Season Two: Week 26

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Tuesday / December 18
Written by Matt

As promised last week, one of our members initiated a “group check-in.” The conversation he was trying to start required delicate handling. He first noted that the group is really open and good at talking things out. Then he got to the meat of the issue: he had observed that some people in the ensemble were holding back or feeling held back. He said that some people felt that their ideas were not being considered or validated, and that the sessions sometimes looked like a conversation among the same few people. Finally, he led into the discussion with something like a pep talk: “Your voice matters. Your ideas matter. And I want us to reach out to each other to try and communicate these thoughts.”

The first voices to speak up, perhaps predictably, were from the most vocal members of the ensemble. They were respectful, but they were clearly feeling a little wrongfooted. “What does that look like?” asked one of the guys, when the first man suggested that there must be a better way. Another of the vocal members suggested that some people may just be trying to figure out where they fit in.

Two of the men who have felt shut down said that part of their frustration is that the group does not always pay attention when people have raised hands. Another spoke up to own that he doesn’t always honor the raised hands because he gets really excited about ideas and conversation. “We do it too much,” he said, promising to be better. “I do this the worst,” confessed another man. “You should just cut me off. I actually like getting cut off.”

One man noticed that the conversation was once again mostly among the five or six most vocal participants. “This is a group discussion,” he said, then gestured to a group of men who had said very little. They remained mostly silent, so our Gloucester said he didn’t really see the problem. He said he felt like “our chemistry has grown,” but admitted that he has “blind spots” (he chuckled a little at himself about his blind spots), and added, “That’s a lot of where this comes from.” A few people nodded. “Yes,” chimed in another man, “and it’s a slippery slope.”

Then a veteran who had been part of this ensemble since day one spoke up. “All this sounds great,” he said, but in “real life,” it was actions that counted. “If a guy doesn’t feel safe in the group, he’s not going to share.”

A bunch of guys started piling on, asking what the answer should be. One member said, “I’m about the action. What do we do?” At this point, the man who started the conversation intervened to gently redirect: “We’re not looking for answers today,” he clarified. He said that they were looking to give people a chance to explain their thoughts and feelings, and he warned against focusing on solutions now. “We’re doing something more here than just putting on a play,” he said.

A few of the guys were still visibly defensive, but Frannie stepped in to explain that some people have felt like confidence was betrayed, and she used the example of the women’s ensemble to explain that SIP has only had long term problems with members who’ve broken confidence when the breach is kept secret or the person responsible has denied it.

A new member spoke up to affirm that he didn’t completely trust the group yet. “There is something hanging over this ensemble,” he said. “Maybe y’all don’t know it, but I see it.” One of our veterans added that the “dynamic has changed.” He said he didn’t want to speak for others, but he knew that some people were holding back because they worried that what they said might leave the confines of the group. “We’re not as tight as the groups were here before,” he closed.

One vocal member had been holding a comment in for a while. “I don’t care what people say about me on the yard,” he said. “We all got problems. I got problems… This is about being in a group. This happens in a group.” He spoke a little about how he resisted SIP for a long time--he’s never liked being in big groups, and he’s not a generally trusting person, he said--until a couple of veteran members talked him into it. “I didn’t think I’d talk,” he said, “then I just started talking. Now, I can’t stop talking!” And everyone laughed; he described himself perfectly.

The man who talked about our changing dynamic jumped back in to say that he had personally heard people bring up things that happened to him in SIP--people who are not part of the ensemble. Another member said he had had a similar experience. A man who had stayed mostly quiet said that, from his perspective, the people who left the ensemble did it because they had trust issues with the group. He said this with understanding, adding that he also had a trust issue for a long time, but that he had gotten over it.

The man who’d said he couldn’t stop talking chimed in again to say that all sorts of people had opened up during the season as a result of the process. He was still a little dismissive of caring too much what gets said about him on the yard. “I been doing this too long, in the joint, to care too much for that.”

Matt stepped out of the room for a few minutes. This section is written by Frannie:

One of the guys said he didn’t see why people would vent about each other on the yard--that this group is important enough to him that he’s been keeping a “problem” with another member to himself and has just limited contact, rather than causing any undue tension. Remarkably, he addressed this person directly, saying more or less that he didn’t dislike him, but that he got really aggravated with him a lot. That member smiled and said, “Shoe’s on both feet!” He said, too, that he’d love to have a conversation about it any time, though the man who’d brought it up said he wasn’t ready. I thanked them both for being so open and so civil, and I offered to mediate that conversation whenever they were ready.

Another member touched on the “outside talk” issue once more, urging people not to “get on the bandwagon” with those conversations. Some of the guys get a lot of shit from their friends outside the ensemble and can feel intense pressure to respond a certain way. Navigating a new identity is an enormous challenge--we all know that--but we still expect sensitive things to be kept within the group.

One man said his only real problem with anyone is when they come “unprepared” to work, meaning that they haven’t spent a lot of time with their lines or are unfamiliar with their scenes. A veteran said he gets it, but not to let it drive him crazy: this is how some people learn to be prepared! He suggested that members gather outside of regular sessions to increase familiarity and comfort--with the play, and with each other.

It felt like the conversation was coming to a close, so I proposed an action plan. Each individual will honestly assess how they might be contributing to the problem, AND how they can contribute to the solution. We must do this for ourselves, as individuals, and be willing to be held accountable by others when we make mistakes (because we will). By that same token, we must trust that every other member is doing the same thing, and we must be sure to be constructive when we let them know that they’ve made a mistake. We will do our very best to let go of any issues that came up before today so we can move forward. And we’ll know the plan is working as trust re-solidifies, and when ensemble members stop hearing sensitive things they’ve shared on the yard. The man who’d initiated the conversation read a poem to wrap up, and we moved on.

Back to Matt!

It took a little while to get back into acting mode, and the first scene--Act 1, scene 4--was long and energetic, but we worked our way into it. By the end of the scene, as Lear strode back onstage to offer another curse at Goneril, we were in the swing of it!

Act 1, scene 5 is an intimate moment between Lear and the Fool--Kent is onstage for a second before leaving them alone. Before starting, I went to Lear and the Fool to ask what story they wanted to tell with the scene. Fool wasn’t sure, since it was his first time through the scene, but Lear had a clear idea in mind. “This is when Lear starts to lose it,” he said.

The scene is short--only a minute or so--so the guys ran through it once to try it out. At the end, a lot of the guys who had been watching were a little bit confused. Our Fool admitted to his own confusion: “I don’t know what this is,” he said. “What’d y’all see?” Our Regan described his idea of the Fool’s attitude, saying, “It’s like, ‘I’m telling you now that this is gonna happen. You won’t believe me, but it’s gonna happen.’”

They ran it again, but there was still something missing. A couple of the guys jumped in to suggest that Lear stand up and be more dynamic with his movements, but Lear dismissed those ideas, thanking them but sticking to his vision of the scene as small, intimate, subtle, and seated. Meanwhile, I asked the Fool what he was really trying to tell Lear throughout the scene. He said, “That he screwed up, but there’s nothing he can do now. It’s too late.” I suggested that he try focusing on getting that information across to Lear, regardless of the words he was saying, just as an exercise. Then we reset for the top.

The third time, which is so often the charm, looked like a totally different scene. The Fool’s urgency propelled both actors forward, infecting Lear with the same dynamic energy, and they finished the scene in half the time it took last time. “That was great!” exclaimed Lear, “I just fed off him.” The men who were watching mostly agreed, although one said that he wanted something more. “There’s a disconnect in that scene somewhere,” he said. “What are you trying to project?” The Fool answered immediately. “I think we’re trying to project that disconnect,” he said. “I’m trying to tell him that It’ll be the same shit with [Regan]. But he’s not hearing me.”

Our Regan had an idea for improving the fourth run. He turned to Lear and told him to resist being pulled along by the Fool’s urgent energy. That was the note, it turned out, that needed to be given. The fourth run was truly accomplished--touching, really. The Fool’s need to communicate something to Lear and Lear’s total inability to hear or understand his message were beautifully specific and crystal clear. Lear, in fact, seemed to be so lost in his thoughts that he could barely see his companion, who was trying so desperately to tell him something important--to save him. After that run, both Lear and the Fool exchanged a look and smiled at each other; in their characters’ disconnect, the actors had connected.

Friday / December 22
Written by Coffey

Today’s session saw the men particularly energetic and excited to rehearse. Our Gloucester shared with us that he had found his character’s “secret weapon,” a cane! “It’s helped me to perceive what it’s like to rely on something like this,” he said. He explained that using a cane in rehearsal, and also outside of sessions, has helped him to better understand Gloucester’s world and sympathize with his outlook. Gloucester wasn’t the only character in the group that was becoming more realized. Goneril checked in, saying, “I’m glad that Lear is gone, but my place is all smashed up and the silverware is gone.” Another man, who plays one of Lear’s attendants, replied to Goneril’s concerns: “I’d say sorry about the place, but I’m not. And as for the silverware, have you looked behind the dresser?”

Before we began our rehearsal, one man shared with the group his concern that scene I.v, because of some bumpy rehearsals, might need to be cut: “I think for the amount of time we’ll spend on it, it won’t be worth it… I don’t think we’re gonna get it right.” This concern sparked a fruitful conversation as many members of the group came to the scene’s defense.

One man pointed out that the way the other man’s concern was phrased might be hurtful to those who act in the scene: “When you say, ‘We’re not gonna get it right,’ and you’re not in the scene—I don’t like it. Because you’re not one of the guys who’s up there trying to get it right… It feels like you’re taking their work away.” The man quickly responded, “That’s not what I meant!” The other interjected, “I know—that’s what I’m telling you,” and the first man further clarified that, while he wasn’t at all questioning the capability of the actors, the scene felt out of sync. “I think this scene isn’t supposed to be synchronized,” one man said, pointing out that Lear and the Fool’s relationship begins to shift during that scene, and their usual roles fall out of joint. Frannie asked if maybe the issue here was the wording that the first man had chosen to express his concern.

Our Lear calmly said, “It is true, [NAME], the way you phrase things makes a difference. I’m up there busting my ass, learning the lines, and you come and say, ‘That ain’t right.’” The first man emphatically responded, “I don’t mean to come across as saying you aren’t doing a good enough job… I want to clarify that.”

Another man pointed out that “these initial run-throughs are just rough run-throughs… This is just a rough draft of what may or may not happen in the final show.” Another man redirected the discussion, reminding us all to ask ourselves if I.v furthers our original concept. “A couple weeks ago we came up with a sentence to define the play,” he said. “To me, this [scene] fits.” Matt pointed out that the man’s concern helped us to reevaluate what makes this scene important to the play. With that in mind, and reminding ourselves that we are only just in rehearsals, we agreed to keep the scene for now and see how it fares in the future.

We focused on II.i and II.ii, a large sequence that takes place in Gloucester’s castle. The men had great instincts and thoughtfulness with the scene, giving it a much-needed sense of urgency. Even Gloucester, with his cane, used that momentum to hurry towards the wounded Edmund and tear off his knit hat to help dress his wound. At one point Gloucester became the center of discussion, as the men began to give him suggestions as to how he, as an old man, should behave on stage. Frannie reminded everyone that, especially since Gloucester is very much still a character in the making, it would be best to stay away from “should” or “shouldn’t” comments, and instead ask the actor what he might be feeling are possibilities for the scene. The ensemble can also tend to overload actors with notes between runs, a habit that did get progressively less pervasive throughout the rehearsal.

In moving forward with the two scenes, blocking ended up taking the center of attention. Beyond the basic complications of microphone and backdrop placement, a lot of time was spent planning out entrances, major crosses, and exits. One member reminded the group that we have four entrances to take advantage of. He then shared his vision for the scene’s blocking, walking the actors through each major shift. The resulting blocking was slick and had some striking images, but Frannie pointed out that, at some points, it felt like the actors were fighting their instincts in order to stick to the staging. What was encouraging, though, was that many actors were giving blocking suggestions or making choices for the sake of character and storytelling. Gloucester, for instance, when given the suggestion to sit during II.ii, refused, holding to the character’s worry and sense of decorum within the scene. The blocking choices during this rehearsal were many and strong. Thankfully, our “stage manager” did a good job of trying to synthesize everyone’s ideas into a cohesive whole.

It was encouraging to see material from some of our previous exercises being pulled into onstage work today, as the men began to show developed characters and storytelling. Regan, for instance, was using a mix of stick and veil physicality (taken from the Chekhov centers exercise) to great effect, giving the character a regality and femininity that stood out among the other men on stage. Another man, while standing in a tableau, moved to prevent another actor from upstaging himself without missing a beat, practically out of habit. The man playing Kent has even begin to string some of his own personality into the character, giving Kent a personality that I had never thought to give him, but that is becoming more and more interesting and engaging as it grows. The men repeatedly encouraged each other to stick with their characters’ thoughts, instincts, and relationships. One man recounted a previous rehearsal in which he was swept into the scene by another actor’s performance, promising the other actors that, if they stay present on stage, “you’ll feed off each other.”

It was obvious that many of the men had spent time outside of sessions thinking and practicing, a trend that promised to continue, as one man suggested that everyone try working with a partner on scenes outside of sessions. Several men even offered to organize a time and space for outside practice, a great piece of encouragement that will hopefully carry into future sessions.

Season Two: Week 25

This holiday season, give the gift of hope.

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Tuesday / December 11
Written by Frannie

As planned, we began our work by running Act I, scene ii, without stopping—the scene is more or less divided into three parts, and we hadn’t rehearsed them in sequence yet.

It worked beautifully! Our Edmund took his time preparing and delivered a deliberate, connected, and very believable soliloquy. When Gloucester entered, his approach was much more natural than last week—it was clear that he’d spent significant time with the scene on his own—and the two connected with each other more than we’d seen in the past. Gloucester kidded with Edmund when asking for the letter, then slowly grew more and more horrified as he read it. The hurt and anger were palpable, and as he wandered off, rambling and disoriented, Edmund turned to us with a smirk that caused a ripple of knowing chuckles in the ensemble, and we watched as our Edgar played naturally right into Edmund’s hands.

“You guys killed that up there with the way you interacted!” exclaimed one man as we applauded. “It was like everything was happening for a reason. That was the pinnacle of the scene right there!” Others commented on specific moments they’d loved, praised the men for incorporating all the work we’d done on the scene, and offered suggestions of how we can build on it. As an ensemble, we’re working on using “could” instead of “should”; it’s one of those subtle things that can make all the difference in how an actor hears our suggestions. Our Gloucester said he “should have created more urgency… that [Edgar] should get caughtfor this mess,” and the group reminded him that he’s already on his way: on the line “Hath he sounded you?” he actually threw the letter at Edmund in his sudden, irrational anger.

We moved on to Act I, scene iii. Our Goneril and Oswald consulted with a man who’s gone through his entire script, sketching out blocking ideas. The two actors then set a small table and chair center stage and took a moment to focus before they entered. They walked into the performance space in silence, and Goneril sat in the chair before speaking. He stood up for a few lines, then sat back down; all the while Oswald hovered without moving much.

“How did that feel?” I asked when the scene ended. Before either actor could answer, another ensemble member good-naturedly said, “Not COLD enough!” I joked that I hadn’t been asking him (we all know at this point that the actors get to answer first!), but none of us actually minded, and the actors said they agreed with him. How to do this, then? Our Goneril said he had probably been thinking too much and hadn’t felt connected; our Oswald said (rightly) that he couldn’t do much independently and would just go off whatever Goneril did.

Another man suggested a way that Goneril could alter his movement to feel more natural with a character this angry. Several guys joked about what he might be implying, and the man cut them off gently, saying, “I’m not asking [NAME] to do anything—I’m asking [NAME] to be [NAME].” He then demonstrated what turned out to be the quintessential “walk” this guy does when he’s angry. We also helped Goneril clarify his objective (as it stands now: “to manipulate the situation”), and we ran the scene again.

There was an immediate improvement: both actors felt more connected to their lines, and they clearly connected more with each other. Goneril’s urgency increased to a point where he never sat down. We asked the two what made all of that happen. “I just changed my mind frame,” said Goneril. “I got more frustrated.” Another man said it had seemed like there was an invisible rope between the two of them, their movements had been so complementary. “Every single time he would move, I would give way to him,” Oswald said. He continued, “When [he] gave me the order to be mean to King Lear, I was like, ‘Oh, this’ll be fun.’” And Goneril’s heightened energy seemed to have made the furniture unnecessary, so we struck it.

Next time, things really started to click. Goneril was downright scary; Oswald seemed legitimately scared of her! “The rigidity made it clear that there was no changing your mind,” said one man to Goneril. “The first couple of times, there were some places in the dialogue where you could have changed your mind… Not this time.” We unanimously agreed. “I could sense your discomfort,” said another man. Goneril warned us to be grown-ups and then revealed that, in addition to his other methods, he’d imagined himself to be wearing a corset in order to really stiffen his spine. He’d also used Chekhov’s “radiating” to picture himself doing actions before he moved; that had helped him think less and feel more natural.

After a lot of planning, we launched into Act I, scene iv, in which Kent shows up in disguise, we meet the Fool, and Goneril and Lear have their first big conflict. There were a lot of starts and stops—it’s a complicated scene with dynamics that are a little buried in the text, but we found them! Or at least we started to find them… Once the Fool entered, everyone struggled to connect. Increasing Lear’s and the Fool’s physical proximity helped (“Sometimes it’s just that simple,” said one man), but something was still missing. For whatever reason, our Fool took a lot of that on himself, and the ensemble began making all sorts of suggestions to help him out. The result, though, was that he got really overwhelmed, and as our time began to run out, I took him aside with just a couple other guys to talk him down a little.

“I don’t know, man,” he said. “This felt good the first time I read it, but now I don’t know.” I asked if he could remember what had been enjoyable before, and he said it had been “just being a jester.” Our small group encouraged him to go back to that for now, and to build from there as he becomes more comfortable. This man is a musician, and I compared this kind of character work to producing a song: start with just one element, and then layer on others one at a time till you’ve got the sound and balance you want. “That helps a lot,” he said, already relieved.

We left it there, planning to come back to the Fool’s entrance and move forward from there on Friday.

Friday / December 14
Written by Matt

Our Lear was ready to do scene work! “I wanna cuss out Goneril!” he said, and we picked up where we left off: Act I, scene iv. After doing so much work on the Fool on Tuesday, we gave him some space to explore his character. He still wasn’t happy with it. “I worked on it yesterday,” he said, “I had a cool little accent I was gonna put on, but I guess I got shy.” He demonstrated, and the voice altered his entire demeanor. When he was done, a bunch of the guys commented that he hadn’t actually changed his accent at all; it was the quality of his voice that had changed. It was almost like a song, someone said. “[Fool’s lines] are like a song,” our Fool agreed.

Meanwhile, one of the guys was trying to figure out the tone of the scene. “Do we want to laugh at that point?” he asked, “Is that what we want?” The Fool replied with a chuckle, “I think it’s all funny.” Lear was having none of that: “Not the Fool,” he said, “No. He’s telling the truth.” The man who had brought it up took a step back and commented on how we could use humor to help tell the story: “This is the way with comedy. You take it so far, then you pull it back. You take it so far, you pull it back.”

The second time through that section, the Fool started using his hat as a prop, handing it to Lear and Kent, then taking it away. When they paused again before Goneril’s entrance, our Kent immediately praised the performance. “I liked the acting of the physicality better [this time].” He said it worked “even with you stopping and reading the [cue] cards.” Our Edgar, watching from the audience, spoke for everyone when he said, “Even from last week to now: huge improvement.”

Once Goneril entered, though, things began to get a little muddled. This ensemble’s love of analysis and debate, which was so much fun when we were reading the play, has continued to dog our rehearsal process. The issue was sharpened by the acoustics of the classroom we were in, which transformed any person’s voice into a booming echo. In the rooms we normally use, it’s a little harder to hear side conversations or people talking over each other. Not so here. We spent a few minutes circling back several times to Goneril’s body language, with several people offering suggestions. At some point, Frannie had to cut it off. “This is one of those times when we’ll need to just save whatever else we wanted to say for later.” That did the trick, but it’s still going to be an issue for us in the future. This group’s enthusiasm just needs a little bit of direction!

The second time through, we were able to finally run the scene up to its end. It was rough, but we got through it, and there was a lot to work with. Our Lear wondered about when the king’s rage starts to show. “Is the anger starting at ‘Darkness and devils’?” he asked. “It’s not what you say,” replied Frannie, “it’s what you hear.” She explained that we too often think about acting as being based on our own lines when, in fact, our characters are most often responding to someone else’s words or actions.

Naturally, since it comes up in the language of the scene, Lear’s madness became a question. “Is he just under the influence,” said one of the men, referring to our idea that Lear had perhaps been drinking with his knights before entering the scene, “or is he starting to slide off into his mental illness?” Our Lear had a ready answer: “I don’t think he’s come to that point yet.” The Fool explained Lear’s towering rage differently, “He thought they were all joking, and he thought [Goneril] was joking. But she’s not. That’s what it is.” Immediately, our Edgar chimed in to wonder, “Is he actually mad at a person, or is he mad because he has to get out of his old King Lear mentality?” Our Cornwall answered, “He wants to drink with the boys and enjoy his self, and then she wants him to stop. And he’s thinking, ‘Man, I raised you to respect me!”

As is so often the case, the third time was the charm. We ran the scene from Goneril’s entrance, and everything began to fall into place. Lear was having fun playing off the knights before growing into a venomous rage at Goneril near the end. “I feel like y’all really understand what y’all are saying!” said a new member right after we finished. Another noted how Goneril and Albany moved each other, countering and working as a unit.

At last, we started from the top and ran the whole thing together. It was great. Kent snuck offstage so surreptitiously that almost no one noticed. Albany and Goneril played off each other, although she finally moved him aside when he was in the way, which was perfect! Lear’s “Darkness and devils” gave me chills… but afterwards, Lear mused aloud that “I feel like if [our Goneril] was a woman, it would be a whole lot harder to say those things.”

Season Two: Week 24

This holiday season, give the gift of hope.

Click here to donate to SIP

Tuesday / December 4
Written by Matt

Today Gloucester revealed that he had written a “Dear John” letter to his previous interpretation of the character. He tried to get out of reading it. Frannie, however, was having none of that; she dragged a chair to the center of the ring and pointed to it. The letter was absurd--absurdist, really. “I need to break up with my old vision of you,” he said. “You will not [anymore] look like Monty Python… Even your daddy gave me the authority to control you.” It was funny, but by the second page (yes, there were more than two pages), the absurdity had become a piece of comic genius. Having dispensed with “Old Gloucester,” he welcomed the new character, named “Big Money G-Lo” into his life.

Everyone thought that this was about the funniest thing we had ever heard, and it led us right into the next scene, in which Gloucester shows up after Edmund’s monologue in Act I, scene ii. The run-through was solid, if a little rough, but the guys were already beginning to implement some of what they practiced on Friday. During our debrief, one of the guys brought up the characters’ ages, and we stopped to discuss it. The relative ages of Edgar and Edmund are set by the text (“I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines lag of a brother” says Edmund), but not their actual ages, Gloucester’s age, or the difference between the brothers’ ages and their father’s.

As we discussed it, Frannie asked our Gloucester if he might be judging his character. He looked a little startled as he thought. “Yeah…” he said. “I guess I am.” Frannie talked a bit about the importance of not judging your characters--something we all need to be reminded of sometimes. When she was finished, one of the older members of the group jumped in to talk about the age discussion, which had put Gloucester tentatively in his sixties. “All you cats playing older characters, I can really help you!” He went on to describe his own experience of ageing. “When I turned 60, a lot of things changed in me that became a part of my persona,” he said, but then he added that the number of years is both important and also a poor unit of measurement for what going through life feels like. “The process is not about the numbers,” he said. “The process is about ageing.” He turned to our Lear and said, “There will be some times when Lear is capable, but no one thinks he’s capable.”

On a second run through the scene, both the actions onstage and the relationships were clearer. Afterwards, Gloucester said, “it felt more natural.” He said that the age discussion had helped, as had Frannie’s comment about judgment. “After the epiphany of [his] age--and to slow it down--you can actually marinate in the words.” Then, turning to the man who had spoken with such candor about his own experience of ageing, our Gloucester assured him that speaking slowly is not an “old people thing.”

“What center did you have, Gloucester?” asked out Lear, calling back to Friday’s work. Gloucester thought for a moment, then answered, “When I came in, it was a thick veil. But that veil got lighter as I was thinking. Lighter, and more vulnerable. And when I saw Edmund, I thought he saw my veil, and I needed to get myself together; nothing to see here!” He described how he had chosen an unconscious tic for Gloucester (pulling up and fixing the collar of his coat) that embodies his discomfort with being seen.

“Don’t explain it to me!” cut in another member. “I thought you were really believable! You really looked like you were cold.” Then he turned to Edmund and said that he had been less believable. Frannie instantly asked whether our Edmund had been thinking. He said he had been, and tried to walk through his actions again. The crux of the issue is how Edmund should act with his prop--a letter that he has forged, which he wants his father to read but needs to pretend the opposite. As guys got up to try to offer suggestions, they started debating the notes they were giving, building up a head of steam on this one point: When should he turn around? How much should he smile or frown? It is a slow turn, or more of a spin? How much should he act like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar? Meanwhile, our Edmund stood in the playing space, looking a little lost.

Eventually, Frannie had to step in to bring the litigation to a close, saying that she heard a lot of versions of the same note. “We had a good idea 10 minutes ago, and now we’re beating it to death.” On the one hand, we hate to do this, but on the other, it is sometimes necessary with this ensemble. This group of guys is so intellectual, so full of ideas, and so comfortable batting ideas around that they get carried away with the conversation, rather than thinking about it in terms of what the actor on stage needs. They also do what a lot of people do: describe how they would do a certain scene, rather than offering suggestions that open a path forward for the actor. Still, we don’t like driving the conversation. We’re still figuring out the balance here, which is part of the challenge of facilitating SIP.

The debate didn’t hurt the performance, though. The final time through, both Edmund and Gloucester hit so many high points! Gloucester was painfully self-conscious on being discovered in his thoughts, without being remotely funny. His energy gave Edmund permission to be cutting and cruel in his explanation of the fake letter’s fake context, gathering his voice into a weapon when he talked about overhearing Edgar discussing “father’s decline.” Gloucester grew to a towering rage, and his voice as he spoke the words, “Edmund, seek him out!” was altered: deeper, barbed with fury, and commanding.

Afterwards, there was a jubilant reaction to the performance. Asked what happened, our Gloucester again put it in terms of the Michael Chekhov exercises we did on Friday. “I usually talk from my will center,” he said, “so I got that in my old life. But I was thinking about how Gloucester would drop into his will center.” One of the guys in the audience said the connection between Gloucester and Edmund was perfect. “Yeah,” said Gloucester, “I was really feeling it. Like, yeah! Let’s go get this guy!” Then he turned to us and said, “I have a confession to make. I wanted to go down on my knees with him” during the scene, when Edmund kneeled. The group erupted briefly in support (“Oh my God!” “Yeah!” “Come on!” etc.), and Gloucester said he was really bummed he hadn’t followed that instinct.

There was plenty of love for Edmund, too. “I was right there with y’all!” exclaimed a usually quiet member. A number of people commented on the layers of Edmund’s character as embodied by our ensemble member--how there’s so much pretense, so much acting. He piped up to say, “That’s it! I’m an actor playing an actor that’s acting!”

As we hurried to put the ring up in the final moments of the session, our Edmund added, “You know how we were reading through this [play], and we were all, like, ‘Oh, this is so sad; this is so depressing.’ There’s comedy there.” He ran through blatantly “hiding” his forged letter again. “That’s comedy.”

Friday / December 7
Written by Frannie

Well, I called it.

Our Gloucester kicked off check-in with a follow-up to Tuesday’s meeting. “I have a confession to make,” he said. “Frannie, you were right. I was absolutely projecting myself onto Gloucester.” He paused. “That’s one of my greatest weaknesses, that I can be judgmental sometimes.” He took out his notebook, grinning. “So I wrote him another letter.” This letter was in the same style as the first, apologizing for being “harsh” and judging Gloucester. “This is my way of making up for what I did… The truth hit me right in the eye. Sorry. Too soon.” He said he had been thinking of himself playing Gloucester, not of the character himself. He offered to pick him up, let him play his favorite music in the car, and buy him any kind of coffee he wanted—even if it was “just java chip.”

“See, I have to understand that I’m catering to you,” part of the letter read. “This is your story, even though we share experiences. You are your best you. Your best self is you, and if I would like to tell your story to the fullest potential, I have to humble myself and let Gloucester speak for yourself. I am at your service and I in the past foamed you up, I foamed it up big time…”

He finished reading his letter, and there was a brief silence as Matt and Coffey looked slyly at me. I had been barely containing myself this entire time—now I threw my notes on the ground (as usual) and yelled, “I CALLED IT!”

As our Gloucester (and everyone else) cracked up, one of the guys exclaimed, “How did you DO that? Do you, like, have some kind of magical power or something?” Another man said, “Nah, man, she’s just been doing this a long time!” Our Gloucester, still laughing, said, “Oh my GOD, I can’t believe you did that.”

We returned to our Gloucester’s epiphany. “Being judgmental really is my greatest weakness,” he said again. “And, you know, sometimes I overcompensate by really focusing on my strengths…” He shivered a little and looked at me, then back at the group. “I feel so vulnerable right now, but it’s so cool, though. I usually in the past wouldn’t talk about my weaknesses like that, but I feel good!”

“Can I check in?” asked one of our newest members. “I just wanna say, I had a good time Tuesday… I have a really hard time being open about myself, but the way everyone was comfortable laying it all out there—I really liked that… I do have such a hard time opening up, but I feel… I feel like I could probably slowly get there.”

“Shakespeare shows you how to like different people,” said one man in response. And another said, “That’s why I come here: the stuff that’s not Shakespeare. I only kinda like Shakespeare… But it’s the dynamic here… There are a lot of people here I wouldn’t hang out with… I don’t have this out there. What I have in here, I don’t have out there.” The new member nodded and said, “I wouldn’t have hung out with half of the people here if it wasn’t for this.”

Then we got on with the plan: watching the first episode of Playing Shakespeare. This series of filmed master classes from the Royal Shakespeare Company, filmed in 1984, is an incredible resource and a lot of fun to watch. The first episode is quite talky, and I had been concerned that it would be too academic to be very engaging, but the second people started laughing at the Christopher Marlowe monologue, I knew we were good.

Afterward, I asked the group what they thought. “I liked it,” said one of the guys. “I noticed that trying to have a normal conversation [with Shakespeare’s text] doesn’t work, and this kinda breaks it down for you. It never works when you try to do it the way someone talks now.”

“That’s the key, right? To let the words do the work?” said another man. “Shakespeare wrote it that way for a reason… I wanna add juice to it, but it’s not necessary… When you really just allow the speech to happen, the words will lead you where you need to go.”

“I took about 4-5 pages of notes,” said another man. “What stuck out to me was the marriage between naturalism and heightened language… You being to see that the emotions jump off the page… Man. I need to stop fighting with Shakespeare.”

“I feel like John Barton would have done better if he didn’t have actors who was so trained in their craft,” said one man with a smile. As we laughed, he said, “No, I’m serious... There’s no one way to see Shakespeare. We can sit around here and argue, but it comes down to the words… It’s not so different now. We live a little longer, we’ve got more ways to kill each other. But it’s the same.”

Another man agreed. “We’re approaching it from a whole different forum… A bunch of guys that’s trying to put something together—a bunch of people investing in their abilities to interact with other people… We’re not just doing a play… Our approach is unique.” Another man agreed, “Whatever they’re drawing from, we can’t draw from that… We’ve got to draw from our own things.”

“You’re right,” I said, “Our approach is unique, and in a lot of ways, I think it’s better.” Some of the guys nodded, while others looked at me doubtfully. “Really. I’ve gotta tell ya, when I describe this process and the discoveries you guys make about the plays, all the professionals I know get really intrigued and excited. And jealous.”

We picked our staging back up with the first scene between Edgar and Edmund, which is also the end of Act I, scene ii. Our Edgar was off book, though he refused any accolades for that, as his lines in the scene are very brief. Our Edmund was still working with centers, but, without a warm up, definitely struggled. “I got little cues for how I was feeling, but I couldn’t hit it,” he said. “I couldn’t hit my desperation… I don’t have anybody to rehearse with, so I try to imagine the other characters’ reactions, so I can use that.” Our Edgar responded, “I use the intent. The intent of the scene.”

Even so, there was some good stuff there, and when we asked them both to increase the urgency and see what happened, the scene really started to pick up. We left it in a good place and resolved to really kick out the jams on scene work when we meet again on Tuesday. The exercises and videos are great, but we do actually need to stage this play!

Season Two: Week 23

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give the gift of hope.

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Tuesday / November 27
Written by Matt

Our session today was spent working through Act I, scene i. It’s a monster of a scene--definitely the most complicated in the play in terms of the sheer number of people moving about (or standing!) onstage, and the one that bears the greatest weight of storytelling. Every major character except for the Fool and Edgar appears in the scene, and all of the important relationships in the play are established. Unlike most of the tragedies, there is almost no “runway” leading up to the main event. Gloucester and Kent speak briefly, then Lear enters and divides his kingdom--no indirection, no misdirection, no long interactions between minor characters to give political and philosophical context (I’m looking at you, Hamlet!), just thirty seconds of dialogue and then the beginning of the play’s chaos. It’s a lot to manage, and it was a tough way to start out.

The first instinct of this ensemble has always been to sweat all the details. Too much. We had barely started when half a dozen of the guys were trying to work out the specifics of staging and body language, while others litigated the exact placement of chairs and tables. As exciting as it is that they care so deeply and have such attention to the little things, it stalled the process quickly. Frannie, helped by our Lear and a few of the guys who are more comfortable thinking about the big picture, eventually righted the conversation by talking about how we want the relationship between Lear and his daughters to look.

“It felt right when I was standing behind [France and Burgundy],” said our Cordelia, “but I knew I couldn’t be seen.” A couple of the other guys suggested that the picture might look best if Lear was offering his daughter to France and Burgundy standing beside her, as if selling her like a product. But our Lear said that he wanted to have a lot of empty space between Cordelia and him on the line “There she stands,” and we all trusted his instinct.

We reset to near the top of the play, and our Cordelia was playing around with the arrangement of the sisters, moving himself closer to Lear and away from the audience. There were moments that really worked (Lear’s “Out of my sight” to Kent was devastating), but as we ran it, the movement became muddled, and some of the guys grew restless, especially those who need to sit or stand quietly for long periods of time. We limped to the end, and it helped that Goneril and Regan were brilliant in the scene’s final moments: snakelike, speaking in sibilant voices that were creepy without being humorous.

As we began reflecting on that last run-through, Frannie again urged the guys not to indulge in problem-solving, to keep their comments to observations (what worked, what didn’t) and instincts (I wanted to go here, I wanted to move away from him). Our Cordelia really liked the new arrangement of the sisters, except for the fact that his asides needed to be delivered from center stage and felt a little false and confusing because of that. Another member asked whether we could simply freeze during the asides to make it visually clear that they are spoken to the audience. Frannie said we could try it, but noted that every single aside in the play would need to be delivered in that way, and we would need to get really good at freezing consistently if we wanted to pull that off.

While a few people mulled over how to clarify the asides, Lear said that he kept wanting to move during the scene, but felt “stuck.” Our Kent leapt up instantly. “But you know the strength of Lear’s character. Anything you do, we all have to react to you.” He demonstrated, asking others onstage to react to his movements as if he were Lear. “You can just move up to someone,” he continued. “Just like in real life. Whatever they tell you you can’t do, you can do.” Our Lear, watching this, was a little skeptical. “I feel like he’s not actually that powerful,” he said. A few guys jumped in to argue that point, but we pivoted to a new member, who had had his hand up.

“I feel like we need more choreographed movement,” he said. This led instantly to a debate about the value of predefined movement as opposed to moving totally based on instinct. Again, Frannie had to intercede here to say that theatrical “blocking” actually strikes a middle ground between dance choreography, in which every motion is determined, and improv, in which no movement is figured out beforehand. “I think you’ll find that having some guidelines will free your instincts up,” she said. And in general, she added, you move only when you “need” to.

She and Maria demonstrated with a short section of text, moving only on the words that impelled movement. This seemed to clarify the concept for a bunch of the guys. “When you were trying to get each other to see each other’s points, you moved closer,” observed our Cordelia. “As you moved away... you got more aggressive,” added our Regan.

Before we reset to try again, our Edgar, who had been working out a different concept for the staging of the scene, explained his idea. He positioned people as they would be for France and Burgundy’s entrance, when the stage is at its busiest, and walked each group of ensemble members through his ideas for how their characters move. Essentially, his concept was a refinement of the “V” shape we had often found ourselves in during early scene work, but with the characters’ positions better thought out, and Lear more visually in command.

The “V” shape (with Lear at the upstage tip) gave one of our members a chance to demonstrate how the king could visually command attention within the playing space. He walked from person to person, calling them into the center of the stage and sending them away or forcing them with his gestures to move from one side to the other. “You’re the king,” he said. “Just be the king. You want them to move, you don’t have to move; you move them with a gesture.” Another guy added, “You get to move down on the same level as everybody--if you want to.” The first man agreed vigorously, and added that Lear can take as much time speaking as he cares to. “Remember that the words are yours to use. You can stop and start and think about it…. You’re the center of the world.”

At this point, we had been talking for 45 minutes without actually trying any of it out, and people were starting to feel overwhelmed. “This is really complicated,” said our Lear, standing center stage and looking a little lost. We began to set up, and our Edgar fussed with the placement of the characters. After a moment, Frannie reminded everyone that we are not in our actual playing space, and we will work out the details later. “Give room for instincts!” she reminded us, and we were off on round 3!

Or… almost. The guys broke off to center themselves and get into character (Lear walked across the stage and Kent shouted, “My Lord! What are you doing?!”). Sips of water, last minute adjustments of entrances, and then, at last, we began at the beginning.

Lear was totally in command. Regan and Goneril used imaginary fans to hide their faces and express themselves brilliantly. And, with the new setup, Cordelia’s asides were crystal-clear. We paused for a moment as France and Burgundy were to enter. Everything was going well, we agreed, except that Lear kept inching back upstage and away from people as he talked to them instead of standing his ground. “Dude,” said Frannie, “this is all on you! I’ll call you out!”

As we began to run the final parts of the scene, Lear kept backing up again. Frannie stopped him to bring him back. “Do I stand here between them, then?” he asked, incredulous. “Are you going to cede ground to [Cordelia]?” Frannie shot back. After a moment of thinking about it, Lear admitted, “No.”

Then, as Lear uttered his final curse on his youngest daughter, he stepped up to her, inches from our Cordelia’s face. “Better thou hadst never been born than not to have pleased me better,” he said contemptuously. A few audible reactions from the audience, including a “whoop!” paused the scene. It was so cold. “Spit in his face!” said Frannie. “What?!” Our Lear was totally wrongfooted by that. “I mean, don’t actually spit in his face, but you’re basically spitting in his face.” Under his breath, our Kent muttered, “Now I know why people are all into Shakespeare. Spit in his face!”

There was so much energy in the scene by now that the guys were finding natural movements all over the place. As we finally wound the scene down, we had a few moments for a final reflection. “That worked really, really, really well,” said our Regan. “Thanks, [our Edgar]!” exclaimed our France, and we all applauded the man who had worked out our staging.

Our Lear still felt a little swamped by the overload of feedback he had received between the second and third runs. “Too much stimuli,” he said. “I was thinking too much of everything all the time.”

We agreed to move on next time, but it felt good to end on such a solid run of this tough scene.

Friday / November 30
Written by Frannie

The guys wasted no time getting down to business today! Our Edmund has been making himself index cards that have only his lines and their cues, and he’s realized that nearly all of his cues are questions. He’s not sure yet what this means about his character, but he’s even more excited than he was before, and it’s tough to believe that that was even possible!

Lear asked if he could check in about the play. “I didn’t feel comfortable with the way y’all were portraying Lear as so strong,” he said, referring to Tuesday’s rehearsal of Act I, scene i. “I went back and read it seven or eight times, and—it’s just not there... It’s not like he’s no Caesar… Macbeth was at the top of his power. Lear is not. It ain’t like he’s at the top of his power anymore… He divides his kingdom. What kind of king divides his kingdom?... For me, I keep reading it, and it’s not about Lear’s power.”

The man who’d been the most outspoken about Lear’s “power” tried to clarify what he’d meant; that even without actual power, Lear has majesty. “He’s got a lot of idiosyncrasies that make him weak in effect, but he’s powerful in principle… I’m not telling you he’s making good decisions. Power is power. You get to say how that power shows.”

These two guys really like each other but sometimes have a tough time communicating (even when they agree), and I broke in to say that they were both right. “That’s his struggle through the whole play,” I said, “‘How do I navigate this new situation?’” I reassured our Lear that this is one of the most challenging roles in any play, and that it would behoove us to break down the scene, beat by beat, to find the detail he needs. I thanked him, too, for bringing all of this up. Sometimes folks can feel pressured by the ensemble (and facilitators!) to interpret a role one way, when they truly see it another. If we don’t notice, and they don’t say anything, resentment can build that detracts from the process in a big way. I asked everyone (please!) to follow this example and let us know if we’re being jerks!

Our Lear really, really wanted us to understand where he was coming from. He continued to explain: “Right off the bat, Lear shows irrationality because he’s trying to look out for his baby girl. Why else divide up the kingdom? He wants the best for his baby girl—that’s why he’s got France and Burgundy in there—and when she rejects him, it hurts. He thinks he did all this for her, and now she don’t want it? That’s hard. When it all falls apart, he can’t handle it.”

Another man suggested that the “power” issue isn’t truly about power: it’s about empathy. He hearkened back to a particularly effective scene he’d performed with another of the guys: “The reason we did that scene so well was not because we planned anything, but because we had empathy for each other,” he said. “If you have the authority, that’s where the empathy comes in—how is everybody looking at that individual?... They’re waiting to see what you do to see how they should play off of that—to see how they should feel… Do what you feel, and then other people will read it according to whatever they’re looking to you for.”

Our Gloucester shared that he has been doing some very cool, self-directed character work, including imagining himself hanging out with the actual person he’s portraying. “I sat down with Gloucester yesterday—actually, he sat ME down,” he said. “And I realized that whenever I sit down and look at him, he’s in all medieval-style, like 14th century… and that limits me in the way I portray him…. I can’t see him that way. If I break him out of that little prison I put him in… I can express him a lot better. He’s the kind of guy who shops at Tom Ford—bougie!” We all laughed, and so did he. But then he continued, “That attitude is what got me here in the first place. I was prideful, overconfident at times… very, very, very stubborn. I realized that Gloucester really was the old self of me.” We took this in, some of us grinning, some shaking our heads. He beamed, looking at each of us in turn as he said, “He found me!... That’s my old self. That’s how I got here in the first place. He found me! And that’s an epiphany for me, and I know how to play this guy now… I feel like Gloucester without the eyes—but I have eyes now.”

The guys have asked for more exercises to help them get out of their heads and feel more natural when performing, so I came prepared with a whole bunch of Michael Chekhov stuff that I thought they’d enjoy! Ours is not an acting class, but a smattering of exercises and techniques can really enhance our process, and I’ve found that Michael Chekhov’s technique is hugely beneficial even when we move through it faster and modify it more than we would in a class on the outside. In fact, as soon as I mentioned that that’s what I had up my sleeve, one of the guys asked me a detailed question about radiating (part of the technique). Another man, listening to this, said, “Where are you getting this language?” The first man sheepishly responded, “Uh—I got the book.” For real. He’s reading To the Actor right now, concurrent with a book specifically about performing Shakespeare—the second this guy has read.

Anyway: Michael Chekhov. I won’t go into a ton of detail here (because this blog is long enough already!), but the core of this technique is to use one’s imagination to change one’s physicality, and for that physicality to inform the character’s psychology: thus, we call it “psychophysical.” It goes along with the idea of emotion/memory being stored in the body: I fell in love; I took a leap of faith; I pushed her to the breaking point, etc. So it’s creativity and movement, but no thinking! Perfect for overthinkers and folks who’ve been through a lot of trauma.

We’ve already done a few simple exercises that they like, and today I asked if I could lead them through imaginary centers. The idea here is that the quality of your movement changes depending on where you imagine your energy to be centered. If your entire body is one unit centered in your head, for example, you’ll move differently than if centered in your chest, or in your left hip, or your nose, or even somewhere outside of your physical body. (I know, it’s weird if you haven’t done it yourself, but bear with me!) We focused on the three main centers and their accompanying images:

THINKING: centered in the head / the image is a stick

WILLING: centered in the pelvis / the image is a ball

FEELING: centered in the chest / the image is a veil

I will again resist the temptation to go into lots of detail; I’ll add to the above description only that this was a very physical exercise and that, while we didn’t spend the length of time on it that would have been ideal, we didn’t rush. And the guys were impressively focused on their work: even when people who weren’t in the ensemble came in and out of the gym (some literally stopping to stare), they didn’t flinch or back off. A couple of ensemble members who did lose focus a bit did so for their own reasons, not because they were distracted, and they stayed within the exercise, absorbing what the others were doing.

Afterward, we sat together in a circle on the floor. At first, no one quite knew what to say; not surprising, as this is an exercise that can be surprisingly emotional for some people, and outright unnerving for others. I gently asked for any kind of reflection from anyone: what did you notice about your experience?

“I was more comfortable in my feeling center, and second my thought center,” said one guy. “I found when I was operating in my thought center, I had a totally human experience of thinking, ‘Dude, you’re rolling around on the ground.’” A few of the others said they’d thought the same thing. “But the feeling center felt better for you?” I asked him. “The veil thing was very emotional,” he replied. “I pictured my mind like a war-riddled flag: rugged and weary.”

Another man said that each center “represented a different way that I felt my movement… The biggest part was getting over the feeling of self-consciousness. Once I got over that feeling, I really enjoyed it. Each one had a different feel to it, and I just thought, ‘Okay, there’s something to this.’” (I’m gonna add here that I honestly didn’t know if this guy was even going to participate; the fact that he enjoyed it was thrilling.) Even a man who arrived late described what happened when he dove in: “I felt my inner peace go very solid. I didn’t feel like I was here. I felt like I was in a different place. I felt like I was someone else. I didn’t feel like me. I didn’t even feel like a human.”

“I was able to access the subconscious of my own personality,” said another man. He said that he’d curled up in a ball when in his feeling center, which reminded him of when he was very shy as a kid. “As I became more comfortable, I opened up,” he said, describing how he’d spread his veil. “I was more confident in the will area… in a way that was very surprising to me.” His “old self” wouldn’t have been.

“I had a really hard time with it,” said one of the guys, explaining that the images conflicted with his own perceptions of what the objects at those centers would be. He struggled to stay focused on himself, instead observing others without meaning to and trying to do something different. “So you were performing?” I asked. “Yeah, I guess I was. My only thought was, ‘Don’t mimic it,’” he said. “It’s tough, I know,” I reassured him. “It’s hard not to perform—just to be. You’ll get there.”

Another man said he’d kept his eyes closed the entire time—he’d neither needed nor wanted to open them. “I created energy fields around me,” he said, and he’d start moving once he felt that a field was fully formed. He became a very literal stick on a nature trail in his hometown, lying on the floor, and “someone jumped over me, and that was completion for me.” (The man who’d done the jumping grinned a little. I think I was the only one who noticed.) He said that he’d had something like an out-of-body experience as the ball, seeing not only himself, but all of his surroundings, as if from above. The feeling center gave him some trouble because he wasn’t sure exactly what I meant by “veil”; instead, he became “pure rhythm.” He added that, even with his eyes closed, and even though he’d moved around quite a bit, he never feared that he’d collide with anyone. “I could feel everybody,” he said, and then he paused. “That was very intense. I wasn’t a human being—I was just an entity. And your voice was the only thing that could maneuver me besides my mind.”

One of the men said he’d felt like the big stick in Walk Tall, and that put him “in the zone… Everything was just clicking! My focus was just—tunnel, and it stayed like that the whole time.” In his willing center, he said, “I was a dodgeball, and my will was just pushing everything out of the way.”

Another man said he’d thought he’d be really good at this, but instead the technique made him sleepy. When that happened, he kept his focus with the ensemble but drifted to the side of the room so he wouldn’t distract anyone. He acknowledged that part of the issue was that he couldn’t get over the objects’ being inanimate in reality: “It seems like none of those things could move because they’re not alive.” Still, he didn’t think ill of the exercise. “My normal thing would be, ‘You guys are all crazy.’ But so many of you guys had an experience… I’m a bit jealous. I wish I could’ve done something like that.” I quickly said, “You couldn’t today. That doesn’t mean you can’t.”

“You wanna know something crazy?” said one man. “When you introduced things, my energy was already moving in that way.” Another man agreed, saying, “It was so freeing.” He hadn’t wanted to stop. “Even now, I’ve got the Chekhov glow still going.”

One of the guys said he could see the value of the exercise for our play and performances, but another asked, “How are there different sorts of wills?” I love this question for many reasons, though I’ll admit that one is that the simplest way for me to answer is to demonstrate! I chose the line, “Now then, legitimate Edgar, I must have your land,” and asked the group to throw out a type of ball, let me incorporate it into my performance, then give me another type, and so on. They gave me a ping pong ball, a dodgeball, an egg, a football, and a bowling ball. With each image, my approach changed, and I saw a lot of faces lighting up as the final pieces fell into place. “All right,” said the man who’d asked the question, grinning, “I’ve got it now!”

“Good!” I said, “Because I think we’ve arrived at Edmund’s first soliloquy, yes?” The others confirmed that that’s where we’d left off. “That’s what I thought,” I said in mock-villain fashion, as our Edmund smiled, exhaled, put his hands on his head, and looked up at the ceiling (or the heavens?). “You’re up,” I said.

The rest of us headed to the bleachers, as he took his time recentering himself. He gave a strong reading, though I think we could all feel he was holding back. Afterward, he shared, “I liked the images, especially the switch from the feeling center, going from anger to retaliation...” He went on to describe how he’d mapped out the progression in his head. One man said he’d thought “the flow was pretty smooth,” but another said, “The first time you did this, you made me want to be on Edmund’s side. You made me feel guilty for disliking him. But that didn’t happen this time.” Edmund nodded and said, “I guess I’m overthinking it.” The other man pushed back, “How’d you do it before?” Edmund replied, a little uncomfortably, that he’d been able to “go there” emotionally by “thinking about something else.”

“But the whole point is, you don’t need to think at all,” I said. “The emotion is stored in the body. You don’t need to relive the experience to remember what the physical sensation of the emotion was. Don’t go back there,” I cautioned him, “but do you remember what those emotions felt like, physically?” Without hesitating, he brought a fist to his chest and said, “It’s all here.”

“Okay,” I said, jumping down from the bleachers to stand with him. “Is that where Edmund is centered, do you think?” He nodded. “I’m with you,” I said. “He’s so hurt—all of this is so very rooted in emotion for him. But the feeling center is a veil, and a veil is moved by outside forces. He’s the outside force in this play, though, so…” “It’s gotta be in his will center,” the man said. “Well, it could be a battle between the two,” I said. “Try this: enter centered fully in your will, and allow yourself to drift up into your feeling center at any time—but push it back down as soon as you can. Don’t let those feelings get in your way. Don’t think about it—don’t plan it—just roll with the language and let it happen. You’ve got this.”

And, holy moly, he had it. He strode in, arm swinging by his side, almost challenging us even as he made us his allies. He gave himself fully over to the that energetic struggle, powered by the language, so much so that we heard things in it—and saw things in him—that we hadn’t before. He actually spat on, “Fine word, legitimate,” which got a vocal reaction from several of us. And that “stand up for bastards!” Oof.

He held for a moment after the lines had finished, and then we broke out in jubilant shouting and applause. His energy propelled him in a run around the gym as people yelled, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” and “That’s what I’m talking about!” and “When you spit the word out—oh, Jesus!” Reaching the back of the gym, Edmund doubled over, hands on his knees, and shouted, “WHOOOOOO!!!”

When he finally came back to us, glowing, we asked him our usual question: HOW DID THAT FEEL?! “I was a pendulum!” he said, saying that he’d really felt that inner fight between emotion and will—but the ball had been in control. One man said that his increased confidence showed in his body language. Another asked, “Were you you, or were you in character?” The actor didn’t quite understand the question, so the man rephrased: “Were you Edmund, or were you—”

“I was Edmund. I was Edmund,” he said. “The feelings were my feelings, but they were coming through the character.” He’d used his real-life experience only as a crutch to “tap into something” prior to his entrance, which is exactly what you’re supposed to do if you’re drawing on something like that.

As we circled up to lift the ring, our Edmund stood beside me, shaking his head, still beaming. “You killed me today, Frannie. You totally killed me.” I smiled and said, “Good. That’s a good thing, right?” He nodded. “That’s a very good thing.”

Season Two: Week 22

Tuesday / November 20
Written by Matt

We started off on a high point today, as one man, his breath still a little short, said that 20 minutes earlier, he had been in “a situation.” Despite the circumstances, he said, he “didn’t respond the way I was used to,” and added that he was applying what he learned in our ensemble to defuse the situation. In the end, he said, he had sat down with the other man involved and had a conversation that dissipated much of the tension. We always love to hear this; conflict resolution isn’t something we “teach” in SIP—we don’t really “teach” anything in particular—but we hear often that improved conflict-resolution skills are an added benefit of spending time in our ensemble.

Then our Gloucester talked about seeing a blind dog on TV that was somehow walking around normally, avoiding walls and everything. “And I thought,” he said, “How can I apply this to my character?” Everyone laughed, and there was a quick discussion over whether the dog was using was echolocation or something else, but it was awesome to see him so connected to his character. He’s doing amazing work. Still during check-in, another man brought up a number of Shakespeare references he’s already beginning to see and understand on television, including a Twilight Zone episode (not one of Rod Serling’s finest, he added) and dozens of Jeopardy questions.

Another member, who has been doing deep dives into history since long before he joined our ensemble, talked about a Western Culture class he was taking. The class was breezing through the Romantic period, and this man was completely taken with Hector Berlioz, the composer of Symphonie Fantastique. “He was obsessed with Shakespeare,” he said. As he was writing his paper on Berlioz, he said, “I realized—I’m a Romantic!”

When we did the ring today, a new member asked what the exercise represents. One of the guys gave a quick explanation, and another followed up: “It’s being in-tune. Like that game last time, with the bombs and the shields, and we ended up in a line because we were all in-tune.”

In-tune or not, we delved back into our discussion about our interpretation of the play’s themes. Since Friday, a number of the men had written out their thoughts. Our Lear had been writing down his thoughts about the relationships between parent and child, which he had brought up near the end of Friday’s session—how many of the characters are brought down by their own children, and how many are uplifted by them. But then he added that the play was also about the rawness of emotion. “Even the people who are cool and calculated,” he said, “are fraught with strong emotions.” He went on a moment later, “Nobody escapes their emotions. France don’t escape his. Lear don’t escape his,” and he continued listing characters: Regan, Cordelia, all of them.

Our Edgar took a slightly different tack. “People spend so much time trying to think about what ‘it’ is,” he said, referring to whatever each character fixates on, “that they can’t see what ‘it’ really is.” In that sense, he said, the play is about “when people are put in a situation in which they have to be who they are, not who they say they are.”

“That happened to me,” another member jumped in. “What you just said happened to me. I thought I was the toughest guy in the world,” he said, and described having that illusion stripped from him.

One of the guys tried to bring us back to the task at hand: coming up with a sentence or phrase that can drive our production. “Blind emotion reflects the true nature of man, in their dualities,” he offered. He explained, “The characters get revealed by their emotions, not their thoughts.” Our Goneril pushed back, saying that he finds Goneril and Regan to be calculating, not emotional. “But that’s an emotion!” said the first man, “That’s greed!”

Our Lear gently offered his perspective to our Goneril. “There’s no Shakespeare plays that have this intensity, every scene,” he said. He said, for example, that, for all of Regan’s scheming, she’s ultimately a prisoner of her emotions as deeply as any other character in the play. Gouging out Gloucester’s eyes, for instance: “That’s not no calculating move. That’s raw emotion. That’s disdain, hatred, anger.” Then he expanded his description and returned to his first comment about emotion driving the play. He said he had found an emotional hot-spot for each character—even the Fool. “If you listen to him, you feel the emotion from the Fool,” he said, “when he’s sitting down with Lear and they’re waiting for the horses.”

The man playing Kent took another angle on the play. He said that he had been thinking about the core of the play, and had come up with pride. “The pride of position,” he said, “It’s that pride that blinds them. The power of pride leads them astray.”

Our Fool added that, if pride is the key, then “Edgar swallowed his pride.” Kent countered, “Even Edgar! He ‘swallowed his pride,’ but… he has a plan, too. And that plan comes from pride of position.”

One unusually quiet member read out the last lines of the play and offered them up as a good theme. Our Albany reflected on those final lines. “Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say,” he read, then added that the first time he read them, “I was like, damn. I took that as instruction.”

Our Lear had been ruminating about the theme of pride, and he liked it. “Pride intensifies everything else,” he offered. Our Edmund reflected on his character’s pride: “He’s baseborn; he’s still not one of them. That irks his pride. It intensifies his jealousy and his enmity.” Lear nodded in agreement, linking pride to his theme of raw emotion. “Police officers hate rolling up on domestic calls—they’re walking in on raw emotion,” he said. “Add pride to that equation, and it’s some powerful stuff!”

I suggested that, for us to come up with a good statement of our theme, we might focus on a strong verb. What does pride do? “Pride masks,” offered our Edgar. “Does pride blind?” asked Frannie (referring to the group’s repetition of themes like “truly seeing”), then started digging through the text. As we continued talking, she dug up some of Lear’s lines to Gloucester from Act IV, scene vi. “A man may see how this world goes with no eyes,” she suggested. A bunch of the men pushed back on the elimination of pride from the equation, so we worked it back in, appending “but pride blinds us” to the end and saying that we’d refine it later.

In the final minutes of the session, we decided to stage the first scene of the play—which is perhaps the most complicated, at least in terms of the number of people on stage and the many important dynamics that need to be established. Our Regan took the lead in directing people where to stand or sit, placing Lear on the far right, and the members of court upstage in a line. He explained that, when called upon or speaking openly, a character would step forward from the line. It was historically accurate, he said, and it helped the audience follow the flow of the scene. “This is a rough draft of what it’s gonna be,” he said, and we began.

This section written by Frannie

After several minutes, it became clear that the actors were a little stymied. Lear seemed glued to his chair, unable to connect with the others. Edmund felt awkward staying on stage after Gloucester’s exit; it turned out that he “should” have left then, too, but that hadn’t been his instinct, so we decided to keep playing with where he could stand on stage that would make sense. Our Cordelia was also way too far from the audience during his asides. “Anyone see any solutions? I see at least one really simple one, but maybe someone has a better idea,” I said. There was silence for a moment, and then one of the men started suggesting ways of completely transforming the set. The others were hesitant. This early in the process, I tend to jump in pretty quickly to sort of “model” how this problem-solving can work, and I did so now, suggesting that, rather than reinventing the wheel, we simply shift the chairs so that we could work with diagonals, rather than lines that ran parallel to the audience. That solved most of the problems immediately and seemed to spark a new way of approaching the process for a bunch of people.

We kept working in fits and starts, pausing as we identified the challenges that arose, solving them more and more quickly. Soon, all but three chairs were gone and, rather than everyone sitting in a row, the husbands stood just upstage of their wives. Lear found all sorts of movement, helping to establish relationships and keeping him from getting stuck in his chair. At one point, one of the men and I whispered excitedly to each other that the new staging not only looked balanced (several levels and great use of space!), but the arrangement of the actors communicated their relationships with incredible clarity, even without their speaking.

The collaboration was invigorating after spending so much time discussing our concept—one of the guys even demanded that Maria give her opinion about some of the staging. The ensemble knows that, as a stage manager, she isn’t used to being asked for artistic input, and it seems that they’re now so confident as artists that they’re going to nudge her into participating just as actively. As we say when we lower the ring together, “Leave no one behind.” No one is being left behind in this ensemble. Not even Maria!