The Rollright Stones, just down the road from here, and now I’ve got some space and Lou is here, I can go and spend time with the energies there. They’ve cut a road through the middle, likely on the site of an old path but the proximity of cars and the separation of king and court might have done something to take from the power of the place. It still resonates.
On one side of the road, the king stone. Fenced around as people were hacking off souvenirs. This is a dolmen. This is a petrified king.
On the other side of the road, the uncountable circle of stones, 74, 70, 69, 76 how many stones? The king’s court, also petrified. In the centre, a circle of roses and cookies and I know immediately who has been making such offerings, pouring such libations. No other culprit but our Desdemona. Magic with roses. The family business. Lou and I augment it. She still had some cacao beans from Costa Rica. I had some white sage wrapped up in a handkerchief.
Magic doesn’t work very well with the sort of hidebound intellectual that ends up agreeing to pack off to Stratford and write up a tragedy for the broadsheets. I’ve been avoiding it until my agent rang and told me I shouldn’t be worried about it. So I ended up breaking a rule, read a few and just found people who – if you put a whisky in them – would tell you about how when they played Iago at university they did blah blah blah. It makes me prouder of what Tim has done. If they loved it we’d be a museum piece, or pure trickery – either way deadly theatre. This is definitely alive.
Cassio is drunk downstairs. I’m in my dressing room. Soon it’ll be Vico time, but with Lou in town I’m getting this written in the show so I can maximise my time with her later. We will go briefly to The Duck after the show. It is, after all, traditional. The reviewers would certainly be happy about that.
I’ll be back up to the stones before I leave here, for sure, likely with offerings. I’ve started to sew little bright bits of magic into the fabric of this play space where so many people experience these words and these vast stories for the first time. The stones are a charging point. And off to the side of them, in close conference, the whispering knights – very talkative still despite being older than Jesus. We have more to talk about, they and I.
AlBarclay 