On Your Feet!

King Lear: Blocking Day 1

A mad dash to the rehearsal space today proved unnecessary as I found myself an hour and a half early. We were in the company's new space, donated so generously by one of our newest benefactors, Martin Gold of Blue Water Reality. Mark explained that Martin has been a patron of the theater for many years and offered an empty office space in one of his buildings, free of charge. It is gestures like this that make me remember what I love about the stage and it's community. The passion of all involved because they simply believe in the art form is both idealistic and unmistakable and I thank god for it. It is amazing what people can accomplish when they truly love what they are doing. I explained Mark's introduction speech to one of my friends in Hollywood and he agreed that there is just a huge lack of love of craft in this industry, and the world, for that matter.

I couldn't help but notice that directly adjacent to our rehearsal space is a day care and child support center. Ironic that we should be sharing space with these youngsters, as we are like children ourselves. Learning to walk and talk like our characters with the unselfconscious attitude that is found so readily in the youth. It has been said that children make the best actors and if this is true, we've got the perfect inspiration. Each day, our discoveries bring us closer to a sense of our characters and our interactions with each other.

Today we were also formally introduced to Freda Farrell, our Production Stage Manager. Most of the cast seemed to know her already, at least by reputation, and I found myself a bit out of the loop. She immediately handed us a contact sheet along with a mock up of our playbill and asked us to sign off on our head shot and biography. Are you kidding? She's there all of an hour and is already ahead of schedule. I'm thinking she is a good person to know and I will do my best to stay on her good side.

As we began blocking Act I, it became very apparent how different each actor's process was. Some of the players opted for ridged repetition and precise marks while others wanted to free form the blocking through exploration of the space. The prize for this had to go to Andrew Sellon, who is playing the Fool. It was amusing and energizing to watch him bob and weave his way through the space, trying out different interactions with other characters, varying his vocal tones with an enormous sense of play. It felt like every new option he presented to the ensemble was increasingly interesting which made it difficult to lock anything down. I guess this would be a good problem for a director to have. I couldn't help but think that this would be exactly how the Fool would do it, presenting a dilemma in observation that leaves one guessing at the right course of action. I very much admire Andrew's work.

Both Dan Schwartz and I started working on our relationship and tried to embody some of the mannerisms of under entertained and over indulged knights in a king's court, for Scene IV. I think we began to give ourselves options on how to bring a little comedy to a very loaded scene in the middle of Act I. I realized just how much work acting is when you don't have a lot of lines. It can be infinitely harder to develop a character without the help of the author. You are forced to rely on the interactions you have with the other characters to guide your way. In that sense, I feel I must be patient in my conclusions and continue to explore all the possibilities in the scene.