Thy Life Is A Miracle!

"I'll speak prophecy ere I go:
When priests are more in word than matter,
When brewers mar their malt with water,
When nobles are their tailors' tutors,
No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors.
When every case in law is right,
No squire in debt, nor no poor knight,
When slanders do not live in tongues,
Nor cutpurses come not to throngs,
When usurers tell their gold i' the field,
And bawds and whores do churches build.
Then comes the time who lives to see't . . . "

-King Lear, Act 3 Scene 6



Lear! Lear is finally upon us! The whole summer long we have been building towards this most excellent tragedy, and last week we pulled out all the stops and heaved it to its feet. What a task! What a play! What an enormous company of actors, technicians and support staff does it take to raise such a production! It took all hands on deck and then some, and even a little help from the elements. The week started off cloudy, and we headed back to Dave & Donna Shaw's for another day at the lake to unwind. Although the weather was less than ideal, we did get a few hours of sunshine, and used them as best we could:

Thanks again to the Shaws!

It was a subdued Monday however, as we all had this colossal play on our minds. Contrary to previous weeks in which our tech rehearsals seemed to drag on and we worried about lines . . . this tech process seemed to fly by. This time around we were worried by much more than lines: the text alone is not the greatest hurdle in producing Lear, but rather the enormity of the events, the improbable heights to which the language soars, the depth and richness of the imagery. Also the brutality and violence of the play makes rehearsing some scenes nauseating for everyone on stage, not to mention the audience. It takes everything every one of us has to even do the play justice, much less do it well. Add on top of that a rather nasty ear infection that I received Monday night, and I was swimming deliriously through tech in a haze of poetry and penicillin.


And before we knew it, we were all emerging from one haze or another as the show was going up on Friday. With something like two full run throughs (both of them sketchy) before opening, there were a host of worries that we all had going into the premiere performance. To add to the tension, a storm was moving into Monmouth right around the time the curtain was rising. Which, in a lot of ways, could not have been a better metaphor for the rough-and-tumble process that Lear had been. As Bill said, putting up King Lear in ten rehearsals is madness; but then again, putting up Lear at all is somewhat mad. Its a play about madness, and so toweringly complex that anyone who tackles it has to have a little bit of crazy in them.

Luckily, we here at Monmouth are not daunted by a little (or a lot) of crazy. We say: BRING IT ON! And boy howdy, it was brought. We all threw everything we had at the opening night performance, and for two and a half hours the misadventures of the Lunatic King and his deceptive daughters raged across the boards at Cumston Hall. When the final scene was played out, and Lear and his daughters lay arrayed in death at the foot of the stage, we held our breath as the lights dimmed. Sure enough, we were met with a wall of applause, peppered in with bravos, and were greeted with a standing ovation when the lights came back up. Somehow, we had made it through this most difficult of plays and the audience had too; it was a glorious night for all.


Over the weekend we settled in to the run of the show and started finding moments we could deepen, and mine for more meaning throughout the play. The houses continued to be very warm as were even the critics: read the Portland Journal's glowing review here.

All of which was a fitting button on the end of Dave Greenham's directorship here at TAM. I'm sure as the crowds and accolades roll in, he's the proudest papa of all.

Though Bill van Horn also has reason enough to be smiling himself to sleep every night. He has climbed the summit of Shakespeare's toughest role and come back down the mountain alive. Hat's off Bill, you deserve it!


Now that all the mainstage shows are off and running, its just our last production, James & the Giant Peach, that we have left to hear from. And hear of it you shall! Till next time, I'll leave you with another beautiful taste of the fool's quality:

"Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,
Ride more than thou goest,
Learn more than thou trowest,
Set less than thou throwest;
Leave thy drink and thy whore,
And keep in-a-door,
And thou shalt have more
Than two tens to a score"

-King Lear, Act 1 Scene 4

Foolishly yours,

Brian