King Lear and Pickled Eggs

Last week rehearsals began for King Lear, the epic tale of a father, his daughters and his Kingdom. It's really fantastic to work on such a large scale production at the Citz and from the first day the building has been buzzing with palpable excitement and the chatter of around thirty new people! The Citz production of King Lear will feature not just a main cast of twelve actors but they'll be supported by a terrific ensemble of a further fourteen!

Inspiration wall

The early days of any rehearsal are all about getting to know the script, the characters and the production that we are all creating together. For this production of King Lear, Tom (the designer) started by introducing us all to the world of the play and it's feel, we have now up on one side of the rehearsal room an entire wall of images that helped inspire Dominic and Tom when they began discussing what the set design and world of the play would be. Dominic then talked us through what was also in his mind, and we then settled into the first read through with the whole cast. Our first chance to really hear the cast together and get a feeling of the stirring spectacle to come.

The first read through

Over the weeks before rehearsals the stage management team have been gathering bits and bobs that Dominic wanted for rehearsals, including mattresses, shopping trollys, take out boxes and vodka bottles. From around the second day of rehearsals the cast began to get very curious over the jars of pickled eggs on the props table, creating much debate over what would be happening with them and more importantly to whom. We found out very quickly, and several actors will be getting a lot of extra protein over the rehearsals.

The first experiments for the pickled egg scene

Late into the first week we started to bring the ensemble into scenes, which immediately make a lot of the early work with the main characters even more exciting and alive. Filling the world of Lear with riotous Knights and devious servants. Can't wait to see how it develops further and further...

Richard
Assistant Director