The Southampton Writers Conference

I had no idea this thing existed until I was invited by

The Ensemble Studio Theatre

(thanks entirely to

Tom Rowan

) to participate as an actor this year. But that's what a lot of my acting career is like, so it's tough for me to judge whether or not I

should

have heard of it.

Imagine you're at a party where you don't really know anybody. You're supposed to be there, and yet no one would miss you for a moment if you slipped out the door. People are buzzing about, trying to connect with very specific intentions, and tremendous drama and change is unfolding all around you. You, meanwhile, are just sort of holding your arms out, hoping someone will pick up on your invitation to a hug. That, my friends, is an apt metaphor for my experience as a career actor, my general attitude toward parties, and frankly the beginning of my experience here at

The Southampton Writers Conference

.

It was cool, I don't mind telling you. I am a huge writing nerd, and love excuses to hear writers talk about their work and processes. I've been to another writers' conference twice before, the

CVWC

in upstate, both times as something of a tourist. I was just a shade closer to being an actual participant this time, working there as an actor for their playwrights, which means I get to attend readings and rub elbows with Emily Mann and - yes - spend a little time cloistered away in my room working on my own playwriting. Pretty sweet, and those strange party feelings always fade eventually (but must they always appear in the first place, galdurnitall?). More on that in a future post, I think.

To sum it all up (because Blogger ate a good three paragraphs that it told me it had saved yesterday [Blogger, you jerk][just kidding love you mean it never change]): social difficulties were surmounted, the quality of work was astounding, and the level of talent of my fellow actors was simply inspiring. I'm not just blowing positive-attitude smoke here. Without dropping names, the actors I got to work with were - across the board - professional, talented and fun. Most all of them were working, many you'd probably recognize, and just about all of them (with the exception of me and I think two others) had some previous association with EST. So in some small way, I checked off a personal goal in getting to work with that theatre (see

11/17/08

). I hope, of course, to work with them again someday.

The work itself involved reading two plays twice - Tom's

Burning

Leaves

and

Ben Rosenthal

's

Neptune Kelly

- in a cycle in which the first reading gave the playwrights material with which to revise, and the second came after two days' revisions and a brief rehearsal period, and was presented to whomever from the conference wished to attend. It was a good structure, and left us with time to sit in and do readings for Emily Mann's playwriting workshops, and on Saturday night her attendees presented some of their work to the rest of the conference in the form of our performing readings of about five minutes of each playwright's in-class creations. Any time I had spare from this schedule was generally spent in my room mulling over and revising my own much-neglected play-in-progress

Hereafter

.

(PS and also: Dear Reader, I'm certain that if the occasion arises in which I announce I'm going to once again write a bunch of interconnected scenes and see if after-the-fact they can be melded into a cohesive whole, you will of course come to my apartment, knock on my door and, when I open it, shout "NOT AGAIN," and punch me square in the nose. Hard. Because you love me. Anyway: I'd appreciate it if you could.)

It was interesting to be working on

Burning Leaves

again, particularly because I felt it was already a rather finished product the last time I performed it in

November of 2008

. Tom, fortunately, is a much smarter playwright than I, and had already made some significant cuts to the play before I read it again for the conference. In particular, he cut a monologue for my character in which he explains what traumatic series of events led to his fleeing New York. He had gotten feedback suggesting that this was one of the more irresponsible and less admirable things the guy does, sharing the burden of such personal history with his student. I missed it of course - it was a heart-breaking story to tell - but a great edit. In the course of the week Tom did more to streamline the play and adjust the balance of ethics and plot logic between characters, and I felt good about the final reading. I always want to do better, but I felt good. Again: my fellow actors were

amazing

; just committed and specific and true as all git-out.

Neptune Kelly

is a cracker of a script. I had zero experience with this one before they sent it to me, and I have to admit that on first read I flinched a bit from it. It has a combination of earmarks of the kind of material I'm usually not too keen on: highly stylized, allegorical, verbose. Normally this makes for the sort of trying-too-hard off-off-Broadway showcase that's out there to MAKE a STATEMENT. As soon as we got in the room, though, I knew I had let prejudice in on my initial judgment, because the play

rocks

. It's not as allegorical as it first may seem - for one, it doesn't wrap anything up neatly - and the beauty of its verbose style is that it stems from committed, crisis-filled characters. It's funny, bold and poetic in the least pretentious way, and we had a ball with it. I had only one scene in

Neptune Kelly

(once again playing a teacher, somehow) but it sort of made up for my lost monologue in

Burning Leaves

, being an explanatory story for why my character committed and extreme and self-destructive act. I got to make this vaulting little journey from resolution to profound regret over a couple of pages, and in so doing propel another character into direct action, and that's just the kind of smarts and specificity that Ben's working with which allows him to create such a weird-but-true world.

Finally, the presentation of Ms. Mann's students' work was great fun, and surprisingly fulfilling. I've always been a fan of short-form presentations of theatrical work and the way its informality can invite more audience involvement and great spontaneity in the actors' performances, but you often have to take a certain lackluster quality into account for such undertakings. Timing may be off, words may be stumbled over, etc. Such was the quality of the writing and the acting of this little presentation that it lacked no luster. I laughed, I cried, it was better than lots and lots of the fully produced shows I've seen in my life. I was lucky to be a part of it (particularly, extremely lucky, actually, because my scene partner is an amazingly good actor). We had fully-formed, five-minute segments of passion, manipulation, Alzheimer's, shuddering regret and even loving cannibalism. Egad I love theatre.

Perhaps the most uplifting thing to come out of the whole experience for me is that I was asked to return this Friday, to participate in a staged reading of one of the attendee's plays,

Wild Animals You Should Know

. Thomas Higgins penned the script, and I'm a big fan of it. (Very odd: Thom had

a script in The SFOOBSPF

, in which

I just participated

.) It has a lot to do with the Boy Scouts of America, so that's a like a little visit into my childhood, and it is working with some of the same themes as

Burning Leaves

does. And, somehow, the reading is being directed by

Joe Mantello

.

So, you know, um: WOW.

Our Best Laid Plans

On Saturday evening, Josh Sohn's short play

Laid Plans

opened, and closed. The good judges of the

The Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival

(henceforth, "The SFOOBSPF") elected not to pass our little production on to the final competition performances on the following Sunday. Such crumbs fall from such baked desserts. It's difficult to know exactly what criteria were used in our elimination, particularly without seeing any of the other shows in the week-long celebration of the short play. Best not to contemplate it, then. It's like auditions: Do yer best, accept the mess, and . . . uh . . . wear a dress? But only if you're a woman. Or it's a stage adaptation of

Tootsie

. But I digress.

The SFOOBSPF was a good experience overall, though certainly brief, and the actual performance was not without incident. Due in part to a malfunctioning headset backstage, the booth started the show before I was all set. I had just about ordered my confusion of costume changes and props backstage when the 14 seconds (yes: 14 seconds exactly) of music that cues the start of the play began. I was supposed to be prepped behind a tormentor off stage right, and instead I was behind the backdrop, still without top hat and spectacles. But a moment of panic, a quick adjustment and all was right with the world again. It was only a slightly inauspicious start to an otherwise solid performance.

I haven't written much on the process of this one, frankly because we had very little time to contemplate. The rehearsal period was very efficient. In fact, it had a little more time built in, but we had to recast one of our cast of three after about a week, which in itself took almost a week, and so: just enough time to pull the strands together. In that time, a lot of my process was occupied by some rather straight-forward decision making. By playing five different characters, I was also the only one who exited the stage, which made me the de facto prop manager and scene changer. Lots of time was spent -- rightly so, I believe -- choosing and managing props and costumes. Yet I am very fond of the characters I got to bring to life in

Laid Plans.

The first out, as you may have guessed, was not of our time. The play kicks off with a daughter explaining she was named after

William "Wilkie" Collins

, and shortly thereafter I entered as the gentleman to play a scene of her mother's discovery of his novel

The Woman in White

when she was in college. It would have been impossible for me to actually imitate ol' Wilkie in his prime, so the director Kay Long very rightly suggested we play him younger, with a certain self-assurance (let's call it) that would come easily to me. I was disappointed with the loss of a sight gag by shearing him of his beard (and to the last and for naught, I held out for a handlebar mustache) but as it turned out, flourishing my cane and doffing a waistcoat, tails and the aforementioned top hat was enough to knock the audience into some good-natured laughter. The character of WWC was a proud, strutting man of manners, whom I really enjoyed filling out.

The next character to play was the mother's lover from her post-college years in New York, who is of course her daughter's father; Thomas Devine. His costume was essentially an under-dressing of WWC's: off with the hat, spectacles, and coat, and there we has, in vest and bow tie. He had some other things in common with WWC in terms of a certain self-assurance, but I tried to give that a different, more innocent flavor. Plus his flair for the dramatic was unique -- he was an actor, day-jobbing as a waiter. The contrast, too, could be played into his more contemporary, casual demeanor. Mostly, what there was to play with him was his obsessions, particularly with the mother character. I owe Kay thanks here too, as she kept reminding me of the morose side of passionate young actors. It was really for me just revisiting, ever-so-briefly, my 23-year-old self in many ways. In NYC, in love, in way over his head. He jumped around and ran his hands through his hair a lot.

Next up was a rather quick change into Jarvis, possibly my favorite of my

characters. He was the high school relationship of the daughter: an overweight, weird-n-shy creative type who started as her friend before they crossed a line. Again, it felt to me rather familiar territory. The change was a pretty quick one. Often I still had Thomas' bow tie and handkerchief in my pockets as I entered the stage having ditched my vest and button-down and tossed on a voluminous hooded sweatshirt. I wish I could have seen a tape of Jarvis. The only changes we made to indicate his weight apart from mention of it in the script were stuffing the front pocket of the hoodie a bit, and my walk. I feel like I remember that walk really well, but it would be good to verify that with a little recorded evidence. Jarvis also drew comics throughout his scene, buried in a little notebook, and I used the occasion to revisit my ill-advised forays into cartooning. He was a confused kid, and that confused kid lives on in us one way or another, I think. Nice to find a use for him.

After Jarvis came my role with the most lines and stage time: Toast. (That's what his friend call him.) Toast is a figure from the daughter's collegiate experience, a fellow she meets at a party. This costume was the most stripped down -- just an American Eagle cap, my undershirt (a band t-shirt for

Artist vs. Poet

) and my slacks tugged down to about mid-butt level -- but the character probably the most affected. It's maybe a tie between Toast and WWC, but Toast was certainly off-type for yours truly. He enters with a couple of those red party cups, master of the party, at least in his own mind. In a way, we was a combination of the postures of Jarvis and Thomas: chest out, but legs heavy and low to the ground, and all of it utterly relaxed. We always imagined that Toast would get a couple of good laughs, so I mostly concerned myself with playing him believably, not making the funny, or exaggerating. I don't know how well I ultimately did, but he got some gratifying laughs, especially on a couple of lines in which he spoke his inner monologue whilst hitting on the daughter (where's my

entirely other actor to voice an inner monologue

, huh?).

Finally, after Toast was my most frantic change into Alan Stone, the architect and would-be boyfriend of the mother, a fellow from her recent past. This was the shortest amount of time for a change, and though the change wasn't too drastic (tug up inseam, done v-neck sweater, blazer and glasses) I made it slightly difficult on myself by insisting on combing a little pomade in my hair. He needed that precision. Alan, like Thomas, had no lines. Unlike Thomas, he was very precise and actually completely silent, which reminded me a bit of the simplicity Zuppa del Giorno found working on

Silent Lives

all those years ago. He came to use chopsticks in his little vignette, which was a lovely way of illustrating his personality (and I managed not to drop the damn things). Upright, logical, "not effusive," Alan turned on his heel and left, and thus endeth my run of five.

After my exeunt, the play has at least a good ten minutes left on it, which I also savored. It is, after all, about the women, and I have savored that and the way the action eventually strips it down to just the two of them ever since I first read Josh's script some year or so ago. The SFOOBSPF didn't favor us, didn't pass us along to eternal salvational fame and renown, but I believe we laid out our case for Josh's script the best we could, which was pretty damn good. Sometimes when the best isn't good enough, it only means it's making way for something better.

"Commence, au festival(s)!"

It seems I can't stay away from festivals. Play festivals, that is (which, sidenote here, should really involve more traditional "festival" elements: streamers, confetti, [more] libidinous excess, etc.).

Love Me

and the

Planet Connections Theatre Festivity

have wrapped up - with some very nice houses and a

good review

, I might add - and I am in rehearsal for another festival with a play called

Laid Plans

. This one is a part of

The Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival

(henceforth, "The SFOOBSPF") and is a mere thirty minutes long, which is good, because it's in concert with several other short pieces in its time slot.

The best part about being a part of a festival is how much gets taken care of for you. You have venue and some basic facility provisions, likely some advertising, more appeal for reviewers to make the trip and a certain amount of additional credibility. I don't know how strictly scripts are vetted from one festival to another, but odds are that plays that have to pass any kind of screening at all are likely to be safer bets for an audience than ones produced solely by the playwright. The worst part about being a part of a festival is the following conversation:

"Hey! I'm seeing your show tonight!"

"Hey! I'm pretty sure you aren't!"

"What? Why?"

"We don't have a show tonight."

"But it's Friday."

"Yeah, I know. We have one Sunday."

"Oh; okay. A matinee?"

"Sort of. It starts at 2:00."

"I can do that!"

"A.M."

"Two o'clock in the morning?"

"Yeah. Give or take 15 minutes, of course, given that the show before us has to dismantle their lasers before we can even enter the space to set up."

"Um..."

"Hey, don't worry: You can catch my next production."

"Oh good, cool. When does it run?"

"Saturday, July 17, at 9:00. PM. And

maybe

the next day, depending on how well we do."

Theatre festivals invariably involve some ridiculously tight and erratic scheduling in order to take full advantage of taking over one or more theatres for a few weeks. This has a certain charm when you have the reputation of

one of the Fringe festivals

, and even in that case it gets pretty confusing pretty fast, and productions still end up having to oblige seats with butts for some impossibly impractical showtimes. Still, they're fun, and there's something pleasing about being a part of something larger in this way. "Larger still," I should say, since being a part of any production is being a part of something more than oneself. Layers upon layers, people...

I've never participated in The SFOOBSPF before, and am looking forward to discovering how it all works. Planet Connections I found to be rather similar to my two FringeNYC experiences (

As Far As We Know

and

La Vigilia

) in terms of practical concerns, though generally more focused in purpose and rather better organized--simply because it is less sprawling than the Fringe. The utterly strange thing is the possibility of performing the play only once. It reminds me of high school productions or, more accurately, elementary school ones. It seems an awful lot of work for one, ultimately rather static performance. On the other hand, the stakes for getting a good show off should be nice and motivating.

Existential Dread

On Sunday I had a previously-taken-for-granted treat: a day hanging out with Sister Virginia. It was Pride Day, but we didn't have terribly exciting plans. Just a little browsing around SoHo, visiting old haunts and generally enjoying one another's company. It was sweltering day, humid as it gets up here in NYC, and we were deep into conversation as we got on the subway platform at my stop, Astoria Boulevard. Can't recall what we were discussing. What I can recall, is being insistently spoken to by a stranger. You know that feeling, when you've recognized somebody wants somebody else's attention, but of course it couldn't be you, because you don't just

run into people

, but then - oh, wait - yes. Yes, that person is talking to you. And what they're saying, is this:

"Excuse me. Excuse me. Woman in the orange? Yes, I just want you both to know that I don't appreciate you following me."

"What?"

"I don't appreciate you following me onto the subway platform."

"...Okay."

And she marches past us, down to the far end of the platform.

So: Fine. Another New York crazy person. True, she didn't exactly bear the marks of the typical NYC loon -- she was very clean, small, well-dressed (as though for yoga or the park) -- but she did have that sheen to her glare that suggested a certain intensely unkempt morale. So: All right then. Jenny and I continue our conversation, veering only momentarily into "that was odd" territory.

And then, a few minutes later, our sudden enemy crosses back the other way.

"I guess you must be Team Shawna, but I'm Team Natalie, and you better stop bothering me." (Ed. - I can't remember what she said verbatim, but I'm pretty sure the name Shawna was mentioned.)

"I'm sorry. We don't know what you're talking about."

And she was gone again, this time the other way up the platform. So now I'm keeping a bit of an eye on her, because I'm fascinated, and she's got my fight-or-flight instinct up. I'm suddenly aware - for no particular reason - that we're on a platform suspended twenty-five feet over traffic and surrounded on either side by electrified metal rails. But, this woman walks on up in the other direction, beyond the bench and entrance stairwell at the middle of the platform, to where I can no longer see her. Me: "That is so strange." Jenny: "I just figure - crazy people, New York." And we try to move on in the conversation, but I have to admit that I'm now utterly puzzled and intrigued and somewhat scared. Chalk it up to reading too much Kafka and Pirandello. But the train comes, and there's no more sign of our little tormentor, so we gratefully garnish ourselves with air conditioning and grab a seat.

From there our conversation continues into more personal, important stuff than it had been, and I get engrossed enough to let go of trying to wrap my head around what is apparently the most dire "Team _______" conflict since

Twilight

. The benches on the N train run along either wall, and I'm turned facing the direction in which the train is running so I can talk to Jenny on that side. It's a fairly crowded train, but not jam-packed as yet. We proceed a few stops, nearing the tunnel that swoops us underground and into Manhattan, and I happen to turn to my left for a moment.

And there she is again. Staring daggers. In our car, not five feet from us. She was not, to be perfectly clear, NOT in our car to begin with. She was not, as far as I can tell, in fact able to monitor us from where she had been positioned on the platform when the train arrived. No, the woman who was accusing us of

following

her had seemingly traversed moving train cars to find the one in which we sat.

All this I realized as I instantaneously swirled back into Jenny's eye contact, not wanting to give Ms. Antagonist any (further?) reason to suspect we were passive-aggressively pursuing her whereabouts. She momentarily thereafter strode past us on down the car. I'm not even sure Jenny noticed she was ever there. And I never saw her again, for the rest of the day.

But I sure as hell kept

looking

for her.

How could I not? I was half-convinced that I would run into her again, totally randomly, thereby inadvertently providing her with the final evidence she needed in order to prove her theory of our antagonism. I even - of course, though I tried to resist it - wondered if she might not be following us. That is to say, I resisted this thought because it would essentially mean that she had successfully transmitted her disease to me, the germs of her paranoia turned airborne and plague-like. The terrible likelihood is that I will indeed see our mysterious interloper again soon. She probably lives off the same subway stop as me, and will mistake Megan for Jenny some coincidental day and presume the whole espionage has begun all over again. To be totally frank . . . she didn't look unfamiliar. Maybe it was just the openness of her naked hostility, but I thought, maybe, I knew her somehow.

Now look: I'm not peering continuously over my shoulder or anything (not

continuously

, anyway) and I don't think there was anything profound to this woman's mistake. Odds are that she is simply going through some tough stuff in her life about now, and that has made her paranoid and/or quasi-psychotic. In fact, I feel bad about not being able to convince her that we at least were not out to get her. HOWEVER: Holy crap. Was I about to be in a

Hitchcock

or

Fincher

movie? Was I targeted for some

Improv Everywhere

prank, that just had yet to get joyous and un-terrifying? Was it performance art and, if so, who would think Pride Day a good day to have such a thing noticed?

All this has given me an idea that I don't think I'll get around to any time soon, so I'm putting out there for you, The World, to do with as you please. Friend Nat is frighteningly good - pun intended - at creating a sense of dread on stage, and his efforts at such effects along with some of my more hypothetical conversations with other friends about theatrical horror have me thinking that this might be a good, simple scenario for really creeping out an audience. The trouble as I see it with most staged "horror" is that it too-easily falls into a similar trap as many stage comedies do. That is, the burden of catharsis is often placed upon effects, or gags, rather than on human behavior. This results in camp, which has its place, but often doesn't

know

its place. It can creep in anywhere, like the annoying neighbor finding your dinner party. Before you know it, it's arguing politics and complaining about the wine and all your guests feel cheapened, like some terrible, overwrought and distended simile.

So: my behavior-based scary stage-play scenario thing: I imagine it starting with a romantic couple (A & B) meeting somewhere public, possibly a restaurant. One of them (B) is late, and by the time he or she gets there, they find their significant other (A) rattled by something. A explains that they just had the weirdest series of "coincidences" (see above) with this stranger. B listens, tries to calm down A, and gradually A relaxes to the point of laughing at him or herself a bit. B excuses him or herself to use the restroom, and as A sits there, he or she is approached by someone (C). Though seemingly relaxed, A shouts at the introduction of C: a waiter. A apologizes, making meaningless excuses, orders something, etc., and C leaves. B returns and A doesn't share what just happened. A gets a call he or she has to take, and steps away to take it. As B sits there, he or she is approached by someone he or she knows somewhat (i.e., though work - D) and D takes a seat. Of course, on A's return he or she recognizes D as his or her antagonist, and it all goes quietly haywire.

It's a sketch of a beginning (with lots of sex-generic alphabetical confusion, for which: you're welcome) but from there I see it getting more and more tense and scary, no idea of an ending yet. It starts out as a Pirandello-esque conflict between A and D, with B as something of a helpless arbiter with some interest in reaching a resolution, and C occasionally interjecting to keep the conflict from exploding into the public space. Which is to say, A and D have completely irreconcilable stories about their relationship that they each feel a growing need to convince B of. Cell phone usage should figure prominently, so long as it doesn't start to irritate; I imagine texting under the table, faking calls, etc. Personal revelations should be used

sparingly

, so it doesn't become all about what the audience doesn't know about their respective and interrelated pasts. That having been said, there should certainly be one or two revelatory twists, one preferably just prior to the act break. And in Act II...well...

In Act II, all are in a private space, and some time has passed. I'm imagining that our sympathies lie largely with A in Act I, and in Act II we begin to question that emotion, possibly because A forced one or more of them into this new, private space (his/her storage space?). Even if that didn't happen, A certainly turns cruel in his or her attempts to extricate him or herself from the conflict. Possibly physically cruel. Relationships change drastically, the stakes continue to mount, until it ends in a seemingly hopeful way. Seemingly, because there's also some tag moment at the very end, some bit of information that sets the whole conclusion into a teetering sense of doubt. That's what the audience leaves with: a sense of profound uncertainty.

There you go. Write me a play, The World, as close or as far from this scenario as you are so inspired. But please, The World, one request? Whichever of you was that antagonistic yogi -- stay away from me. Thanks bunches! Hugs!!!

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.