We're Out The Gates!

The wild and uncut stage as we begin to block. Lear, Kent and The Knight
doing the business - dunno who the bloke in the hat is though!

We took the first, faltering steps along the road to August last night...and it was a huge amount of fun. Well, I thought it was; I've only had response from a couple of people, but that was pretty positive.
As someone said early on in the proceedings, 'It doesn't seem like a year since we were up here doing this; it's almost like we've never been away.'
Never was a truer word spoken! There's a particular atmosphere to an ITC rehearsal at the castle; it's full of laughter, yet everyone gets stuck-in and the work rattled along at a fair old pace. We didn't get all the first act blocked but it actually didn't matter that much. What did matter, to me at least, was that a group of friends, old and new, came together and started working on something magical. And it did, it felt magical.
We were blessed with a beautiful evening and the moon did it's favourite trick of appearing and casting its light across the water and on to the departing actors and techies.

Shaunagh Radcliffe as Goneril and Jon Miles as Lear (in the foreground),
being watched by Shahar Lashkor as The Knight, as the play progresses.

It's obviously early days yet and we've a shed load of work to do, but everyone came and did their bit, starting to get to grips with some of the most complex characters that Will ever put down on paper. And it seemed appropriate that we started the whole thing off on his birthday: not planned that way, but a serendipitous piece of timing.
The bonus for me was that, before the actual blocking started, a couple of the sound and light guys (thanks Dan and Ben) and our set-designer (and thank you Caoimhe) came along early and, after a conflab and a look about the setting, agreed that it would be possible to achieve everything that I'd scribbled down on various bits of paper and get the look that I wanted. Chalk another one up to having-a-go!

Cordelia's hiding behind that bloke in the hat - who is he?

Thanks to Janie for firing up her old camera - the one she usually uses went belly-up back along - and grabbing these shots of all and sundry. It's good have a pictorial record of what we get up to. There will be more and we'll put some of them up on the web-site too.
Finally, an appeal: if you know of anyone who might like to come and join our merry band, please, bring them along. We still have speaking roles and we still need a great number of actors to people the stage. It's not an easy job, and it's not just standing around looking pretty - or pretty bored! - these characters bring life and meaning to the play as much as any of the leads.
Come and have some fun. 

Ben Hamilton as Edmund, Ernie Wingeatt as Gloucester and him again.

Well I Think That's Everything...

The dreaded lurgy is, at last, receding and I can feel the energy seeping back into my brain which, until lately, had been replaced by a bank of cotton-wool. I have the inclination to write something and pass a few thoughts on about the upcoming blocking process. Yep, it's less than a week away now and as this blog's title infers, I'm at the stage where something will pop, unbidden, into my head and make me think 'Have I done that?' And go beetling off to check. Fact is, I've checked and re-checked so many things so many times that I forget what has been checked and what hasn't! There is little doubt, though, that there will be something that I've forgotten, although I have done my best to try and cover as many of the bases as possible!

Jenny and I will be heading off to Bath, in the not too distant future, to peruse their costumes and place our order for Lear and the Tech team will be assembling up at the castle, before the first blocking rehearsal, for the feasibility study (sounds grand but it's an exercise in me telling 'em what I want and them, having stopped laughing, explaining why it might be a tad ambitious!) and to get a feel for the lay-out. Lynne is gathering a tumult of talented people about her for the Bedlam Beggar ensemble and I, in the blur and blear of bare functionality, have been led to wondering about the people we are about to try and bring to life.

Who are they? I know we know who they are - Will gave 'em names and shaped them, to a degree, with his wonderful writing - but, really, who are they?
I've taken the 'advice', if you will, of another great of English literature, one Rudyard Kipling, and applied it to my search:

'I keep six honest serving men (they taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.'

I think that, by applying these questions to the characters we will, eventually, answer that final question of 'Who' they are. What happened to them, Why did did it happen, When and How did this happen and, possibly less importantly, Where? It's a bit like an equation, so we eventually get something along the lines of (WxW)2+Wh/H-Whr = WHO.
And every character will have his or her own specific equation to wheedle out who they actually are.
Why do Regan and Goneril apparently hate their father with such virulence? What caused that hatred to blossom? When did this occur/How did this occur? Why isn't Cordelia as eaten-up by this hatred? 
I've already put some character notes at the back of the scripts that the cast have, giving them my thoughts on what's going on with the major movers and shakers, but, as we progress, I hope to find out more about these people and, with the actor's help, we shall, I think, discover some interesting things about all of them. Some call it 'motivation', other's would say that it's the critical 'back-story', others might say that all we need to know is there, on the printed page. But I think that, by using our 'equation', it helps us not only understand the character we're playing but helps us help the audience understand the characters and the story better. Everything informs everything else so that, in the end (we hope!), we get a nicely rounded character that will still pose questions, still be enigmatic (if that is required) but that walks the stage as a complete person with whom everyone can get to grips.

Robert Lindsay as Edmund -
was he always a sociopath?

Charles Aitken as Edgar -
always the good guy?

I suppose it will always boil down to interpretation, but I hope that we, as a company, can achieve an interpretation that will satisfy not only the audience but the actors and, obviously, me!! Everybody has to believe that these people are real, that what they are suffering, what they cause others to suffer, is real. The tears, the laughter, the pain and, ultimately, the story behind what has been presented, are real. And I, for one, am confident that, with the group of people we have gathered for this feast, the outcome will be as real as is humanly possible. No pressure then.

And in other news...I finally managed to get up to the lock-up - despite the fug! - and see our new bits of kit! Thanks to Gil for taking them in and looking after them. They are rather special, it has to be said. We now have a portable (and it is portable) sound system that will save car batteries at rehearsals and a portable generator (and it is sort-of portable!) that will allow us to illuminate the stage area, also without draining batteries and causing general mayhem in the car park! Makes it safer too, should we need to go on past the setting of the sun.

You may recall that last year - our tenth anniversary - we were going have to some peripheral events going on, in and around Dartmouth. That, for reasons with which we are all familiar, was unable to happen...however! This year, it is a different story and there will be other stuff going on in the run-up to Dartmouth Shakespeare Week. There are several options in the pipeline, that have been researched by Lucy, and we will, quite soon it is to be hoped, be finalising some of these events and putting the news out there. It's shaping up to be the year we hoped last year might have been! All good news.