When I cannot find interest enough in a role to make it my own, I resort to a more hackneyed approach. I'm not proud of this, but I'm announcing it only to generate some interest, or maybe insight, to my methods of performance.
As mentioned in previous posts, I'm currently working on an amateur production of William Shakespeare's KING LEAR. I can't say that I've had no difficulty in developing the role of Cornwall. My major problem seems to be, seemingly simply enough, a complication in finding more than a two dimensional quality to the doomed Duke. This issue, I attribute to my own laziness, and fraudulent abilities.
The director orders a character, and I am the contractor hired to deliver it. It is up to me to make the character interesting to myself, and then (most importantly) to the viewer. Where the character lacks three dimensions, it is up to me to create new vantage points. It is not meant to be easy. The easy roles are the ones that should worry me.
Having come to this roadblock, I plan on restarting my approach to the Duke of Cornwall. I had earlier spoken of trying to work some comedy into the role. I don't know that this is the best way to approach him. I think I've found a favorite actor of mine, whose best-known character would lend itself to this role. I'll use this as a base, or starting point, and morph the role into my own from there. Think of it as using a cookie-cutter, and then trying to reshape the form of the dough afterward.
While this method is certainly viewable by many as a cheated, crutched, handicapped, or hack way of doing things, I think it's what's best for the production overall. We're getting too close now to production to still be completely confused on how to approach this guy.
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