000-07:00

Cordelia's back! After an absence of weeks, tonight we worked the three scenes in which Cordelia (and France) return to England, reunite with Lear, and then, um, die.

We quickly worked and blocked 3.4, in which Cordelia meets Kent. Gargrave, the loyal Knight, has yet another lovely speech describing Lear's ongoing lunacy. But we also hear the insisent approach of war (Shakespeare is quite insistent), and these "drums and alarums" continue into the next scene, when Cordelia rouses Lear from sleep and brings him back to sanity.

We worked this scene once before, and had some blocking to fall back upon; but things changed, as they often do. Everyone in the scene (Dale, Anna-Maria, John, Keiran) did a great job, but I still felt unsatisfied. Maybe it was the sudden realization that there was simply no practical way for us to bring Lear on in a bed, or even on a chair. Nope, the king gets blankets and (as Keiran suggested) maybe a gunney sack for a pillow--sleeping like a soldier, which is a propos, with a war so close at hand.

So, I hope to revisit that scene and continue to shift things around. Ultimately, the blocking isn't critical--it will be Lear and Cordelia who sell the scene--but I want to make what could easily be an awkward set-up as comfortable and natural as possible for them both.

For the last hour, Dale, Anna-Maria, Liz and I sat on the floor of the rehearsal hall and looked at the short and painfully beautiful dialogue which occurs between father and daughter at the start of 4.5. This is the last time we see Cordelia alive. I had originally shortened Lear's speech considerably, and I owe Dave Brundage a debt for convincing me to lengthen it again, because it really works:

Cordelia.
We are not the first
Who with best meaning have incurr’d the worst:
Shall we not see these Sisters?

Lear.
No, no, no, no: come, let’s away to prison.
We two alone will sing like Birds i’th’cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness: So we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded Butterflies: and hear poor Rogues
Talk of Court news, and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses, and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies: And we'll wear out
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by th'Moon. Wipe thine eyes,
The good years shall devour them, flesh and fell,
Ere they shall make us weep.

Hearing them read through this more than made up for my frustrations with the last scene. I particularly like the idea that Cordelia, who is a realist, suspects that death is just around the corner, but she allows herself to buy into Lear's fantasy because it makes the old man happy, and because--in the moments that he's saying it, and she's receiving it, and we, the audience, are hearing it--it's true.

2.2, 2.7: Bed at Noon, Up at Dawn

2005-11-23T22:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight we focused mostly upon one of my favourite scenes: the Trial, I call it. It takes place in some sort of barn or shack, into which Kent and Gloster have managed to manoeuvre all the crazies (Lear, Fool, and Edgar) in the hopes of getting warm and maybe catching some winks. Lear is still delusional, though, and he whips himself up into one last frenzy by imagining his three daughters on trial.

In my version of the script, this is the last scene before intermission. It's very important that we get it right. Fortunately, since my actors are geniuses, they tapped into the scene's exhaustion, desperation, and melancholy introspection right away. Dale pushes himself through his fatigue, convincing himself (and me) that, if he can just get everyone to stand in the right place, his authority will return, and he can regain control over his "pelican daughters."

Meanwhile, Kent is at the end of his rope, the Fool is nearly dead from exposure, and Edgar is starting to suspect that maybe Poor Tom isn't so poor after all when compared to this miserable monarch he sees before him. It's all right there. The scene just clicked.

We also worked an earlier storm scene between Kent and a Knight (whom we've dubbed Gargrave). And I blocked two "out scenes"--one of bodies struggling through the storm, and another, later bit, where Lear sneaks away from Kent and the others while they're taking a nap. It was Dale's inspired decision to have the King spot a butterfly and chase it, giggling, off the stage.

The Lear Lounge

2005-11-22T22:27:00.000-07:00

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.

3.1, 3.3: The Unspoken

2005-11-21T21:53:00.000-07:00

Most of the time, Shakespeare lays it all out for you. The language is archaic and the poetry can sometimes obscure the direct meanings, but once you get past that stuff, it's all right there on the page. Lear's storm scenes and the blinding of Gloster are like that. But once in a while, a modest little scene will present you with all sorts of possibilities for Stanislavsky's favourite pastime: subtext.

Tonight we worked on two short scenes with ample subtext, and since nobody onstage was being tortured or killed, we could afford to linger on the hidden relationships, and find ways to bring them out into the open. It's loads of fun. 3.1 is mostly occupied with Gloster's blinding, but before he gets hauled onstage, there's a half-page scene that's bristling with little exchanges like this one:

Goneril: Farewell sweet Lord, and Sister.
Regan: Edmund, farewell.

Goneril and Edmund are exiting together, and Regan (who has previously taken a tumble with the Bastard) sees her lover--and perhaps her only chance to escape from her bear of a husband-- about to fall into her sister's web. Subtext abounds: Regan longing for Edmund, Goneril smirking at her feeble sister (or examining her new prize), Cornwall watching his wife hungering for a low-life Bastard, and so on.

3.3 is more blatant, but we still found a lot of interesting sub-currents to the Goneril/Edmund and Goneril/Albany relationships. Allan and Beverly are building a lot of genuinely interesting material for their unhappy couple. I'd be surprised if there has ever been another Albany in history whose love for Goneril, and pain at watching her sink into damnation, is so palpable. The scene also pretty much blocked itself, which is a real perk these days.

1.6: Not Enough Bodies

2005-11-20T17:24:00.000-07:00

A hard slog today, mostly because my own energy was low. I think I'm coming down with something.

Today we put Kent into the stocks. This was a difficult scene to block, because it features two big "bursts" of characters spilling onto the stage. Unfortunately, we were short several actors, including Cornwall, who is the highest-status character through most of the scene. Blocking a big scene without the right number of bodies is very hard for me; when I have, say, 10 bodies lined up in front of me, I can usually imagine how they will interact and balance one another once they start to move. But when I only have 8 out of 10 bodies in front of me, for some reason that extra imaginative step throws everything off.

My actors were very patient while I struggled to work things out; but I was not terribly happy with the final results. For one thing, I ended up blocking parts of the scene in lines. I hate lines. Especially on a stage like Walterdale (which is a "wedge" stage, shaped like a fat pizza slice, with its curved crust facing the audience), three dimensionality is the only way to go. But for some reason, in my desperation, everything kept collapsing into boring two-dimensional lines.

Ah, well. Next day will be better. And I'll probably have to revisit this scene sometime, to work the absent actors into it; so many I can make some adjustments then.

Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?

2005-11-19T14:30:00.000-07:00

In 2.4, at the height of the storm, Lear decides that, since he is clearly no longer a King, he must be the opposite, ie. a beggar. He has just met Edgar, posing as Poor Tom, and he seems to think that this mostly naked lunatic has some wisdom to impart to him (he calls him "philosopher"). He says:

Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Here's three of us are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare animal as thou art. Off, off you Lendings: Come, unbutton here.

"Unbutton here" may be an order (to Kent or the Fool), or it may simply be a declaration of intention. Either way, he starts to disrobe, until his followers rush in to stop him. (At least, they generally stop him; in the 1997 British stage production, Ian Holm went all the way). Flash forward to the final scene of the play, when Lear is leaning over the corpse of his beloved daughter. He 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.

And dies. Since nothing in this play is a coincidence, there must be something special about the button business. One comes right at the moment when Lear abandons the idea of kingship (he toys with it again later in his madness, but in a cynical, ironic way. He knows it's no longer his identity, but merely a mask). The other comes when he's lost everything. Some critics read the latter line as an indication that he feels death coming upon him. His soul is escaping, or his throat is tightening, or something like that. But that seems awfully Method-y to me.

Since I like visual symbols, and since we already have a lot of modular props and costume bits floating around, I think I'd like to give Lear a "button" which symbolizes his authority. It may not be an actual button, but rather some sort of broach or pin. Something gaudy, or seemingly valuable. Maybe it's got a Lear insignia on it (a dragon?). Before 2.4, Lear could touch it unconsciously whenever he refers to his power, or whenever he feels it becoming unstable. In the storm, when he decides he's going to become a beggar, it isn't just a gesture of disrobing. He is taking off his badge of office. He's already renounced his kingship publicly--now, he does it privately as well.

But the button is recovered. Gloster picks it up at the end of that same scene. Later (in 4.1), when (the now-blinded) Gloster meets up with Lear again, he gives it back--but now, as I said, it has no real meaning for Lear. He uses it as a prop to demonstrate the profound arbitrariness of power:

A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: See how
yond Justice rails upon yond simple thief? Hark, in thine ear: Change places, and handy-dandy, which is the Justice, which is the thief?

Maybe, in the course of that little demonstration, the button gets passed off to Edgar. He will need something at the end of the play when he grudgingly accepts responsibility for ruling the nation.

And what about "Pray you, undo this button"? I'm not sure. But in a play full of "nothings", it seems intriguing to see Lear request, and then fumble himself, for a button that isn't even there. If he thinks, even for a moment, that he might have the power to bring Cordelia back to life, this is the last tangible reminder that he is not "everything." He is not "fever-proof." He is a foolish, fond old man, and there's an end.

4.1: My Life's A Miracle

2005-11-17T22:22:00.000-07:00

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.

1.4, 2.5: Fools and Madmen

2005-11-16T22:32:00.001-07:00

Another outstanding rehearsal tonight. We're getting into the meaty scenes now, and the cast seems more than willing to embrace the challenges posed for us in the text.

We started with a brief scene tonight, in which Edmund shoos his brother out into the night and then pretends that he's just had a scrap with him. We ended up playing it somewhat for laughs, although that wasn't my intention at the start. I think the cast is starting to think I'm doing something sacriligeous by seizing on all these comic moments--but let's face it, two hours of doom & gloom (and eye-pokery) is just no fun at all.

Most of the evening was devoted to 2.5, another storm scene. This is the one where everybody goes crazy: Edgar is rolling around and eating rats, the Fool is babbling as always, and Lear decides to go the Full Monty in the middle of a downpour. As Gloster (master of understatement) says: "What a night's this!"

Again, I must reiterate how utterly game my actors are. Max (Edgar) was a tumblin' fool, scrambling about the floor, clutching at invisible bugs. And when I told Dale (Lear) to "study" the "philosopher" Poor Tom, he went all the way, down there on the ground, even trying out a roll or two. The overall result was a highly active, intense scene, very keyed up, seemingly chaotic but actually quite calculated.

When I got home, I took a look at the structure of the play, and I realized that this scene is, effectively, the physical climax of the first act. Important emotional discoveries are still to come, but this is when the storm's mad energy reaches its peak. And it'll definitely get there. It's nearly there already.

On an unrelated note, visitors are encouraged to give a listen to this hilarious Monty Python sketch, sent to me by a friend and fellow director.

3.1: Out, Vile Jelly!

2005-11-15T22:19:00.000-07:00

Something about the fierce winter chill in the air must have got our Canadian juices flowing tonight, because I think we did some amazing work. The focus was 3.1, in which Gloster is interrogated and blinded, Cornwall is fatally wounded, and a poor anonymous Servant gets her throat cut. Andrew has choreographed the violence to look unchoreographed: rough, brutal, and totally unpredictable.

Once the violence had been rehearsed, we looked at the lines. Equally brutal--insults and curses flying back and forth, and just as much unspoken tension, particularly between Cornwall and Regan. This was the first time Ron and Brittany had worked together, but they clicked into the roles of passive-agressive partners as if they'd been unhappily married for years. Ron is crafting a unique psychosis for Cornwall, and Brittany is starting to uncover the pressures under which Regan has suffered for so long--and the exultant, violent thrill that comes from escaping those pressures and seizing control.

You know, it's been a long, long time since I've done a show with this much violence. Ten years ago, my pals and I did a show called Superculture, which was essentially a theatrical excuse to wallow in sex and violence for two hours. I have long since chalked that impulse up to adolescent angst...but here I am again, at 31, watching my actors cut each others' throats and crush each others' eyeballs.

As Edmund might say, "the wheel has come full circle."

Brother Vs. Brother

2005-11-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

Another combat rehearsal tonight. Andrew was a real trooper, working hard on several fights in spite of lot of exhaustion and stress. The Oswald/Kent fights were tightened up, and then much time was spent expanding the climactic fight between Edgar and Edmund. This is going to be a real roller-coaster: a prim and proper fencing match which quickly deteriorates into a knock-down, drag-out brawl. Nothing quite like the sight of two "brothers" rolling around on the floor together for 45 minutes.

Amidst such distractions, we also managed to do some monologue work, focusing mostly on Edmund's opening speech and Edgar's transformation into Poor Tom. Edmund, as I suggested earlier, is all about sex. It's his weapon, his privilege, his Goddess. Edgar is trickier; I told Max he has to decide whether Edgar is merely putting on a disguise, to be discarded later (once he regains his status), or whether he actually believes that this is his new life: a barking mad naked beggar. Is it a tactic, or a surrender? It's too early to say.

Finally, I had a great, wide-ranging chat with Helen (SM) and Keiran (Kent) about Shakespearean acting techniques, the Globe theatre, and why the Queen of England is so bloody hard to spot.

1.1: Father Knows Best

2005-11-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

The first scene is blocked! Well, mostly blocked; we were a few bodies short this afternoon, so those who were absent will have to catch up, especially to figure out where they belong in the grand entrance and exit. But everything else appears to be in place.

The daughters and their husbands/suitors are all spread out along the circumference of the stage, so that Lear has a great big space to move around in. He pretty much leads the movement, until Cordelia drops the first bomb on him, invading his space and making him retreat. From there, the pretty, balanced tableau begins to crumble, until the characters are either splayed out along the back walls or clustered desperately around the throne, clutching at straws of power.

I had a lot of fun blocking the tail end of the scene, between the bitter sisters (and I think I will throw Edmund into the mix as well, just to heat things up). Liz blocked the first unit, between Kent, Gloster, Edmund, and Emilia (the servant whom Edmund is shagging behind the throne before the lights come up). I think it will be a most arresting opening for our play, letting the audience know nice and early that A) this Lear will not be like other Lears, and B) they can laugh if they want to.

2.3: A Rhymin' Fool

2005-11-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

After rehearsal, I had a thought about the Fool's rhymes in 2.3. In our version of the text, he has three. First, while trying to persuade Lear to come in out of the storm, he sings:

The Codpiece that will house
Before the head has any
The Head and he shall Louse
So Beggars marry many.

And then, two lines later, another verse:

The man that makes his Toe
What he his Heart should make
Should of a Corn cry woe
And turn his sleep to wake.

Soon, Kent enters and manages to steer Lear towards shelter. Lear starts to exhibit signs of recognition and (uncharacteristically) sympathy for the Fool's plight. The Fool sings:

He that has and a tiny little wit
With heigh-ho, the Wind and the Rain
Must make content with his Fortunes fit
For the Rain it raineth every day.

It seems to be that the first two are both cautionary in nature--that is, they are designed to teach lessons (in this case, when you strip away the metaphors, the lesson is: don't go looking for trouble). So far so good; the Fool has been chastising and instructing Lear since his earliest entrance.

But the last rhyme, delivered after Kent has entered, and after Lear has made his remarkable lurch towards empathy ("I have one part in my heart that's sorry yet for thee"), seems to have the opposite message. It says: there's no avoiding trouble. And Lear says, "True, Boy--bring, let us to this Hovel." Which now sounds like a paradox (as in: "I agree, there's no avoiding trouble. Come on, let's go hide from trouble.")

I don't know what this says about Lear just yet (hmm...maybe...that he's insane?), but I do think the third rhyme indicates a shift in the Fool's direction in the scene.

Once Kent arrives, the Fool stops actively trying to coax Lear out of the storm. Is there something that Lear says or does that makes the Fool see the situation in a new light? Perhaps he looks in Lear's eyes and sees his madness emerging, and he realizes that Kent has arrived too late, in a sense--the damage has already been done.

4.3, 2.3, 1.5: A Foolish Fond Old Man

2005-11-10T23:46:00.000-07:00

Working backwards through Lear's arc tonight. We started by blocking 4.3, the scene we're calling "The Reconciliation" (I gave names to all the scenes, so that we can refer to them using the same language). Cordelia and Kent help Lear to awake, and ease him out of his madness. It's a touching scene, filled with heavy pauses, but with great payoffs for the actors--and they will keep getting greater, as they invest more emotional energy in their characters.

Then, from that quiet little scene, we went right into the noisy heart of darkness: the storm. "Blow, winds, crack your cheeks." This was also easy to block, in a way, since it's mostly just Lear yelling up towards the grid, and the Fool huddling at his feet. No need for anything more elaborate than that, really. We spent most of our time puzzling through the lines, trying to figure out why Lear was bellowing, and why the Fool was singing doggerel. ("Why are the seven stars no more than seven?" "Because they are not eight.")

By now, Dale and I were starting to make a few tentative connections about Lear's insanity...but no real light bulbs had gone off. Then Keiran (Kent) suggested that part of Lear's rationale for exposing himself to the thunderstorm was suicidal ideation. That led us to talk about Lear's repressed guilt over Cordelia's banishment. Suddenly the key line in the scene was no longer "I am a man / more sinned against than sinning," but rather, "Then let fall / Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave, / A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man."

Finally, Dale and Tatyana read through 1.5, another quizzical little scene that seems like an eye in the middle of a hurricane. Lear is waiting for his horses to be ready...the Fool is baiting him with riddles, maybe testing him to see whether he's all there...and the old man keeps flashing back to Cordelia. "I did her wrong." Is this where the suicidal guilt begins? Is this the moment that anticipates his bitter line to Cordelia in 4.3: "If you have poison for me, I will drink it"? Do I really want to direct a tragedy starring a suicidal old coot?

Not sure. Many possibilities. Long week.

1.3: Stew and Spaghetti

2005-11-09T22:26:00.000-07:00

After spending the evening blocking 1.3, I must confess I'm actually glad I didn't have the knights to contend with as well. Even without them, it's a huge scene, exploding with quickie entrances and exits and bristling with status wars.

The first struggle, between Oswald and Lear, was smooth and relatively simple. By now, Marsha (as Oswald) is more than accustomed to being shoved, tripped, insulted and threatened. Lear spends the first page and a half shouting for dinner, so I thought maybe we'd give him some stew or something, for his troubles. And then, when he gets really mad at Oswald, he can chuck it onto the floor. (Protracted groaning from my stage manager)

Then Oswald is hustled out and the Fool dances in. This is the first time I've really had a chance to work with Tatyana (as the Fool). She's super, radiating bouncy energy and a twinkly-eyed mischeviousness as she pushes Lear's buttons. But we had to hustle through the blocking a bit, because I wanted to get to the next big confrontation: Lear vs. Goneril.

Beverly knows what she's doing. I still want to see more of what's at stake for this daughter--the terror and maybe the exhiliration of standing up to her patriarchal father for the first time in her life--but she's definitely got the "standing up" part down. She's a tower of authority onstage, and Dale (as Lear) is working like a dog to keep up with her. But he does, and the scene is positively electric. We didn't finish blocking this unit either, but we did discover some marvellous multi-cross moments that look like spaghetti tangles but flow like quicksilver.

At the tail end of the scene, there's a momentary struggle between Albany and Goneril. Here, Allan chose a surprising tactic, giving Albany a bit of an aggressive edge. It's kind of neat to see Goneril, who has gone up against "the dragon" Lear and won, be momentarily disarmed by her "milk-livered" husband. Just goes to show you, you never know where the next challenge will come from.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?

2005-11-09T14:45:00.000-07:00

I think I've cursed myself. After last Sunday's rehearsal, I resolved to make sure I was using my actors' time productively; I didn't want people to feel like they were giving up their evenings or weekends just to stand around and hold an imaginary spear. I went back to the schedule and took a good hard, look at when characters were actually needed; then I asked Helen to call the ones who weren't and let them off the hook.

The problem was, I wasn't thinking very clearly (I was doing this at the same time as I was trying to watch the fights being blocked). When the smoke cleared (ie. this morning), I realized that, between actors' prior conflicts and my recent bout of phone calls, I now had a grand total of one (1) knight for the scene where Lear's knights are supposed to flood the stage. Irony abounds.

"What need you five and twenty? Ten? Or five...?"
"What need one?"

My anxiety dream about disappearing actors seems to be coming true, albeit through my own sloppy scheduling. Something must be done, and probably the first step is for me to just calm the heck down.

Dover Knights Starring Jackie Chan

2005-11-08T22:34:00.000-07:00

More fight choreography tonight, starting with the climactic Edgar/Edmund fight (looking good, but lots more work ahead of us), then working backwards to the fight between Edgar and Oswald.

I told Andrew and the actors that this was the one fight in the play where I felt humour could help us. Gloster has just attempted suicide by jumping off an imaginary cliff (which has the potential for black humour itself). Now, just as he's starting to regain some joie de vivre, along comes Oswald (of all people), ready to off Gloster for no good reason. The ensuing fight is between a coward (Oswald) and an only recently-recovered madman, with a blind man hanging about on the periphery. How can that not be a recipe for slapstick?

Alas, as hard as we tried to make it funny, it didn't quite seem to get there. I kept urging Andrew to incorporate Gloster in the fight (blind man wanders inadvertantly into the fray), but he kept worrying that the fight was turning into a Jackie Chan-style brawl. I told him I didn't mind, but he still refrained.

Well, he's worked on a lot more fights than I have (and even on another production of Lear), and his instincts for all the other fights seem to be bang on. I'm prepared to bow to his aesthetic. And if we can wring a chuckle or two at the outset, before the fight turns deadly (a line like Edgar's "I'll pick your teeth, sir" can't not get a laugh), then we'll both be satisfied. And compromise is at the heart of any collaboration.

The Cast, Version 2

2005-11-08T18:05:00.000-07:00

We finalized the cast list last weekend, but for some reason I still had an anxiety dream last night where I kept turning around to find cast members vanished into air (kind of like Lear with his knights in 1.3). To allay my fears (and tempt the fates), I'll post the final cast list. It's a phenomenal group, and, I realize now, one of the most multicultural casts I've ever worked with.

Gino Akbari: Edmund
Marsha Amanova: Oswald
Ron Gleason: Burgundy/Old Man
Igor Gorelik: Knight 1/Soldier 2
Kassia Haynes: Servant 1
Anna-Maria Lemaistre: Cordelia
Tim Marriot: Gargrave/Gentleman
Peter McNab: Gloster
Brittany Morrie: Regan
Keiran O'Callaghan: Kent
Skye Perry: Knight 2/Soldier 3/Messenger
Tatyana Rac: The Fool
Ron Sannachan: Cornwall/Captain
Allan Stoski: Albany
Andrew Torry: Curan/Knight 4/Soldier 1
Dale Wilson: Lear
Max Wood: Edgar
Beverly Wright: Goneril
John Younie: France

Sword Canes and Eyeballs

2005-11-07T23:02:00.000-07:00

Tonight and tomorrow, I hand the rehearsal conch to Andrew Gummer, our fight director. He came in tonight with tremendous energy and a lot of great ideas, and managed to get three different fights blocked (or at least sketched out) in three hours' time. We did a basic trip for Kent & Oswald; a more elaborate chase scene between the same characters (culminating in a near-riot, as Edmund and Soldiers spill onto the stage); and finally, we blocked the violence which surrounds Gloster's blinding.

The other day in the Playhouse, I stumbled across a wicked sword-cane, and I immediately started thinking of ways to work it into Lear. I've always loved the idea that a perfectly normal, functional stage prop can suddenly transform into a deadly weapon. The most logical character to wield such a weapon is Cornwall, who is himself a sort of time bomb. But he only uses it to threaten people--it is his servant (played by Kassia, her name is now Emilia) who picks it up and uses it (against him)--and then dies by it as well. Finally, I imagine the sword-cane falling into Oswald's hands, and then being once again turned on its owner (this time by Edgar).

Is that over-kill?

In between fights, I was able to work one-on-one a bit with Edmund (is it "legitimate" or "legit'mate"?), with Regan (such a passionate character...but where does that passion come from, and to whom is it directed?), with Gloster (going from vexed codger to resolute revolutionary) and with Cornwall (it's not his fault...none of it is...God told him to step on the eyeball...). A very productive night, all in all.

Long Day; Many Bodies

2005-11-06T17:12:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this on a quick break in the middle of my long Sunday. This morning we had a production meeting; then I had lunch with Lear (Dale); then we rehearsed from 1-5pm; and soon I'm off to a Walterdale board meeting. I'd like to be able to say I'm not going to have a lot of days like this, but I suspect the opposite is more likely to be true.

The production meeting was mostly just to confirm that various departments are on schedule and on budget. The Lear lunch was to address some of the character-related questions that have been floating about the air for the past week. We talked in particular about the tension between Lear's two primary roles--King and Father--and about the different "identities" which he ends up trying on when those two roles both implode: Lear the Judge, Lear the Philosopher, Lear the Flower Arranger... and finally Lear the Foolish, Fond Old Man.

Rehearsal was focused on Act 1, Scene 1: the grand entrances and exits, and finding and conveying status within them. It was by turns hectic and stultifying; at times, I had 15 bodies scrambling around the stage, trying not to crash into each other; at other times, while we were scrutinizing lines, many of the Knights and Servants (and Husbands and Wives) found themselves standing around with nothing to do for ages. I think it was useful in some respects (establishing status and public space), but in the future I want to work to avoid making so many actors so bored and so stiff.

The rehearsal highlight was, I think, when Dale took a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie (brought in courtesy of Igor) and split it three ways, to share with his "daughters."

Cordelia? Nun Other!

2005-11-05T17:31:00.000-07:00

While doing status work on Thursday, Anna-Maria casually dropped the comment that she thought of her character, Cordelia, as rather nun-like. As it happens, in past productions Cordelia has often been associated with Christ (or with martyrdom in general); but she wasn't basing her observation on other productions, merely upon the text.

Is Cordelia nun-like? She isn't overtly religious, but she often extols the virtues one associates with Christianity (love, in particular). She seems hesitant to marry at the outset, although she does choose to wed France--although her only alternative at that point would be exile, destitution, and death. And, like Cordelia, nuns are known for their forthrightness in speech (this was Anna-Maria's point, not mine).

But Anna-Maria also spoke of Cordelia as being somewhat withdrawn from secular affairs, and having a higher duty (ie. to God instead of to King). True, she isn't power-hungry like her sisters; but does that mean she is uninterested in politics? Far from it; she leads an invasion of England in order to restore her father to the throne. So at some point, spirituality breaks off, and real-world politics intrude.

After some email discussion with Anna-Maria, I realized that she was using the nun image as a metaphor, not an explanation of motivation. Cordelia does not literally want to join a convent, recite Hail Marys, and teach Austrian children to sing; rather, her devotion to duty and honesty are thematic equivalents for a sister's devotion to God.

Things Take Shape

2005-11-03T23:01:00.000-07:00

Better tonight; more focused, fewer distractions. And Gino has arranged an alternative rehearsal space for us, so I'm hoping it will stay that way.

Tonight we worked on status in dialogues, figuring ways to reflect conflicts over status through blocking as well as voice. Some scenes worked very well. Everyone seemed to click immediately into the notion of physical status, which is fantastic, since I think it's really the glue which holds Lear's world together.

We also looked at "objective" lines. I had everyone choose a line that illustrated something important about their character, then had them scan them, walk them, and "shape" them. Again, some lines yielded interesting shapes which we could then incorporate into the characters' movements, gestures, and physical demeanours. I'm impressed by how quickly the cast has zeroed in on the crucial concepts and moments in the play.

Tonight was the last "workshop" rehearsal. On Sunday, we start in on scene work. In past processes, I would have made sure the whole play got read at least one more time before diving in; but in this case, I don't think it's a good use of our time. For one thing, we'll never have everyone in the same room at once; and for another, the play will remain huge no matter how many times we read it. We're better off scrutinizing individual moments, and letting the big picture take shape on its own.

(And, for Marsha, here's my Pun of the Day: "When an actor's arches fall, their arc tends to fall as well.")

Status vs. Power

2005-11-02T22:15:00.000-07:00

Tonight's rehearsal felt a bit hectic. We continued the verse work and walked the lines, then talked about status and power in the play. I tried to tie issues of status into the rhythm and movement work we'd been doing, but I don't think I was very coherent. One thing that did seem to work quite well was an improvised stab at blocking Act 1, Scene 3--the power struggle between Goneril and Lear. It now looks as if my crazy walkin'-blockin' scheme might work after all.

Melissa and Mark came by and talked about costumes and music, respectively. Melissa also got measurements for most of the actors. Dave was onhand to help with blocking; Liz was around for a bit. The cast is shifting slightly--as I suspected, there has been a bit of attrition--but I'm confident that things will stabilize shortly.

Actually, the biggest frustration is the power struggle we seem to be having with our rehearsal space, as we were plagued with delays, interruptions, distractions, and one very shrill broad who didn't like the way Anna-Maria had parked her car. I'm talking to Gino about possibly obtaining a different rehearsal venue, until we get to move into the Walterdale in January.

"Da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum."

2005-11-01T22:49:00.000-07:00

Second rehearsal tonight, in the Walterdale space (a rare treat). The schedule is still in flux, but most of the actors were able to make it tonight--pretty much all of those who weren't there on Sunday were there tonight, which means that some people still haven't met yet, but at least I've met them all. I'm still a bit overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

Tonight we looked at verse and scansion. Iambic pentameter, smooth vs. rough, feminine endings, elisions, etc. All stuff I'm pretty comfortable with--but all the same, it's nice to revisit the basics. Dave B. very thoughtfully photocopied a large booklent on versification for everyone in the cast, compared to which my measly "Shakespearean Secrets" handout seemed pretty flimsy!

I had the actors find asides, and then used them as samples for scansion and line-walking. I suspect it all came across as rather like a college lecture, but hopefully the cast can translate it into active terms. At the very least, they'll know what the hell I'm doing when I stop mid-sentence and start counting on my fingers while muttering "Da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum."

The Cast

2005-10-30T21:33:00.000-07:00

Albany -- Allan Stoski
Curan, Knight4, Soldier1 -- Andrew Torry
Cordelia -- Anna-Maria Lemaistre
Goneril -- Beverly Wright
Regan -- Brittany Morrie
France -- Cody Porter
Lear -- Dale Wilson
Edmund -- Gino Akbari
Knight2, Soldier1, Messenger -- Ian Younie
Knight1, Soldier2 -- Igor Gorelik
Burgundy, Old Man -- John Younie
Servant1 -- Kassia Haynes
Kent -- Keiran O'Callaghan
Oswald -- Marsha Amanova
Edgar -- Max Wood
Cornwall -- Ron Sannachan
The Fool -- Tatyana Rac
Gargrave, Gentleman -- Tim Marriott

First Rehearsal: Read-Through and Discussion

2005-10-30T17:11:00.000-07:00

And so it begins. Our first rehearsal was this afternoon, from 1-5pm. Because of Daylight Savings, one or two people arrived an hour early (not late, at least). Many cast members couldn't be there at all; I think we had 10 or 11 out of 19, plus myself and Dave B. (text coach).

We started with introductions, and we talked a bit about the schedule, which continues to evolve. I really, really hope it will have stabilized by the end of this week, because I don't like to have anyone uncertain about when they will be needed; it can lead to bad feelings and a lot of time wasted. I talked very generally about the concept of the show, and I realize now that I was probably a bit too cagey; but I didn't want to steal any of the designers' thunder (pun intended). Besides, it's the sort of present you like to have revealed a bit at a time, instead of tearing all the wrapping off at once. Right?

The read-through was smooth, clear, and unbelievably fast; the first half ran 61 minutes, and the second half only 33! They'll both be longer, of course, once we add fights and transitions, but I don't think I have anything to worry about as far as running time goes.

After the read, I asked the actors to think of two or three words which summarize what the play is all about. Here are the responses (in no particular order):

Loyalty (x3), Betrayal (x3), Fidelity, Aging, Regret, Revelation, Heroism, Social Status, Sanity, Vision, Trust, Friendship, Greed (x2), Love, Family, Truth, Discovery, Ingratitude, Forgiveness, Nothing, Price of Folly, Deeds Over Words, Responsibilities Unmet, Lust for Power, Stupidity of the Wise vs. Wisdom of Fools, Sight of the Blind vs. Blindness of the Sighted, False Pride, Ruthless Ambition, True Love, Blind Love, Learning to See, Crime Doesn't Pay, What Goes Around Comes Around

I was the one who suggested "nothing," by the way.

Then we watched Balance and I talked about staging and movement. And that was that.

Cast list coming soon, I promise.

Auditions: Come and Gone

2005-10-26T17:34:00.000-06:00

We had two outstanding nights of auditions. 45 people came out! Many of them were longtime Walterdale members, but just as many were new to the theatre, and quite a few were auditioning for the first time ever. You have to admire that sort of courage; the very first time you try your hand at acting, and it's for Shakespeare (King Lear, no less).

My casting plot had originally been designed for 15 actors, with quite a bit of doubling and tripling. With such a large talent pool to draw from, I was able to convince my stage manager to increase the cast size to 19, which will make it easier on a number of actors (for instance, the actor playing Edgar will no longer have to scramble to appear as one of Lear's knights in Act 1, Scene 3).

I've never worked with a cast as large as this before. My SM will be responsible for scheduling them, which will be a herculean task in and of itself. But I'll be responsible for making sure they are all both a) doing a good job and b) having a good time. This might mean my own capacity for fun will shrink accordingly, but I hope not.

I'll post the cast list shortly, once we've called everyone back to confirm.

Potential Poster Art

2005-10-22T14:19:00.000-06:00

Searching the web more or less at random, I came across the homepage of a British artist named Nicola L. Robertson (http://www.thesurrealdemon.co.uk/). She's got a nifty goth style going, something like a cross between M.C. Escher and Edward Gorey. I was especially drawn to her chess-based illustrations--not the ones that feature chess pieces devouring one another (although those are cool) so much as the atmospheric ones like "Chess Cavern" here.

I think the themes of strategy and power conveyed by the chessboard fit nicely into Lear--and the cavern, with its vortex-like design, speaks for itself. I showed the image to our poster designer, and he agreed that we could certainly find a way to use it (I still have to negotiate with the artist and my board, however). I also forwarded the link to John H. (set designer), and his response was "Eureka!"

I'm not sure what that means just yet, but I'll take it as a good sign.

Countdown to Auditions

2005-10-20T20:32:00.000-06:00

Three days before auditions. I'm starting to get antsy. The audition process is actually pretty exciting for me--not nearly as nerve-wracking as it is for the actors. I enjoy meeting people for the first time, and thinking about how I might be able to "use" them in the show. But right now, I want to make sure I've got everything prepared, so I don't waste anyone's time.

That means putting together an audition sheet, for them to put down biographical info and details about their availability; it means finding suitable "sides" for them to read (monologues and dialogues from the play); and it means thinking, once again, about who and what I'm really looking for.

I know that, in this case, a lot of the auditioners will be inexperienced with Shakespeare. The sides won't give me a very clear picture of their potential, because they will be reading unfamiliar material filled with daunting words and punctuation. And making them read anything other than Shakespeare won't help much either; it's apples and oranges at that point.

Really, the main things are going to be looks and personality. When they walk into the theatre, do they immediately strike me as resembling one of the characters? And--more importantly--are they gregarious? Do they seem like they'd be fun to work with? Because if they can overcome their audition jitters enough to make that sort of impression...they've either got a whole lot of verve, or they're a damn good actor...and either way, I want them on my team.

Props: Inventory

2005-10-18T19:49:00.000-06:00

Spent an hour down in the musty Walterdale props room with John Younie, scrounging items for the play. It looks like we've already got about half of what we need there:

stools
a throne
a staff
some spears
a knife
a bow (sans string)
a couple of lanterns
chains and manacles (for Kent's stocks)
keys
a bucket and brush (for a Servant)
cushions and rugs

There's also a lovely folding gurney, built for a production of Cyrano de Bergerac, which we could use to bring in either Goneril or Regan's corpse in the final scene. John's going to look into building a second one to match it. We may even be able to convert one into a bed for Lear's "recognition" scene (although if we have to bring him onstage in a wheelchair, we could do that instead).

We didn't find a map, so we'll have to make it from scratch. But that's probably just as well; with props of great thematic significance, you want to be able to make sure it looks exactly right.

Music: Breaking It Down

2005-10-17T22:13:00.000-06:00

Production meeting tonight--sort of a continuation of the one last Friday, as budgets and schedules were finalized. This time I was able to discuss music with Mark Senior, our sound designer. He has some intriguing ideas, starting with 19th century Russian music but working towards a surreal or expressionistic soundscape which would serve to represent the storm "inside Lear's mind."

Because sound is very far from my own areas of expertise, I have a hard time imagining things until I've actually heard samples. The idea of a symbolic storm (instead of a literal one, with thunder & rain) is both appealing and disconcerting, so I think I need to know a bit more about what we'd be getting into. Mind you, I haven't read of any instances of productions where the storm has been "abstracted" like that, so we might be breaking new ground--which, for a 400-year-old play, would be pretty darn cool.

Blocking: Gymnastics

2005-10-16T18:23:00.000-06:00

Finished preliminary blocking notes on the first half of the play (everything up to Act 3, Scene 6 in the original text--or Acts 1 and 2 in my version). Almost inadvertantly, I found the blocking began with a lot of broad spirals, but then gradually gave way to more angular criss-cross movements--like a see-saw of authority across the stage.

I'm particularly looking forward to blocking the Fool and Edgar (in his Poor Tom persona). I'd like them both to be gymnastic and unpredictable, steering the movement of the play in expected directions. Maybe, as Lear sinks into madness and starts emulating those two tricksters, he can try a bit of acrobatics himself. Nothing lightens the mood like an octogenarian doing somersaults.

Props: Maps and Stocks

2005-10-15T14:40:00.000-06:00

Had another great meeting last night, this time with representatives from props, set, and lighting. Mostly, we settled on deadlines and budgets, but we also got a chance to discuss some of the aesthetic challenges which lay ahead of us.

John Younie and Doug Verdin, my two props wranglers, are confident that most of the essential props (letters, purses, stools, etc.) can be found or modified from materials in the Walterdale props room. There are still a few challenges, of course. First, we need swords, and Walterdale doesn't have any in its permanent collection. We're going to see if we can change that.

We also need a great big map of England, and we'll need to find a way to attach the aforementioned sashes to it (and then detach them quickly). John has already done some research, and found a number of images of old maps which we can reproduce on canvas or leather.

Then there are Kent's stocks. This is going to be very challenging and potentially very rewarding. I told them I didn't want to go with the familiar arm or leg bands. What I wanted was a system of manacles that hoisted Kent up into the air, and then something unstable underneath him (like a barrel or a see-saw board). As I told them, this was one of my only chances in the play to visually literalize the theme of "imbalance"--we can't tilt the whole stage around, but we could put Kent on a "dangerous" tilting surface and leave him hanging for a bit.

Of course, it can't really be dangerous for the actor; but it has to look precarious and painful. We discussed a few ways to effect this, using a flat-bottomed barrel or a fixed see-saw. The manacles, they said, would be no problem; we already have some in props storage (man, I love theatre!).

Discussions regarding lights and set were also productive, but we're still at very early stages. I think John Henoch, my set designer, was very shocked to learn that I didn't want lots and lots of levels on my set. "A big flat plane and nowhere to run to" was all I asked him for.

Costumes: Make Mine Modular

2005-10-13T15:23:00.000-06:00

Costume meeting with Melissa this afternoon. Damn, that lady is sharp! She's taken some very vague costume concepts from her director, mixed in a bit of research, added a healthy dose of personal style, and come up with designs which are functional & practical, yet should also please both the audience's eyes and the actors' bods.

The original concept of late Czarist Russia is still there, and it comes out particularly in the hairstyles (high rounded styles for the women) and a certain flowy element in most of the tops. The three sisters start off looking like they could be Chekhov's Three Sisters, which is perfect. Lear himself starts out in white and gold, looking more like a magician (in his own mind?) than a king.

Then, as power starts to shift, the women's styles become more ostentatious; coronets and drippy pearls appear, necklines rise (Goneril) or plunge (Regan), and the muted colours of the opening tableau give way to bright, dangerous reds (for the English faction) and blues (for the French). The only character who really defies this colour scheme altogether is, of course, the Fool. Melissa sees him in a green velvet coat over a traditional Russian peasant's outfit. A link to the past, or just a defiant gesture to separate him from the existing power structure.

The most interesting feature of her design is the use of "modular" costume pieces: accessories which will move from character to character throughout the play, acquiring new meaning when used by different people in different contexts. We already discussed the use of heraldic sashes to represent G and R's new authority; these sashes come from Lear, and may end up in the hands of others (Edmund?) by the end of the play. Another example might be the Fool's green coat, which he gives to Lear during the storm. Or Edmund's black cape, which he swaps for Edgar's nice (high status) coat when he's "helping" him escape (the cape might become a cloak or loincloth for Poor Tom). Or Oswald's gloves, which are stripped from his body and then used by Edgar (in disguise) to challenge Edmund to the final duel.

This modularity might confuse or frustrate actors early on (whose costume piece is it, really?), but once they sort it all out, I think they'll find it tremendously useful to be able to invest these items with significance and status. And as the audience sees the same items appear again and again in new forms, they'll start to understand that the Lear world is one of scarcity and subjectivity: there aren't a lot of resources to spread around (hence the "houseless poverty" of Poor Tom), and one man's trash is another man's treasure. Hence Lear:

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp,
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feetl,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them
And show the heavens more just.

New Week; Different Play

2005-10-10T14:17:00.000-06:00

At the end of this week, I'm meeting again with props, lighting, and set designers. We're going to settle on some deadlines, and assign some budgets.

Between now and then, all thoughts of King Lear will have to wait, since Walterdale's first production of the season is opening on Wednesday. It's Tomson Highway's The Rez Sisters, and it's going to be a blast! Come and check it out--more info here.

Naughty Edmund

2005-10-05T21:56:00.000-06:00

Thinking about Edmund's first soliloquy...

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? Why Bastard? Wherefore base?

The scene comes hard on the heels of Act 1, Scene 1, which ends with Goneril and Regan alone onstage ("We must do something," says Goneril, "and i'th'heat."). My high school English teacher, Mr. Carson, described this sort of moment as the "Shakespearean Revolving Door" in action. Characters enter and exit simultaneously, giving them a chance to catch a glimpse of one another as the scenes overlap. A good director would be a fool to pass up this early opportunity for flirtation between Edmund and the queens.

So, Goneril says "We must do something..." to her sister...but her sister is already stalking off-stage, offended at being told what she should & should not think. Goneril allows her gaze to drift over to this strapping young lad who's just come onstage, and the second part of her speech acquires a naughty double meaning. "...and in the heat..."

Edmund is about to heat things up considerably. But that doesn't mean he can't afford to gloat a bit first. What if the first line of his speech is a reference to Goneril...or to her magnificent caboose, as it sashays off the stage?...or maybe even a glib reference to his own manhood, swelling up at the sight?

"Thou, Nature, art my goddess," he says, gleefully acknowledging that he is subject to all the same hormonal and instinctual laws as any base creature. "Wherefore should I stand in the plague of custom?" he asks, referring now to his father, Gloster, whose bluffness about his infidelities barely fail to mask his shame. "Or...permit the curiosity of Nations to deprive me?" Now, perhaps thinking again of the queen's delightful rump, he asks: why can't I have my cake and eat it?

Gloster lets his shame define him, and that's what has kept him down for so long. But Edmund, whom the whole world knows to be a Bastard, can afford to be direct about his sins. He can trumpet them to the world. He will ride his unlicensed sexuality all the way up the hierarchy, until he is within spitting distance of the throne.

At the end of his speech: "Now, Gods, stand up for bastards!" Maybe one more naughty reference to erections? Yes, Edmund definitely needs to lead from the 'nads.

Suddenly, A Timeline

2005-10-02T13:40:00.000-06:00

We've booked our "out-of-venue" rehearsals (all our rehearsals before Christmas have to take place outside the Playhouse, because other shows are going on), and ads for auditions have gone up (some responses, I think, but my SM is handling all the bookings, bless her heart).

I have an assistant director, now--Liz Johannsen, with whom I worked only tangentially when she performed in Sound & Fury's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (I produced the show, but didn't direct). Welcome aboard! In a perfect world, her schedule and Dave's (text coach) schedule would complement each other, and I would always have help onhand. We'll see.

The next official production meeting is in 3 weeks, but I'm trying to meet with some of the designers beforehand, to clear up some scheduling questions. It's a bit strange, going from a free-floating day-dream approach to having an actual schedule. But I'm a big believer in deadlines, so I have to set a good example early on.

If there's any more daydreaming to be done, it will have to be done on the fly.

Costumes: Cossacks?

2005-09-27T17:45:00.000-06:00

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?

2005-09-25T17:35:00.000-06:00

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

2005-09-24T17:49:00.000-06:00

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:

Balance and Imbalance
Vortex/Whirlpool
Nothing/Sightlessness
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:

Respect (ie. the text, the space, your fellow artists, your audience)
Resolve (ie. commit to your work and to your character; make your choices matter)
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:

The simplest solution is usually the best
Every movement must mean
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:

Stand and Deliver the lines in a circle
Understand what the lines mean and choose your intentions
Status (figure out who the boss is)
Step through the scene (to reflect the status of the boss and work out the balance of the scene)
WALK through lines individually (while the Director blocks the boss)
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

2005-09-23T18:38:00.000-06:00

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

2005-09-14T19:01:00.000-06:00

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

2005-09-08T14:41:00.000-06:00

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

2005-09-04T01:26:00.000-06:00

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

2005-09-03T15:11:00.000-06:00

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.

Film: "Balance"

2005-08-31T16:51:00.000-06:00

On the upside, there's this brilliant, Oscar-winning animated short film called "Balance" by Christoph and Wolfgang Lauenstein. It perfectly dramatizes the balance metaphor which I've been chewing on for weeks--how a precarious world-balance can lead to power struggles, and how things get more and more fragile as you get closer to your goal.

It's just amazing. I must find a way to show it to my cast at the first rehearsal. Check it out online at http://media.putfile.com/balance. You'll need Flash Player installed.

Once More Unto the Drawing Board

2005-08-30T18:37:00.000-06:00

Things are not as clear as I had hoped. I went through Act 1, Scene 4, scanning the verse and trying to imagine the scene if it were to “block itself” according to the intention & verse rules I put forward in my last two posts.

To make a long story short, it didn’t work. Never mind the fact that the first half of the scene is almost entirely in prose. Never mind the fact that even the verse sections are routinely broken up by prose and/or the Fool’s doggerel (which is verse, but not blank verse). No, my scheme just doesn’t hold up against lines like these (Lear is speaking):

Darkness and Devils!
Saddle my horses: call my Train together.
Degenerate Bastard, I’ll not trouble thee;
Yet have I left a daughter.

Mostly, this is rough verse. It starts and ends with broken lines (the first line, “Darkness and Devils,” may be a continuation of Goneril’s last line, “Which know themselves, and you”—but even so, it scans very distinctly). The second line begins with a trochee (dum-de) and has a feminine ending (an extra, unstressed syllable). The third line could be made to scan (if you elide “degen’rate”), but I’d probably suggest scanning the second half as “I’ll not trouble thee” (dum dum dum-de dum), which is anything but regular.

So it’s plenty rough. If the actor playing Lear were following my rules, he wouldn’t be moving on a rough line—he’d be standing still and “feeling” out the balance of power. But look at the content of the lines, for Pete’s sake. They simply scream motion.

Or consider Lear’s famous curse speech, where he wishes sterility upon Goneril. It starts with a heavily stressed (ie. rough) line. Then it has 8 lines of fairly smooth verse. Then it gets rough again, at least until the last two lines.

Hear Nature, hear dear Goddess, hear:
Suspend thy purpose, if thou did intend
To make this Creature fruitful:
Into her Womb convey sterility,
Dry up in her the Organs of increase,
And from her sickly body, never spring
A Babe to honor her. If she must teem,
Create her child of Spleen, that it may live
And be a thwart disnatur’d torment to her.
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,
With cadent Tears fret Channels in her cheeks,
Turn all her Mother’s pains, and benefits
To laughter, and contempt: That she may feel,
How sharper then a Serpent’s tooth it is,
To have a thankless Child. Away, away!

So...what? Lear starts still, then starts moving (where, exactly? Towards Goneril? But he’s talking to “Nature,” not to his daughter), then stops, then starts again? Lear is unsure, then sure, then unsure again, then sure again? Balderdash.

There is one thing I did observe from this experiment (and again, I have no idea whether it’ll hold up throughout the play). The characters who speak in smooth verse are most likely to be the ones in power at that moment. So, for example, at the very end of the scene, Goneril chastises her husband, and he attempts to rebuke her:

Goneril.
No, no, my lord,
This milky gentleness and course of yours
Though I condemn not, yet under pardon,
You are much more at task for want of wisdom,
Than praised for mildness.

Albany.
How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell;
Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.

Albany’s rhyming couplet may appear to be smooth, but in fact it’s rather shaky rhythmically (“How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell”), while Goneril speaks in calm, honey-smooth lines like “You are much more at task for want of wisdom.” It’s clear from the verse who’s in command.

So perhaps all is not lost. But I don’t think I can reasonably expect the play to block itself. Too bad; I was really looking forward to having all those extra nights off!

Smooth and Rough Verse

2005-08-26T21:43:00.000-06:00

Note: This thread is continued from "What's My Motivation?" Read that entry first, or this won't make any sense (and even then, it's iffy).

Most Shakespearean practitioners believe that the Bard encoded instructions for blocking directly into his verse. Some take this to extremes: Patrick Tucker, of the Original Shakespeare Company, believes the best way to perform Shakespeare is virtually unrehearsed, with the actors never having spent time together before opening night. They just step onto the stage and let the lines lead them. I’m not that much of a zealous; and besides, that quasi-improv approach demands highly trained (and suicidally confident) actors, whereas some of my cast may never even have acted before. They’re willing to try the trapeze, but they still need the net.

But I think some very general distinctions about verse could help me to help them to block the scenes as we go. The biggest distinction is between smooth verse and rough verse. As you probably know, Shakespeare’s verse is iambic pentameter:

De-dum de-dum de-dum de-dum de-dum.
O lady, lady, shame would have it hid.

Iambic pentameter, or blank verse, is repetitive, sometimes almost hypnotic—and very easy to memorize. By the time he wrote Lear, however, Shakespeare was experimenting with variations on the blank verse pattern. He would sometimes shift beats around, put a stress where you don’t expect it—make the smooth flow of blank verse into a rough, bumpy ride. For instance:

Dum dum de-de-de dum de-de dum dum...
Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law...

Some rules still apply, of course. Usually, there are five stressed beats per line; but they’re in an unexpected order, and so the line throws emphasis on the words which break the pattern. Once in a while, he’d even throw in a line with more than five stresses, to make extra sure you get the point:

Dum de-de dum-de-dum! Dum dum dum dum!
Rumble thy bellyful! Spit fire, spout rain!

The result is, smooth verse and rough verse sound very different, albeit in subtle, sometimes subconscious ways. They can be used to determine the temperament of the speaker (usually, smooth = calm, rough = agitated). And I think, in my case, they can also be used to help with blocking.

In my evolving model, Step One involves determining the intention of the speaker, in physical terms which apply to balance and status:

Are they advancing/trying to gain power?
Are they retreating/relinquishing power?
Are they circling/trying to support another’s power?

Once they have an intention, Step Two would involve studying the scansion of the verse: is it rough or smooth? The answer may help to determine whether the actor is literally moving on their lines, or whether they are moving through their lines—that is, standing still on the stage, but using the rhythm of the lines to accomplish their intention. Remember balance: sometimes it’s not safe to move, because the stage is destabilized. So instead you (metaphorically) lift a foot up, gingerly feel your way forward, and try to assess the current state of affairs.

If the verse is smooth, it’s safe to move.
If the verse is rough, stand and feel your way along.

I tried this out on a passage from the play, to see if it bore any fruit. The passage is from 1.4, when Goneril is chiding Lear for letting his Knights abuse her hospitality (I’ve altered this speech from its original form, but I tried it on the original too, and got the same results):

Not only, Sir, this, your all-licenced Fool,
But other of your insolent retinue
Do hourly Carp and Quarrel, breaking forth
From rank, and (not to be endured) riots, Sir.
I’d thought by making this well known to you,
T’have found a safe redress, but now suspect
That you protect this course, and put it on
By your approval; which if you did, the fault
Would not escape our notice, nor our judgment.

Goneril’s intention is clear, here: she’s making a bid for status, and should therefore be advancing, trying to claim the fulcrum for herself.

Now look at the verse. The first four lines are quite irregular. If you tried to speak them in a sing-song de-dum de-dum rhythm, then only line 3 would even remotely work. However, lines 5 through 7 seem more regular (although line 7 clumps its stresses together in the middle of the line, with “this course”). Then lines 8 and 9 become irregular again, with the final line seemingly containing an extra beat, as in:

De-dum de-dum de-dum, dum dum dum-de
Would not escape our notice, nor our judgment.

(All this scansion work is highly subjective, of course. But that’s why we’re artists, not scientists.)

So, the speech goes irregular, regular, irregular. So what? So, imagine that Goneril has just come on stage to find Lear goofing around with his Fool yet again. It’s the last straw; something must be done. She opens her mouth to chastise her father, for what is probably the first time in her life. She’s uncertain. She’s testing the waters. As she speaks, she gains confidence—and she starts to advance on him. Power is shifting. But that provokes a reaction from him—something physical, something intimidating—and she has to stop moving. Notice the verse becomes rough again when she starts talking about Lear’s “fault” and her own “judgment”—these are legal terms which cast her as judge, and him as criminal (a deliberate reversal of the power dynamic).

So, it sort of works. That’s just one small example, of course, and it will only get more complicated from there. Plus, there’s another big issue: 25 per cent of the play is not in verse at all, but in prose.

Hmm...reading over what I've just written, I realize it sounds awfully muddy and subjective. I’m going to have to seek out some more examples, and see if my “method” holds up.

"What's My Motivation?"

2005-08-26T18:32:00.000-06:00

A solution to my blocking dilemma is coalescing in my brain...it’s not quite perfect yet, and I think it’s a little obscure, but maybe if I take it slowly I can sort it out.

Any actor can tell you that intention is the beating heart of theatre. It may not have been popular in Shakespeare’s time, but ever since Stanislavsky, and certainly in the wake of the American Method, intention has been the actor’s primarily tool to character development and execution. Some actors are so fiercely devoted to it that they will even resist a piece of blocking if it doesn’t appear to have an intention.

(It’s an old joke. Director: “Now walk downstage and sit down.” Actor: “What’s my motivation?” Director: “Four hundred bucks a week.” Of course, Walterdale actors are volunteers, so the joke falls flat for them. Or maybe it’s even funnier. Anyway...)

My thematic exploration of potential blocking methods has led me into the land of Balance, and I think that, while it might take them a bit of adjustment, my actors will respond well to the idea that their movements can literally destabilize their theatrical universe. Their intentions can then be boiled down into very simple, physical categories: Edmund speaks and moves because he lusts for power. He wants to be in the centre of the world, and to sweep all his adversaries off its edges. Cordelia may move because she senses an imbalance, and she wishes to correct it. Kent moves in circles around Lear because he wants to keep the focal point on the old King, and he is lending him his gravity.

It may seem like I’m reducing complex characters to black and white extremes, and I guess that I am. But when you start out, it should be simple. It should be black and white. Shades of grey come later, when you’re doing runs, and even once the show has opened. At the start, it should be very simple: advance, retreat, or circle.

So that’s Step One. I work with actors on a scene. I get them to identify each line according to the movement—the drive. Is it forward-moving? Are you vying for status? Or are you relinquishing or lending your status to someone else?

But that system implies that the characters will be in constant motion. And so they are—on the inside. But we need another step, in which the actors can determine when to literally move, and when to internalize their movement. Sometimes, Edmund may want to advance, but the ground is too unstable. He needs to know when it’s safe to stride forward, and when to feel his way along.

I think the key to that step lies within Shakespeare’s verse, which is a very important subject about which I’ve been silent for too long. To be continued...

The Schedule That Ate My Brain

2005-08-19T20:21:00.000-06:00

I have completed a draft of my rehearsal schedule. Like the rescripting work, it involved a lot of juggling and shuffling, trying to fit an excess of material into a container far too small to accommodate it all. Unlike the cut-script (which will, I hope, remain mostly unchanged from here on in), I know this schedule is going to remain in flux until at least November—and quite possibly all the way through to February. Looking at it now is like trying to bond with your new pet caterpillar.

The only thing that’s keeping it from bursting at the seams is my half-baked plan to blend text work with blocking work. If you’re not familiar with the theatrical rehearsal process, try to imagine learning to play hockey at the same time as you’re trying to work out your season all-star picks. The muscles involved in the two tasks are different, and actors just aren’t accustomed to using both sets at once. Add to that the fact that many of these actors will not be familiar with Shakespeare’s language, and you’ve got a recipe for mental overload.

Perhaps what I need is a text coach. In nearly all of my previous productions, I have charged myself with the task of making the language clear to my actors, because I feel it’s one of my strengths. But now I’m starting to suspect that I need another Shakespeare-savvy artist onhand who can work with actors when they’re not being blocked—sometimes only for a few minutes at a time, before their entrance, or during a sequence when they’re not particularly active onstage. Like the primpers on a film set who swoop in and apply an extra puff of makeup before the camera starts rolling—someone who can swoop in and fluff up their dialogue while I’m concentrating on the big stage picture.

Text coach...or Assistant Director, I suppose. Any takers?

"Shake" Online

2005-08-17T10:04:00.000-06:00

I've sort of avoided posting online links on this site (aside from the generic links to the right), because I don't want to give privilege to every random Shakespeare site I stumble on. There are hundreds of thousands of sites devoted to Shakespeare on the Internet, and most of them are garbage (whether this site is an exception or not, I leave for the reader to decide).

Having said that, I do have a keen interest in electronic teaching resources (in fact, one of my day jobs involves building them). I'm always curious to see how theatrical concepts have been adapted or translated into a virtual medium. Usually, what happens is the Internet adapts (or re-mediates) materials from other media--and so, you get online essays (which are usually hard to read) or online movies (tiny and choppy).

The Banana TV website is up-front about the fact that it's trying to translate the aesthetic of television onto the Internet. It's an Australian site that gives screen-time to notable Aussie actors, giving them a chance to sound off about their areas of interest. Sounds self-indulgent and trite, I know, but David Ritchie, who does the "Shake" series on Shakespeare, clearly knows his stuff.

Ritchie devotes six 10-minute "televised" lectures to King Lear, talking about a range of motifs, themes, and images in the play. He also has segments on Shakespeare & Sex, Shakespeare & Violence, and Shakespeare & Popular Culture. It's essentially just a talking head (and you need Windows Media Player to watch it), but Ritchie is an engaging actor, weaving quotations into his lectures with enthusiasm and wit.

I wouldn't recommend the site as a substitute for reading the play, of course. But if critical theory puts you to sleep, you might find Ritchie's energy keeps you a bit more involved. I also like the little Aussie promotional commercial that plays at the start of each episode.

Costumes & Props: The Map

2005-08-15T19:37:00.000-06:00

Had another good meeting with Melissa today. We talked about the function of costumes in the first scene, and found an intriguing way to potentially blend the costumes, props, and shifting power dynamics into one simple device.

Lear's first command (after "Attend the lords of France and Burgundy", which I've cut) is "Give me the map there." He uses a map to delineate the rewards of the first two sisters:

"Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,
With shadowy forests, and with champaigns riched,
With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
We make thee lady."

At first, I'd just assumed that the map would be a simple prop: something for Lear to point at, maybe something to throw or kick when he got fed up a little later. But Melissa and I were talking about costume items which could illustrate the newly bought status of the two elder sisters (crowns? coronets? sashes?), and my mind kept coming back to the map. How could we tie the two things together?

"Of all these bounds, even from this line to this." So there are already lines on the map (rivers, maybe. Or territories?). What if they were ribbons, not drawn on but pinned somehow, so they could be moved--or bestowed. What if they were held on with badges, or with intricate brooches with heraldic symbols which stood for the various regions of the land? Then, when Lear bestows the lands upon his daughters, he (or his servants) literally attach the badges of power onto them. They become the incarnations of those lands.

Another nice bit: if they are connected by sashes, then when it comes time to divide Cordelia's territories ("With my two daughters' dowers, digest this third"), the sash can be split between Goneril and Regan--torn apart onstage. As Melissa said, "Ripping fabric sounds cool."

It occurred to me later that the brooches might actually come off of Lear's clothing, not off the map. That would be a more direct illustration of Lear's abdication. But where this all really pays off, costume-wise, is watching the power of the two daughters grow in the subsequent scenes. Having been given one or two ribbons of fabric apiece--say, blue for Goneril and red for Regan--then each time we see them afterwards, those colours, and the designs on the brooches, will be larger, brighter, stronger, more decisive. The "busyness" and complexity of their costumes might diminish, but we'll get to watch as their single-minded drive for power increases.

Themes: Commanding Love

2005-08-12T19:59:00.000-06:00

Sometimes the best answers are right in front of you.

I was discussing Lear over dinner with my wife, Sheila, who is an English PhD student and knows a thing or two about Shakespeare. I confessed to her that I was still hung up on some basic thematic issues, and was not looking forward to the false confidence which I would have to put on when I talked about the play to my actors.

My quandary, I explained, began with the first scene. Where does Lear err? I've been discussing the blocking-balance thematically, as though it's obvious that everything goes haywire the moment Lear steps away from his throne. But Sheila disagreed; she thought Lear's error lay not in his decision to abdicate, but in his treatment of Cordelia after "nothing" is spoken.

We bandied these details about for awhile, and then I tried a dirty trick, introducing a quote which I'd found somewhere (I think it was somewhere in "The King Lear Perplex", an anthology of criticism). Paraphrasing heavily, it said, "The first lesson in Lear is 'don't give away your land.' The second, more subtle, lesson is, 'if you are going to give away your land, don't expect to be coddled. Sacrifice is sacrifice.'"

This quote brought the thematic spotlight back onto Lear's abdication. But Sheila (wise to my tricks) replied with an interpretation that was both more astute and more easily conveyable to actors. She said that if a single message could be extracted from Lear, it would be "You can't command love."

That's pretty brilliant. Lear spends the whole play reassessing what he, as a quasi-King and pseudo-Father, can and cannot control. His great tirade to the storm has been compared to the myth of Canute, the King who tried to command the tides (and got his feet wet for his troubles).

In the end, Lear becomes a beggar, a transient, and ultimately a prisoner--someone with no control over his destiny. And that's when he gets the love he sought.

I think it can even be made to work with the balance-blocking, if I shift my focus slightly to think of it not in terms of Lear's abdication, but in terms of Cordelia's absence. The three sisters created a balance, and when Lear banishes one of them, the balance is upset.

It requires a lot more thinking, but I like the way it feels already. Love, love, love. All you need is love. Can't buy me love.

What About the Fool?

2005-08-12T12:04:00.000-06:00

Funny, I haven’t talked about the Fool yet. He’s certainly been on my mind a lot, especially as discussions with my costume designer continue. But I haven’t quite figured out what role he should perform in the world I’m creating. In one respect, his jobs are very straightforward: he entertains Lear, he chides Lear, and (in the storm) he protects Lear, or tries to. But seen another way, the Fool is a major destabilizing influence over the whole play—and, in a production that is coming to concern itself more and more with balance and equilibrium, that makes him as volatile as nitro.

Early on, I decided that the Fool should be a character who can break the fourth wall any time he likes. I also felt his humour, when directed at the audience, should not feel confined to the world of the play—that is, if he needs to imitate Yoda or Arnold Schwarzenneger to get a laugh, he should feel free. Ultimately, that sort of freedom will need to have limitations put upon it; but in the rehearsal process, the actor playing the Fool should feel encouraged to screw around with expectations, and generally take the air out of the play.

It’s not so strange for the Fool to be outside of Lear’s world. In fact, at one point he pretty much comes right out and admits to the audience that he isn’t a formal part of the play. Following a long (and mostly non-sensical) mock-prophecy, he says “This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time.” That makes him either a time-traveller or a meta-theatrical trickster, momentarily ripping the illusion down to remind the audience that they’re watching a play.

Although I’ve cut that speech out of my version, I still want the Fool to convey that sense of timelessness. Melissa and I have discussed the idea of costuming the Fool in a motley composed of fragments from many different times and places, including modern fabrics and fashions. That means that any time the Fool is on stage, he will be visually disrupting the play’s reality. Upsetting the balance.

Part of me really likes that idea. I’ve always imagined the character moving frantically about the stage like a little monkey; and that style of movement would have the same effect on the blocking-balance of the play. I guess the question is, how much disruption can Lear’s world, or the audience, handle? If it’s constant throughout the first half of the play, it may be too much. If the spectators never really get a chance to settle into the world of the play, they won’t be able to feel for the characters as they begin their downward spiral.

Mind you, the Fool disappears half way through the play, and there must be a good reason for this (Shakespeare doesn’t usually just forget about characters, especially ones as memorable as the Fool). Maybe Shakespeare knows the dramatic limits of entropy and disruption, and he’s already set up the play so that the chaotic force of the Fool is eliminated just when it starts to become a problem.

It’s a calculated risk; but you have to trust Shakespeare on an awful lot of counts. Why not trust him, having given us a reckless, meta-theatrical trickster character, to write that character out at the appropriate time?

Blocking + Balance = Rehearsal Goodness

2005-08-10T11:28:00.000-06:00

More thoughts about the thematic issue of balance, which I'm still convinced is somehow at the heart of the characters' negotiations with the world, and with each other:

When learning about Shakespeare, one of the first concepts that high-schoolers get dropped on their collective lap is the Elizabethan World Picture. That phrase comes from a book by E.M.W. Tillyard, and it refers to the way Shakespeare and his contemporaries envisioned the structure of the universe. Elizabethans imagined the cosmos as a hierarchical construct, a ladder with God at the top, the Devil at the bottom, and humankind somewhere in the middle. Or not just somewhere, very precisely placed beneath angels, and above animals, plants, and inanimate objects.

Even mankind itself had an inherent hierarchy, a miniature version of the Big Picture. The King was at the top, followed by royalty, nobility, knights, commoners, and finally peasants and beggars. Women were subservient to men, Jews were subservient to Christians (can you guess who invented this hierarchy?), and so forth. Everyone, and everything, had its place.

Now here's where the Great Chain of Being comes into play for us: when the hierarchy gets disrupted somehow, it sends shockwaves throughout the natural universe. When an ordinary man kills a king, for instance (as in Macbeth), or when children disobey their parents (R&J), or even when a king voluntarily submits to his inferiors (Lear), all of nature recoils at the deed. In Shakespeare, you tend to get earthquakes, storms, lions in the streets and sometimes (if you're really lucky) two-headed calves!

So Lear abdicates, and the universe--nature and civilization alike--promptly goes ass-over-teakettle. By the time he got to Lear, Shakespeare had used this thematic device so often that he could afford to parody it by putting it into Gloster's mouth (at a point in the play when Gloster is still more or less a buffoon):

"Love cools, brothers divide. In Cities, mutinies; in Countries, discord; in Palaces, Treason; and the Bond cracked ‘twixt Son and Father."

Students can grasp this concept--the hierarchy of the universe--without too much trouble. But it's rather abstract, and tough for actors to translate into concrete theatrical terms. For one thing, the images of the chain and the ladder are vertical; but unless your stage has a lot of levels and balconies to play in, your actors will mostly be working horizontally.

But there was another, related cosmic metaphor in Shakespeare's time: the Spheres. The Ptolemaic vision of the universe which placed the Earth at the centre and expanded outwards to the stars. The Spheres suggest authority through concentric circles, which you can easily depict on a horizontal, flat stage. It's not a perfect correlation (since, if I recall correctly, Heaven was actually on the outermost sphere), but we can crush it a little and make it work.

Now, this is where Balance comes in. For a universe of concentric circles to function smoothly (picture a great machine, like Augra's astrological contraption in The Dark Crystal), it needs to be perfectly weighted and balanced. It needs a single, steady weight in the centre, and a number of precisely calculated weights on each outward circle--probably the weight would have to be more evenly spread out as you go outwards, otherwise the whole thing would tip over.

Now picture those weights as human beings, with the King in the centre, and all of his people revolving around him--royalty on one ring, nobility on another, knights and servants and beggars on others, everything precisely placed. Everyone's movements choreographed to keep the machine functioning.

Now take the King out of the centre.

Things wouldn't fall apart immediately. They might do so, especially if the King's disappearance is a violent act which shakes the whole machine (Macbeth again, or Julius Caesar). But if he simply stepped back, onto another ring...well, ajustments would have to be made...people might have to move over, or step from one ring to another...and if someone on one side moves, it means somebody on the far side of the machine will have to move as well, to counter them...and suddenly the whole thing becomes terribly precarious. The only way to stabilize the machine would be to get somebody new into the centre spot.

But there isn't just one person. There's two daughters, plus Cornwall and Albany, plus Edmund, barrelling towards the heart of the machine with such reckless abandon, he doesn't care what topples over in his wake. And then there are others, like Kent and Cordelia and France, who want to get Lear back into his spot in the centre--so they have to move in such a way as to block the others. It's like a chess game, except the board keeps tilting, and if you're not well placed, you'll fall.

I think that, once this idea gets illustrated to a cast, it will be very useful for blocking purposes. In fact, I think that I can combine it with my early work on personal rhythms in such a way that the characters will practically block themselves. Advances, retreats, and lots of concentric movement will all fall into place, because the actors will be watching one another, calculating balance, compensating for other movements and groupings on the stage.

And fast blocking means fast memorization, and that means more runs, which means a better, tighter show. Three cheers for balance!

Music Metaphysics

2005-08-07T15:13:00.000-06:00

This afternoon I met with Curtis Knecht to discuss music and sound for Lear. Curtis is a local actor/musician/arranger with a lot of experience working on Shakespeare--we semi-collaborated on a production of Midsummer Night's Dream several years ago (he played Oberon, I was the producer).

Before our meeting, I told myself, "Don't screw this up by putting your own ideas on the table too quickly. Just because you've been daydreaming about having a big percussion ensemble onstage doesn't mean that it's the right way to go." This lesson was particularly relevant when it came to sound and music, because I'm really rather naive about it. I don't know what's feasible, what's practical, and what's outrageously expensive. And besides, for all I knew, Curtis would decide that canned (ie. pre-recorded) classical music was the best way to go.

You can imagine my delight when the first words out of his mouth were, "Percussion ensemble." By the end of the meeting, we'd determined with reasonable confidence that the show should have two percussionists, plus maybe a guitarist (he knows a local guitarist who can throw a vast array of effects on his axe, making it sound like anything in the universe).

We also agreed that it would be cool to have the musicians onstage but separated from the action of the play--possibly above it, like the gods. And finally, Curtis seemed most intrigued with the idea that, of the three themes that keep cropping up, music should serve the metaphysical aspect of the play. Not only would it help to generate the thunder and lightning which Lear faces off against in his dark night of the soul, but it could also "speak" for the gods throughout the play--commenting on the action, as it were, or falling silent at those moments (like the climax) when even the gods themselves are struck dumb by the suffering of man.

It was, in short, a splendid preliminary meeting. I now have a confirmed set designer, costume designer, and sound designer. Lighting may still be up in the air (no pun intended). And I desperately need a stage manager (any thoughts, dear readers? Someone who can afford to give up four months of their lives this winter?). But, all in all, I'd say things are looking great.