The Missing Cast Member

We've had two performances of

Love Me

thus far, with four remaining over the course of a couple of weeks, which may seem strange but is pretty par-for-the-course when it comes to theatre festivals

such as this

. Of the two in the bag, the first was certainly my best, but the second wasn't particularly bad. It felt not dissimilar from most second-night performances, rather off-kilter and maybe a bit flat, which I was hoping to avoid by having a day of rest between opening and our second show. I suppose it wasn't meant to be. The sophomore slump can not be avoided by mere paltry circumstance.

In any show, one rehearses without an essential member of the cast: the audience. We never know how things are going to play out, what energy and emotions the room will contain or need pumped into it until those seats have a few willing participants. This is particularly true when you are faced with a lot of direct-address material, as I am in

Love Me

. I knew I wouldn't know what I was doing--not really--until I had that scene member who somehow

refused

to show up for rehearsals, and I don't mind telling you I was pretty nervous about that. I've been avoiding clown work in large part because of the vulnerability of that relationship, and this show hinges in part on the conceit of my character being embraced from the word "go." He opens the show, and if the audience doesn't like him, or doesn't get it, well . . . shit.

Most fortunately for me, on our opening night we had a very supportive audience who "got it." It was thrilling, actually, to succeed with the first couple of jokes, and I felt that we were all on the same page and synchronous. My very first line was an addition by the director,

Daryl

, and is about as simple as you can get: "Hi." I'm grateful as get-out that he added it, though. In its simplicity, it transforms traditional soliloquy into a more accustomed, casual relationship. It adds ease to the whole thing, and lets the audience know that my character isn't there to narrate -- he wants to be friends. This carries through the play in very important ways, but also lets the jokey exposition that follows be not just comprehensible, but intentional:

"My name is Charlie. This is my story. His story. Our story. Or at least how I remember it. I've changed the names for fear of retaliation. If you think this is about you, it might be. That's me too. [Indicating CHARLIE.] That's actually the real me. I'm just what's going on in his head. My head. Our head."

From there, my dialogue consists of one-liners and very brief inter-scene monologues. The rest of the time all my contributions to scenes are physical work, representing at various times: 1) how Charlie feels, 2) what Charlie wants to do, but doesn't, and/or 3) guidance/criticism of his words and actions. At first I worried over the inconsistency of these representations; I thought they might be difficult for the audience to track and find cohesive. I'm finding, however, that so long as the audience accepts me as a character in my introduction, they go on to be thrilled with any complication or interruption I can add to a scene. There still exists the very easy possibility of over doing it, but I'm comforted to know that yes, the Inner Monologue (I.M.) is a scene partner they're willing to play with.

Interestingly enough, my experience with the audience has reinforced the arc that Daryl and I essentially had to create for my character. In the end, I.M.

SPOILER ALERT

is given the shove-off by Charlie, who has found a certain sense of self-worth that doesn't rely on his little helper

SPOILER ENDETH

. When we began rehearsals, I had the idea that I.M. was actually an sheer antagonist, whom we don't discover is working against Charlie until the final scenes. Daryl, however, kept working with the idea that he is a kind of bipolar guardian angel who loses his influence toward the end. As a result, when Charlie and I have our last scene, I played it as a defeat, but Daryl kept pushing for it being a kind of agreement. I went with my director, and the audience has supported this idea. They really enjoy I.M., and in this way I'm able to give them a more comprehensive character arc as well. The ending has a feeling of inevitability without being obvious, but there's no way we could be sure of that until we played it with the missing cast member.

Spectacular Excerpt

So, I'm super lame, and still haven't edited the footage of The Spectacular Scrantonian Spectacular (see 2/16/10 for details) together and posted it on the interwebs and made us all famous. I guess, on some level, I fear fame and the changes it may portend. Fortunately for the world, Alicia Grega-Pikul and Kate Chadwick have no such trepidations. And so, one of my favorites from the Spectacular:

Screwball

"Screwball" is a term for a particular sort of comedy, but these days the particulars of the sort are a little difficult to pin down. The term originated with the coincidence of a baseball pitch and the popularity of a particular type of Hollywood movie, and so most people define a "screwball comedy" as a film from a very specific time period in which romantic entanglement provides the conflict for slapstick comedies about class differences and mistaken identities (and

Connecticut

?). That is all pretty clear-cut, but the term has gone on to describe other, less-specific forms that adhere to many of the same elements. A screwball comedy is not the same thing as a romantic comedy (especially lately), as it usually incorporates more farcical elements with a strong female lead. Strong, in this context, meaning she has a deliberate and dramatic effect on the story and other characters, not that she's just

sassy

. Given certain rises in the popularity of female protagonists and the reticence of some to use (or even know of) the farce genre, lots of things get lumped in under "screwball" these days. Personally, I use it to describe any film or play that up-ends conventions and incorporates a little light-hearted love and violence.

I consider the play I'm rehearsing now,

Love Me

, to be a screwball comedy. You could also call it a romantic farce, but frankly I find it just a bit too screwy for that. It has the requisite strong female leads and the struggles to overcome ridiculous romantic adversity, and plenty of slapstick. The emphasis, however, isn't on sex (except when it is) and there is that strange convention of playing someone's inner monologue. Maybe "magical realism" is applicable, but come on now: way too many dick jokes for that kind of nonsense.

I'm having an absurd amount of fun working on the show. It's hard work, and a sort of work I haven't done in some time, and for both of these reasons it is cathartic and rewarding. The overwhelming feeling I have is of returning to a very pure, unpretentious style that came naturally to me in my early twenties, which is as much as to say that this rehearsal process makes me feel younger. I hadn't realized I was losing touch with something valuable when I got serious about stylistic distinctions, clown and commedia, and the ways of effectively communicating these skills to students. I did lose touch, though. There's something to be said for working with total abandon, just throwing oneself into it and leaving every last drop of energy and idea in the rehearsal room. I used to do it instinctively, and have been thinking that because it didn't come naturally anymore, I was past it. It's nice to know not only that I'm not past it, but that it can still nourish me in a particular way.

What it does not nourish, of course, is my back, my hips, and my heretofore cherished sleeping habits. There is comedy to be had even in my journey of simultaneous rediscovery of enthusiasm and what that costs. Caffeine intake is at a two-year high, and I find myself feeling almost immortal in the rehearsal room, and drowsy to the point of being nonexistent at home. Yet in all that, I have been better about exercising in the mornings before work. Momentum is a powerful force. (So are

restless cats

.) I'm fairly certain that I'm losing track of myriad things, and we're going into our production week, so that's probably only going to get worse. There may be a little hell to pay down the road for letting other things slide now, but I'm not sure the tunnel vision of the push to an opening night can be mitigated terribly much. I've missed that too.

The genius of the original screwball and romantic comedies is that falling in love is a rebirth, in every sense of the term. That's why love stories make such potent genres, why television and movies try to work them into any and everything, and why we keep swallowing them up. There's trial and suffering, with the greatest of payoffs: A new life. Love resurrects, and laughter gets us through all the torment leading up to it. Maybe this all sounds too pretentious to be accurate, but even the zaniest of stories can come from profound emotions, and the satisfaction of any comedy is coming out smiling a bit more, seeing things with a little more humor. It's been fun falling in love with this sort of theatre again, strong-willed woman that she is, and I'm grateful for the bruises.

A Little More Inside

Because I know you diligently read every single item I post with great fervor and admiration, Dear Reader, you'll no doubt immediately reference from this title my post of May 13, 2010. Just in case you need refreshing:

An link

. Just in case you fear linkage: I'm in rehearsals for an original comedy called

Love Me

(

an link

[you see what I did there]) in which I play the central character's inner monologue embodied bodily on-stage. Wacky? Oui. Fun? Often. Challenging? No question about it.

Over the course of two weeks, things have progressed rather nicely. Because of various conflicts I have and the general nature of my role, I haven't been to about half of the rehearsals so far. Now things are gearing up and scenes are stringing together, so I'm called all the time and finding myself grateful for that. It helps me create connections with these fellow actors with whom I share stage time, but not necessarily any real scene work. The big exception to that is of course

Aaron

-- the real "me." Even he isn't allowed to look at me whilst on stage together, but I'm finding the tennis game of playing the same role from different perspectives growing more and more simpatico with him. There's a nice give-and-take, and we continue to find new techniques to make it work.

It's kind of funny, actually, how little I can solve these challenges by any kind of logical approach; it is far more productive to proceed instinctively. It seemed like such an artificial trope, this inner monologue (I.M.) incarnation, that I was inclined to set some ground rules as a first step. Address audience in this case, address Charlie in that, don't manipulate objects, etc. As with regular ol' acting, however, my instincts prove much smarter than my rational brain. The most important thing is to keep a flow of ideas (no matter how ragingly inappropriate) coming so more can catch in the sieve. This is an old acting lesson--and one I just have to keep on relearning, it seems--but particularly important when one is playing someone else's id or super-ego.

Of course, some conventional acting wisdom is less helpful, if not downright disruptive. For example, staying in eye contact with your scene partner as much as possible. Also, in many cases, we want to see an actor fighting his emotions in order to achieve some goal; this is the idea behind crying on stage, the point not being the tears, but to keep working through that crying. However, when you have an alter ego playing out your practical or scenic obligations, the best thing you can do to tell the story is flat-out show his hidden or outwardly controlled emotions. I jump around and shout a lot in this play, and I just have to keep reminding myself that such no-nos are exactly and precisely what I'm there to do.

There are a few scenes in the play when we get to blur these rules in entertaining ways. For example, Aaron and I come a lot closer together in a scene in which he's hammered drunk, to the extent that we are literally back-to-back, holding one another up for our elaborate drunken swaying. At this stage of rehearsal, the ensemble is getting comfortable enough for more physical choices and choreography in general, and this is of course a favorite stage of things for yours truly. From the start we are now establishing that not only do I have physical control over Aaron, but sometimes he over me as well (when he's particularly using his imagination, for example). There are also three or four moments in which I get to initiate some of his subconscious gestures by directly operating him like a puppet. There's great fun to be had in these moments when they're more adversarial. At such times, Aaron has to justify in the "real" world why he tripped or bit his nails at a particular moment, and heck: that's just fun stuff.

In terms of my off-stage work, I really should be jogging and stretching more. I'm not in the worst shape, but my exercise for a while now has been predominantly silks work with the amazing

Cody Schreger

, and there's not a whole lot of shimmying involved in

Love Me

(pity, really). What there is a lot of is running around and contorting and falling. The trouble is that this all happens in rehearsal until 10:30 or so, and so, when I wake up at 6:00...no running for me. Must get on it now, because June 10th is just over that hill...

A Little Inside

Last night was the first on-our-feet rehearsal for the debut comedy I'm performing in:

Love Me

. It's written by

Jason Grossman

, directed by

Daryl Boling

, and features two actors with whom I've worked before as well:

Laura Boling

(nee Schwenninger) and

Ridley Parson

. So in many ways, the show is a fairly epic reunion. And in others, I'm not acting with these people at all.

It's a unique role.

The play concerns itself with a struggling young actor-turned-playwright living in the city, looking for love, and the various misadventures this engenders amongst his friends and love interests. This fellow, Charlie, has an inner monologue that's realized aloud on stage. I play Charlie's inner monologue. Now, the play as it was originally written simply used a voice-over for the inner monologue (henceforth, "I.M."), but Daryl thought it would be interesting to have a physical personification, and presto: me. Jason's done some rewrites to accommodate this notion, but by-and-large we're in a process of discovery about how the concept might play out.

Last night was a very interesting, probably evenly-matched mix of exciting revelation and humbling reality check. On the one hand, this role allows for some tremendous and unconstrained acting choices; on the other, it practically demands such choices. My expressions can be delightfully hyperbolic when it works, since they're the instinctive responses of someone's private thoughts, but it's also a bit like acting in a vacuum. More than a bit. I was surprised to find, last night, just how tough that would be. We had a moment here or there at which someone would accidentally acknowledge me on stage, and it was always funny, but by the end of the evening I found myself wishing it happened more. It is tough to act alone.

It's also good practice, and particularly good practice for some of my clown training. Since much of what I.M. does is judge his analogue self, I'm also reminded of The Action Collective's recent workshop (see

4/29/10

) with

Raïna von Waldenburg

. In other words, this role is an interesting convergence of my past experiences and my current perspectives on acting. It's also an uncompromising position for one who has been avoiding the bare-faced vulnerability of clown work for some time to be in, but sometimes that's exactly the sort of situation one needs to see past something. I hope that's the case here but, either way, there's nothing to do now but commit like crazy.

Perhaps the most interesting part of it all is learning what works and what doesn't in terms of working with my alter ego, played by

Aaron Rossini

. Last night we worked on the first two scenes, and the final one, so I was introduced and had a good scene of just me and ... uh ... me, then found out how it would be to play with others in the room, then how it all wraps up. Pretty good overview for a first rehearsal. I'm positively more at ease in the scene Aaron and I share alone, at this point, and even in that there were of course spectacular failures last night. I had imagined before we started that I would mostly be playing off of what Aaron chose for the character, but quickly discovered that it was going to be more of a tennis game than that.

Generally speaking, it was working great when I was like an amplified echo of his current moment, or a representation of his creeping, intrusive self-judgment as he moved in one direction or the other. Facing him is tremendous, and we have a really nice moment over a phone on a podium that I understand and helps me contextualize what we're aiming for in the rest of our scenes together.

There is a lot that challenges, too. For example, I am assumed to have an inherent connection to myself (of course) yet when Aaron and I are looking in the same direction . . . I can't look at him for cues as to how he's feeling. Also, in addition to being a bit energetically isolated from the cast, there's a strange Icarusian (is SO a word)

polar

danger of either hyperbolically stealing the scenes, or being painfully extraneous to them. All this, and I should be funny, too.

YAY, CHALLENGES!!!1!

But seriously: Yay, challenges! These are good challenges, and I'm happy to have them, as well as the opportunity to try and be funny for strangers again. I'm working on a show that reunites me with old friends, tackles themes and conventions that are very personal to me and

on top of all that, there's the free reign to be just as physical as I please. This is a good time for that. Let's live aloud, and let out our angels and demons.

Even if just a little, inside.