Edmund. The Beginning

Overview

Have you ever felt overshadowed by a more successful sibling? Chin up. Odds are you never felt it as bad as poor old Edmund Shakespeare. A struggling actor fifteen years the junior of his rather more successful older brother, little is known about the youngest Shakespeare boy — well, other than the fact that he may have been the inspiration for the villainous bastard Edmund in his brother's play King Lear. Ouch.

Now, some four centuries later, another playwright will draw his inspirations from the life of anonymous Edmund, along with a multitude of other characters both historical and imagined. Edmund. The Beginning is the new one-man show from veteran theatre maker Brian Lipson, who'll take the stage for a limited season at Arts House in North Melbourne. It's Lipson's first solo outing since his acclaimed show A Large Attendance in the Antechamber won a pair of Green Room Awards back in 2000.