So, earlier today I made a quick reference to King Lear on the Studio Kvetchboard. I was being glib and made a reference about Lear ripping out his eyeballs that was an incorrect reference. I know that I was wrong, partially because it was a glib reference in passing, so I didn’t give a shit enough to fanatically check detail (which I often do), and because this boy comic pointed it out. I will vent enough to say what I don’t enjoy about his conversational skills, arguments or comedy is his habit of deconstructing everything to a literal state. He appears to believe that this method shows his cleverness and intelligience. I find it mind-numbingly boring. Most of his jokes I have to think of other things entirely, like laundry or root canal surgery, to prevent myself from screaming, “Listen you precocious fuckhead, it’s a metaphor. An image. Get it? It’s not real, it’s a picture. Sit down.”

OK, now that I have that out of my system, what I really wanted to post there, since I know there are many actors and theater majors who read the board (but stopped posting in the whirlwind of morons, see below.)

Anyone out there know of a modern play with a name like “Lear!”?

When I was in London in the 80s, I saw a production at the Pit in the Barbican Theater that had a name like that. What I remember dimly, but would like to get confirmation on is this machine that was wheeled up on stage. The actor put his face up to it, and it appeared realistically like his eyeballs had been excised from his skull. There was plenty of fake blood and white balls dropping wetly into special receptacles in the machine. It’s one of those memories that almost lacks content, so if there were a play I could read, or information on a weird pop interpretation, I would use it to color in the dim details.

Every year I forget more and more about stuff I once saw or read. I suppose it gets supplanted by new stuff, but still and all it’s tough to swallow.