I know he has one, and that it's here somewhere, but I have been looking for hours and cannot find it. I was just cast as Dauntless and am interested in learning different interpretations of the character. Can anyone be of any help? Also, if anyone else has any take on the character, please feel free to include it here!

I know exactly what you are talking about...I found it not too long ago...I'll give it a look a bit later. I'm heading out the door currently!

Thank you!

Here it is: It's entirely written by Beagle on Stage and I take no credit (except for finding it!)

It can be found here: http://musicals.net/forums/viewtopic.ph ... 39&start=0

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I've talked about this here before, but I love talking about myself so everyone gather around. Too often, people playing Dauntless fall into the trap of going along with the obvious way the role has always been done. But there's such a superior way that's more effective for an audience and more satisfying for a performer (having done the role both ways, I can make that comparison).

Dauntless is not a very nice person when we first see him. He is condescending to the servants around him, and womanizes the female ones. He is also very attractive - and it's come to be that haughty and imperious kind of attractiveness you'd associate with, say, the wicked queen from Snow White. Since, to the best of his knowledge, the world revolves around him, he is exceedingly vain, from his bejewelled crown to his overly-exquisite garments, to the little mirror on a chain at his waist.

He doesn't really care about marrying, but wants the heightened status symbol of a genuine princess and their combined united empire to rule once his parents are out of the way. He is bored at Princess #12's test, having sat through so many that he doesn't even care as long as the winner comes with something of value to him.

If this tyrannical and selfish member of the royal family sounds a lot like another character in the show, it's no wonder. Dauntless has spent years learning to his "spiteful b!tch" skills from the queen mother of them all. And that person is...well, the Queen Mother, lol. (Casting the royal family so that Dauntless actually bears a buy-able family resemblance to his parents, as my productions have always done, enhances the effect.) What's more, he now could probably rival her in her domineering ways. This is terrifying to the Queen, who recognizes that she's created a miniature version of herself and may be meeting her match.

Controlling his marriage is the only way she still has power over him, and that's why, being the controlling harpy that she is, she's clinging to that desperately. That and the incestual desires she has brewing under the surface for her seductive son. Of course, he is aware of this and, though he does not reciprocate those feelings in any way, uses that to manipulate her when it's convenient ("For me, Mama? Pleeeease?").

Dauntless almost has a good relationship with the King, except that he has no respect for him. After all, Dauntless has the person who's really running the kingdom under his control - he doesn't have to be nice to this old man who can't even talk. They have moments from time to time of understanding and seeing eye-to-eye, almost even of friendship...but make no mistake, it's far from a positive father/son relationship. In the end, his father is just one more person Dauntless sees himself as better than and doesn't need.

(Despite being a completely unlikeable person, he can still command the sympathy and support of the audience. It's sick, but audiences actually like self-centered, rude and powerful characters; it's the same principal as why audiences always love the Queen. Furthermore, seeing both of them going back and forth stabbing each other in the back is gratifying to the audience and gives them even more permission to love each one.)

Dauntless' pattern of evil ways comes to an end suddenly when he meets Winnifred, probably the most genuine and pleasant person he's ever known. It's love at first sight. More than that, he sees in her that it's not only possible but better to be loved because you're a great person instead of being "loved" because you're feared. By their first conversation, his icy heart has started to thaw and he's becoming his own nice person.

By the end of the show, he has gained true respect and support from his servants and has gradually made the journey from evil tyrant to benevolent prince. He has also realized that no-one likes a b-word. On the morning after Winnifred's test, in the crossover scene between he and the Queen, he realizes with horror what a wretched person his mother is, now that he's not the same way and can see how obvious it is to everyone else. With this revelation in mind, it's not difficult to just tell her to shut up. The servants are ecstatic not only because they're free from her but because they no longer have to worry about him inheriting his mother's kingdom and ruling it with an even more iron fist. It's also what they've all wanted to say to her for years, but only he was in a position to do it without getting beheaded.

Faced with the other way to play Dauntless (in which he's a static wimp who finally grows some balls at the last second and tells off his mom), this is a much more interesting and enjoyable take on the character - for the audience AND the actor.

Hmm, not to be offenvie to Beagle_on_Stage, but I disagree with his interpretation. I don't feel Dauntless has a mean bone in his body.

Hmm...

Well, thanks PappyCat. I appreciate your help.

I don't really think my director wants Dauntless to be like that at all, and I'm not so sure I'd want to play him like that. That doesn't seem as "satisfying" to me as playing him the traditional way. But thank you just the same. That was an interesting read if nothing else. Thanks!

EDIT: This interpretation seems to me like you're (no one specific) trying to make the show something it isn't. Does anyone know what I mean?

Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's a different interpretation, but it sounds really bizarre to me. I just think the traditonal way is better. And there's more than one way to do the traditional way. You could be a totally spineless whimp, just a mama's boy, or just kinda naive and childish.

I don't really think he's a spineless whimp either. I think he's definitley a mama's boy. He behaves in a childish manner because his mother has always pampered him and treated him as such. He does grow up at the end when the Queen insults Winnifred while she's sleeping. I think he's always been aware of his mother's influence and his character is a product of that. He's discovered that it's easier to let his mother meddle than to cross her. Beagle's different interpretation of Dauntless doesn't really make sense with the "mouse devoured the hawk" prophecy.

Beagle's intepretation, I feel, goes against the author's intent.

It's digging too deep into material that is shallow.

[quote="LaurelDP"]Beagle's intepretation, I feel, goes against the author's intent.

It's digging too deep into material that is shallow.[/quote]

Exactly.

Do it both ways, and then we'll talk.

I think Beagle's interp is a really interesting take on the character... I'm glad that people are putting thought into it and making it their own, rather than just going with what has always been done.

Do I agree with his assessment? I'm not sure. I think I'm always going to prefer the more shallow version, simply because it was the one I performed with. However, I think that a different take could be incredibly rewarding.