Living on the Fringe

This week is bound to be a full one. In addition to working the ol’ day job as much as possible (which ain’t a great deal, if consideration for my sanity is at all a factor) we’re essentially rehearsing and teching As Far As We Know all week…not necessarily in that order. You see, the tech schedule for Fringe, being as it is hosted by a variety of different theatres over a concentrated period, is a little catch-as-catch-can. In other words, we’ll tech the show (tomorrow [starting at 10:00 am {for only four hours}]) before we’ve really set it. It ain’t called “The Fringe” for nuthin’.

Perhaps it’s this unusual schedule that’s prompting my usage of slangy contractions.

So here’s the run-down of my schedule: Sunday we worked as a whole from 5 to 10. Today we work from 12 to 5. Tomorrow we tech at 10, have a midday break and reconvene in a rehearsal studio from 6 to 10. “Six to ten” is basically the schedule for the remainder of the weekdays, during which days I will be using the rest of the hours of said days to work the day job. And on Saturday we open at 9:00 pm.

So that’s:

Saturday, August 11 @ 9:00 pm.

Tuesday, August 14 @ 7:00 pm.

Saturday, August 18 @ 4:15 pm.

Wednesday, August 22 @ 9:15 pm.

&

Sunday, August 26 @ 12:00 noon.

Just in case you were wondering. Details here. ;)

I also blame the schedule for my use of emoticons.

So how’s it going, Jeff? Well, Curious Hypothetical, I would say we’re making good progress, and creating the previously desired emphasis on acting when and where ever we can. I don’t know if it will be enough to make it work. I can’t know, essentially, because this is so unlike any schedule I’ve ever experienced before. Unlike, but not entirely dissimilar. Our original Zuppa del Giorno shows tend to have a similar frenetic uncertainty just before they open. More, in fact, owing to certain factors that remain undecided in those shows that are actually quite concrete at this point of UnCommon Cause’s process. (Little things like character, and plot.) Still, with Zuppa there’s a fairly standard schedule for the tech week, and everything is about some kind of progression. With As Far As We Know, it feels much more zig-zaggy. So far as I’ve experienced it, that is. In other words: As far as I know.

(Does anyone else think of that quote from Fletch when they hear the title of our show [Daryl Boling, I’m looking in your direction…]? “Mr. Fletcher?” “As far as you know.”)

I do feel, in moments of decision-making, a surprisingly certain sense of impulse, which I hope is indicative of how prepared I actually am to open my performance to the public. I understand my character and his world clearly and strongly enough that, when there’s a decision to be made about a scene’s progress or expressionistic blocking, I seem to always have a firm, arguable opinion about how it should turn out. That’s a funny way by which to judge one’s readiness to perform as an actor, but perhaps in this unique “creactor” environment it’s a true judgment. We shall see.

I love it, you know. This kind of schedule, though it doesn’t afford me much time for leisurely meals or other entertainment, fulfills me in a way few other things can. It creates in me a feeling of priority, importance and service. Maybe it’s a little like the sense of duty a soldier has. Maybe it’s just the comfort of having deadlines, as in school. The best part, however, is inevitably the feeling of spending all this time on something I care about, personally.

That is a much more rare and significant feeling of frazzled exhaustion.

Hits of the 90s

It's hot here. Real hot. This is what I've missed all these summers when I've gone out of town to work. I've experienced it now, and I'm good.

Never Again.

New Hampshire Log: Day One—God & Country

The actor’s life is filled with trials and tribulations (to quote the Bible, by way of Andrew Lloyd Weber).He or she is often put in a situation in which his or her schedule, personal freedom and overall individuality is somehow removed, or at least de-prioritized, by the process of creating a show.Actors are whisked away to remote locations, deprived of sufficient sleep and a million little things they are accustomed to having choices about, and all for the sake of a show that may or may not have significant resonance in their careers and memories.It could be over when it’s over, simply a drop in the bucket of New York theatre and their own resumes.

That’s why, when at all possible, such sacrifices for art should be made in country as beautiful as the bulk of New England is.

On Saturday I climbed into a rental car bearing New Hampshire plates with three of my fellow performers and drove the lot of us up to Lyme, New Hampshire, so we could begin our rehearsals for the New York Fringe Festival the next Sunday.It was gorgeous day and, apart from not being able to get my iTrip to work with the rental car (dang you, antiquated peripheral device), it was a simple, direct drive up.Upon depositing actors to various houses (everyone is being put up by volunteers from around the area) Faith Catlin, Kelly van Zile and I reclined for just a moment with drinks before I walked two doors over to my digs.It was nice.Faith and Kelly were my introduction to Vermont/New Hampshire some four years ago, when Faith cast me in her production of Summertree.

We’re rehearsing in Signal & Noise Productions’ acquired space—a barn off of Loche Lyme.Smells of guano permeate the area, but it’s an impressive amount of space with fascinating levels, and when we step outside we’re a hop and skip (minus the jump) away from the lake.This means swimming and sunning during lunch, which means bring on the bat poop!The barn is part of a property that also doubles as a cabined vacation getaway, and they have food service and wireless internet.So we’re pretty well-off, all things considered.(Which is really good, since the other show in my life—Prohibitive Standards—is in full development swing and needs as much internet attention as I can spare.)

This phase of rehearsals for As Far As We Know began with a table reading of the new script by faithful resident playwright Christina Gorman.The new script has acts and arcs and everything, so this is very exciting.It also has whole unwritten scenes (which we the actors will be first devising/improvising, upon which Christina will write more), unconnected older scenes that may not function anymore (the which will either be cut or moved or transmogrified) and clocks in at 120 pages.So we have our work cut out for us.As Laurie Sales, our esteemed director said, “We are basically trying to squeeze three weeks’ worth of rehearsal into one.”That consideration having been made, I was worried about our pace as of the end of Sunday’s rehearsal.After the read-through, we managed to stage about seven pages of material.This with a staged-reading presentation for the residents of Lyme on Friday night, and a single tech rehearsal in New York two days after those rehearsals begin and four before our opening there.

But to hell with that worry!A) It’s not my job, andB) the work was so good.We began with Laurie’s new co-director, Tracey (I’m gonna get her last name I swear), taking us through some very helpful movement exercises, akin to what Zuppa del Giorno does in training its actors.She’s planning to have us practice movement as three distinct types we may all be portraying in the course of the play: principal character, soldier and townsperson.Sunday was for our principals, and all of it works toward ensemble building.We began by “walking the space,” wherein the group tries to always be moving but keep the stage balanced, without clumps of people forming.Then she had us find our common step, without looking, so that our steps were falling altogether simultaneously.From there we moved to paces, that which we already established being level 1, and moving up to 4 (as fast as possible), remaining apace.Zero was a freeze, then -1 through -4 below a normal pace.It was very challenging to keep together, especially when it came to changing paces on a clap, making an unspoken group decision as to what pace we’d switch to, and doing so without pausing.

Then it got really interesting.Basing it off this work, we found character physicality from 1 to 10 (so Zuppa, that).I discovered some helpful character notions very fluidly from this, pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to just be an actor for that time.I hope it’s a trend that keeps up during this process.What I found was that Jake’s training lived in his torso, between his shoulders where the contraction is for standing at attention (chest out and, coincidentally, where my chronic soreness is from preparatory push-ups), but his character is in his arms.He’s a mechanic, an athlete, and his arms bring him everything he values.He is unselfconscious about them, but they swing with some weight at his sides.In finding this, and most likely as a result of allowing my chest to open up, I felt rather suddenly emotional, near tears.It’s not uncommon to feel that kind of release in this work, but its reasonable quality doesn’t make it any less valuable, so I’m keeping that feeling in mind.

What was most exciting (possibly more to me as a teacher than as an actor) were the final exercises, in which we tried many variations on connecting with our fellow actors.Tracey variously asked us to keep one, then two and three actors in our peripheral vision at all times, then imagine a string we had to keep taut between our character’s physical center and another’s, then practice at keeping an equilateral triangle between ourselves and two other characters.This produced fascinating movement and shapes, real, direct connections between us on stage and provided great illustration of how connected we could all be, as actors and characters, with one another in each scene or tableau.

There scenes we worked thereafter were very much in keeping with the Joint Stock Theatre Alliance/UnCommon Cause style. (Incidentally, Friend Patrick got me Simon Callow’s On Being an Actor for my birthday, and I’m just reading about his interactions with the original Joint Stock in England.)We were given assignments to modify scenes; specifically to encapsulate Major Ainsley’s phone call within a movement piece inspired by a church service, and to interrupt a memory scene of Jake with phone messages from friends and neighbors concerned for the family after hearing of his disappearance.These went well, but what was most encouraging was the sense, as Laurie shaped them, of making choices that would survive, on the whole, into a performance.

Last night after we adjourned I went to Laurie’s digs to watch what footage she had of Matt Maupin’s first video, the one the insurgents sent back to prove he was in their captivity.She only had short, silent clips included in the local news coverage of the vigil his hometown held, but they were powerful.After the viewing a great many of us adjourned to conversation on the porch, but my mind stayed with the imagination of that situation.We may film a kind of re-enactment of that tape, with me in Matt’s stead, and we may not even use it if we do.Still, the weight of that responsibility is a unique consideration in my work in this show.

I'm Brian Dennehy, Dammit

I had a curious experience last week. My Dad has a birthday coming up, and his choice of celebration was to spend it with us seeing a show in New York. Which, you know, makes it kind of like

our

birthdays as opposed to his, but he hasn't figured that out yet and we are loathe to draw notice to it. His choice of show was

Inherit the Wind

, but sadly it closed before his actual birthday. Not one to stand on custom, dear Dad bought tickets for a performance the Friday of the show's closing weekend. It was a great show, thought I, and my parents said they enjoyed it much more than the film, which they of course rented in preparation for their theatrical experience (neither of them attempted to tackle the book). Even my sister and her fella' (Friend Adam) enjoyed it, and they had been dreading the experience for months once they researched what the show was actually about.

A couple of days later, on something of a whim, I had another entertainment experience of a somewhat different variety. Sucker that I am for cartoons of any sort, I found myself sitting in a movie theatre packed to the projector with minors, watching a story about the struggles of a young rat who eschews convention to become a connoisseur of all things edible.

Ratatouille

is the latest Pixar flick, and I have to confess that my feelings about it were about as ambivalent as my sister's and Adam's were about

Inherit the Wind

, prior to the experience. I was, in part, coaxed into it by a review I read that heaped praises upon the animators for their close study of the movement of classic physical comedians. Which is to say, I was drawn by the strange mix of excitement for new possibilities and dread that they are gradually rendering me obsolete.

And just what in the holy hinterlands do these two things have to do with one another? Well, Google it out a bit, and I'm sure you'll put it together.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

Hint: The clue is in the title. Of this post. That underlined thing at the top.

You got it! It's Teh

Dennehy

. He's the voice of a fatherly rat, Django, in the aforementioned Pixar flick, and in

Inherit the Wind

he played the side of creationism in the form of "

Matthew Harrison Brady

". The essence of my experience was in watching

Ratatouille

and thinking, over and over, "Where have I heard that voice recently...?" (It appears as though my inability to recognize celebrities on the street extends to recognizing their voices out of context.) Eventually I put it together, and spent a lot of the rest of the movie marvelling at the eccentricities my and Teh Dennehy's (barely comparable) careers share. Odds are that when he was working on the rat thing, he probably hadn't even been offered

Inherit the Wind

yet, and yet they neatly overlapped in execution, allowing me as audience member to indelibly associate them. And perhaps they were more related than was at first apparent. The Disney money Dennehy made from playing a disapproving father (rat) may have allowed him to take what we have to assume was a lower-paying gig on stage.

The tradition of stacking "prestige" projects with crowd-pleasers is ages old, and not limited to film actors. It's an interesting aspect of a career that includes a degree of choice. Which is to say, a career with enough success that others

offer you

roles, instead of you constantly offering yourself like a dessert menu during the post-dinner lull at a restaurant. I believe, however, that the variation in choice of roles is based on a common ethic, regardless of degree of success or intention for calculated results. Said ethic:

Ya' never know.

(I am reminded here of an imitation of a random woman Todd, Heather and I met whilst working on

Silent Lives

. The show was performed in [and, in part, based on] the

Hotel Jermyn

in Scranton, a building that had been converted mostly to housing for senior citizens and one that now serves as home to The Northeast Theatre. In various silent-film-era costumes we'd bounce from the abandoned ballroom on the second floor to the common area on the first for the bathroom, and there would always be a circle of octogenarians there blithely minding their groceries and gossip until we'd suddenly show up, a flash from their youths. Anyway, the snatches of conversation we'd pick up from them [once they accepted we weren't there to mock their youth {well, not exactly, anyway}] have stayed with us still. The woman we quote most had two gems I remember. The first: "Always cook with

fennel

. I get real bad gas, and fennel clears that right up. Ya' gotta cook with fennel." This with a strange, nasal sort of dialect blend that I associate with 1940s Poconos somehow--midway between a Jersey and a Pittsburgh. And the other jewel, chanted at least three times without pauses: )

Ya' never know.

It ain't exactly hope. It's a more cynical admission of just how unpredictable the business is, and how mysterious the forces of fortune can intervene in an actor's life. It's a mantra supported as much by great missed chances as it is by ones somehow caught. To mine a previous example, imagine kicking yourself for scoffing at that show you were cast in for which they wanted you to sing and dance with a Muppet-style puppet, said kicking because the show moved to Broadway and won a Tony. Or, imagine yourself as Nikki Blonsky, the brand-spanking new starlet of the brand-spanking new Hairspray movie practically plucked from the halls of her high school.

Those who subscribe to the "Ya' never know" school of thought do know one thing, however. That is, whatever you are giving a chance, when you walk into the first audition, the first rehearsal, the first performance, you give the "never know" chant a rest long enough to give yourself this little chirp:

I'm [

insert name here

], dammit.

Women of New York: Kindly Knock It Off.

There are those in my profession that keep a very close eye on trends. It's advisable, given a field so influenced by socio-political movements and "what the people want." Plus, one is expected to be as attractive (or, as a possible trade-off, intense) as one can. Actors are meant to be seen, and being easy on or fascinating to the eye is a definite plus. Some would even say it is a necessity. Certainly in New York, one has a great variety of beautiful people, a lot of whom aren't even performers (at least in the occupational sense). With the advent of the metrosexual (or as I like to call them, the image-conscious frat boys who have been relieved of the terror of occasionally being branded gay) even the straight men are in on the details of a beautiful appearance and the latest fashions.

I can't be bothered to follow trends from moment to moment, and have no particular instinct for it that would allow me to pick them up without effort. It has been this way since I was a wee one. In high school I was well known for wearing literally nothing but black, every day. A good deal of making that choice had to do with not having to choose much in the way of an outfit each day. (I love the sequences in

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

and

The Royal Tenenbaums

in which characters go to their closets to select from identical suits [and I'm pretty certain that's a bit borrowed from one of the great silent actors' repertoires][not to mention Einstein's habit of it].) I have grown past this technique, but I still am caught unawares by styles and trends, particularly those having to do with clothing.

A clothing trend for women that has walked up to me and smacked me in the face a few thousand times, now that warmer weather has sloughed its way into the Baked Apple, is the T-shirt dress. The

very short

T-shirt dress

. Like, pretty much just a T-shirt, maybe men's size. I should have seen this one coming. What with the encroaching influence of

American Apparel

and our recent fascination with shifting in and out of the 80s pop culture, this was bound to come up. I guess I should just be thanking my lucky stars (

you

could be my lucky star, but I'm

the luckiest by far

) that the side ponytail has remained in remission, and that said T-shirt dresses come in a variety of styles apart from the typical

Flashdance

variety. Instead, all I can say is this:

Kindly knock it the hell off, Women of New York.

Oh, ha-ha. He's having a comical rant, along the lines of Dennis Leary, Dennis Miller or

Patrick Lacey

. Oh this should be good, full of sardonic wit and wry commentary on his society, all the whilst keeping himself in check with merciless self-deprecation. Ha-ha.

Seriously. Knock it. Off. Knock it off.

I don't think you fully appreciate the effect you're having on the average heterosexual male (or homosexual female, I presume), Women of New York. Each and every time I see one of you wearing one such "dress," I am instantly and involuntarily transported into a fantasy that you are in my bedroom and I am making you a delicious breakfast of an omelet, whole wheat toast, a glass of cranberry juice and a french-pressed mug of coffee. Because, you see

THAT'S THE CONTEXT IN WHICH I'M ACCUSTOMED TO SEEING A WOMAN WEARING ONLY A T-SHIRT.

It's Pavlovian, or something. I mean, it's documented fact ("It's

science

.") that it doesn't take much to make men think about sex. I'm not holding you responsible for that, WoNY. I am merely pleading with you, please, to consider that it's a far worse thing to invite the idea that I've already had sex with you, and may get to again, if it's a Sunday and neither of us have anywhere in particular to be. This misconception doesn't put you in danger, of course, unless you consider having an omelet and surprisingly intimate conversation with a strange man dangerous, but I beg you to consider the effect it may have on the public at large. If legislation can be proposed banning iPods for

endangering pedestrian traffic

, should we not lend the same consideration to those afflicted by the T-shirt dress distraction factor?

And no, no: It doesn't help if you wear a broach, or if the T-shirt is artfully pleated or even if you've added a

stylish belt

to the ensemble. I still see the so-called dress and think, "Oh. My Lake Braddock Intermediate School production T from

The Miracle Worker

. Good choice. That one's

soft

." Maybe you think that wearing tights and boots with it helps to establish--in spite of its cotton magically patented to absently cling to absolutely everything underneath--a more developed sense of outfit. Sorry: No. It doesn't. I just momentarily think we've come in to the lodge from a long, hard day of skiing, and what we really need more than anything else is a dip in the jacuzzi.

And no: It isn't my fault. It simply isn't. I may have fessed up before to

compulsive sexual thoughts

in the past, but this goes beyond the pale. It's not that I'm stifled by some kind of Victorian repression that makes me scandalized over

a glimpse of ankle

. It's that you're wearing absurdly casual lingerie, in public. This is your responsibility, WoNY. Take a lesson from Spider-Man. It is indeed a great power, and you're wielding it like your uncle wasn't killed as an indirect result of your inaction. You should always behave as though your uncle was killed as an indirect result of your inaction! Especially when the issue is relative nudity.

Gentlemen (and lesbians), I do feel we have recourse, desperate though it may be. We have to fight fire with fire. Sort of. I suggest we all take to wearing boxers in public. But not just boxers, my finely-tempered fashion fighting force. Boxers with black socks. Pulled up straight. Preferably with

calf garters

and dress shoes.

We can not lose! They will bow before our mighty retaliation, cowering in the sight of the most unsightly and awkward antiquated fashion trend the world has yet to know! You think you've got us with your bedroom outfit from the 1980s? How about some 1880s boudoir!

You have been warned, Women of New York. Get out of my T-shirt. Get into some pants.