The Run Down

It was dark out when I awoke this morning, suddenly, and for no particular reason. I woke up with Shakespeare on my lips, "...speak again, bright angel, for thou art...." After almost an hour, I gave up on getting back to sleep, and squinted at the clock hard enough to make out some numerals. 5:00. May as well get up. I take it easy, making my breakfast and lunch and showering and shaving, sparing a moment or two to check in at Google Reader, and then I'm out into the chilly air.

I should have dressed warmer. The predawn temperature is just below freezing, and it's been a few days since I've had to deal with that. I turn my back to the wind on the train platform, and when I get outside of the Actors' Equity building I nestle as well as I can manage against a deli's storefront window. Waiting in line takes on a peculiar atmosphere when it's that early in the morning. Everyone has chosen to be there, and there's nowhere to rush to, only the question of whether they'll consider the weather (or not), and let us into the building much before 8:30. Once my hands warm up a little more, I read my book, pausing here and there to run over my monologue in my mind; not just the words, but imagining it as though I were living it under ideal circumstances. I'm in Italy. I'm in Civita di Bagnoregio, under a balcony that's jutting out from a building on the outskirts of town, where the gardens are, isolated. On the balcony is the most beautiful girl I've seen in my entire life. It's

warm

.

They let us in (mercifully early) and as we initiated march by the building guard we hold out our membership cards. Once past him, I begin to return it to my wallet, then remember that I'll have to show it again once up the stairs and headed into the studios. I keep it in hand and end up walking past a great many actors who were there to sign up for free tax processing, the fifth past the monitor, the fifth in line to sign up for an audition spot, the fifth to sit, and wait some more.

It was my first audition since arriving back in town. My first, to be perfectly frank, in many months. "Shakespeare on the Sound" is doing

A Midsummer Night's Dream

and, it would seem, casting all roles. I figured it would be a popular call, and I figured right. Hence my early-morning line-waiting. I needed to get a slot of my choice, to make it work with . . . er . . . work. As the hour of nine steadily advances, they finally start signing people up, and I take 12:30. It's possibly the worst slot in terms of the receptivity of the casting director, just before the lunch break, but they don't start until 9:30 and I haven't run this one by my day job, so I can't come in late. More fool me. I take my slot and a brisk walk from 46th and Broadway to 30th and Park, arriving just in time to start the work day.

It's harried at work. It has been -- economy, lay-offs, etc. I'm making it worse. My temper is edged with a diamond crust of anxiety, but I try to be aware of it and not externalize irrationally. Instead, I channel it into things that need doing around the office that are also physical. Sitting at my desk and working is not at this point an option. I move boxes and clean areas and organize files, but I can only hold on to this for so long until something urgent and desk-related comes my way, so I hunker down. My attention is a bucking horse, as much in danger of slamming into a wall as of throwing its rider. I double- and triple-check assumptions as I work, but my work is not slowed, I'm running at such a pace. Most of my coworkers use this energy all the time. I do not know how they do it. I feel like I'm sprinting toward 12:00.

Then I'm out the door. It's my "lunch break," but that's not what has me rushing. It's a couple of avenue blocks to the N/R, and if the trains screw me I have the potential to arrive late for the call for my time slot. The trains cooperate, I walk in just as they're registering the 12:30 group. I hand over my registration card and headshot/resume, the second to do so, and so the second in line to go in. I've fifteen minutes to kill, and I do so by checking the audition notices posted on the giant bulletin wall and meandering through warm-up gestures. It's awkward to warm up at Equity. The place is a throng of people trying to look more casual than they feel, and you disrupt that when you sit on the floor and twist your spine. I try to loosen up in spite of it all, try to be warm and loose and receptive. As I do so, people from the "alternates" list are being lined up in amazing quantities. It seems this casting director is quite a firecracker; she's getting twice the people in each time slot as is expected. Before too long, the 12:30s are lined up outside the door. The first goes in, and I have 1-3 minutes to prepare.

The proctor has told us the casting director wants brief Shakespeare (check), our best piece (check), and no eye contact (this is irritating when it comes to direct-address dialogue, but standard procedure for auditions -- check). I abandon all pretense of being relaxed, and in that mystical, permissive space just outside the studio door I stretch, and twist, and breathe. It's too late to run over the lines again, but I do anyway, speedy, just for the words. I think of myself walking in and charming the pants off of a new person, easy, calm, likable. This is going to be fun, I tell myself. I get to revisit Romeo for a couple of minutes. This is going to be fun. The first auditionee opens the door and walks out, leaving it slightly ajar for me. I know not to engage her too directly. The switch from audition state back to real life is a halting one for most. I walk through and close the door behind me.

And almost immediately, I see that the hours of anticipation were not, in this case, worth it.

This poor casting director. She looked exhausted, disappointed, disengaged -- stick a fork in her, because she is done. I heave a little mental sigh whilst going straight for the first chair I lay eyes on (it has arms, I didn't anticipate that, what the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is an audition studio doing with such a fancy chair) and smiling broadly, saying "Hi, I'm Jeff Wills." I get a deflated "Hi Jeff," Pause. "And what will you be doing today?" It sounds slightly accusatory. "A little Romeo," I reply. Getting no particular response, a hand her my own pause, and begin.

It's a tiny room, and I suddenly realize that though I'm speaking perfectly well for our proximity and the context, it won't do for showing her that I have a voice that can support Shakespeare. Plus, I've overcompensated in my not looking at her, so Juliet on her balcony is to the high upper right, and the "audience" is . . . on an adjacent balcony, I suppose? (Great seats; must have cost a fortune [maybe they know someone in the cast].) The casting director must feel positively underground, which is fine by me, because it's rather how she's made me feel so far. But I haven't given up hope. I'm playing with my choices in the monologue, adapting on the fly, making it far sweeter than ever it was in our raucous production. Too sweet? I up the lust ante on "...that I were a glove on that hand..." and check in with myself to make sure I'm taking my time, in spite of instinct informing me that I have

not

hooked my audience. I'm doing fine, but not making friends and influencing people, and, dang it, not living it, not getting carried away.

Forget it,

I think, though not in those exact words, and as I round third base I rock back on my heels and crane up to the heavens, getting louder and stronger as I proclaim, "...for thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head, as is a winged messenger of heaven unto the white, up-turned, wondering eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him as he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds and SAILS upon the bosom of the air!" I carry it through to the absolute end of the line (thanks, Simon Callow), that top it off with a little take to the balcony that says, I hope, "O . . . was that a little loud?"

"Thank you," I announce to my actual audience, who so far as I can tell hasn't looked up from the table the entire time. "Thank

you

," she replies. I can not tell if the emphasis is automatic, or if she genuinely appreciated my contribution to her day of endless verse, or if she was in fact thinking,

one down three more and some alternates to go thank you merciful God

. I move the chair back to where I found it, allowing for just the briefest second to gestate into conversation, or at least a question. Ultimately unhindered by such an obligation, I walk out, displacing the next sucker in. Just now it seems weird to me that I didn't add a "bye," but it didn't at the time. It just didn't seem welcome, somehow.

It's on with hoodie, with pea coat, and my various daily props back to my pants' pockets. I'm out the door and headed to the subway, no time now to walk back to work if I'm to get there before 1:00. I don't feel disappointed, of course. I feel only that familiar sense of relief I always have after surviving another open call. It wasn't a bad one to re-enter on.

The thing now, is to keep going.

Wrapping Up Romeo

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!

[

The actor is silent, twitching his fingers as if to draw something out, then upping the gesture until it is a furious, full-arm coaxing.

]

Arise, fair sun! And, and and...

[

The actor looks around himself frantically, finally spotting something in the distant horizon.

]

KILL the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief that thou her maid art far more fair than she!

[

The actor gives a take to the audience as if to say, "

Wow, did you hear me come up with that?

" The actor is never sure if this take is going to land as he intends it {that is, as a gleeful sharing of enthusiasm rather than giving the sense that he's impressed with himself} and so, sometimes, he skips it. Sometimes.

]

I'll miss my clown Romeo. Though potentially not for long, as the Italians are very encouraging about getting some part (if not all) of the production to Italy to perform, either this summer or next. Still, the curtain has fallen on this particular outing, and it's unlikely that another will be quite the same. So. To review:

The key to my take on Romeo lay in a late note from our clown director, Mark McKenna. He compared Romeo to a puppy -- all loyalty and enthusiasm, no strategy or subtext. This worked great, though I'm sure another performer could have done it better. One of the greater challenges for me in this exploration was to let go of my calculation and crispness in favor of an instinctive openness. I've never done so well at this before, yet I'm certain I didn't take it as far as it could have successfully gone. (So I'll be thankful for another chance, or two.) Romeo had big, ungainly paws and an ear-flapping energy. Part of the beauty of this puppy imagery was that it gave permission to be angry as well as cuddly, which helped me figure out how a clown Romeo could slay a commedia dell'arte Tybalt. It's funny: I used to attribute an animal to every character I played, a technique I've gotten away from in my adult career. Of course playing such a young lover would end up being nested in that work!

Prior to that image, there was a lot of struggle on my part to succeed as a clown in the role and, as I said, my success was mitigated by me just being me. I remember in college my TV/film acting teacher told the class that I shouldn't be going after non-brainy roles, that my "look" or "type" was too focused for that. I thought,

thank goodness I'll be doing theatre, where I can more easily transform

, but the personality traits she was picking up on were perfectly valid. I'm a thinker. That's not to say I'm especially intelligent, just that I work from my head first whenever I can. Bad habit for an actor, generally speaking, which is part of what I like about trying to do this amazing craft. I like the work involved in getting instinctive, getting into my heart. That didn't save me from some fury-inducing frustration during this rehearsal process (natch'), but even that was reminiscent of my teenage years, and so wasn't entirely an obstacle.

I have come to a new appreciation of the axiom that "there is no subtext in Shakespeare." This is a saying so often said that it is starting to lose letters, holes appearing like new constellations in the firmament of phraseology. (And yes, I do miss the language already.) In the little roles I've previously filled, it was apparent to me that every character says what is on his or her mind, and nothing less, but it wasn't until trying to fill out a role like Romeo that I felt how essential that no-subtext rule is. You don't just say everything as you feel it, you express it, wholly, and the whole thing is in motion the whole time. There is no stop to your internal life, there is no censorship or, ultimately, room for grand interpretation. Take, for example, the following:

"This gentleman, the Prince's near ally, my very friend, hath got this mortal hurt in my behalf. My reputation stain'd with Tybalt's slander -- Tybalt, that an hour hath been my kinsman! Ah Juliet; thy beauty hath made me effeminate, and in my temper softened valor's steel."

This ended up being the text I most had to mess with, interpretation-wise. Somehow in the clown world and with our vasty cutting of the text, it needed to be an upbeat bit, in order to more dramatically drop in the moment when Benvolio came back with Mercutio's mask in hand to tell of his demise. It's right there: mortal hurt. Romeo's upset and knows that Mercutio's at death's door, yet I felt I had to play it lightly, as though Romeo were oblivious right up to the last second. It never felt right, and it never would, because there's only so much room for interpretation. The conditions are all right there in the text, and honesty lives in living them out in their time and measure.

Apart from a few other little alterations, I feel strongly that our show was very true to the story and the characters. There was some doubt of this to begin -- we didn't know if a clown & commedia world would work at all, much less whether it could be convincingly applied to

R&J

. (Note: Next time, Jeff, read through the play a couple of times before you get super excited about your concept....) We were lucky in discovering, in my opinion, that this concept was in fact well-suited to the material. Romeo and Juliet are just as innocent and moment-to-moment as clowns, and they are surrounded by a world of connivers, and scarred fighters, and hypocrites. And all these people are lovable, even the worst of them, which makes the tragedy truly, uh, tragic. You feel bad for

everyone

. It will be a while before I'll be able to see the play as anything other than how we conceived it. Indeed, watching film versions of it I'm compelled to laugh, especially during the back-to-back "banished" scenes. You can't expect me to believe that he wrote those without some sense of the comic irrationality of teenagers.

One criticism of the show lingers for me: That it was too manic, that the tragedy was ultimately undermined by all the broad comedy preceding it, and came off as too abrupt. This sticks with me because I feel quite the opposite. To me, life is like that. Tragedy is abrupt, and I meant every emotion prior to our characters' deaths, regardless of how comic the effect was, so I feel that there was plenty of room there to believe that something truly sad was happening. This critique is also interesting to me because, technically speaking,

Romeo & Juliet

is not exactly a tragedy. The deaths are quite accidental and unnecessary, rather than inevitable. There is no return to the status quo, true (the hallmark of classical comedy), but neither are the main characters of especially high status. Furthermore, it seems to me that Shakespeare

knew

this, and spent some effort to counteract it. Of all the lines we cut, a great many were (I believe coincidentally) of a foreboding nature. Hardly a scene goes by without Romeo and/or Juliet saying something about a bad dream or sudden image of death. Methinks the playwright doth protest too much, in other words.

What we made, ultimately, was a very broad, structured comedy that aspired to inspire tragic catharsis at the end. I know we reached this aspiration for some, and not for others. Such is theatre, such is life. I feel very fulfilled, now all is said and done. It was not as I imagined it, but that's collaboration, and the show was probably better for it. I learned much, and kept learning, which I take as a sign that we were doing something right in terms of story and character. The audiences enjoyed themselves, and we achieved some measure of delight, surprise, and grief. It was funny, and it was beautiful, and if I never get to play another leading Shakespeare role again, I can happily hang my hat on this.

That's not my plan, though. I've got a taste for it now.

Inquiring Philosophy

Last night I attended the first dress rehearsal for Marywood University's

A Midwinter Night's Dream

, something for which I specifically returned to town early. It was gaffe-ful, naturally, but I expected much worse, given the students' generalized anxiety about the progress of their rehearsals when I led them in

a workshop

last week. I should learn: Actors in general, and young actors in particular, are given to anxiety about any show. It's how we channel what to most people seems like unaccountably constant enthusiasm. We have to channel it somehow, lest we drive others crazy with it (as if our anxiety didn't risk that) or, more dangerous, make them jealous. Most people rarely get to experience the kind of unapologetic joy that actors with an opportunity to perform do. Most people, it must be said, feel a need to beat down that seemingly selfish celebration.

I may seem a bit cynical with that last, but I swear to you that I'm feeling very open and grateful. Last night's performance put me in mind of some of my earliest experiences in theatre. First of all, I was in about two college productions per year after my freshman one, and was reminded of how that environment is so unique for theatre. Secondly,

Midsummers

was one of my first high school productions. I played Philostrate, a fun but generally thankless role. As I watched a rather Annie-Hall-like Philostrate ply her few lines last night, I was reminded of the beautiful feather they gave me for a quill pen when I played the role, and how the director tried as delicately as possible to direct me to play him, shall we say, as weightless of sole as possible. In brief, I was reminded of the times when theatre was a different kind of adventure for me, when my priorities were all wrong for supposed good work, when I knew little and (perhaps more dangerously) thought I knew more. Thankfully, the Marywood players are far more self-aware than I was a decade or so ago, and their show is well-constructed and a refreshing venue for seeing young actors working with great sincerity and no small amount of artistry.

I'm also writing to you, Dear Reader, from the office of the

Electric Theatre Company

. Directly over the computer I'm using (the one usually reserved for the tiresome business of juggling money to make sure types like me get paid) is a corkboard, and pinned to this corkboard is a quote from Simon Callow. I read Callow's memoir,

Being An Actor

, and enjoyed it. Friend Patrick gave it to me as a 30th birthday gift, and nearly as he did, another friend commented on Callow as a self-important git. Uncouth, to be sure, but the drinks were flowing quite liberally even that early in the evening (as evidenced by the gallery on my Facebook page) and I leave this as the friend's excuse. Whether or not it's true, it colored my reading of the book a bit. I rolled it about as a question in my own mind, and have left it largely unanswered. The book didn't offend me, was interesting, and at times even inspired me, so who am I to judge? The corkboard quote from Callow is from another book,

The Road to Xanadu

:

"The loss of excitement is the beginning of professionalism. The thrill of standing on stage, of receiving an audience's attention and admiration, the release of becoming someone other than yourself; all these stimuli are transient and superficial. They must be replaced by something more deeply rooted which takes as its starting point the audience's experience rather than your own."

I'm still reeling a bit from a troublesome note given to me by one of my directors on

The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet

(see

2/16/09

). Two things I can hardly abide are being accused of selfishness and being instructed to relax. The first is because I'm perpetually paranoid about seeming self-centered simply because I want things for myself, the second is because telling me to relax is possibly the most futile, self-defeating exercises in which to engage me. To me, it's a little like telling someone to jump, than berating them for coming back down without your instruction. I admit that one of my character flaws is in how easily frustrated I am, and how quickly I can lose my sense of perspective -- and I try to take responsibility for these attributes as best I can. But tell me to "relax" too many times, and I will remorselessly rip your ears off. And I'll

still

go off and try to be more perfect for you. I'm in a long process of learning how to fend for myself when it's necessary, something that comes more naturally to some, and I'd like the world at large to recognize that my default state is to do everything I do for it, for them, for anyone but myself.

This is getting a little too self-important/self-flagellating for me, and my reasoning rather a lot cyclical at that. But I've needed to vent, so that was pretty effectively accomplished with the above. The real question I am trying to come to grips with is, where do I draw the line between "good" work, and the work I want to do? Another way to ask it is, what are my standards for myself in my work, and how do I maintain those in the face of adversity? We all have to be open to criticism, but we also can not afford to take all criticism at face value, lest we be stymied completely. There

is

no perfection, of course. Make that your goal at your own peril. So how do we define the best we can do, from moment to moment? I just advised a whole theatre department to have a sense of personal direction in their work, and now I'm questioning my own. It's necessary work. It's also a pain in my ass.

My quick-and-dirty answer (or, my jumping-off-point for re-exploring this question) is to say that in my perfect world, the audience and the actor meet on an equal plane of thrills, tears and laughter. Perhaps this is why I want so much to take the director's chair for a bit, to gain some better perspective on this possibility. Maybe it's impossible. I won't know until I try. And in the meantime, I have had to decide that the note I received was simply a misperception. It felt like a good show. It didn't feel I was showing off, nor in danger of doing so. It felt like the audience and my fellow actors and I were meeting on a level playing field, and each upping the other's emotional investment. I felt like an adult choosing to make that compact with the audience, and I felt like a kid, playing without knowing what to expect next. What else could an actor ask for?

But Soft, What Paycheck Through Yonder Window is Cut...?

My very awfully busy week last week was every bit as awfully busy as I had imagined. Rewarding, but not in the material sense, as most of the payment I'll receive for said work will take its saccharine-sweet time in getting to me. This I'm afraid is standard practice for the teaching artist (largely what I was, apart from

Romeo Montague

, last week) which is all-too ironic, teaching artists being folks that generally need the money rather immediately. I don't do what I do for money's sake --

obviously

-- but there are times when one needs it more than others, and now is such a time for this guy. As I tried to impart in one of my workshops this week: Work is not a job unless it pays, and a job is not a career unless you are working. But let's assume the institutions will not fall apart completely before I get my checks, and focus on the work. The work is what this branch of my 'blogging is about, after all.

Tuesday was

a workshop

for the Electric Theatre Company's Griffin Conservatory, one in acrobalance. However, my usual teaching partner (my Juliet Capulet) sprained her calf and got a cold in one fell swoop over the weekend, and I was stuck trying to teach partner balancing without being able to demonstrate it. This turned out all right, though, as I had only two students show up and was able to modify the class to a general "physical acting" one, with some balance and tumbling instruction. So for three hours, on the padded floor of our

R&J

set, we three cavorted and grew together a bit. It was the most remedial class I'd taught in a long while, which was actually very nice. It reminded me of how much there is to appreciate in the smallest or most intuitive of movements.

Wednesday was a two-show day, our first, and due to a faulty calendar I managed to schedule my

career workshop

at Marywood right between the two. For a while I was nervous about this, as my central theme would have to be, "Do better than I have." But I learned from the students, who requested some further coverage of acrobalance (I've teased them with it here and there over the last couple of years) and that I talk about

In Bocca al Lupo

. So I called it "Finding Balance," and tried to combine physical activity with discussions about balancing a professional life with a creative one in the theatre. In essence, I was putting this here 'blog on its feet, and I ended up feeling that it went rather well. It's still a fledgling workshop, to be sure, but with a little more organization and some more concrete material I could see myself running it other places. At any rate, the students seemed to get good information out of it, and definitely enjoyed themselves. I like combining thought and action. Feels like acting!

Thursday and Friday, Heather and I

choreographed fights

for North Pocono High's production of

A Midsummer Night's Dream

, which was in itself a kind of workshop, involving as it did students who'd never done any physical theatre at all. Marywood has an up-coming

Midsummers

coming up too, and it's awfully fun to be surrounded by these shows whilst doing

R&J

; popular opinion has it that Shakespeare created them in close conjunction with one another. For North Pocono, we spent all of Thursday teaching stage combat basics, then taught them specific choreography the next day. We had just enough time to do it all, at that, and had to rely on their note-taking and diligence hereafter for any hopes of it sticking. The four actors were wonderfully focused, though, and we would have failed had they not been. Overall, I'm very happy with the work we did. We taught them funny, story- and character-based choreography, and we did it right, without skimping on technique and safety.

Which makes it rather ironic that I got PWN3D by Paris in our fight for Saturday night's performance.

The performances went fine this week, though we had considerably smaller audiences across the board compared to our preview, pay-what-you-can nights last week. I came to feel quite a bit more at home in Romeo this week, and truly, even the quiet audiences seemed to get a lot out of the show (I usually disdain that "they were quiet, but

really attentive

" excuse for bad shows -- these I do not think were those). I had a big week for visitors; my parents came Friday night, and

Wife Megan

and

Friend Patrick

saw it both Saturday, and for Sunday's matinee. This is the first Zuppa show Patrick's been able to catch, which made it an absolute thrill for me. Sunday morning the director thought that these audience members might be part of the reason my performance was the way it was. He said it was a very good show, but that I was just

this close

to playing more for myself than for Romeo; nearly showing off, to put a finer point on it. He asked me to just be careful, and relax.

So the past couple of days have had a cherry a-top my gradually built sundae of doubt about continuing as I have with Zuppa del Giorno. No conclusions as yet, but me, I am a'thinkin' . . .

But the real news! I got punched! In the eye! Yes, in our climactic battle, I accidentally got a shiner from one Conor McGuigan; and yes, I'm sorta proud. I don't think I've ever had a black eye before and, in spite of speaking in verse at the time, this one was pretty Fight Club-y. The move was a down punch to the face, where I am kneeling and he stands over me. Among his other virtues, Conor's got bony knuckles, and at least one of them connected with my brow that night. The effect is rather like my left eyelid is stuck in a Boy George video -- lovely, deep purples, but only on the lid. A little concealer does the trick for shows, and now I get to make up stories about what a tough/hilariously clumsy guy I am.

It made for good conversation in my audition today. I hadn't planned on returning to New York these days off, but got a call V-day about auditioning for a Lexis-Nexis web spot and decided to shell out for the bus ticket again. It was quite an out-of-the-blue opportunity; I was plucked from the casting files of one

Lisa Milinazzo

, but for the life of me, I can't remember what, if any, connection we share. The bad news is that the filming dates conflict with the final shows of

R&J

, and are thereby impossible for me, but the good is that the audition went great. I seem to get these opportunities to play straight-faced businessmen that are actually funny and run with them. This was another case in which they asked me to improvise around the script and loved what I came up with. (I really, really need to parlay this type into some live show that will get me noticed by agentry.) Casting people for

The Office

, please note: I am your guy in spades. I even know Scranton! Come on!

I'm looking forward to this final week of the show being rather more relaxed. Even our two-show Thursday should seem a breeze, compared to last Wednesday. My first order of business upon returning to Scranton tomorrow will be to attend a rehearsal of Marywood's

A Midwinter Night's Dream

, which I'm very much looking forward to (their actual performances conflict with ours). Then I hope to spend my days getting resumes out for the next gig, 'blogging more, and beginning the first revision process on

Hereafter

. That's not exactly relaxed, I guess. But it sounds wonderful . . .

"Arise, fair sun...!"

The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet

has opened its three-week run, and I am on our first sincere day off (during the rehearsal/development process, no day off is truly spent "off"). I write to you now, Dear Reader, from my super-secret Astorian lair, where I will spend the next twenty-four hours in blissful avoidance of hemp rope and hard lumber. I love our set, but she is a harsh mistress.

How shall I begin to tell you of our process? Well, I'll start with the product by saying that this is the happiest I've been with a

Zuppa del Giorno

show in years. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's as effective as

Silent Lives

, nor as consistently funny as

Legal Snarls

, but it is a good, funny, heartfelt show that audiences seem to enjoy. I've grown accustomed to Zuppa shows being very reliant upon audience -- they're all broad comedy, and if we don't grab you, then we don't have you.

TVNPCoR&J

is no exception, but this time we have the benefit of a script and we're working with a story everyone knows to one extent or another, so it's easier to keep the audience even when a couple of jokes don't land. And we've had great audiences so far! Sunday was by far our smallest (and toughest) house so far, with only twenty or so, spaced out both is seating and in energy, it seemed. The rest were great; big audiences with lots of energy to contribute to the party. May the trend continue!

As it so often happens with the Zuppa shows, our process was varied and anti-linear. So many people contribute so many things, and everything has such equitable value that we can sometimes dissolve into a bit of confusion. David calls this "committing to the chaos," and it sometimes makes me want to tear his ears off, but he has a point. To a point. Whether it's order or chaos, Zuppa's process is inclusive and positive, and I appreciate it for that. This time around was particularly zesty. We were working with three directors and a fight choreographer, essentially. One director can't hear so well, one can't communicate in English so well, the third was only there for short periods and was trained in a different style of theatre altogether, so really it's kind of an accomplishment that we got a cohesive show of any shape to its feet, much less one that runs as well as this. There were many other scary/insensible moments and factors, but this is all just to say that I didn't come here to complain -- as with any show, there were points at which I thought, "Hang it up, all of it. I'm going to be a goat farmer in the east Andes."

The script went through various revisions. David did an initial cutting that he decided was just too long for the comedy we were trying to build. He suggested we choose lines that were especially important to us and feel free to improvise around those . . . which is a cool idea, but a little complex in practice. We were already improvising scenes based on the scenario set forth in the text, and reading the scenes straight, but to do the two together in the moment takes a particular genius, the first step of which would be (in my opinion) to know the text inside and out. We didn't yet. So eventually, David did another cutting, and we modified that through petition. (I want to keep, "Then I defy you, stars"; we can lose, "The fee simple? O simple!") For a while there, I found myself feeling heretical, slicing into the scansion as such, but eventually it became clear that what we were creating was going to be mongrel Shakespeare. After all, some of the text would be improvised, and some would even be spoken in Italian. Our priorities were sense first, then humor -- the music would have to be found in the spaces between.

An early rule we set, however, plays to our advantage: Romeo and Juliet's scenes together are whole, and wholly the original text. For a stretch it seemed we might have to make cuts to the balcony scene. It is, under the most formal conditions, like a mini-play inserted into the larger (making yet another case for

Midsummer's

being a parody companion piece to

R&J

), and Shakespeare had good reasons for giving everyone an act break and a chance to buy a few walnuts just before it. We did not have such a luxury -- our one intermission was resolutely set between Tybalt's death and Juliet's "gallop apace, ye fiery steeds" -- so for a time the scene was set on the carving block. Fortunately, we gained a sense of our style just in time to save the playlet. We chose early on to have Juliet and her Romeo speak the original text, as an indicator of their love and to distinguish them from what we assumed every other character would be doing at the time (that is, improvising dialogue left and right). Though we eventually decided it was best to have everyone speak mostly from the script, this early rule was somewhat prescient. By making the lovers clowns in a world of commedia dell'arte characters, we automatically made them a different pace and energy altogether. Commedia characters address the audience, but aren't ruled by them, whereas clowns have needs to ask permission, and must take even more sensitive cues from their audiences than intuiting what will make them laugh. It's as though the commedia characters are adults, enthusiastically sharing their argument with the audience, whereas the clowns are children, checking in with their parents to make sure they are pleased and eager to share with them each new discovery.

This has been the hardest work for me: Being, as a clown. I've done clown work for a few years now, but silently, and I wouldn't say it's my forte. Heather's much, much more natural with it than I. She has only to look at the audience, and they know everything she's feeling and thinking. I'm more calculating, less open, and am easily sucked into the rampant, frenetic energy of my fellow performers -- it's what I'm used to, I'm good at it and it gets laughs. But it isn't nearly as honest, vulnerable or interesting, frankly. I can hit the rhythms precisely, and get a laugh, but there's nothing precise about the clown. He is too present, too young to be precise, and that is part of his appeal. It works beautifully for this story, but it has been throughout an effort for me to make it work. (In some ways, of course, this is appropriate -- Romeo gets sucked into his environment and its violence, and spends a lot of his time trying to "make it work.") The most helpful note to me in this regard, a rather eleventh-hour one at that, was to think of Romeo as a dog, innocent, loyal and incapable of seeing past the next moment. Since I sometimes feel like a reincarnated dog, in both helpful and less-helpful ways, this resonates for me.

As if this work to "relax" in my work (oh yes -- many's the time that "relax" was my note for a scene, and not one but three directors almost got their respective ears torn off) weren't enough, hey: IT'S SHAKESPEARE. It is, to be perfectly honest, in spite of my abiding love of it, and four Shakespeare plays on my resume, my very first lead Shakespeare role ever. In fact, prior to this, my career in Shakespeare was particularly notable for playing roles that would just barely qualify as speaking ones: Philostrate in

Midsummer's

, Ned Poins in

Henry IV 1

and

Much Ado

, the ONE messenger who speaks. So this was both great and terrible, and I've done it with no resident Shakespeare director, really. Some may be horrified by my interpretations, but I think I've done all right. I read up, and reviewed notes, and generally made the text a particular priority even at times when it seemed not to be one to others. It's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, and I hope I'm doing it some small justice.

So through much trial-and-error, "finding the game" of the scene, improvisation, a little text analysis, collaborative gag making and general mayhem, we have made what I would describe as a very lively, very youthful cross-pollination of commedia dell'arte, clown, screwball and even a bit of Shakespeare. It's good fun and, I believe, loyal to the spirit of the original, for all we can know about it. When I read the play now, I can hardly believe it hasn't been played more comically more often. Even after the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt, the keening is so young, so naive in its way, I can easily imagine the rabble of Shakespeare's time eating it up with spoons as they chuckled in melancholic empathy. Friend John feels that the pallet is too heavily laid with comedy to prepare the audience for any of the tragedy, but I affectionately disagree. This is how life feels to me more often than not. We're all trying to live out a joyful comedy, especially in the face of tragedy, and innocence makes us weep just as passion makes us laugh. My feelings turn on a dime as our play's do.

I'm glad to have it up at last, and I'm proud of our work for what it hoped to be, and what it became. And who knows what it will yet become?