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It's a year ago this month that we closed LEAR and today I ran across this series by sculptor Marc Alberghina and just couldn't help think about that show, our lobby display, and the notion of face, death, and heart-rending grief. Happy anniversary. #illmissyou

Autoportraits

Marc Alberghina

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Young Jean Lee & Future Wife perform We're Gonna Die at Joe's Pub, New York. Livestream from 4/30/2011.

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The work of London-based graphic designer Genís Carreras.

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In case folks were wondering what folks on and behind the scenes of this production of LEAR looked and sounded like, here's a recording of the show's talkback from Saturday, April 6, 2013. From left to right are actors Jazmine Noble (Goneril), Conrad Haynes (Edgar), Faye Goodwin (Cordelia), Max Tabet (Edmund). Center is scene designer Torry Bend and continuing down the line is Jules Odendahl-James, production dramaturg, actor Maddy Roberts (Regan), and Director Jody McAuliffe who is also the Chair of the Department of Theater Studies at Duke.

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(via This Great Stage of Fools | A dramaturgical journey through one of Shakespeare's masterpieces)

In the spirit of shared resources, I'm posting the final product of a student's Senior Dramaturgy Thesis on a production of King Lear at Washington College (Chestertown, MD). Congrats Maegan!

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I'llMissYou. I'llMissYou. I'llMissYou.

Thanks to everyone who came out to see LEAR over the past two weeks. We had our final production class meeting today and chatted about audience reactions (esp. the two folks to took Conrad's invitation to leave), those parts of the play that have become dear and remain mysterious, and we relived some of discoveries made in rehearsal through talking about friends, family members, and strangers and their questions to us after watching the show.

Mortality remains a mystery, even in the journey to face it that LEAR requires we take. It caused us to think, some for the first time, about the eventual passing of our parents and like the children in LEAR we find it a disconcerting prospect. But there are talismans that can bring some comfort. Memories, even unpleasant ones, keep us connected to the past and, at key times, give us a glimpse of the future. 

I've been thinking a lot about Lee's invocation of "acceptance." In the opening scene she pokes fun at the kids' turn to Buddhism for the path to acceptance. Cordelia's acceptance seems wholly unconvincing because she reveals the active mechanism of that feeling, for her, is denial of her true emotions. Edgar describes finding his father in the storm and replays his death, being overcome by his son's revelation. That death results from Edgar's need to be recognized, to be accepted by the father who had rejected him. So acceptance comes but at a price.

It seems that the one pure, peaceful moment of acceptance happens at the end of the Sesame Street scene, when Big Bird/Max finally accepts Gordon's "just because" answer and transforms his desire to bring Mr. Hooper back into letting him go: "I'll miss you Mr. Looper." And then we roll into that final monologue in which Max again takes a journey from resistance to fear to anger to memory to acceptance and finally letting go with the incantation of "I'll miss you. I'll miss you. I'll miss you. I'll miss you. I'll miss you. I'll miss you."

And since that is where the play ends, that's where our investigation ends. Letting this text go ... and hoping others will pick it up and grapple anew.

Thanks for the play Young Jean Lee. Thanks to the cast and creative team of LEAR for the ride.

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Any moment, any moment now it will come. The thing will happen that is the thing that crushes. It could be happening now. We could be ... we could be sitting here and the worst could be occurring.

Young Jean Lee, LEAR.

I've spoken in rehearsal about how this seemed to me both a personal, general sentiment about the unexpected nature of some death and a way YJLee gestures to our post-9/11 experience of tragedy. As I came out of a focused writing period to find out about today's bombings at the Boston Marathon, these lines were the first thing I thought of to describe how I was feeling.

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Watching terrible things.

Thoughts with Boston today. Whether one finds YJLee's turn to Sesame Street compelling within the boundaries of LEAR, it seems that such messages to children take center stage in the face of public tragedies. I saw both of these items Tweeted & retweeted many times this afternoon.

Our hearts go out to all those affected by today's tragic events. We recommend not exposing young children to repeated images in the news.

— Sesame Street (@sesamestreet) April 15, 2013

Great Mr. Rogers quote for times like these 

— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) April 16, 2013

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Look here, you've got one last chance to see Young Jean Lee's LEAR at Duke. 2pm today April 14!

King Lear at Kammerspiele München, 13/3/2013

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Drawings by our Asst. Designer!

Cast Portraits for LEAR production

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LEAR at Duke University. Images courtesy Les Todd.

Top to bottom: Cordelia (Faye Goodwin), Edgar (Conrad Haynes), Edmund (Max Tabet).

2 more performances left!

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LEAR at Duke University. Images courtesy Les Todd.

Top to bottom: Goneril (Jazmine Noble), Regan (Maddy Roberts).

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Lear By Young Jean Lee Directed by Jody McAuliffe, Theater Studies faculty Sheafer Theater, Bryan Center, West Campus 
 April 4-6 and 11-13 at 8 pm and April 7 & 14 at 2 pm $10 general admission; $5 students and sr. citizens tickets.duke.edu; 919-684-4444 info: theaterstudies.duke.edu 

(photo via Duke University | Theater Studies: News & Events)

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(Photo via The Definitive Guide to Bedbug Sex | Smart News)

CORDELIA: I have bedbugs! I would chop off my pinkie finger without hesitation if it would guarantee that I would never have to see another bedbug again.

REGAN: I don't know anything about bedbugs and I don't want to know! I'll start feeling like I have them.

CORDELIA: They are the worst.

REGAN: Oh no I have bedbugs.

CORDELIA: You do not!

REGAN: I have bedbugs I have bedbugs!

(Regan starts giggling weirdly.)

CORDELIA: It's an insult to tell a person who has actual bedbugs that you have imaginary ones!

The second (and final) weekend performances of LEAR begin tomorrow through Sunday, April 14.

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Lear evokes a funnel, stripping away the madness and fear that surrounds death. Interspersed with compelling twists and pop culture references, the play throws the audience into a whirlwind of confrontation, struggle and deliberation. As these sons and daughters become no more than children losing a loved one, so is death chiseled down into its barest and perhaps truest understanding.

(via Duke theater performs absurdist Lear | The Chronicle)

The wonderful Kathy Zhou previews our show!

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With opening tomorrow night, here's a quick February Oregon Shakespeare Festival trip down memory lane courtesy of Conrad (a.k.a. Edgar whose selfie is #4 in the quartet). Thanks for finally getting these photos of your cell phone buddy!

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Extended supercut of Fraggle Rock on mortality. Opens with an analysis of Sesame Street's "Goodbye Mr. Hooper" and how long it took for that show to address mortality over its very long history compared to Fraggle Rock's seeming obsession with death, dying, and mortality.