Season Two: Week 21

Tuesday / November 13
Written by Matt

We started today on a bit of a tangent about the historical Shakespeare. A returning member asked about Shakespeare’s life, and a number of members leapt in to share what they had learned from various sources. Frannie talked a bit about Shakespeare’s “lost years,” which have fueled centuries of speculation, and a few people mused about the collection of authorship theories. More than anything, these sorts of conversations show not only curiosity, but an aspect of the “ownership” of Shakespeare’s works that we try to encourage. If part of the wonder of Shakespeare’s plays is how open-ended they are--how much they invite empathy with conflicting characters, and how many conflicting interpretations they allow--the same could be said of Shakespeare’s life. Our ensemble members, as usual, jumped right into a spirited debate over whether it matters who, exactly, Shakespeare was--his gender, his life experience, his social class. They also wondered if he collaborated with like-minded people in his plays or in others’. A number of them seemed to like the idea that Shakespeare was part of a group of writers and thinkers all working together.

After check-in (much of which was taken over by the conversation about Shakespeare) and the ring, we began the final push in our stumble-through of King Lear. We began with Act IV, scene v, an intimate scene mostly between Goneril and Oswald, Regan’s servant. The key to the scene, as our Goneril said, is “the mistrust underlying everything” in the play.

Our Oswald, who is in his second season and really coming out of his shell, dove into his character’s obsequious physicality--somewhere between conniving and cowed. Afterwards, a new member had some questions about that point: it seemed like Oswald was just hunched and running around bent over, he said. What was the point of that? Our Lear spoke up to explain that he understood it perfectly, comparing Oswald to the toadying Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings. Oswald agreed vigorously. The man who raised the issue pushed back a bit, asking, “Is that really their relationship?” And Oswald, who has generally kept a low profile and avoided anything even resembling conflict so far, stuck up for his choice. “His only power comes from everyone else around him--what they deign to give him,” he said. Even as the conversation veered into becoming a distraction, it was nice to see both sides of it: honest questioning of a choice made on stage and a clear explanation of that choice and why the actor was sticking to it. But since this ensemble could debate anything for hours, it was time to refocus. Frannie jumped in at an appropriate moment to redirect: “Everybody is on a journey,” she said. “And we’ll figure out what that means in each scene with your characters.”

If the previous scene was about swiftly advancing plot and character development, the next one is impressionistic and starkly epic. Act IV, scene vi is both one of the most challenging scenes in the play--blind Gloucester’s intended suicide, Edgar’s inner turmoil and outer artifice, Lear’s towering madness--and also one of the scenes at the emotional core of King Lear, if not the core.

A number of people worried aloud that the scene might come off as funny. One of them, our Albany, thought we might accomplish some gravitas with sound and music. “Let’s see how it plays,” Frannie suggested, and also mentioned that even if people laugh in response to something like Gloucester’s “fall,” that doesn’t always mean they have found it funny. “Sometimes that’s people’s response to the truth--especially if it’s uncomfortable truth,” she said.

As if on cue, Edgar led Gloucester onstage, and we all fell silent. Gloucester had a hat pulled low over his eyes so that he could peer down at his script but no further. It also turned out that he had been experimenting with binding his eyes in his unit and performing basic tasks (it was great, he said, except that he spilled his coffee!), and that work was apparent in his affecting performance. The star of that first beat, though, was watching Edgar and Gloucester working so incredibly hard together, feeding off of one another’s energy and beautiful line-readings.

“O, if Edgar live…” cried Gloucester from (in his mind) the extreme verge of the cliffs of Dover. That one “O!” told as much a story as any soliloquy, loaded with subtle emotion made more painful by the image of his son crouching a few feet away but unknown to him. In response, Edgar reached out a hand and made as if to move to his father, then checked himself and returned to his silent crouch. Heartbreaking.

After Gloucester fell and revived, he mustered incredible energy--he was disappointed, frustrated that he still lived. “But have I fall’n or no?” he demanded suspiciously of the unknown man (still his son in disguise) who found him. He grew enraged by the other man’s joy at his miraculous survival. “Do but look up!” exclaimed the disguised Edgar. “Alack,” Gloucester raged in response, as if the instruction were intended to torment him, “I have no eyes!!”

It’s hard to express how powerful this moment between Gloucester and Edgar was, and how intensely those men had to focus, how deep they had to dig to pull up those emotions. Perhaps because of this, Lear’s entrance broke the spell, and all three men onstage struggled to connect to the scene. Less than a minute later, we stopped the scene to reset and re-center, and everyone seemed relieved. Sometimes, it makes sense to just push through the messiness and get to the end of a scene, but this one is too long, too complicated, and it asks too much of the actors (especially Lear and Gloucester) to reasonably stumble through it if everyone is feeling “off.”

In fact, we reset a few times before finding a way through to the end. Our Lear is still feeling his way towards the madness called for in the scene, but he is much of the way there--he’ll make it. In the end, Gloucester and Lear sat on the floor together, two tired, old men clinging together as best they can. Just as affecting was Gloucester’s position after Lear’s exit, as Edgar confronted and fought Oswald. The blind man, left without his king or his anonymous guide, crouched helplessly in a back corner, listening to the sounds of confrontation and conflict and unable to fight or flee.

Perhaps a fitting end to such a heartrending scene, our Oswald gave us a moment of levity when he mistakenly “died” on the wrong side of his body, falling on top of the letter Edgar is supposed to pilfer from his corpse. Without missing a beat, he fished the letter from his pocket and slowly poked his hand up above his waist; Edgar obligingly took it. It was such a genuinely funny moment that we all laughed--the more so perhaps because the scene had been so powerful.

The next scene, in which Lear and Cordelia reunite, was clean but a little flat. Frannie assured everyone that we’d find the scene, given some time. It’s a tough moment to stage.

At last, we made it to the final scene. And, wonderfully, our Albany really took the reins in this scene, which he had never done before. He directed the action, and confronted Edmund strongly. As so often happens, this gave everybody else license to bring more energy to their own performances. Our Goneril raised his voice to match Albany’s, and Albany responded in kind, reaching a peak as he hollered “Shut your mouth, dame/Or with this paper I shall stop it!” Which earned him some vocal appreciation from the rest of the ensemble.

Ultimately, we struggled a little with the scene after Goneril’s exit. There is so much action, such a non-stop high emotional pitch, that it really takes a running start to get there, and any little thing can derail it. Regan and Goneril’s “bodies” were so funny as they assumed their position on stage that the laughter took the wind out of Lear’s sails, and it was hard to recover. Still, Lear’s voice boomed out on the open vowels of “Howl, howl, howl, howl!” And our Kent rallied to create a touching moment between himself and Lear as he finally reveals his identity.

Whew! We made it! It felt good to make it all the way through the play, and the whole ensemble is so hungry for more: more work on their acting, more time spent working on individual scenes, more depth, more breadth. We decided that we’d think about concepts for our playing space and set on Friday.

Friday / November 16
Written by Frannie

We played “Bombs and Shields,” one of my favorite Theatre of the Oppressed exercises, in the women’s ensemble the other night, and it was such a positive experience that I introduced it to the men today. In this game, everyone spreads out around the room and silently chooses one person to be their “bomb” and another to be their “shield.” The objective is to keep the shield between oneself and one’s bomb—and everyone tries to do so simultaneously. I explained the exercise, we took a moment, and then we launched into it.

As is typical with this exercise, it was chaos! We were in the gym, so there was a lot of space, but people clumped up pretty quickly. Soon I realized that the ensemble had more or less divided into two groups, with one scurrying back and forth while the other, at some distance, mirrored their movements more slowly. That changed, though, when I began counting down from 10 to the bombs’ “explosion.” At the last second, the entire ensemble fell into a straight line down the center of the court.

“How did THAT happen?” I exclaimed. While none of us facilitators have formal training in Theatre of the Oppressed, we’ve all spent time with it, and I can’t guarantee that this game never ends with its participants so organized, but we’ve personally never seen it. The guys were thrilled, and we started going down the line, figuring out who was whose bomb, etc., and realized that there was a pattern to the decisions that were made: a combination of choices made based on personality and/or relative position. Only a few people had managed to maintain any kind of strategy throughout the exercise; most had gone into “survival mode.”

We decided to play another round! This time, a very chaotic group moved quickly to one far end of the gym, scampering amongst each other and even over some of the gym equipment. As they did that, some of guys drifted apart, forming one smaller group, though one of them lingered in the bleachers where I was standing, and I couldn’t figure out why I seemed to keep getting in his way.

I began counting down, and by the time I got to one, this was the arrangement:

“You guys!” I exclaimed, and we all burst out laughing again. We started figuring out what had happened.

• A had chosen B as his shield and C as his bomb, which worked out great for him!

• D chose me as his shield—I never explained that I wasn’t part of the game, so kudos to him for thinking outside the box!

• The diagonal line was due to five people’s having chosen Matt as their shield. Matt said that he realized that at some point and “threw them all under the bus” by pacing and then quickly jumping behind his shield at the last second.

I asked if there had been any difference between the two rounds. “This one was more frantic!” said one man. Another said he’d switched up his strategy, to which another replied that everyone’s “strategies were revealed,” and that had made it easier for him to figure out a plan.

“But this is a theatre game, right?” asked one man “I don’t get how this is a theatre game.” I asked the group what they had gotten out of it..

• We’re really in sync as an ensemble—those straight lines indicate that everyone is strategizing in similar ways.

• It made us utilize a large space, adapt quickly, and keep our mistakes to ourselves. One man said it reminded him of a space-filling exercise we did during rehearsals for The Tempest to help us figure out the storm scene.

• One man said it taught him to make predictions based on people’s personalities while staying open to improvisation.

This last observation led us into a more detailed discussion about how the exercise applies to this ensemble and this play. First of all, it embodies the basic acting choices of objective, obstacle, and tactic, which differ from person to person. As noted, too, it showed us how we can improvise within parameters (the lines, etc.) based on the strength of the ensemble and how well we know each other.

“If you know what the outcome is, you can get there through improv,” said one man. We have to do that a lot—even in professional theatre, all kinds of wrenches can get thrown into performances; in a prison, that’s magnified. But the point was made: if we’re in sync, we can anticipate and execute the best “saves.”

We were feeling good and clearly bonding, so I moved us into another Theatre of the Oppressed game: “This Bottle is Not a Bottle”. In the variation I chose, the group sits in a circle. The first holds up an object—we used a pen—and says, “This pen is not a pen. It’s a _____,” and then they pass the object to the next person, who has to briefly interact with the object as if it is what was suggested. This repeats till every person has had a turn.

Our pen became…

A ladder

A flute

A fishing pole

A floatation device

A snake

A tree

A pogo stick

A high wire

A lightsaber

A squirrel

A chihuahua

A frog

A bow and arrow

A compass

A car

A pen

A memory wipe

“This is not a game!” joked one of the men. “This game is not a game,” said another, more seriously. “This is real life.” We’re constantly adapting quickly to what other people hand us.

One man said it had pushed us to do a lot of “vivid acting.” Another nodded, saying, “It made people get out of their comfort zone and act silly for a minute.” A third man built on that, saying that the game requires a “willingness to commit,” which led another man to add that we’d had to resist taking things literally and suspend our disbelief.

“That’s just it, isn’t it?” I said. “If actors have that ‘willingness to commit’—if they fully buy into what they’re doing—the audience will suspend their disbelief, too. What were the funniest moments?” The most natural ones, we all agreed. The two that stood out were when one man handed a “snake” to the next man, who immediately recoiled before gingerly taking it; another man was immediately attacked by the squirrel he was given. One man said, “You have the creativity to create a character on the spot, and also project your personality onto the pen.” “Theatre is honesty within artifice,” I replied.

We played another round, this time with my tote bag, choosing whomever we felt like to hand off the object to, rather than going around the circle in order. The bag became…

Non-dairy creamer

Dynamite

A house

$1,000,000

A box of puppies

A rooster

A hot air balloon

A bowling ball

A chair

A Micro Machine

A bobsled

A parachute at 5,000 feet

A washing machine

The cut lines from 4.3 (Jerks.)

A hacky sack

A chessboard

A dinghy

A pocket protector

A giant bottle of beard oil

As you can see, the unpacking of the first round had an invigorating effect on the second! The objects provided many more opportunities for creativity, and people were more prepared for it. When one man was handed dynamite, he gingerly set it on the ground and quickly walked away—and the entire circle followed suit. Another reacted to being given a house by lying down on his back, house atop his stomach (“Ding dong, the witch is dead,” I sang.). When one was handed $1,000,000, he looked at the “wad of cash,” said, “Shit, I’m out!” and walked away. The man who was given the bowling ball threw it down the lane; when he said, “This ball is not a bowling ball,” another joked, “Everyone uses that excuse.”

Multiple people jumped in to help with certain objects as well. One played the dog when another was given a bobsled; another joined the chess match; another climbed aboard the dinghy. That was one of the main things that excited us as we unpacked the exercise, as well as the detail some people provided, like the parachute being at 5,000 feet—it gave that person more to work with. “It was a pretty good use of space,” said one man, “and the chemistry between the ensemble.”

“What I liked about these two [exercises] was the full, equal involvement,” said one man. “There’s no sitting out. There’s no passing the buck. There was no time to really think about it,” he continued, explaining that with a game like “Bus Stop”, you have time to overthink things. But not with these games. “When they handed you the bag, they were handing you the whole entire scene,” agreed another, “and you’re inventing the whole atmosphere of the scene—and then people join you in that.”

We regrouped in the bleachers to start figuring out what our playing space will look like. Three men explained to the newbies how we’d arranged things for The Tempest. One of them then had the other two help him demonstrate how he wanted to expand the stage area, but others had doubts about how well people would be able to be heard so far from the audience.

The discussion threatened to spiral into something that would be frustrating and unproductive, so I stepped in to suggest that, first, we figure out a concept—an idea that represents the core of the story we want to tell—and then we’ll find the “look” from there. “Throw out some themes that you see throughout the play,” I said. “What have we been talking about? What have you been thinking about?”

Royal court

Interruption

Redemption

Contrast

Treachery

Busy

Emotion

Darkness

Chaos

Shallowness

Scandalous

Shelter

Terrain

Rage

Envy

Death

Jealousy

Forgiveness

Tension

Redemption (again)

Violence

Love

Artifice

Polarities / dualities

Trust

Regret

Cuckold

Power

Blindness

Stricken

Alienation

Domination

Emasculation

Corruption

Hope / hopelessness

Madness

Family

Purpose

Transparency

Machiavelli

Storm

Poetry

Justice / injustice

Disguise

Solace

Denial

Truth

Frustration

Illusion / delusion

Incomplete

Placation

Exposure

Candid

Brutality

Ruthlessness

Aggregate

Mischievous

Impotence

Power / powerlessness

Scheming

Insanity

Madness

Unknown temptation

Vanity

Fear

Hypocrisy

Pleasure

Pomp and circumstance

Turbulence

I read the list out loud a couple of times and asked if any themes emerged from those words and our emotional responses to them.

Pain

Ambivalence

Confusion

Battle for the chair

Opposing passions

Raw nature

Impotent power struggle

Denial

Dichotomy of honor

Morality

Darkness and light springs from the same heart

Extremes

Fate

Desperation

Conflicting agendas

Alchemy

Tragedy of duality

Contrast

Exposure

And what can we pull out of that, I asked? Can we distill these themes into a sentence? Here’s as far as we got:

Exposing human nature in its rawest form...

This has something to do with the conflict within us and between us.

When human nature—the conflict within and between us—is exposed in its rawest form, ______…

We know self.

You create your own enemies.

Your wants and needs take primacy.

We truly see ourselves / can no longer be blind.

We’re forced to see our true selves.

Through heart’s imperfect journeys does mind know truth of spirit.

Humans are prone to go to extremes—the truth is somewhere in between.

“Storms don’t just come out of nowhere. We can see them coming.” (Which I remembered an ensemble member saying earlier this season.)

The truth is exposed when things come apart.

One man went on an epic rant about his main takeaway: “The villains in this play—they’re not self-made. Regan and Goneril—Lear made them. Edmund? Gloucester made him… All of these ‘villains’ who are after the old men, we feel so sorry for at the end—the old men made them that way… In this play, the villains are these guys we feel so sorry for. They made their own enemies… You feel for Edmund in spite of the shit he does. You feel for him. So what was done to these sisters to make them the way they are?... These ain’t no people from France or Spain coming in to cause [Gloucester’s and Lear’s] downfall. This is their children.”

We ran out of time without settling on one concept. I suggested that we all take the weekend to keep writing and brainstorming, and see what we could bring to the table on Tuesday. If we do that, I think we’ll have a solid concept and performance space setup by the end of that session.

It was a really, really good day.

Season Two: Week 20

Friday / November 9
Written by Frannie

We continued our walk-through with Act III, scene ii — the first storm scene. Our Lear was off book for the entire scene! And so was our Fool, who was just given this role last week. While the performance consisted mainly of the actors standing in place while talking to one another, when it was over a number of people praised Lear for beginning to truly “find his voice.” I, for one, was sitting in the back of the bleachers and could hear every word he said.

At this point, there’s no detailed acting happening; we know that that will come later. But a man who recently re-joined the group had a question: “Can the Fool be funny?” Another man who just joined said that he’s a jester—of course he’s funny, even when he’s criticizing Lear. “But not in that scene,” our Lear said emphatically. “You ever been out in a serious storm? It ain’t no joke.” It’s so serious, said another man, that the Fool tells Lear he should go back to his daughters. “I see the Fool being, like… his guardian angel,” mused one man. We asked for clarification, and he said he meant that literally. “He’s there — he’s been sent — for a reason.” Something intriguing to explore!

We continued on, giving constructive criticism and sharing ideas as we went. One man called our Gloucester’s attention to the punctuation in the text; his emotional connection is palpable, but the lines don’t always come out with the right intention. We also pondered ways of making the relationship between Edmund and Gloucester clear. We started getting a little into the weeds on that, and I steered us back to the task at hand; we’ll get into the details later.

One thing we’re a little stuck on is how to communicate changes in location to the audience. Speaking specifically to the storm scenes, which take place at night, one man said, “We could do something cool with people lighting torches and show the transition that way.” The idea of stylizing all scene changes that way was exciting, and we’re going to keep exploring it.

After we ran Act III, scene v, one man suggested to our Cornwall, who just joined, that he let the character’s “drive for revenge” fuel his entrance, meaning that it required more urgency. “That’s a dastardly moment,” he said, “where two villains get together and conspire.” Our Edgar, as usual, fully committed to the emotional intensity and Poor Tom’s physicality, causing another man simply to shake his head after Act III, scene vi, saying, “[NAME}, you’re awesome, man.”

The group walking through Act III, scene vii — the eye-gouging! — took some time to plan it out, which was merited, given how complicated the scene is. It was, of course, messy, but the blocking was logical and will serve as a good foundation for actually staging the scene. One standout moment had to do with our Gloucester’s commitment, rather than with the staging or even the play itself. As he sat “bound” to the chair, our Regan “hit” him upside the head. Gloucester reacted perfectly by jerking forward; this caused his script, which was balanced on his knee, to fall to the ground. He leaned toward it, but didn’t allow his arms to become “unbound,” grunting as he made the fruitless effort to reach it. We all laughed (and so did he), and Cornwall picked up the script and put it back on his knee.

We talked a bit about exactly when the violence happens, all of which is spelled out in the text and was easily found. We determined that our best bet will be to stage the whole scene, but merely to “shape” the combat; Patrick Hanley (our official combat coordinator) will then take their ideas and choreograph something we can do safely and consistently.

Another comment — and this was pertinent to the entire play — was that one of the guys said the scene had been executed so quickly that he’d had trouble catching anything. Others argued that the scene demands that the actors move quickly. “Let’s not forget,” said one man, “this is where things start ramping up. So the scenes are escalating and getting more intense. This is where it starts.” Yes, agreed the other man, but it had still gone too fast; he wanted to see more of the interpersonal dynamics and drama. He got kind of fired up as he explained this, and another man jokingly said, “That energy — everything you just did? I wanna see some of that in your character.” We all laughed.

We ended up clarifying that while the scene does need to be pretty fast-paced, we need to be sure that the language itself isn’t rushed. One man said that the key was for everyone to be sure that they enunciated the words properly. Some weren’t sure what that meant, and I rephrased what he’d said using the world “articulate”. Another man said that that was the wrong word to use in this context, and I fired back that it wasn’t, teasing him by asking why it would have been used in “all those acting and voice classes” I took in college. More on that later.

We moved on to the scene in which Gloucester, led by an old man, is reunited with Edgar (who doesn’t reveal his identity). Gloucester entered with his hat pulled over his eyes, rendering him sightless (other than being able to look down to his script). The guy playing the old man had been goofing around prior to this, but now he buckled down, assuming an active stance and staying very focused on his objective: protecting Gloucester. Gloucester and Edgar, as usual, fully committed to their emotional connections to the text and each other. When the scene ended, another man yelled, “Oh my GOSH!” His excitement propelled him out of his seat and around the gym. “[NAME]! My GOD!” he continued to rave before finally sitting back down.

One man, who has truly fabulous instincts, suggested that Edgar explore changing his voice and physicality during his asides to the audience. Ultimately, the specifics are something that the actor will need to figure out, and this man emphasized that the main thing is to make sure the difference is clear to the audience. He’s right.

At this point, the man who’d called me out on my use of “articulate” earlier suggested we place a bet on its definition. “And the stakes are 4.3!” exclaimed the man who is STILL agitating for that scene to be restored in our cut. “No!” I said. “We are not betting on anything! And that scene is CUT!” I’m not sure why or how this continues to be funny, but the ensemble isn’t quite through yet with the joke.

We got back to work. The man playing Regan said that he and Goneril want to wear some kind of corset, and that he’s working on drawing out his costume ideas so we’ll know we’re on the same page. “I want a t-shirt that says, ‘What happened to 4.3?’” said you-know-who. “Or a backdrop.” “It’s not getting old,” I said sarcastically. “Everyone is still all about this joke. You should keep going with it.”

We circled up to raise the ring, feeling good about how productive we’d been. We’ll be through this phase very soon, and then the real work of staging will begin. We’re ready.

Season Two: Week 19

Tuesday / October 30
Written by Matt

Today was the first day of our stumble-through of the entire play with all of the new members! This is exciting because it’s a chance for everyone in the ensemble to really dig into their characters (now that we’re cast!), and also because having fresh eyes on the play at this point will give us a good indication of whether we are telling the story clearly or not, and how we can tell it better. It’s also a challenge: to simultaneously read the lines, figure out where to move on the stage, begin to feel the language, and also, as the guys are constantly reminding each other, to speak up! It’s a challenge for the entire ensemble to stay focused and engaged even during long scenes in which many people don’t appear, and for the new guys to keep up with a story they don’t know yet, as the actors are all stumbling through it for the first time.

What better way to meet that challenge than Act I, scene i? Half a dozen critical plot points? Check. All but one of the major characters? Check. Huge traffic jams onstage? Check. Most of the characters have only a line or two during the entire scene and need to stand silently for twenty minutes? Check. Despite all of these challenges, a quick poll of the new guys showed how much the ensemble communicated even in this complex scene. One returning member described the dynamic between Goneril and Regan, and explained Lear’s reaction to Cordelia’s honesty. A brand-new member was all over the politics of dividing the kingdom. Another new guy observed that Regan and Goneril “see that the king is slipping,” and filled in that Kent “tried to stick up for Cordelia, and he gets banished!” Messy and rough as the scene was, it was encouraging to hear that so much of it came across so clearly.

Edmund set up for Act I, scene ii, then opened by slinking, lizard-like, from behind his desk. He was all curves and soft lines, winding from one corner of the stage to another. With apparent relish and spite, he delivered the soliloquy as one part curse, one part confession. This is a man who has spent some time with those words, and it shows! Even better was his dynamic with Gloucester, his father, and Edgar, his brother, who was all straight lines to Edmund’s curves.

“Edmund is a maniacal son!” shouted one of our new members, when the scene was over. “He tricked ol’ Pops into believing his tomfoolery!” Another talked through his understanding of the plot, then came back to Edmund. “The bastard son,” he mused. “I feel his pain.”

We breezed through Act I, scene iii, and prepared for I.iv. Our Fool was not here today, so a brand-new member read in for him, and he was great! Funny, unafraid to sing, and instinctively able to become serious when the moment was right. Another highlight was Oswald, who was a wonderfully foppish coward, striking just the right balance between being insufferable and pitiable. In fact, Kent stopped in the middle of the scene to reflect: “Wait, so this is how we bond? By jumping this guy?”

Afterwards, we were a little short on time, but we started to talk about what we wanted our concept to look like. A bunch of the guys wanted to make it dark, or even post-apocalyptic (Zombie Lear was a suggestion floated, presumably in jest). Circling back to the scene we had just watched, one of the new guys was floored by the stand-in Fool’s performance.

“Man, the fool was funny!” he exclaimed, then, more seriously, “He was about… the truth.”

Friday / November 2
Written by Frannie

Check-in was solid today, with several people following up on things they said on Tuesday that they thought may have been misinterpreted (they weren’t), and with a really cool share from one of our new members. He said, “I’ll bring a brief glimpse on how Shakespeare is helping me,” explaining that when he told his wife over the phone about the group, she went out and got a copy of King Lear so she could read it, giving them something new to talk about and connect over. He is delighted, and so are we! “You know a good way to test if she’s actually reading?” joked one man. “Call her up and tell her she’s a real Regan, and see what she says!”

I brought in our rehearsal scripts today. They contain made massive cuts, made by me per the guys’ request. We decided to start using the scripts for our “walk-through”, rather than the book. Nearly all the guys were excited about how much of the work of reducing the play is already done, but one man has, for months, made no bones about how attached he is to 4.3, while I have made no bones about how inessential it is in performance. “There’s something missing, Frannie,” he taunted me, waving his script. “Oh, is there?” I teased back. “THERE’S SOMETHING MISSING,” he returned, to which I replied, “BECAUSE WE DON’T NEED IT TO MOVE THE PLOT ALONG AND WE ONLY HAVE 90 MINUTES TO PERFORM THIS PLAY.” A few minutes went by, and, as some others prepared to work 1.5, he sarcastically said, “I really don’t like this.” “I really don’t care,” I replied, to a huge burst of laughter from him and some others. I’m actually not sure I’ve heard those particular guys belly-laugh like that before, so I guess it was a good joke!

1.5 centers on Lear and the Fool, and, though significantly cut down in our script, retains its core. (This is a good cut, if I do say so myself, though we have further to go.) After we ran it, I asked if we’d made any discoveries or had any thoughts. “This is the moment where Lear is starting to second-guess himself,” said our Lear. I asked him what he thought Lear’s objective was. “He wants to be told that it’s all right,” he responded. When I asked the man playing the Fool the same question, he replied, “He wants to tell him that it’s gonna be the same with the other daughter.” Pretty cool considering how complex the language in this scene is, and the fact that this man has only been in the ensemble for a couple of weeks. Another man asked if the scene could, perhaps, be cut altogether, but there was no consensus, and we decided to table it for now. Our Kent asked if we’d noticed that he’d taken Lear’s letter, as directed, to Goneril (who was sitting in the bleachers). “It was supposed to go to Regan, though,” said Lear. “Oh,” said Kent. “I gave the letter to your other daughter. You’re gonna have to cut my head off.”

We breezed through the next few scenes, taking note of where we needed to plug in some servants, a few lines we could definitely cut, and other lines that will be up for debate later.

When we got to Edgar’s first soliloquy, the man playing that role took a moment to psych himself up, took a deep breath… and launched into it full throttle, completely off book and completely engaged. He breathed on the punctuation, lingered on certain words to paint pictures, directly appealed to the audience, and gave himself fully over to the physicality of a man on the run, hiding in the woods, completely bewildered and desperate. When he arrived at the final line (“Edgar I nothing am.”), he sustained that end beat before relaxing back into his normal posture.

“Holy CRAP,” a few people said, while others let out the breath they’d been holding or grunted or cheered or clapped or simply sat back in admiration. One of the new guys said, “Man, I really felt it.” I asked him why. “Because I see the shame he’s feeling… That he’s in such a low position…” Another man excitedly cut him off, saying, “He was about to go to prison.” This man further gushed that the pace at which Edgar had gone, and the time he’d given himself to breathe, allowed all of us to keep up and follow what he was saying.

Another man praised the strong eye contact with which Edgar had engaged the audience (“That made it personal,” he said), and the first man who’d commented agreed, “It drew me into the character.” The man who’d cut him off before followed up again, saying, “For a second there, I thought I was at a professional theatre.”

“Dude, so did I,” I said. “That is exactly how you want your Shakespeare,” I continued. “Remember how I’ve said that technique without heart is super boring? What was incredible about what you just did was that it was so much heart—it was so honest; nothing on it—the technique almost doesn’t matter. You don’t need much technique work anyway because you’re working so beautifully with the language and engaging us so deeply.” This man is quite humble, and his only visible reaction was to smile and nod his head, absorbing all that we said.

We went on a bit of a tangent, then, about blocking—positions and movement on stage—as a couple of guys threw out some ideas, and I demonstrated how right-on they were, providing the theatre vocabulary for all they said. “So you’re just following your instincts?” asked one man. “No, man. It’s a system,” said another, intrigued. “It’s both,” I said. “Your instincts as an actor will almost always be right, or they’ll lead us in the right direction. Those of us watching will be see things a little differently and guide from there.”

We moved along, arriving at the end of 3.1 just before the end of our session. In this brief scene, Kent meets with the knight who’s been accompanying Lear and sends him to Cordelia with a message. Our Lear, watching from the side, said, “I forgot how important this scene was.” I asked him what he meant. “Because this sets up everything after this,” he explained. He shook his head. “I forgot about this scene! It sets up everything.” Another man asked if maybe it could be cut down, though, since it’s mostly a descriptive monologue, which can be a little rough on an audience. Our Lear emphatically said no, citing the strength of our Kent’s performance. “He makes you wanna listen to him,” he said, hearkening back to when this same man performed a monologue from The Merchant of Venice which, though most of the ensemble was unfamiliar with the play, we had all nonetheless been able to follow.

Season Two: Week 18

Tuesday / October 23
Written by Matt

This day’s session began with an important but tense conversation about who gets added to the ensemble and how. This particular discussion has been a long time coming, and having these sorts of difficult conversations openly and honestly is really crucial to building trust among the members--showing ourselves that we are capable of having an open dialogue about tough issues without becoming divided or losing the sense of safety in the ensemble.

In all, the conversation emphasized how seriously people take our ensemble and how jealously they guard the ensemble’s norms. “This is a family,” many of the men reminded us. Sometimes families need to work out disagreements. Each member of the ensemble needs to work with the others, whether or not they are compatible or even like each other--and that takes, above all, trust.

This is our first full-length season at Parnall. We have already spent longer on King Lear than on any previous play at Parnall. So we’re feeling out what it’s like to work for this long on a single project here. In the past, we have perhaps been able to more easily ignore interpersonal issues or frustrations with people and processes; it was only for three months at a time, and there was precious little time to spend working through our issues--we needed to put up a play! But as the season lengthens and the ensemble itself matures, problems arise and must be dealt with. How we deal with them is important for how the group develops in the future.

Everyone was exhausted by the end of this conversation, and we brought down the ring to re-center the ensemble. Frannie passed out cast lists. There were no surprises, since the list had been worked out in advance, but it felt good to see the list in print. Things are never totally final--there’s always some chaos and a few changes before performance--but getting the cast list feels like a major step forward each season.

We finished with a game. “Freeze-frame” involves a series of tableaus, in which a group of actors create a still scene. The challenge is to tell a complete story with five different tableaus. Someone from the performing group instructs the audience to close their eyes, then they assemble their tableau and tell the audience to open their eyes. We broke into three groups of five to try it out.

The challenge today was to tell the story of King Lear in five freeze-frames. It was a wonderful and instructive exercise. Many of the groups chose the same “scene,” but had totally different takes on that scene. Some groups chose different scenes (two groups had Lear raging at the storm, but one had Lear, Fool, and Edgar huddled together in the hovel). Not only was it a brilliant way to bring us all together around the play again, but it yielded a few very compelling stage pictures, and sent several of us off thinking about all the ways that these pivotal scenes could be blocked. And, importantly, the tableaus showcased the ensemble members’ bone-deep knowledge of the play’s characters and story.

Friday / October 26
Written by Frannie

During today’s check-in, the man who’s been cast as Gloucester shared that he “had lunch and dinner with Gloucester last night.” We all laughed and asked what he meant. He said he’d imagined Gloucester sitting with him, having a conversation. “I had to spoon feed him half of the meal… It’s great to take time and get to know your character better,” he said. “You just added a whole new element to psychoanalyzing our characters,” said another man. People seemed genuinely excited by the idea. What a cool thing to have come up with on his own!

We added some new members today and spent just about all of our time on introductions, orientation, and continuing to try to resolve the issues that came up on Tuesday. Here are a few great quotes that came out of our traditional three questions:

From a member who participated during our pilot year, and who has just returned: “I have this time to get back to you guys… I like this. It’s fun, and it kept me out of trouble. I never wanted to leave, I just wasn’t mentally there. So I came back… I felt lost without you guys.”

From a new member who was in the audience when a current member performed a monologue in another class: “That excitement he has every time he talks about this — I want that excitement because it’s kind of contagious. I want to infect everyone with the excitement of life.”

And from current members, re-upping their answers to these questions:

“This was an opportunity to challenge myself to be more than just a number or an inmate… I figured it was time to start being the person that I know I am, not who I’m perceived as.”

“I was tricked into it at first, but I’m kinda obsessed with it now… At first, it was a project, to work on myself. I did a lot of time at higher levels, in isolation… I needed to step out of my box… Now it’s the friendship and the family we have. It’s helped me out during a lot of hard times.”

“Originally, I just wanted something fun to do… It’s still fun, but now it’s the camaraderie and community I get out of it… This is my escape. This is where I get to be a real human being… It’s helped me better learn to interact with a more diverse group.”

On Tuesday, we’ll begin walking through the play in chronological order to give our cast some new ideas, and to catch our new members up on the play itself. Phase II has begun!

Season Two: Week 17

Tuesday / October 16
Written by Matt

Word had gotten around that TCM was airing a film version of King Lear, so a lot of the guys had made time to see it. They were, sad to say, not impressed. “Anybody in this room could do any part in that play better than they did,” said one. Everyone generally agreed with that statement, although a few pushed back to mention individual moments that worked well. Apparently, PBS is re-running a series on Shakespeare’s plays, and the guys were all trading notes on which ones to watch. One of them expressed surprise that The Merchant of Venice was a comedy. “All I knew of it was, ‘If you prick us, do we not bleed’ and all that,” he said, referring to the powerful rendition of Shylock’s famous monologue delivered over the summer by one of the men.

After lowering the ring, we went straight into exploring Act IV, scene i, in which Edgar is reunited with his blinded father but does not reveal his identity. The scene is multi-layered and somber, and mostly passes between two main characters: Gloucester and Edgar. Two of the men had been practicing the scene over the weekend, and they roped in another man to play the Old Man. The man who played Gloucester is a veteran of the group, and he wanted to plan out the scene with his partners… and plan he did! After five or ten minutes, it was clear he was getting far too intellectual about the entire thing. He worried about about how to act blind and whether we’d be able to hear his voice if he got quiet. I went up to him and encouraged him not to worry so specifically about how to act like he had no eyes and just to focus on Gloucester’s utter dependence on others--he cannot see, sure, but he also cannot identify others without his eyes. He can’t even move without guidance--without direct physical connection with another person, Gloucester is completely lost.

This seemed to free him up a bit, and the first run-through, though rough, had a lot of really affecting moments. After stumbling through it, the men in the audience jumped in to ask questions. “What’s your interpretation?” asked one of the guys to the man playing Edgar, who replied that he felt like Edgar was playing two or three different characters himself. The man who played Gloucester said, “As soon as [the old man, who had been guiding him] walked away, I felt like I was swimming, like I didn’t have nothing to hold onto.”

Still, one member maintained, the emotion of the scene wasn’t connecting with the audience. “So,” said another, “what do you want the audience to feel?” The man playing Edgar talked about feeling torn between the desire for resolution and safety and the desire for self-preservation and control. If Edgar reveals himself, he is in danger, but if he doesn’t he is stuck in the persona of Tom and unable to connect with his father.

After another run-through, the men all seemed more comfortable with the roles. One of the guys specifically complimented Edgar on his vocal performance. Maria asked why Gloucester picks Edgar over his loyal servant. A member replied, “He thinks the Old Man will try to talk him out of it. Tom will just lead him to the cliff.” Another man piped up, “No one will be there to pick sides for him.” The first agreed, “Yeah, nobody to say, ‘You did this wrong or that wrong.’ You just got a dude to help you out.” A third man added, “Gloucester is at a point where he doesn’t want any more emotional connections.”

For better or worse, a veteran volunteered a new member to do the scene in a different way. They decided to play the Old Man and Gloucester, and another new member took Edgar. In the end, the scene was a mess. The two who stood up first had not been following the scene closely, and took a lot of time stumbling over words. It was the first time that one of them had read for a major role, which was exciting, but he admitted at the end that he was just doing it to humor the ensemble. We gave him a big round of applause for his bravery, and for his solid instincts--he did a pretty good job embodying Gloucester’s helplessness--but he was relieved to sit back down. The man who played Edgar, however, clearly connected with that character. One of the men pointed to him and said, “I can see that you want to react off of something.” He said that the other man was a “physical actor” and needed other “physical actors” to react to. And then he picked them: the man who played Gloucester the first time, and Frannie.

This time through, something really amazing happened. It was still rough, but there were moments of beauty and truth between the actors. After Frannie (as the Old Man) left the stage, there was heartbreaking connection between Gloucester and Edgar, as they clung to each other, and yet were ultimately unable to connect because of Edgar’s ruse. And, just as importantly, the men felt instantly connected to those characters. “That felt natural,” said Edgar afterwards.

The other men were stunned. “That was perfect. The reactions, the way the words hit,” said one. The man who had suggested that trio nodded vigorously, saying, “If the books hadn’t been there, you could have filmed it.”

Gloucester said, “I mean, first of all, good job, Shakespeare!” He talked about letting himself fall into the natural rhythms of the text. “I was just reading,” said Edgar. “What do I want? What am I feeling? How’s he reacting? I’ll react to him.”

This was a tough act to follow, but we ran through Act IV, scene vii in the final minutes of our time. In this scene, Lear and Cordelia are finally reunited, coming together to form the emotional core of the final few scenes of the play. After the run-through, no one on stage was satisfied. The man who played Cordelia was first to speak: “I was afraid to put too much emotion into it. I didn’t want to become a blubbery ball up here!” We encouraged him to be as blubbery as he wanted, but it often takes a long time to work that deeply into the scene.

“All the attention is on Lear,” noted the man who had played Edgar in the previous scene. “The doctor is worried about his patient, Cordelia is worried about her father, and Kent is worried about his friend and master.” He added that he envisions Kent as Lear’s “loyal Basset Hound,” which made us all laugh. The man who played Kent commented on how he both wants to reveal himself to Lear and understands that it is not time--echoing the dynamic with Edgar and Gloucester in the previous scene. “And, remember,” added another man, “Kent is Cordelia’s link to Lear.”

After running through the scene one more time--and hitting a lot of the emotional moments just right--we all agreed that we were ready to cast the play on Friday. Sometimes it feels like we’ve been living for so long with this play that casting it will be a letdown, but we’re all ready, and the ensemble is eager to move on and get ready to put up this play!

Friday / October 19
Written by Matt

Every season presents a new and interesting casting challenge. Sometimes, it’s easy, and we can do it in fifteen minutes just by talking. Sometimes, we have to do an anonymous ballot. Occasionally, there’s drama. Usually, there’s not. Today, casting went relatively smoothly. For Lear, only one man put his name in, which was as much an acknowledgement by the ensemble of his connection with the role as anything else. Sometimes, we choose roles. Sometimes, roles choose us--we need them, and we can’t avoid that call. It has been clear for weeks, if not months, that this man is being called to play Lear, and no one was going to deny him that. Most of the roles came more or less this way. The man who played Edgar so effectively on Tuesday was welcomed into that role without competition--testament to, among other things, how brilliantly he stepped into Edgar’s role earlier this week. The few roles that had competition were sorted out by brief “sidebar” conversations, and no one seemed upset by the process. Given how deeply these men are connected to the play and how many of them there are, this is pretty amazing. It never ceases to amaze me how our members wind up with the roles they need--and the roles the team needs.

We ended the session playing a few rounds of Party Quirks, a classic improv game. It was a good release from all that sitting around in the cold and working hard to cast the show. As one of the men said in the middle of a round of the game, “I gotta say, these people are all acting a little peculiar.”

We put the ring back up when the time came, ready to get to work on rehearsing the play in earnest. I always think of casting as the biggest turning point in a season of Shakespeare in Prison; it’s when our members transition from analyzing and thinking through the play generally to deepening their connection to a single character, exploring the humanity of their role. And the nature of the collaboration changes, too, as we work together to create a performance. It’s exciting to move into this phase during our first full season at Parnall!