Season Two: Week 38

Would not a pair of these (coins) breed?

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Tuesday / March 12 / 2019
Written by Matt

Check-in took a while today, mostly because of a conversation about the attendance policy that I won’t bore you with. A veteran had to give up his role because of work conflicts, so we needed a new Oswald again. At this point in the season, we explained, it’s usually just easier to plug facilitators in when roles open up--and everyone turned to look at Maria. “You’d make a great Oswald,” one said.

What they didn’t notice as they were all getting used to Maria as Oswald was the ensemble member with his hand in the air. “I’ll play Oswald,” he said. It took a second to recalibrate before everyone congratulated him on volunteering for the role. He had wanted to only play small roles before, and here he was, putting himself in to take on a big role, including three fights! It’s often these last-minute casting changes that bring out ensemble members’ inner heroics; so many times, it is the ones who have hung back or counted themselves out who end up diving into big roles in the final weeks of the process.

With the time and people we had left, it made sense to work through our new Oswald’s scenes for the rest of the session, to get him acquainted with the blocking and the fights. And, man… did he ever throw himself in! He quickly learned the blocking for his scenes, and ran over and over the fights, which involved staggering and falling to the floor multiple times. Our Lear and Kent walked him through the fights, coaching him on how to take a “slap” and where to fall.

Our Oswald, who is older than the other ensemble members, has been sticking up for “old men” like Lear and Gloucester throughout the season, telling us not to see them as weak or frail. In some way, this man’s willingness to do these physically demanding stage-fighting moves over and over seemed like a pointed demonstration of what he’s been saying all season: don’t underestimate the old guy!

Friday / March 15 / 2019
Written by Coffey

“Thanks for letting me back in, y’all. I’m all the way in.”

Today we had five new and returning ensemble members join us. Some were encouraged to come by current members, others have been keeping an eye on us and wanting to take part for a while. Regardless of what brought them to the gym today, they all seemed excited to be there. “Thank you for letting me try,” one of the new members said. They were greeted warmly by the rest of the ensemble, who were excited to have more hands on deck for our final weeks of rehearsal. “You are gonna be a big help to us!” one man said.

While the new and returning members had an orientation with Frannie and a couple others, the rest of us started working on Act 3, scenes ii and iv. Scenes in which one man is completely delusional, another is pretending to be, one man is cracking jokes constantly, and one is just trying to get them all inside and out of the rain are not easy to make cohesive. Our Lear and Fool prepared for the chaos by jumping up and down and shaking their arms out together right before going onstage. For the first few tries, the men were all in their own different worlds. The scene felt like three different scenes happening on the same stage. This led to Kent accidentally pulling his sword on Gloucester in a moment of distraction and quickly apologizing (“Sorry—didn’t mean to pull that on you, buddy!”) and Gloucester setting Lear on fire with his imaginary torch. With each run of the scene, however, the men became more and more connected until, despite their characters’ varied mental states, they were all occupying the same space. Matt at one point tapped my shoulder and pointed downstage right whispering, “Look at that...” I looked up to see Lear, crouched and hovering over Edgar, sheltering him with his own body and whispering to him as though he were comforting a frightened child—these two isolated characters finally finding refuge in each other.

The men carried that synergy into Act 3, scene vi, though our Lear was trying to feel out just how detached from reality he would be at this point in the play.

“Am I joyful? Happy?” he asked.

“It’s up to you—you’re crazy!” Kent replied.

The shared energy between the actors may have been carried a little bit too far, as our Kent matched Lear’s crazy by uncharacteristically slamming his hands on a table and shouting his “Where is the patience now,/ that thou so oft have boasted to retain?” into Lear’s face.

The scene immediately stopped as some of us laughed at the unexpected outburst from a usually cool Kent (including Kent himself). “Well, Kent has forced us to start the scene again due to his complete lack of compassion,” Frannie laughed.

We looped back around to Act 2, scene iv, and the improvement I saw since we last ran this scene was incredible. Cue pickup was snappy, and the men were completely plugged in to each other and the scene. As Regan and Cornwall placed Kent in the stocks, their power as a unit made me fear for anyone who would stand in their way as the play went on.

Albany was sitting next to me and watching the scene. “Why is Albany not in this scene?” he asked himself, noticing that Goneril entered the scene without him. “He probably doesn’t even know Goneril is there,” I replied. “She didn’t even leave a note,” he mused, staring into the distance. It’s good to see that the character relationship dynamic is continuing to develop.

For most of the time in which we were doing scene work, I could hear one of our returning members excitedly giving the context to the newer members and explaining to them what he felt made the scenes so beautiful. His eyes rarely left the stage, and he even changed seats every few minutes to get a different view of the action. As the rehearsal came to a close, nearly every new member asked for a copy of the play so they could start studying as soon as possible.

Season Two: Week 37

Put but money in (our) purse.

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Tuesday / March 5 / 2019
Written by Emma

A harbinger of spring (hopefully), the men were in a rather sunny mood. Our agenda included two important items of business: we needed to select a play for next season, as well as run through as much of the show as possible without stopping.

The selection of next year’s play was a collaborative process—a hallmark of SIP. After some preliminary discourse, the ensemble seemed to have narrowed down the choices to a tragedy, Julius Caesar, and a comedy, As You Like It. The men thoughtfully weighed the pros and cons of each of these options. “It keeps up the energy of the troupe to do comedy,” one veteran member stated in favor of As You Like It. “But,” another member chimed in, “for a men’s compound, a lot of people would want to see Julius Caesar.” After a few more minutes of Comedy vs. Tragedy deliberation, one man posed the question: “What’s the difference between comedies and tragedies? If you’re doing a great play, what’s the difference?” Building on this thought, another member added, “From a personal perspective as an artist, if people like my work, they’ll come back and see it regardless.” When all had spoken their piece, the decision was left up to a vote. Final tallies found As You Like It in the lead, making it the official play for the men’s ensemble’s 2019-20 season!

With next season’s fate decided, we moved on to the first run through (well, run-as-much-as-we-can-through) of Lear. Within the first few lines of dialogue, the massive amounts of work that the ensemble had done in my absence was evident. For the next hour and a half, I sat captivated.

I was asked to take notes on areas that I felt could use improvement and/or clarification. Upon reviewing what I had written, it would appear that my comments were actually overwhelmingly laudatory. Since my last observation, each and every character had grown in depth and complexity. Our Goneril and Regan, who, during my last visit, were dipping their toes into villainy, had come alive with a cool venom as they rained false praise on Lear in Act I, Scene 1. In the same scene, our Lear demonstrated an impressive range of emotion that wasn’t there a few weeks ago. During the banishment of Kent, Lear deftly entwined anger and sorrow, landing in quiet desperation on the line, “Kent, on thy life, no more.” Aaaand, cue the goosebumps!

Other highlights of the run-through include: Gloucester’s slow emotional and physical transition from esteemed nobleman to haggard outcast, the way Edmund was able to convey manipulativeness while still soliciting sympathy, and Edgar’s fearless dive into his Poor Tom persona, which included covering his face in his long hair and adopting a slight accent. Our Fool, who is new to the role, proved himself to be a natural. He carried himself from scene to scene with a slightly hunched back, his hands held to his chest, in a way that felt very Wormtongue from The Lord of The Rings. However, unlike Wormtongue, our fool maintained a very subtle air of levity as he delivered his lines—perfect, coming from a Fool in the midst of a tragedy. The overall impact was, according to my notes, “on point.”

After stopping only a handful of times to fix urgent hiccups, we concluded the run-through (about ⅔ of the way through the play) with a few minutes left and briefly discussed how it felt: what worked, what didn’t, and thoughts for moving forward.

Friday / March 8 / 2019
Written by Coffey

With the 90-minute time limit on everyone’s mind, most of our check-in was devoted to how we’re planning to make cuts to the script, a process that proved to be a delicate and involved one to some of the men. “I’m very sensitive about cutting my scenes,” our Lear said, “ ‘cuz I’ve gone through the Arden several times trying to cut my lines.” To others, the process was solely in the interest of time: “It wasn’t really about certain lines,” our Albany said, “There’s a certain value to everyone’s lines.” Regardless of which lines the men chose to cut, one man advised that everyone “get with the person you’re in a scene with and let them know if the cues have changed.”

Matt suggested that, in addition to cutting unnecessary lines, the men could start trying to bring more of a sense of urgency with them on stage. This would help transitions between scenes to speed up, cues to be picked up more readily, and the overall time of our run-throughs to shorten. Another man added that offstage distractions have been cutting into our time: “Side distractions are frustrating. Critique-wise, I think everyone is doing an awesome job. We got 75% of the play done in an hour and a half. Let’s focus on getting that last 25% and help each other out.”

Ending check-in on that encouraging note, we decided to warm up by playing a game of “Wah”. We stood in a circle, loudly wah-ing at each other and striking coordinated poses until someone missed their cue and was eliminated. This went on until we had two players left standing (Matt being one of them).

We began our rehearsal where we left off, going from Edgar and Gloucester’s reunion in Act IV, scene 1, to the play’s finale. The run had its setbacks. Entrances were still pretty chunky, the minor roles, as well as Edmund and Oswald (who were absent), were taken on by whoever had a free moment, and everyone was still a bit shaky on the blocking—pretty normal setbacks for a run at this point in the season. The men are beginning the hard process of moving their focus from character building and scene work to the show as a whole. As they continued that transition today, it gave us an opportunity to see how strong their characterization and in-scene work has become. Gloucester, after being horribly abused by Regan and Cornwall, wasn’t wilting or muted about his hopelessness and lost faith in the world, but enraged by it. “O you mighty gods! This world I do renounce, and, in your sights,/ Shake patiently my great affliction off,” was not a plea, but a loud declaration punctuated with his balled fists—something I’ve never scene a Gloucester do.

Gloucester wasn’t the only one showing a surprising streak of anger. Cordelia, when we circled back to rehearse Act I, scene 1, responded to Lear’s vitriolic, “Better thou / Hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better,” by charging Lear, threatening to push him. I read just as much hurt in this action as I would have if Cordelia shrank back and burst into tears. A moment of laughter came during I.i as well, when Gloucester entered in the middle of Lear and Cordelia’s confrontation and sat down very slowly, unsure if he was intruding, and deeply uncomfortable. Amidst the chaos of trying to go straight through the show, these strong, unique choices were energizing and carried the men through. Even Goneril, who is typically reserved onstage, let loose during the final scene, his look of terror fully convincing me that Goneril’s world was falling apart.

We finished the play with a runtime of 2 ½ hours - not bad at all for an early run through! Wrinkles still remain as they would in any show, but a note from Emma really sums up the feeling with which we all left the gym: “However weary, anxious, or frustrated you may be feeling at this point in the season, you’re doing spectacular work, and it shows.”

Season Two: Week 36

If money go before, all ways do lie open.

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Tuesday / February 26 / 2018
Written by Matt

This is a week of guests, and today’s was especially exciting! For the first time at Parnall, we brought in friend of SIP and super-talented photographer Chuk Nowak. A couple of years ago, Chuk filmed this mini-doc about our program. But that was before our men’s ensemble was even conceived of, and so we were especially happy to have him at Parnall today to capture some of the amazing work these guys are doing!

Check-in ran slightly long, as we worked through some interpersonal issues, but the ensemble is often at its strongest when wrestling with these sorts of challenges. A member of our Parnall program since its inception brought it to a close, saying that everyone is important to the functioning of SIP, and everyone is somewhere in the process of changing himself. “You got to bring to the table what you got to bring to the table,” he said. “We owe it to ourselves to be understanding because of all that we have in common--and that’s Shakespeare!”

Today’s main business was finishing the blocking of the final scene. Before we got too far, our Goneril repeated his kneecap-slide into Edmund from last week. He stopped and looked up at Frannie, saying he didn’t think the slide would work. “I feel like the slide takes away” from the moment, he said. “I think you’re wearing a skirt, and you will pull it right off if you do that,” said Frannie. This led to a brief sidebar with Regan and Goneril about how to move in a skirt.

Even our first run of the scene was pretty good. “We were feeding off each other,” noted one of the guys. “I’m not sure how it felt, “ added another, “but it looked so awesome.”

“How do we build on this?” asked Frannie.

“More emotion!” said Lear.

“Sweeping the floor!” added Goneril, who was lying “dead” on the ground.

While one of the guys got a broom to sweep, Frannie challenged our Lear to maintain the connection with Cordelia. In the final moments of the scene, he had stood up from his youngest daughter’s body to speak directly to the others in the room. “You’re letting him off the hook,” she said. One of the guys backed her up, saying, “It’s way more powerful with you down with her.”

Another one of the guys explained why: “It’s a king’s words,” he said, “but a father’s motive.”

Our Lear was reluctant to run the scene again. “I just don’t think I can get into it,” he said. “I don’t know if I can get where I need to be with my emotions.” Eventually, he agreed to give it another shot, even if he was just walking through it without giving it his all...

Maybe he should halfass it more often! The second run was a success from the beginning. The urgency of each actor’s performance was markedly better at the top of the scene, and it only increased as we progressed. Albany, who had been excellent in the first run (he listens to the other actors so well), was magnificent, fully embodying his character’s fast-shifting anger, shock, and disbelief. The moments were poignant, sharply defined, and effective. But after Edmund’s mortal wounding, the guys took it up a notch. Goneril turned snake-like when confronted with her scheming by Albany, slithering away on “the laws are mine, not thine.” As the brothers reconciled, Edmund (a stand-in) grasped Edgar’s arm as he said, “the wheel has come full circle.”

But it was Lear who gave the show-stopping performance. He raged and howled, his deep voice fully resonant for the first time this season. Tears trickled down his face as he focused intensely on Cordelia’s body, dying with his arm across his daughter.

When we were done, everyone took a second to breathe before looking around. It was clear that something special had happened. There were some notes given and comments made, but mostly we were in awe of the performance that had just happened.

Our Edgar reflected after the scene about his character. “He has nobility,” he said, “but it doesn’t mean crap to him.” Edgar, he said, “is more interested in being a person, not in ‘being’ a title. He might be a little bit of a playboy, like his father. … He’s trying to push off everything on his brother. That’s why he’s not in the first scene.”

Speaking of the first scene of the play, which we haven’t touched in almost two months, we had just enough time to run it. Fresh from the success of the final scene, everyone brought the same energy to the first one! The new folks slid right into their roles as Cordelia and Burgundy, and everyone was working hard to make the story’s setup as clear as possible. An absolute highlight was the scene’s final beat, when Regan and Goneril exchanged a catty look, then slithered over to their hapless sister, surrounding her as they pestered her with commentary. It was funny and chilling, and it perfectly displayed their roles.

Today was a success for many reasons: we finally finished blocking the play, Chuk took some amazing pictures of the guys at work… and, most of all, that performance of the final scene was not only a work of enormous commitment and integrity--it was a moment of genuine artistic achievement, which is never our goal with SIP, but which speaks to the creativity, work ethic, and bravery of this group of men.

Friday / March 1 / 2018
Written by Frannie

One of the highlights of each season of SIP is when we learn fight choreography for the show! There have been times in the past when I’ve taken the lead on this (I can manage some VERY basic fencing and hand-to-hand combat), but in recent years we’ve been extremely fortunate to have brought a bona fide stage combat choreographer onto the team! His name is Patrick Hanley, he’s also facilitated at Parnall and in youth workshops, he’s amazing, and everyone should hire him all the time for everything. That’s what I have to say about that.

Anyway, I spend a lot of time thanking my lucky stars (much to Edmund’s chagrin, I’m sure—fa, sol, la, mi...) for Patrick, and today was no exception. After a quick check in, the group divided up as each fight was choreographed, with great care and efficiency, while those who weren’t fighting took measurements for costumes, ran lines, looked for cuts to the text, or helped out in one area or another.

It was classic SIP to a tee. What could have been chaos somehow wasn’t; even though there was a lot going on, each person was wholly focused on whatever their task was at any given moment. Even people who generally don’t get along worked beautifully together, and the fights turned out amazing—or so I’m told; I spent the whole session doing textwork with folks.

Unfortunately, this made for a very short blog. I hope we get some really good photos of these fights in performance!

Season Two: Week 35

For saying so, there’s gold.

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Tuesday / February 19 / 2019
Written by Matt

During check in, one of our members asked whether we wanted to add new people to the ensemble for this 6-week home stretch. As always, this suggestion initiated a discussion. One of our veterans asked why we’d be adding people this late in the game, but a couple of the guys listed all the arguments on the side of adding folks. A few others jumped in, so that one man stopped everyone to get an accounting of the arguments on the other side. There was a short silence afterwards before Frannie suggested that if we wanted to take a few people, we should be clear with them that there are only small parts left and backstage work. “If new people are really serious about doing it, they’ll get it and get something out of it,” said one of the guys, and that was that.

We’ve been wanting to work on the final scene for a while now, but our Regan was missing--off doing something else, wearing one of his several hats! As people discussed what to do, our Lear barrelled forward, not wanting to lose momentum. He asked one of the guys who only has a small part in the scene to read in for Regan. When the man started to protest that he was already a messenger, Lear cut him off to say, “So, is that a yes?” And we were off!

Still, Lear had some trouble getting into the scene. We had worked the first beat a week and a half ago, but the scene’s emotional intensity is challenging, even in those earliest moments. We soldiered on, stopping shortly before the entrance of Edgar.

Mostly, the guys expressed some dismay at how distant they felt from the scene. “It’s like: ‘Love!’ and ‘Hip Hop!’ and ‘Shakespeare!’” said Albany a little cryptically, “I want it to be smooth! Like: BAM!” he stepped snappily at Regan, “BAM!” he stepped intimidatingly at Edmund. “But it didn’t work out that way.” Of everyone, our temporary Regan had the biggest epiphany: asked what was going on with Regan, he mused, “I feel like her self-editing software is failing.”

Frannie, as she had a week and a half ago, offered to step in to help the scene along with director-style blocking. We don’t usually do this, but it can help in terms of efficiency--and also as a way to free up the actors to do their work more deeply. We always ask permission and encourage ensemble members to pipe up if they have questions, suggestions, or better ideas. At this point in the season, we have a pretty good sense of the story we are all trying to tell, and everyone seems to feel very comfortable speaking up to prod, challenge, and suggest. And as squeamish as jumping in to direct makes us, Lear put us at ease: “When you did it last time,” he said, “I think you did it justice.”

So, we reset at the top of the scene and talked it through. Frannie directed Albany, Goneril, and Regan, and Lear asked for my help with some lines that were giving him trouble. “How can we make Albany nastier?” asked Frannie, and worked with our Albany to plant his feet and hold his ground. As we reset, our Edmund reminded Albany to “put some stank on it!”

Well, that seemed to do it! When revealing Goneril’s treachery, Albany heaved her at Edmund, as if to say, “Go on, take her,” but with a desperate sadness underlying the anger. I got chills.

We talked through Edgar’s entrance, too. We meet in the chapel on Tuesdays, so our playing space was a bit foreshortened, but we still tried to rough out the blocking. Actually, the compressed space helped with the main challenge: maintaining enough space between Edgar and Edmund for the tension to build before the fight. Edmund reflected on his emotional state, saying, “I don’t know who he is. I don’t know what he’s here for. My ego is popping!”

We marked the fight--Patrick Hanley, intrepid fight choreographer, sometime facilitator, and frienemy of the program, will be here next week to get the fight set--and Edmund died off to the side of the stage. Unprompted, Goneril rushed in and slid on his knees, exclaiming, “Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!” It was hilarious, but the laughter stopped the rehearsal dead, so we had to make him do it again (“But… these are my good pants!” he protested). His energy was amazing!

Our Albany was struggling a bit to focus his anger at Goneril on his powerful line: “Shut your mouth, dame, or with this paper shall I stop it!” It is such a forceful, direct line, and it needs the right delivery to land its full weight. Frannie helped him find the right energy, and Albany took the note and ran with it! He couldn’t resist adding a little wink to the end of his next line. “Read thine own evil,” he spat. “Yeeyuh!”

Then, since this scene does not let up, Edgar went in to make amends with his brother. Our Edgar started with some edge in his voice, directing the words about their father’s demise as a cutting final curse. His delivery was effective… but totally contrary to the text, and many of the words seemed not to fit as he used them to attack Edmund.

When we went back to recap that beat, Frannie talked to Edgar about using the words in the text to find Edgar’s emotional state, and one of the veterans wondered aloud whether we shouldn’t move the whole action of the scene upstage a bit, reminding us that some audience members in our Othello performance had trouble connecting with moments that occurred too far downstage.

In the final moments before we broke for the day, our Edmund noted, after we shifted him slightly, that the place he dies is also the place he stopped to assert his authority over Lear and Cordelia when they entered at the top of the scene. During the final run, Edgar lost the edge in his voice, and connected with Edmund, grabbing his arm. Hearing of their father’s fate, Edmund’s chest heaved with sobs. It was a great base for working through the rest of the scene on Friday!

Friday / February 22 / 2019
Written by Coffey

Today we built a scene while destroying a set.

But first things first.

Check-in was all about the future. Frannie reminded the group that we all need to start thinking about what we’ll be doing next season, the men discussed plans for finishing the gorgeous backdrop for the show, and Frannie shared that she’s acquired tops hats and flight goggles, contributing to the show’s steampunk theme.

I started rehearsal by leading the men in a vocal warmup. In this warmup, called “Oz”, the actor goes through the different vocal resonators in the body by embodying the Cowardly Lion (deep chest voice), the Wizard (chest voice), the Wicked Witch of the West (nasal resonators), and Dorothy (head voice). I was worried that the men might not take to this warmup, as it requires a lot of silliness. The guys, however, dove right in, bellowing “I AM OZ, THE GREAT AND POWERFUL,” and even screeching “Surrender, Dorothy!” while riding imaginary brooms. Silliness accomplished and voices warmed, we turned our focus to King Lear’s harrowing finale.

Occasionally in Shakespeare’s tragedies, the scenes in which everything is falling apart for the characters are the scenes which require the most structure and careful blocking. We definitely felt this today while working on Act V, scene 3. Lear and Cordelia are imprisoned, Edgar and Edmund confront each other and come to blows, and Regan and Goneril’s deeds finally catch up to them, all in a matter of fifteen minutes. Choreographing chaos began with just that—chaos. Five deaths in one long sequence is a lot, so we kept it simple and started with Edmund. After receiving a fatal wound from his brother Edgar (in disguise), he falls to the ground and confronts the havoc he has wrought. After getting Edmund to fall a little further upstage so we could hear and see him, we were treated to a glimpse of how well-developed his character has become. As Edgar revealed his true identity to his dying brother, Edmund threw his head back and gave a breathless, bitter laugh. Our Edmund was aware of the almost too-poetic justice being enacted and, true to form, laughed in its face. It was a dark moment but an impactful one to watch.

The next challenge in this chaotic finale was getting “dead bodies” on and off stage. While dragging Regan and Goneril in on large canvas sheets seemed like our best option, several set pieces still stood in the way of actors moving on and off stage with bodies in tow. After some ideas were thrown around, Frannie’s face lit up. She ran onto the stage and kicked the set pieces out of the way, knocking them out of place. It seemed to click with everyone - everything is falling out of place. Lear’s world is disintegrating—why not show that in a literal sense by letting the scenery fall apart along with the scene?

The last section of the sequence, Lear’s devastating entrance with Cordelia, is a huge moment, and it was clear that the actors were feeling a little intimidated about handling the scene’s weight. Emotional weight, yes, but also the weight of the actors themselves. Our Lear and Cordelia had a hard time figuring out how to bear Cordelia onto the stage, to the point that the scene almost started several times, but was stopped by those two busting into nervous laughter, shaking their heads, and heading right back off stage. Finally they figured out the best way to do it.

The entrance did start to get smooth enough for the men to continue the scene. Lear entered with the dead Cordelia, practically shaking the gym with his cries of grief. As Lear knelt down by his daughter’s body, he appeared to create a natural center to the scene as the other actors slowly but seamlessly gathered and knelt around the grieving father. The bewilderment at the scene’s end was palpable. After it ended, Lear reflected on his performance, admitting that there was “too much thinking”, but shared a beautiful take on the scene, rooted in the battle flag image he discovered during the Chekhov exercises we’ve done in the past: “[My battle flag] is just one little scrap, with one bright little spot. And that’s Cordelia.”

We closed our rehearsal, satisfied with the headway we made on this difficult scene and excited to see what more it has in store for us.

Season Two: Week 34

Once more unto the link, dear friends, once more!

Or you could make a recurring donation… Up to you, really…

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Tuesday / February 15 / 2019
Written by Coffey

We started our day with a new Fool and an old joke. During our check in, an ensemble member shared that the actor playing the Fool would no longer be joining us. Thankfully, one of our newest members volunteered to play the part, declaring that he was “80% willing to play the role, and 20% wanting it.”

After welcoming our new Fool to the cast, one man brought to the table the issue of “Dilly Dilly”. For those of you following along at home, “Dilly Dilly” is a phrase from a commercial that the men’s ensemble has successfully worked into every show they’ve done. The man who introduced the topic suggested that we put the phrase in Cornwall’s “Fetch forth the stocks!” in Act 2, scene 2. Matt reminded the group that this particular scene is an important point in the story and asked if they really wanted to put a punchline there, as it could put some of the story at risk. Another man agreed with Matt, adding, “Lear feels to me like a really heavy play.” He then asked if there were any points with a little levity, where “Dilly Dilly” wouldn’t seem so out of place. Our Lear brought up that it might fit in with Lear’s revelry at Goneril’s house. While we didn’t reach a decision, “Dilly Dilly”’s biggest proponent let us know that he didn’t care where the phrase went, as long as it was in the show.

Tabling that for the time being, we went on to play another round of “Mirrors”, the game Frannie brought back from her visit with The Actor’s Gang Prison Project (to get the rules of the game, see the blog from Week 33). This second go at the game had great energy and flow. One man and I agreed that the level of comfort and connection in the room had improved since last week. Even the ensemble members who hadn’t been with us for the game before dived right in and seemed to be having fun. “Without an ounce of rhythm in my body, I was in the flow!” exclaimed one man who was playing the game for the first time today. Another man observed that, during the game, “When a person picked up on the energy first and the movements second, they were a lot more successful with the transition.” Some of the guys struggled with the game. “I couldn’t get out of my head! I was stuck!” one man said. Another man shared that his “fear of dancing” was holding him back: “It was completely awkward the whole time. I’m not a dancer.” Maria, who we were lucky enough to have with us this Friday, said, “I have a hard time getting out of my head, but I felt like I had really great energy!”

For the next few minutes I led the men in Chekhov’s “Stick, Ball, Veil” exercise. This was new for some of them and hadn’t been revisited in a while for the rest, so I was interested to see how it would land at this point in our process. To give an outline of this exercise to those who don’t know it, I’ll use a section of Frannie’s blog post from Week 23:

“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”

Using this framework, the men explored each center by holding and developing the corresponding images in their mind and then observing the effect of those images on their physicality. After spending about five minutes with each center and image, the men reflected on their experiences. Those who had done the exercise before compared this experience with the last one, noting times when they felt consistently comfortable or when they had consistent challenges. “This time around, I was able to project my imagination outward,” one man said. Our Goneril discovered that the veil was the hardest image to get into, while another man said that he learned the complete opposite was true for himself. One man’s veil image was a jellyfish, while another man’s was a tattered battle flag. One man, this second time around, found a strong connection to his image for the willing center: “I was really in that space, being a pinball.”

For those in the group doing the exercise for the first time, there was a broad mix of reactions. One man, who had done similar exercises for years, said, “For an energy manipulation exercise, this was the first time I really grasped it.” Another man asked, “Why do we do this? What are we supposed to get out of it?” Several men raised their hands to answer. “It’s about muscle memory,” one man said, “It’s about getting in the zone.” Another man added, “It’s about body language.” Then the men began to share the aspects of the exercise they found most helpful. “You have to be in the moment. You can’t really be affected by the outside environment,” one man said. Another man shared that he found the outside environment distracting, and was more comfortable when he “partnered up” with another ensemble member. One man shared that “For me personally, the exercise doesn’t help me get into character, but it helps me have a point of reference in talking to others about their characters.”

The conversation then turned to the exercise as it could apply to the characters in the play. “I was looking for aspects of it to apply to Burgundy,” our Burgundy said, “He’s this big personality, this ball stuck in a stick-like body. He’s not a veil… He’s just looking to cut a deal… There’s nothing ‘veil’ about Burgundy.” Matt reminded him that, when exploring a character, it helps to not use judgmental language when describing them. Our Lear agreed, saying that he used to view his character with judgment. Our Cornwall shared his discovery that his character had a close connection with the image of a walking stick: “Cornwall wants to be responsible for something,” he said.

For today’s scene work, our Goneril and Oswald asked that we take a look at Act 1, scene 3, which they had been working on outside of sessions. The scene is short and simple: Goneril grills Oswald about her father’s antics and orders him to act rudely towards him and his servants. While the scene is short, the two actors packed as much as they could into it. The first run saw Oswald running frantically back and forth across the stage as Goneril incessantly summoned him with a bell (in this case, a tambourine). “I thought there was a little too much of that,” one man in the audience said, pointing to the tambourine. “Too much schtick.”

Going into the second run of the scene, I suggested that Goneril wait to use the tambourine until she really needed it to get Oswald’s attention. While it was messy at first, Oswald and Goneril eventually slowed down, letting us see them react to each other. Goneril jangled her tambourine no more than four times. “That worked better,” one man said. Another man was particularly amused by Goneril’s facial reactions to Oswald: “You were at first like, ‘Why are you still standing here?’ And then you were like, ‘Why are you going away?’”

The third run of the scene (which our Lear insisted we do: “You don’t get out of three times! Three times is a charm!”) was comical magic. Goneril used the tambourine to keep Oswald on eggshells throughout the entire scene and added the punchline of a gloriously cold look towards Oswald right at the scene’s close. Their fine-tuned chemistry brought out hearty laughs from the audience. Lear was absolutely right - the third time was the charm!

Today was a day for stepping out of comfort zones. Whether it was overcoming a fear of dancing or getting out from behind a tambourine prop, many of the guys took a chance and stretched their imaginations just a little bit further, something I witness them doing at every session.