Day Eight at the LCT Directors Lab - Morning

I worked on Macbeth Act III with my cast of six this morning, while other directors watched. We read the act, round-robin style, and had a brief discussion. Most of the actors expressed that they had a difficult time gaining "access" to this distinct play. We talked also about the play's immediacy and the distinction between planning life and what happens in life. One actor noted that the words "fear" and "strange" appeared repeatedly in the text.

We spent the next half of rehearsal doing free work in the space. What does that mean? We sat and looked at the space. Actors were free to get up and do things. They did not use Shakespeare's text. They did many many things, most together, or different things at the same time, or in groups. I did one thing. In a sense, they imprinted the play on the space. We summarized events in the act at one point and then did some more free work.

I assigned roles to three of the actors, so they could look more closely at the text overnight.