Lovely pictures Kent. Good job
Having such fun back at rehearsals after a long break for me. Last weeks Laban efforts were great. Dabbing, flicking, swishing, pressing. My poor kids had no idea what was going on as I skipped round the house practicing. It was the wringing that worried them the most!
Now getting stuck into the play and can't wait to slash,press and flick my way around the blinding of Gloucester scene!
see you all on Saturday. good luck with rehearsals. fab work darlings xxx
Ali ( Reagan)
Monday, 26 September 2011
A director's snapshot
With a week’s worth of staging rehearsals under our belts, I realize that after tonight’s session, we will have reached the interval. How is that possible? We’ve been zipping through the scenes at a gallop and I’ve been amazed at how well the cast has developed their own characters and reactions to each other. The weeks of ‘character development’, ‘text workshops, ‘movement workshops’ and general hard graft before looking at the play itself have definitely paid off – if any of the actors were dubious about their value (and I think there were some doubting Thomases….), I hope they see the benefit now!
My overall plan is to set the architecture and dramatic narrative of each scene as quickly as possible and then go back and work and re-work to pull out the detail….with only three weeks to go, it’s a big ask from everybody but all are rising to the challenge. The tension in the room yesterday when Goneril and Regan reduce Lear’s group of followers from 50 to 0 in a couple of lines was palpable…Lear’s reaction heartbreaking.
More of this please!!
Francesca
Director
Quickie from Kent
Fellow Rogues,
A word about the inherently funny [Collins, 2011] coxcomb
A word about the inherently funny [Collins, 2011] coxcomb
- the Fool's Coxcomb pops up 7 times in our text
- an alternative spelling of coxcomb is cockscomb
 |
| 1. a boy chicken |
- it refers to the cap worn by a jester which resembles a cock's comb (as in a boy-chicken's hair)
- we may run with a symbolic coxcomb for our Fool, perhaps a wavey-aroundy-thingy on a stick
 |
| 2. a Fool or Jester's coxcomb |
 |
| 3. a little bit creepy to be honest.... |
There we are then, Coxcomb - I just wanted to straighten that out for anyone else who didn't have a firm grip on ...... [that's enough now, Ed].
Kent
Saturday, 24 September 2011
Basement Bard
Dearest Rascals,
It's hard to imagine a less acoustically kind environment than the basement room at the Camden Centre, the venue for this morning's rehearsal. Its cavernous nature was however useful for disguising those lengthy pauses I inevitably lay out whilst gurningly searching my eyebrows for a forgotten line; these pausii dramatis (I don't really speak Latin) became craftily less obvious when filled with the metallic echoes of a number of previous lines bouncing around the cellar.
You know, I had been about to write that this was 'audiologically' challenging but I then doubted that 'audiologically' was a friend of the Queen's English - feel free to comment - this gave me a reason to pick up a dictionary 'pon which I noted the nearness of audio and audience.... '..group of listeners..' . It's an obvious root relationship between the words I'm sure but I don't personally tend to notice these points about language unless, by dint of being a part of a play, I have a reason to slow down and pay proper attention, sort of like a grown up. So there's a bit of additional access to the world of the wordsmiths going on for me as well as having a Shakespearean quote or two tucked down my trousers, along with me coxco..... forgive me.....
Give you good morrow
Kent
It's hard to imagine a less acoustically kind environment than the basement room at the Camden Centre, the venue for this morning's rehearsal. Its cavernous nature was however useful for disguising those lengthy pauses I inevitably lay out whilst gurningly searching my eyebrows for a forgotten line; these pausii dramatis (I don't really speak Latin) became craftily less obvious when filled with the metallic echoes of a number of previous lines bouncing around the cellar.
You know, I had been about to write that this was 'audiologically' challenging but I then doubted that 'audiologically' was a friend of the Queen's English - feel free to comment - this gave me a reason to pick up a dictionary 'pon which I noted the nearness of audio and audience.... '..group of listeners..' . It's an obvious root relationship between the words I'm sure but I don't personally tend to notice these points about language unless, by dint of being a part of a play, I have a reason to slow down and pay proper attention, sort of like a grown up. So there's a bit of additional access to the world of the wordsmiths going on for me as well as having a Shakespearean quote or two tucked down my trousers, along with me coxco..... forgive me.....
Give you good morrow
Kent
Friday, 23 September 2011
Further input from a Shakespeare novice
 |
BR Collins, glutton for punishment, plays Cordelia & the Fool. If you are wondering what the B and the R stand for I might venture to suggest it is Bawdy Rascal taking into account her suggestions as to the form and heft of a coxcomb (see 'inherently funny' comments passim)..... |
Hmm, well now, poor Kent's unsure whether he's being played for a fool here but more experienced fellows in our troupe are attempting to disabuse me of a long held belief.... they are insisting that Mark it Nuncle is not, in fact, a pleasing-on-the-eye Shropshire village but is rather, and I raise a sceptic's brow here, an exhortation issued by Lear's jester; most ably played in our production by BR Collins - (picture).
"Yes but what is the exhortation she is uttering to Lear?" I over-optimistically imagine you asking the screen - well, Mark it Nuncle lends itself, apparently, to the meaning - 'yo, uncle King, listen up man'. So 'Nuncle' I'm being informed, is a form of address equating to uncle but I'm choosing to presume it wasn't used strictly in the related-by-blood sense, more as a term of endearment. This chimes well with something Stephen Fry once told me, well I say told me but in fact I was just watching QI; lovely Stephen explained that a lot of words in English had once begun with an 'N' including Norange and Napple but these Ns were lost over time as articulating 'an norange' or 'an napple' was simply clunky and unsustainable. Cor love a duck you live and learn!
Could all be rubbish of course. Personally I'm still surfing Cottages4you.com in the background ever hopeful that my dream break in Mark It Nuncle will still prove a reality.
Fellows I love thee!
Kent
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
The work's really starting now; oh yes it doth
Dearest Nuncles -
We've been workshopping Shakespearean 'stuff' for a couple of months now, developing our understanding of our characters, last evening - 19th Sep - saw our first 'official' lines and movement rehearsal. For me this felt very much as though the phoney war is over and Jerry has unexpectedly marched into France! I don't know whether to be relieved or fearful that the waiting's over. The curtain's up on 18th October and the rehearsal schedule from this point on is reassuringly punishing so if anyone wishes to luxuriate in the artistic suffering of others now's your time to sit back and smile.
I've grasped from our directorial team that this production of Lear doth embrace the unexpected - unfortunately for me the lines are somewhat less easy to grasp (if I could 'do' one of those text-speak sad faces I would at this point). I'm sure it will all fall into place before too long. I'm sure it will all fall into place before too long. I'm sure it will all fall into place before too long. etc etc ad infinitum. Cry a bit.
So was he mad, bad or both? If Cordelia had simply played his game would this have been a happy tale of a progressive and equal opportunities minded king? As a Lear novice I've not yet come to a conclusion but he certainly seems a tricky chap to like on the face of his behaviour toward me - this comes from a man who is supposed to love this King; the Earl of Kent is a faithful servant of Lear, Lear's reaction to Kent's attempt at mediation in the opening scene is not calculated, by the King, to extend their good relationship, quite the opposite in fact. I really don't know what I see in him........
Kent
We've been workshopping Shakespearean 'stuff' for a couple of months now, developing our understanding of our characters, last evening - 19th Sep - saw our first 'official' lines and movement rehearsal. For me this felt very much as though the phoney war is over and Jerry has unexpectedly marched into France! I don't know whether to be relieved or fearful that the waiting's over. The curtain's up on 18th October and the rehearsal schedule from this point on is reassuringly punishing so if anyone wishes to luxuriate in the artistic suffering of others now's your time to sit back and smile.
I've grasped from our directorial team that this production of Lear doth embrace the unexpected - unfortunately for me the lines are somewhat less easy to grasp (if I could 'do' one of those text-speak sad faces I would at this point). I'm sure it will all fall into place before too long. I'm sure it will all fall into place before too long. I'm sure it will all fall into place before too long. etc etc ad infinitum. Cry a bit.
So was he mad, bad or both? If Cordelia had simply played his game would this have been a happy tale of a progressive and equal opportunities minded king? As a Lear novice I've not yet come to a conclusion but he certainly seems a tricky chap to like on the face of his behaviour toward me - this comes from a man who is supposed to love this King; the Earl of Kent is a faithful servant of Lear, Lear's reaction to Kent's attempt at mediation in the opening scene is not calculated, by the King, to extend their good relationship, quite the opposite in fact. I really don't know what I see in him........
Kent
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