I seem to wait until the day of rehearsal to log in.  Perhaps I like to let things stew or simmer so as to allow the work to be more fully assimilated.  Trusting one’s process versus regular discipline is always one of those conflicts that provoke guilt and remorse in me.  Some things, like physical and vocal work, are more amenable to daily discipline.  Character development, determining tasks and actions, however, foment over time in a less direct way, it seems to me.  I can work on lines every day, but I can’t seem to force my attention to more creative activities in quite the same disciplined fashion.  I suppose that each actor will find their balance in their own ways.  I wouldn’t prescribe some sort of rigid approach to working on a role.  Each role, naturally, will create its own discipline, based on the necessities of the part.  In this case, parts.  And perhaps that is why I need a little extra time to digest what is occurring in rehearsal.  For now, this will do, but as we progress and rehearsals become more regular, than perhaps I will also find a rhythm in my working habits.

So, as I said last time, I was given some pretty strong results by the director for the last read.  We stopped and started, sort of meandering our way through the text.  The director is very “inquiry-based;”  that is, he asks questions, makes open-ended suggestions and engages in a dialogue about what is going on and how we might proceed.  At this stage, I find this an effective way to go about it.  The play is short, so we have the luxury of taking our time to find our way.  That said, one of the strong results–what I called the Chaz Palminteri approach to the role of “Michael” was generally agreed to be NOT the way we will be going.  But by making such a big choice (and mixing in a little Tony Soprano), we did find the outer edges of the role.  What is also not wanted is a sort of fey, cliche of an interior designer (which is what Michael ostensibly is–and I say that provisionally because nothing and no one is quite what they seem in this play).  On the other hand, the role of Leonard (a psychiatrist) seems to be well on his way.  Instead of some imitation of Dr. Strangelove, I really focused on quick CHANGE.  Leonard is highly reactive but also highly unfocused.  If we go in the more realistic realm (which this play definitely is not), we could venture that Leonard is really really tired.  He has (he says) two jobs–a day job in private practice, and a night job at a mental hospital–and he hasn’t slept in months.  Leonard has direct interaction with the Man, while Michael is more a supporting role for “Joan”–who really has the scene with the Man.  Michael’s function appears to be more about creating a concrete relationship with Joan, who then must account for it to the Man.  I’m focusing on how I can most effectively support what is happening between Joan and the Man–thinking about what the scene is about and how it leads to the ultimate scene in the play.

Today, we will finish the read we started and then go back and do the entire thing again.  “Al”–a party-thrower and goer–is to be played in a deadpan, ala Steven Wright.  Based on what happened last time, however, I won’t go all the way with this, but instead use it as a guide.  The text doesn’t support quite that strong an approach (just as it did not really support the approach we tried with Michael).  We are also to bring in a bit of imagined history for each role.  I also find this to be fun, but not as efficacious as it might be.  Yes, we want the characters to be human, but I think that humanity will emerge from moment-to-moment interactions rather than a richly realized backstory.  Living in the imaginary circumstances–very important–but just WHICH circumstances are MOST important in creating the roles remains to be seen.

I’ll let you know.

PK

The first rehearsal went quite well.  Most of us had met at callbacks and the atmosphere was quite open and generous.  So, the first read was not filled with the typical anxiety of trying to impress.  We’re all, I think, grateful to be working, and glad to be working in our own backyards.   The company has been around for about four years and trying to establish itself as “community-based” professional theatre–talent and material by/of the community.

The director encouraged us to go for it and not fear over-doing.  The play–an absurdist comedy–really demands strong, active choices.  The trap is, of course, falling into cartoon performances that might get easy laughs, but not good ones.  (I have a lot to say about laughs, but I’ll post that another time. )

The rehearsal hall is a vacant office space, so there is a lot of echo and I found that interesting and fun.  It reminds me to stay open to what the space offers as well as what my fellow actors offer, and to use both.   It is a little cold, but that isn’t so bad for comedy, either.

We were all very good about keeping our noses out of the script and making as much contact as possible.  This really helped shape the read and, as I mentioned in the first post, was useful in my desire to let the other actors guide my choice-making.  The play is short-ish–about 90 minutes–so we didn’t feel pressed to unnecessarily rush.  But there was already a sense of fluency and progression that the text demands in our speech, which also began to create some impact on our physical behavior.  Alignment and impulses to move were already evident–and I want to keep open and not to come to quickly to behavioral choices.

I play three characters–Leonard, Michael, and Al.  I hesitate to define them in terms of type or even by the facts offered in the play because they are less types than FUNCTIONS.  There is some hint that all the characters are actually manifestations of the one constant character–the Man.  I guess I should go back a bit and state that the premise of the play is that a Man is revealed to be on the ledge of the seventh story of a building.  he appears to be contemplating leaping off when one by one these different characters (nine or so) come to their respective windows/balconies and interact with him. The director is thinking that one way to go is that this is all, in fact, the Man’s dream.  It certainly has dream-like actions and there are some textual clues that can be read as the play being a dream.  But we’re not ready to make that choice yet.  So, I play these three men and at the reading I kept characterization to a minimum and really allowed myself to go with the text and trust my instincts.  I just wanted to feel the words in my voice and body and attend to my partners.  Leonard is apparently a psychiatrist who works nights at a hospital and days in a private practice, and claims he hasn’t slept in three years.  The text indicates that he is high strung, over-wrought, and possibly paranoid.  His function seems to have something to do with the idea that we’re all crazy, that nothing is what it seems, and that we all carry the burdens of our problems and would probably be very glad to dump them on someone else.  Michael is an interior designer who has an exclusive client, Joan, and together they have re-decorated Joan’s apartment 18 times.  His function appears to have something to do with the artist in each one of us.  Temperamental, imaginative, exacting, demanding, creative–MAKING meaning, even if it means making it over and over and over again.  Finally, Al is man who throws parties at which all he wants is to get rid of his guests, and goes to parties so he won’t miss a good one.  I suppose this has something to do with looking for a good time and never finding it.  I’m most open about this guy.

At the end of the rehearsal, the director offered some observations, the upshot for me being that I have three strong results to try today (in a few hours).   He wants me to try Leonard ala Peter Sellars as Dr. Strangelove, Michael as a kind of Brooklyn tough (ala Chaz Palmenteri in Bullets Over Broadway), and Al ala Steven Wright–deadpan and depressed.  I was a bit surprised at the specificity of these directions, and I confess a bit annoyed at the result-oriented nature of them.  But what the hell?  I fooled around with these ideas today on my own, and I can make them work.  My feeling is, keep it coming!  Give me results, let me fool around with them, and he can pick the one he likes.  That said, I probably will have an opinion about what version is most effective, too.

I’ll get back to you on that tomorrow.  PK

This is a blog about the journey from first read to opening night.  From time to time, various contributors will post their process–the joys, challenges, and insights into how it gets done.

Me first.

I’ve been cast in a local AEA production of Seven Stories by Morris Panych.  The first read is today.  I had a couple of callbacks to land the role, and interestingly, I didn’t find out until yesterday exactly which role I was to play!  The script has a cast of five, with four actors playing multiple roles, and one playing “Man” from beginning to end.  This altered my usual process of digging deep into the text before the first rehearsal.  I typically like to break it down, start jotting down ideas about tasks and actions, fooling around with physical choices (alignment, center, lead, and Laban elements such as states and drive orientations, body level work, etc.)  So much for that.  And in this case, it’s probably a good thing.

I’m playing three characters who come and go over the course of the play.  I want to differentiate them clearly and there are some obvious choices I could make.  But the situation in some ways forces me to find it as I go–and really include my fellow actors in the creation of the parts.  Naturally, what other actors do always affects what one does, but I’m going to BASE my choices on the interactions with my partners.  So, hopefully, the characters will be thoroughly integrated with one another–a kind of intentional symbiosis.  What I’ll try to do is document what I’m given by the other actors as concretely as possible and articulate how and why I’ll make the choices I make.

By the way, the show opens the second week of March.  We rehearse two times/week for the first few weeks.  Meanwhile, I’m preparing to direct the musical at the university where I work full-time.  Should be fun! (PK)