Tohu Bohu

I haven’t been writing about As You Like It—the rehearsal process was not a good experience for me—but I did want to pass along something that happened yesterday. You see, I brought my Perfect Non-Reader and a friend of hers along to the matinee. This is the PN-R’s third Shakespeare comedy, which isn’t too bad for an eleven-year-old. The first was Midsummer and the second was Twelfth Night, and then this one the third. I think this was probably her friend’s first Shakespeare. I can’t be sure, of course, but I think so.

Anyway, they both seemed to enjoy it, but were vague on specifics: they didn’t say they liked any particular aspect of it particularly. This may have been an attempt at tact (an unwillingness to tell me that their favorite bits were not those with me in them) or more likely one instance of the more general tween uncommunicativeness. At any rate, on the drive home, they talked about other things. And I realized, afterward, that I didn’t talk to my PN-R’s friend about Love and Shakespeare.

I gave my daughter the talk after Twelfth Night, because she said that the fellow playing Orsino had done a great job of playing somebody who was in love—meaning with Olivia, at the beginning, with the sighing and the poetry and the leaping of all civil bounds. And I said: Orsino sure thinks he’s in love. He thinks that’s how you act when you’re in love. But he’s wrong. And Shakespeare is making fun of Orsino for thinking that. So if somebody comes all sheep’s-eyed to you, with the poetry and the harassment (says I to my ten-year-old daughter), don’t you believe in that love for a minute. That’s not real love, that’s Orsino’s love for Olivia. And even Orsino understands, in the end, that it’s Cesario that he really loves.

In AYLI, Phoebe falls in love with the young man Ganymede, bad poetry and all. We laugh at her along with Shakespeare because we know what she doesn’t: Ganymede doesn’t exist. There is no such person. Ganymede is Rosalind in disguise. When the disguise is lifted at the end of the play, Phoebe is shocked and appalled, and we laugh at her all over again. She fell in love with her own imagination. But she isn’t the only one.

Sylvius, another buffoon, claims that no man has ever loved the way that he loves Phoebe—he’s so blinded with his love for her that he can’t see her at all. His Phoebe, the object of his affection, doesn’t exist any more than Ganymede does. And I think it’s clear—well, I think it’s clear—that Shakespeare punishes him for his idiocy by marrying him to the real Phoebe, who will make his life a misery. All the more a misery for the remembered dream of bliss with the imaginary Phoebe he so desperately loved with that false passion. As she is haunted by Ganymede, who never existed at all.

But what about Orlando? He is as big a goon as Sylvius, yes? With carving into the treebark love songs about the fair, the chaste and unexpressive She. Here’s the whole heart of the play, as far as I’m concerned. He falls in Orsino-love with his imagined Rosalind on one meeting with the real one. He can’t speak to her. He writes bad poetry. He swears by her white hand. He’s got it bad, and that ain’t good. But—and here’s the trick of it—he meets and spends time with Ganymede and falls in love with him. Not the Orsino-love, the pining and the poetry and the puppy eyes. No, he just likes to spend time with Ganymede, talk to him (her), do things together. He falls in love with Ganymede, but stays in love with Rosalind, and he wins! Because Ganymede is Rosalind. Orlando may be a role model for entering into a romantic relationship, but it’s totally inadvertent. He falls in love with a Rosalind of his own imagination, and it’s just his luck that he also falls in love with the real Rosalind—who doesn’t exist either, really.

Anyway, the thing I ought to have told my daughter’s friend is that Shakespeare is making fun of people who fall in love with an imaginary ideal, by having it explicit that the object of the love doesn’t even exist. And it’s easy to fall in love with an imaginary ideal. And maybe when someone falls in love with you, it won’t be with you at all—not the you that exists but the Ganymede-you—and that’s not so easy. But if you’re lucky, maybe you get some Forest of Arden time to figure it all out.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

As I wait for our version of As You Like It to arrive, I am of course reading and rereading the play. Or at least the forest court bits. II,i (for set-up, although Jaques does not appear), III,ii and IV,I (which are not in the court but dialogues), II,v and V,ii (Jaques loves music), III,iii and V,iv (Touchstone and the end) and of course most of all II,vii (from A fool! A fool! to All the world’s a stage. My scenes being seven ages. Although I could appear in more or in less, actually, depending on how the thing is shaped in the cutting.

You could do the play just fine without my part at all, really. The plot ignores him. What do you need for the plot? The two cousins, of course, and the brothers they eventually marry. The two fathers. You need, I think, the shepherdess and her swain. You need the clown that accompanies the cousins, and then you need the country wench that he marries, to make up the four couples at the end. The others are presumably dispensable, although I suppose you really do need someone to bring in the messages. You can have the wrestling offstage, though, right?

My point (if I have one) is that Jaques floats above the plot, or behind it, or beneath it, which gives a production a tremendous latitude in how to present him. Actually, the play as a whole admits of a terrible range of possible interpretations, but Jaques in particular is untethered. I’ve read that he stands between the audience and the play, preferably as a bridge rather than a wall. A recent production put Jaques in the prop trunk at the end, which I think speaks to a somewhat different level of respect. He can be played for laughs or for pathos, as the ultimate wit or the ultimate twit, as a man of mystery or as the butt of the cosmic joke.

For me, as I’ve been reading and rereading it, there’s one Big Question, though: is Jaques really one of the Duke’s men? Well, and he is an outsider to some extent, of course, but how much so? Is he a beloved mascot? Is he a tolerated freak? Is he a distrusted Duke’s pet? Does he, in turn trust that they aren’t laughing at him—or that they are laughing at him with love, anyway? When he launches into one of his bits, can he expect cheers and applause? Groans and eye-rolls? Blank bewilderment? Indifference? Snickers?

This is tied up with, but not entirely dependent on, a bigger question about the production: is the banished Duke the leader of a magical court in a magical forest, or of a desperate insurgency? Over the last few decades there seems to have been a trend to emphasize the usurpation of the Duchy as a civil war, and thus the Forest of Arden as a dangerous place, wild and unsettling. This goes along with an undertone of danger in the wooing—Orlando and Rosalind, Orlando and Ganymede, Aliena and Ganymede, Celia and Rosalind, the possibilities of love and hope amid very real terrors of exposure and death. In such a production, I might well play Jaques as a complete outsider, hesitant and fearful of his own exposure and death, even as his uncontrollable wit further alienates him from each companion.

And in the text as I read it, there’s this: When Jaques finds something sad (or funny) he finds it much much sadder (or funnier) than anyone else around him. He has tremendous difficulty matching his tone to the people around him (expressed as verse/prose issues among other things). He appears cold and disdainful most of the time. He is given to long stretches of silence, and then bursts into seemingly endless monologues. His enthusiasms extremely focused and are totally incomprehensible to anyone else. All of these seem to me consistent with Asperger syndrome. I don’t know if an actor and a production could pull off an actual Asperger Jaques, but there could certainly be some of that sense of outsider alienation and bewilderment on both sides.

Or not. Jaques can also be just a witty guy, getting off zingers in the magical dream forest and play-acting the Seven Ages with an appreciative band of brothers. That would work, too. It’s not my choice—and it’s not really a choice about Jaques, either.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Your Humble Blogger spent a couple of snowed-in hours watching Shakespeare in Love again. It’s a fun movie. I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen it since it came out in the theaters, and I had come to think of it as overrated, which is possibly true, but then it got rated as overrated, so perhaps it’s now underrated. I mean, it’s just a fun movie, but it is a fun movie.

And, of course, much of the fun is that absolutely magnificent supporting cast. I mean, yes, Judy Dench’s Oscar-winning Elizabeth R is a glorified cameo, but it’s such a good glorified cameo! And the men in their glorified cameos—Simon Callow, Rupert Everett, Antony Sher, Patrick Barlow, Martin Clunes, Mark Williams. In addition to Geoffrey Rush and Tom Wilkinson in actual supporting roles. And IMDB tells me that John Inman is in the thing, which I did not spot at all.

But the reason I am bothering telling you so is that Jim Carter plays one of the small supporting roles: a drunken actor who had been given the role of the Pirate King (Ethel’s father) but who is recast as the Nurse. And, as we’re seeing little bits and pieces of the play within the play, I’m thinking: Jim Carter would be awesome in that part! So. I want to see Jim Carter play the Nurse in R&J. Make it happen, someone.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well. I did the monologue I talked about a couple of weeks ago for an audition. The play is As You Like It; the part I particularly wanted was Jaques. That actually was important to the monologue because I particularly did not want to be cast as Touchstone. Touchstone is the professional fool in the play, and he is particularly dire. Shakespeare’s fools are generally unfunny, and Touchstone, in my opinion, is among the worst—he has a million lines, most of them with very heavy puns or paradoxes, and the rest with fart jokes. It’s odd, actually, for a sexy play like this one, that there seem to be fewer dick jokes and more fart jokes than in most of the canon. Anyway, I loathe Touchstone. But I adore Jaques.

Jaques is the other fool, the amateur fool. He’s an odd duck, and everybody thinks of him as an odd duck. I think he’s the only character of note that doesn’t get married at the end (except for the already-married people, parents and whatnot). He’s a foreigner, with a foreign name, and he’s clearly an outsider. People are fond of him—maybe more indulgent than fond—and he has to be likable, but it’s not clear that he is likeable. He is melancholy, and everybody including himself talks about him as being melancholy, but he also has strenuous enthusiasms and jokes incessantly. In other words, he’s a challenge.

And, speaking of challenges, he’s got this bit about the seven ages of man. It’s not Top Five Shakespeare Monologue for audience expectations, not any more, but it’s probably still top ten.

Anyway. The monologue went no better than OK. The director asked me to do it again without “acting”, very simply, and I did, and he seemed to like that. Then I got to read the Rosalind scene, and again he had us do it again “more simply”, actually putting us in chairs facing away from each other. And then, since I was still around, he had me read Silvius for a Phebe in III,v. That was clearly just to have somebody for a Phebe to read with, though. I left the night thinking that I had done fairly well, but not extremely well. It would depend on who else was auditioning. As it always does, of course.

Then there was a callback, and another callback. I think the first callback was for the young persons; I was at the second one, for the Dukes and Touchstones and so forth. There were five us fogeys looking for the various fogey parts. I think there was one other fellow who was focused on Jaques particularly, a much older (looking) man with a quiet voice but a nice line in melancholy—If the director wanted to emphasize the melancholy aspect, that would be a perfectly good way to go. The other three were pretty good as well, though, and I left that callback not having any idea at all who would be cast as what. In particular, of course, whether I would be cast at all, and if so, in what part.

And… I found myself, over the next couple of days, wanting to get cast as Jaques. Really, really wanting it. Eager to get to work on the part, dig in to the text, think about the various possibilities. In point of fact, I braved superstition and did some initial research, looking at Alan Rickman’s essay about the 1985 RSC production and getting my hands on the correct volume of the wonderful Cambridge University Press Shakespeare in Production series.

When the email came, this morning, with the cast list attached, my gut clenched. The document seemed to take forever to open. And forever to scroll down the page through the fourteen parts and people who were neither Jaques nor YHB. And on the fifteenth line, there are both.

So. For those Gentle Readers who will be or can be in the area in May, Your Humble Blogger will be playing Jaques in As You Like It. And I expect that between now and then I will be writing about the part, about the play, the text, the process, and all the that goes with it.

So we have that to look forward to.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Your Humble Blogger has for a long time had an idea about modern non-representational art that doesn’t appear to have made it to this Tohu Bohu. Essentially, it’s that if you look at a work of representational art—say, a landscape—and if you don’t get what’s good about it, or more important, even if it’s kinda crappy, you can still say oh, trees, sky, hill, got it and there you are. If you look at a non-representational piece and you don’t get what’s good about it, or if it’s kinda crappy (no link there, thanks), then you don’t have anything at all. No trees or sky. No face or body. Nothing to hang on to.

And there is, I think naturally, a sense that you’re being ripped off, or made fun of somehow, or are otherwise at a disadvantage. I think that’s part of why people get angry about it. If you don’t get it, you don’t get anything at all, and it just makes it worse that the circumjacent hipsters are murmuring exquisite… absolutely exquisite.

The reason I bring this up in this Tohu Bohu at this time, having espoused the idea in conversations over many years, is that Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart are bringing their Godot to Broadway. And a large number of my friends had reactions that were probably best characterized as Oh, no, not Godot. Which is of course legit—people are different, one to another, and like and dislike different plays. But what I’m wondering is whether my idea about non-representational art applies to Samuel Beckett’s plays. If you don’t like them and/or you see a kinda crappy production, there may not be anything there at all. If you see a kinda crappy production of You Can’t Take it With You, well, there’s a plot, and problems with resolutions and so forth. You may not enjoy it, and you may well feel ripped off, but you have something. Godot or Endgame, not so much.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Your Humble Blogger will be auditioning for a play tomorrow, for the first time in a year or so. I will need a monologue, again, but a one-minute this time, and for a comedy. I can’t just use Coriolanus again. I had some trouble fixing on a choice, actually; my various reference resources gave me only a narrow set of choices for a one-minute comedy monologue for a man. I settled on Sebastian near the end of Twelfth Night:

This is the air. That is the glorious sun. The pearl she gave me, I do hear’t and see’t. And though ’tis wonder that enwraps me thus, yet ’tis not madness. Where’s Antonio, then? His counsel now might do me golden service. For though my soul disputes well with my sense that this may be error but no madness, yet doth this accident and flood of fortune so far exceed all instance—all discourse—that I am ready to distrust mine eyes and wrangle with my reason that persuades me to any other trust but that I am mad!

Or else the lady’s mad.

Yet if ’twere so, she could not sway her house, command her followers, take and give back affairs and their dispatch, with such a smooth, discreet and stable manner, which I perceive she does. There’s something in’t that is deceivable. But here the lady comes.

It’s verse, of course, rewritten as prose. It’s really, really verse, isn’t it? I mean, the rumty-tumty kind. Which is part of why I chose it, as I would like to exhibit my facility therewith. And to avoid getting cast as the prose clown, who is particularly dire in this one. In my opinion.

Well. It’s not a terribly funny bit. There are two laugh points, I think: the description of the whole mess as deceivable, and the sudden wide-eyed or else the lady’s mad. Although the last could be or else… the… … …LADY’s mad!. That would be funnier in the actual production though, where we know that the situation he hopes to explicate is so utterly crazy that he will never figure it out. I think in a monologue it’s better as a quick-change Aha! kind of thing.

The real problem is the beginning. When I last prepared a monologue I said that if the actor hasn’t impressed the director in the first five seconds, it’s all over. This group isn’t professional, and I frankly doubt that there will be twenty men who will impress the director in the first five seconds of a monologue, but still, the first impression is the most important.

So.

In an actual production—I wouldn’t play Sebastian, for one thing. It’s a part for a young man, the son rather than the father, but as I said up there, I had some difficulty finding a monologue I liked and couldn’t find anything I liked in the father bracket. However, leaving that aside, if I were playing Sebastian in an actual production, I would, I think, sniff the air. This—huge sniff—IS the air. Or maybe This is… the air?—little sniff, little sniff, HUGE FRICKEN SNIFF, little sniff again. Or possibly a face, there. It’s a potential laugh line, anyway, if you do something with it. In a monologue, though, I’m not sure. For one thing, if the director doesn’t immediately recognize where it’s from, it doesn’t make any sense. For another, I’m assuming there won’t be enough people in the room to actually laugh. Anyway, I’m still looking for a way to say it.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger has mentioned the Pride and Prejudice problem before. I put it like this:

The adaptation also had what I call the Pride and Prejudice problem, where there is a Main Character who is the Plain One, and a supporting character who is the Pretty One. In a film or television adaptation, there is simply no way that the actress playing the main character is going to be plain, and it is quite unusual for everyone to allow the supporting character to be substantially better-looking than the main character. Generally, what you wind up with is a pair of women either of whom would turn heads on a sidewalk; any plot point that depends on the Plain One languishing un-noticed in a corner whilst all the men pay their attentions to the Pretty One have to rely on the viewer’s acceptance of the convention.

For men, it recently occurred to me, this is much less of an issue. For one thing, the main character is the good-looking one; the fat, slovenly wise-cracking guy is the supporting role, and everybody is OK with that. For another, when the fat, slovenly, wise-cracking guy is the lead, in say for instance a comedy, and the joke is the contrast with the handsome but stupid supporting actor, well, then you get a supporting actor who is handsome, and the lead is Oliver Platt or Zach Galifianakis or Chris Farley, who actually do lack conventional good looks. And then—the range of conventional good looks is so much wider for men, isn’t it? Was Humphrey Bogart the plain one, or was Edward G Robinson the plain one? Was Mickey Rooney the good-looking one? If you need the lead actor to be the Plain One and also very attractive indeed, you get—Harrison Ford? Alan Rickman? Gary Oldman? Steve Buscemi? John Wayne? You have a lot of choices, is what I am saying, and besides, Robert Downey, Junior isn’t going to kick up as much of a fuss if the good-looking one is, in fact, better-looking than he is. Even better-looking. This isn’t to blame Keira Knightley or Elizabeth Taylor or Doris Day or anyone, who after all have their careers to look out for and live (or lived) in the actual world. The consequences of being the Plain One are different for women, obviously, as is so much else.

Anyway.

In the (recorded) performance of The Rover I saw recently, there is a sort of Pretty One/Plain One thing going on with the men. The titular character is a womanizer who all women fall for immediately; the high-priced prostitute even sleeps with him for free. There is a supporting character, a country bumpkin so unattractive that the mere idea of him finding romance is a joke—the prostitute that pretends to fall for him actually rolls him and robs him and dumps him in the river. Without sleeping with him, which his buddies find particularly hilarious.

Anyway, the Plain One is played by Daniel Craig. And the Pretty One is played by Andy Serkis. And it works just fine. That part of it, anyway—I have some more serious thoughts about the play and the production, which would require a separate note. But yes, Andy Serkis was the Pretty One, and Daniel Craig was the Plain One, and that isn’t the problem with the production at all.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger has been reading a lot of plays, lately. Quite a few good ones, some not so much. Now that I have become associated with some community theaters, I wind up reading plays with an eye toward the possibility of staging them locally—I have always read plays looking for parts for myself, but mostly as idle interest rather than as part of a nefarious plan to actually get the thing put on. Now, though, I wind up thinking quite specifically about production difficulties in the local spaces. Which has led me to identify what I call subsidized theater moments—bits in the playscript that turn what appeared to be a relatively affordable production into an unimaginably expensive and difficult one.

The most obvious example, really, is from Alan Bennett’s The Lady in the Van, an extraordinary work about Mr. Bennett himself and the more-or-less crazy woman who lived in a broken-down van on his street (and eventually in his front yard). The style is non-naturalistic and the set is or can be minimal (a few chairs, a table with a typewriter, that sort of thing), until the Van in question is driven onto the stage at the end of Act One. It must be a tremendous theater moment for the audience, and one that cannot be replicated at a converted shoe store that seats forty people. Of course, one could find a way around that—I was at a performance of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches in a black box that succeeded with no fly space whatsoever—but it would be something missing. And that’s before the truly moving climax of the show, which requires that the van be lifted up into the flies. This isn’t, in my opinion, gratuitous spectacle, but is (and is discussed as, because it’s a very, very meta play) necessary spectacle, spectacle without which the play would be incomplete. And it’s very expensive spectacle. Perhaps less so if you already have a theater with the required wings and flies, but then, that theater is very expensive, too.

A different Subsidized Theater Moment came at the end of the first act of David Edgar’s Pentecost. This is less obviously a matter of spectacle, though. The play has a single setting that could be quite easily done on the local community theater stage, and even the big noisy stuff could quite easily be accommodated without hurting the theatrical effect. No, instead of invading the stage with a working motor vehicle at the curtain of Act One, the invasion is of a dozen new characters, each native speakers of a different language. Greek, Arabic, Hungarian, Croatian, Farsi, whatever. Pentecost, right? And it’s a tremendous moment, completely jarring, the audience totally disoriented, spends the interval going what just happened there and we come back and spend Act Two with these really interesting characters attempting to communicate with each other and with our Act One characters. I don’t quite know how it works as a play, but it’s really interesting. And really expensive. Going in one moment from a seven- or eight-actor play to a twenty-actor play? And most of those actors have to be able to sound fluent in a particular language? Costs money. Not just in the actors’ pay, which Lord knows isn’t spectacular, but in the whole process of casting, finding the people who can play those parts and play them well. The cheapest way, presumably is to have a Very Famous Theater that every student at every drama school in the country has always dreamed about working for. If you have neglected to acquire the decades of subsidy for that, well, there are other ways, but they aren’t cheap.

This is, by the way, different in feel (to my feel, anyway) to the plays of the twenties and thirties, when labor was cheap and casts were naturally large. A drawing-room comedy might have two maids, a butler and a footman with three lines each, mostly providing atmosphere. Costumes were cheaper too, I suppose. Anyway, a modern shoestring-budgeted theater can collapse those into two characters, or one, or write them out altogether. And, frankly, the big casts of the early-mid-twentieth century often do require subsidized theater to put on—I recently read The Quare Fellow by Brendan Behan, and it’s marvelous, but there are something like twenty-seven characters, all of them men. The physical problems (several cells with doors, people dig a grave on stage) are easily solved, but the cast? Not gonna happen. Not even at a drama school, which counts as subsidized theater as far as I’m concerned, are they going to put on a play with two dozen men and no women. Unless they do The Women in rep as a kind of experiment in segregation, I suppose.

But what really made the Pentecost bit a Subsidized Theater Moment for me was not just that you would have to find all of those actors with those specific language skills, but that you would find them and then leave them in the green room for forty-nine minutes. I have been writing, again, for the stage. The eight characters all have substantial parts—some bigger than others, some with more laughs or more dimensions, but everybody comes in and out, in and out, and everybody has at least one good long scene in the first act. There were nine characters, but it turned out (at least so far) that one of them wasn’t absolutely necessary. I couldn’t countenance having to cast an actor and put him through rehearsals and then have him sit in the green room most of the night just for the sake of a few jokes, so I cut him out entirely. I don’t think it’s fair to make the audience keep track of a ninth character, either; audiences are capable of keeping track of large casts, but as with everything there is a cost, and the cost should only be incurred with an eye to a sufficiently large payoff.

On the other hand, I am considering writing in a bit where a part of the set is utterly destroyed, which could be a Subsidized Theater Moment indeed—not unlike Jed’s suggestion, which come to think of it, is a Subsized Theater Moment itself, if only for the cost of the ASM’s therapy.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Your Humble Blogger has been very much enjoying reading the reviews of plays in the Globe to Globe project of the World Shakespeare Festival and the London 2012 Festival of the Cultural Olympiad. This is the project to have the 37 Shakespeare plays performed at the Globe, each by a different company, each in a different language. It’s an ambitious idea, just logistically, and they have already had to deal with some lost costumes and set pieces and so forth. But they are doing it, and is seems to be going quite well.

Now, my initial reaction was not actually very positive. I don’t much like the idea of Shakespeare in translation. I would undoubtedly feel differently if I weren’t a monolingual English speaker, but I really think that the wonderful thing about William Shakespeare’s writing is the language. The plots aren’t even his, of course. I don’t much care for the structure of most of them, and of course most good productions these days carve up the structure, often by moving bits around but at least by making cuts. You could argue that he’s wonderful at character, which he is, but he creates those characters through language more than through situation or action. It’s the language of Shakespeare that is Shakespearean; you wouldn’t call anything Shakespearean for any other reason than the language. Well, most of that is seriously overstated—people call performances Shakespearean just to say that they are both good and large-spirited, even in a play with very different language. And people who screw with the structure of his plays as often make things worse rather than better. And with the plots, there is much that is original and good in the way plots are presented or the way subplots interact, and besides, original plots are gimmicks. Still and all, William Shakespeare ain’t Ira Levin or Anthony Shaffer or Agatha Christie, any of whom (YHB is guessing) would lose very little in translation.

Do you know what did it for me? The Guarniad reviewer that mentioned, in passing, that a fair chunk of the audience were native speakers of the language in question. Mentioned it a bunch of times, for a bunch of different plays in a bunch of different languages. Because it’s London. So there’s an audience of Zimbabweans, there’s an audience of Bangladeshis, there’s an audience of Italians. There’s an audience that speaks Mandarin, there’s an audience that speaks Hindi, there’s an audience that speaks Madri. The Kenyans in London came to the show, the Greeks in London came to the show, the Poles in London came to the show. Because it’s London.

My mistake was in thinking of the thing as a way to show off Shakespeare’s plays. It is, of course, although they scarcely need it; you could just make a list of how many Shakespeare plays are being performed to day, in which languages, in which countries, to how many people, without bringing them to the Globe. No, the best way to think about the Globe to Globe is as a way to show off London.

Of course, that’s why cities spend a gazillion dollars to host the Olympic Games, to show off. People don’t say Let’s bid for the Olympics so local people can see the two-hundred-meter butterfly. They say Let’s bid for the Olympics so that everyone in the world will want to visit here, spend money here, and maybe even move here. Not that there are travel agents anymore. But you know what I mean. The problem is that sporting events are a really terrible way to show off a city; did Salt Lake City really get to show off? Turin? Lillehammer? Mexico City? No. Beijing, maybe, and at that only because everybody was so down on the city in the lead-up. And, to be honest, London is London, and nobody in Harare or Phuket or Dhaka or Oslo is just learning about it now. Still. What a thing, to send thirty-seven companies back home (and on tour) saying We played Shakespeare in London and they talked the mammyloshen in thirty-seven languages. And what a thing for the people who live there who speak Gujarati or Juba or Albanian, to find themselves Londoners, too, in the festival.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger distributed the Play Playlist List for LWF on Opening Night, as is my wont, and got several pleasant comments about it. As I haven’t worked with anyone in the cast or crew before, they can’t compare it to earlier Mixes, but they did pick up the wide-range of styles.

1. Adele, “Rumour Has It”
2. Steve Gibson & The Red Caps,“Dirt Dishin’ Daisy”
3. Original Broadway Cast of The Music Man,“Pick-A-Little, Talk-A-Little”
4. Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington,“Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me”
5. The Everly Brothers,“Wake Up Little Susie”
6. Amy Winehouse & Paul Weller,“I Heard It through the Grapevine”
7. Bonnie Raitt,“Something To Talk About”
8. Me First And The Gimme Gimmes,“Take It on the Run”
9. The Spazzys,“My Boyfriend’s Back”
10. The Go-Go’s,“Our Lips Are Sealed ” (Fatboy Slim Remix)
11. Lou Reed,“New York Telephone Conversation”
12. Original Broadway Cast of Fiddler on the Roof,“The Rumor”
13. Louis Jordan,“You Run Your Mouth (And I’ll Run My Business)”
14. Mills Brothers,“I Heard”
15. Elvis Presley,“(Marie’s The Name) His Latest Flame”
16. Kippington Lodge,“Rumors”
17. Mose Allison,“Your Mind Is On Vacation”
18. The King Cousins,“The Telephone Hour”
19. Maxine Brown,“Oh No, Not My Baby”
20. The Ink Spots,“Whispering Grass”
21. Dave Dudley,“Talk Of The Town”
22. Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe,“Baby It’s You”
23. Billie Holiday,“Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone”

My director asked me, after listening to the thing over a few days, if I really listened to all those kinds of music. I admitted that I don’t listen to much current music, but that Adele was ubiquitous (particularly since I work on a college campus) so I added it. Otherwise, yeah, I listen to all that stuff. He said he was impressed. I didn’t mention that I restricted my range to songs with lyrics in the English language, and that I didn’t actually include examples of all the kinds of music I listen to. No klezmer, no Early Music, no Dixieland or Afro-Caribbean Jazz, not even any ska or reggae (I suspect I could fairly easily have found some that fit). Pretty much the list had Pop, Rock, Jazz, R&B, Showtunes, and if you want to make it a separate category, Oldies.

A day or two after that, I came across, on the internet, some people who were mocking an absent person’s comment that he liked "all kinds of music". This was, they said, because he had no taste at all. Anyone who actually likes music, naturally, will like some kinds of music and dislike other kinds, because such a person will have personal tastes, tastes that come from thinking about what he is listening to. And I thought—do I have taste?

In fact, there’s lots of music I don’t like. I don’t listen to modern Country (or Country Rock, as I think of it) at all, and I don’t particularly like what I think of as Country and Western (Glenn Campbell and Loretta Lynn, Charlie Daniels and Larry Gatlin that sort of thing). I don’t listen to Hip-Hop or Rap; I have a few rap songs on my hard drive (mostly a guest vocalist contributing to a song by some pop group I like) but on the whole, I can do without it. I don’t like much disco; I don’t like much of the modern dance music that sounds to me like disco with louder drum machines. I don’t listen to metal of any kind. I don’t choose to listen to orchestral or choral music; I strongly prefer small groups. I don’t listen to any operatic-style opera (is that clear at all? I mean: Philip Glass and John Adams and Kurt Weill don’t sound like opera to me) either, both because of the orchestration and I find very high soprano voices irritating. On the other hand, I do listen to Gilbert & Sullivan, and while I say that Sullivan is the price for the Gilbert, in fact I like Arthur Sullivan’s melodies more than somewhat.

The distinction, perhaps, is that I have listened to the operettas enough to like them. I’ve noticed, in myself, that there are a lot of songs I like, not because I like other songs that sound like them, or because those songs are better than similar songs, but simply because they are familiar to me, having heard them so many times. Most of them are crappy songs on good albums, songs that I have come to love simply because I love them, indefensibly. Others, well, I don’t know for sure. Stuff my elder siblings listened to when I was a kid? The big example of that is Queen—a lot of their stuff sounds awful to me, but there are songs I love which sound exactly the same as the ones I can’t stand. I don’t mean the stuff that sounds different, like “Bohemian Rhapsody” or “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, but “I’m in Love with my Car” or “Somebody to Love” or “Now I’m Here”, the stuff with the shredding guitar. The ones I like are the ones I have heard a thousand times; the ones I dislike are the ones that, for whatever reason, I haven’t. Is there any taste involved in that?

To sum up: Yes, I listen to lots of different kinds of music, in different genres. No, I don’t like everything; there are things that are to my taste and things that are not to my taste. On the other other hand, my taste is only partially a matter of what I think of as real taste; even within a genre, while I have Sources of Listener Pleasure and Sources of Listener Irritation, my actual fondness for a song has as much to do with the circumstances of my hearing it as with the song itself. Had I not been looking for a recent song to put on this mix, the verse-to-chorus ratio of the Adele song might have irritated me enough to make me dislike the song, which in actual fact, I like quite a bit.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 8:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So. In the only actual plot point in my Big Scene in LWF, I discover the titular fan, which has been carefully left on its mark under and behind the table being used as a bar. We have blocked it so I have returned to the bar to mix myself (yet) another drink; I am exhorting my fellows on the subject of experience, when I discover the fan:

GRAHAM: Experience is the name Tuppy gives to his mistakes, that’s all.

DUMBY: Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

GRAHAM: One shouldn’t commit any.

DUMBY: Life would be very dull without them.

GRAHAM: Of course you are quite faithful to this woman you are in love with, Darlington, to this good woman?

I discover the fan, clearly, between One shouldn’t commit any and Of course, while Col. Dumby has his line. In the script, Oscar Wilde simply has [Sees LADY WINDERMERE’S fan on sofa], but we have changed if from the sofa for reasons the Director presumably finds sufficient. If it were on the sofa, I could imagine spotting the fan as I am saying the line, thus giving it a double meaning, that I have now (as I think) caught Lord Darlington in an error. As it is, with the fan on the floor, I don’t see my way to that—I would have to stoop to pick it up and make sure the audience sees it before getting to the commit part, which would break the rhythm of the bit. What I did come up with is a different double meaning: I am adding ice to my drink as I pronounce my contempt for error, and end with a flourish of the tongs, dropping the chunk of ice to the floor amid general laughter. As I stoop, I see the fan and pop back up with it, holding it, perhaps, behind my back while asking my ingenuous question, only showing it to the audience during Lord Darlington’s interminable and fatuous reply. Nice, isn’t it?

Sadly, while the drop was okayed, the ice was vetoed, as (a) English Gentlemen wouldn’t pollute their whiskey with ice, and (2) an ice bucket is a pain in the ass for the stage manager, even with fake cubes. I cannot disagree with either of these, although I am disappointed. The director has suggested a little bottle of bitters, as gin bitters is a veddy British drink of the period. I acquiesced, mostly because he is the Director, and I didn’t have any better ideas. And it’s not a bad idea, really, only now I have to figure out how to make it work: do I adopt the modern (I think) technique of pinking the glass with the bitters first, before splashing in the gin? Can I do that with a whiskey tumbler rather than a martini glass, or should I pour the gin first and add the bitters to it? Can I drink a pink gin out of a whiskey tumbler at all? Should we change an earlier line about me drinking whiskey, or should I just drink gin on top of whiskey (on top of wine and whatever else I had at the club)? Also, if we have a whiskey decanter and a gin decanter, why would we have the bitters in the recognizable store-bought bottle? Should I drop the whole bottle, or just the cork? Should I drop it drunkenly, or through not looking what I’m doing?

Well, well, well. We have a little time yet to work on these details. I do wish I had at least a sense of the size and weight of the gin bottle, the bitters and the glass I’ll be using so that I could practice all this at home in front of the mirror. But we’ll make it happen.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 9:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I don’t believe in giving notes to other actors. I feel quite strongly about this, enough to get snippy if another actor tries to give interpretation notes to me. In fact, I feel strongly enough about this that I rarely talk about what I’m doing with the role with the other actors in the play, except in discussion with the director. Yes, it’s a collaborative thing, and I do know that my interpretation puts limits on other people’s interpretation of their own parts, but I see that as one of the Director’s jobs—if I feel that I am not getting what I want from another actor, I talk to the Director about it, and then either the Director disagrees with me and sets me straight or gives the note to the other actor.

Well, and in fact I do on occasion give the clichéd I love what you are doing with that scene sort of comment, but that doesn’t count as giving notes. No, what I mean by giving notes is why don’t you try playing that with more anger or surely the emphasis is on the end of the sentence sort of thing. Which I keep to myself. Because I do think it. I don’t say it. I am tempted to say it, but I do not. Perhaps it’s because I am an overly intellectual actor that I inevitably have a line or two for any scene to which I have paid serious attention that I feel I would do differently. Mostly, for me, it’s words: some word that isn’t getting punched with enough emphasis, or isn’t being used to echo a previous usage, or isn’t being differentiated enough from the circumjacent dialogue.

What is tempting me at the moment is that the character of Tuppy (which is the part I wanted to play, which makes it worse) is, unless I have missed something, the only character in the piece that swears. He says demmed this and demmed that, probably says the D-word a dozen times in as many lines. And, as I say, nobody else swears with a big, big D at all—not never. That’s the sort of thing that doesn’t (it seems to me) happen by accident: Oscar Wilde meant that Tuppy was the kind of Tuppy who comes out with a big, big D even when in groups of men who use more discreet language to say far more indiscreet things, which again, is the sort of Tuppy that Tuppy must be.

All of which, to me, says that Tuppy should emphasize those ds, every demmed time. Maybe even wind up to them a bit with a pause to set his Tuppy mouth for it. A tiny pause, of course, perhaps an infinitesimal pause. Or maybe no pause at all, maybe a little bob of the head for emphasis, or the chin jutting out a trife. Something. A hand gesture, although that would be a bit much, unless the actor (and Director, yes) can think of something that would work. Something. A small thing, but a consistent thing. The audience should notice.

I expect I am doing something that is driving the Tuppy-actor crazy as well, of course. And he’s a fine actor, doing a fine job in the role—as I hope am I in mine. I won’t tell him mine, and I hope he won’t tell me his. I’ll try to do what the Director wants, and within that what makes sense to me, and someday we will all look back on this and laugh.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Volume Nine of the Play Playlist Lists will be the Opening Night mix for Lady Windermere’s Fan. The possibilities are limitless.

I have decided, though, to make a list of songs about gossip. It’s a play about gossip and scandal, more than anything, and the ways people protect themselves against it, or fall victim to it. And there are lots of good songs about gossip, so the problem is less the difficulty of coming up with songs and more choosing which songs (and versions of songs) to put on the mix. Still, this is my semi-traditional plea for recommendations: songs about gossip, please, in any style or genre.

Here’s a large double-handful of things I have come across already. I’ll note that the links are to YouTube, which often starts the video on loading the page, so restrict your workclickage accordingly. Also, I have started amusing myself, in making these mixes, by choosing less well-known recordings of the songs, which I am linking to; if y’all know of wonderful covers you should let me know.

• My favorite jazz trumpeter, Cootie Williams, co-wrote the “Concerto for Cootie”, which later got some lyrics added to it, and became Do Nothin’ til you Hear from Me; I’m considering using either the Gladys Knight version or Lena Horne.
• Another minor jazz classic is Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone.
• The Mills Brothers do a Don Redman song called I Heard, which was also memorably done by Betty Boop.
• I also know Dirt Dishing Daisy (that’s Steve Gibson and the Red Caps) from the Mills Brothers version.
• I don’t know if anyone has ever covered Duke Ellington’s A Slip of the Lip (can sink a ship), though.
• The great Louis Jordan distributes the labor this way: You Run Your Mouth and I’ll Run My Business.
• I know this one from Elvis Costello doing it on a couple of live recordings, but Your Mind Is on Vacation, but Your Mouth Is Working Overtime is evidently a Mose Allison song. See also.
• While we’re on the blues, I like John Lee Hooker’s You Talk Too Much, but it really isn’t about gossip, just about talking a lot.
• I probably won’t use Bernard Cribbins’ses Gossip Calypso, but it’s an option.
• Which is where I’m at with The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane.
• I’m not altogether sure what the Ink Spots are singing about in Whispering Grass, but it seems to be about gossip, I guess.
• While Wake Up Little Susie isn’t about gossip, exactly, there’s stuff in there about reputation and so on; I think it counts.
• Similarly, Baby, It’s You just has a couple of lines about gossip, but those couple of lines are my favorite part of the song.
• There’s Maxine Brown’s Oh No Not My Baby, which is an excellent example of the sub-genre of songs in which the enamored hears rumors about the subject of affection.
• As is Marie’s the Name (of his latest flame).
• The classic, of course, is Heard it through the Grapevine, which will probably either open or close the playlist.
• And the obscurity is Kippington Lodge with Rumours.
• I am inclined also to include Lou Reed’s New York Telephone Conversation.
• The Eighties were an excellent time for songs about gossip, top among them Our Lips are Sealed.
• But also I Heard A Rumour.
• And the Timex Social Club, with Rumors. Remember them? Me neither.
• Moving on to the Nineties, there’s Something to Talk About, which is a pleasant enough song, although for some reason it doesn’t seem to have aged well.
• I Heard You Got Action by Pony Up! may get onto the mix solely because of the title; it’s not really a song about gossip, and isn’t even a very good song, but that title…
• And then it’s hard to leave off a song called Listen Up! by a band called Gossip! Alas, it’s not a song about gossip. Too bad.
• The most recent song I am familiar with is Adele’s Rumour Has It, which is a pretty good tune, actually.

There being so many songs that fit the category, I am uncertain about including the borderline ones, and even more uncertain about songs (such as Lovable or Baby, It’s You) in which there is a memorable line or two about gossip and reputation and so on and so forth, but in which it ain’t the real subject of the song.

So—What do you think about the ones I’ve started with? What am I missing? How should I put together the mix? I have a month, but (as usual) once I get to tech week, my time for messing about with mp3s is limited.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Directors, it turns out, are just like people, at least insofar as they are different one to another. Our Director for Lady Windermere’s Fan (which I suppose I will refer to as LWF, because Lady is insufficiently specific, as is Fan, and if I’m going to type out all of Windermere, I might as well type the whole demmed title) has a different process of blocking than I have experienced before.

Blocking, as y’all know, is just telling the actors where to stand and what to do while spouting our lines. Generally, the first rehearsal is a read-through, for which the actors sit around a table. Nearly Legendary Director had a second read-through around a table where we discussed the text and some vocal stuff before the actors got up on our hind legs, but I think that was the only time I have had that. Otherwise, from the second rehearsal we begin blocking.

There is a spectrum, from my perspective, that runs from on the one side the directors who say get up there and see what feels right to the directors who say as you enter, cross UL and then turn, ending your line CL, with one hand on the back of the settee. One can think of the first side as lazy, or the other side as puppet-masters, but it’s (wait for it) more complicated than that. A director who begins by letting the actors roam free may simply be hoping that they happen on the blocking that they will eventually be forced into. If they don’t, it’s simple to say that looked a bit awkward from there, why don’t you try putting the settee between you and see how that feels? Or the director may genuinely have nothing in mind beforehand, but will accept or reject each of the actors’ feel right choices until it forms a coherent whole that is as much the director’s vision as if it were all worked out in advance. Or, alternately, the director who has carefully orchestrated a stage picture, built up move by move, may decide it doesn’t work at all and throw the whole thing out and start over from scratch. Or the director may find ways to incorporate the actor’s ideas later in the process, particularly as the relationships develop and there are differences in what stage pictures are effective. Or, of course, a director may be a puppet-master throughout the rehearsal process, or may leave all of that blocking work to the actors’ feelings throughout.

The Director for LWF is one of the more prepared sort, at least this far in the process. He worked out the blocking in advance, working with toy soldiers on a drafting board—he claims that he broke both the board and several soldiers whilst attempting Act Two—writing down each individual move on a yellow pad. For our blocking rehearsal for Act Three, then, we began by sitting down with our scripts and our pencils and writing in the blocking as he told it to us, asking about anything that was unclear, and getting an idea of the staging while seated. Only after we had finished going through and writing down did we rise to our feet and begin walking through it. I have never worked like that before; it was a surprise to me.

Not necessarily a bad one. It was tedious to sit through the first part, where he read off other people’s blocking, and I’m not sure it was an efficient use of time, but on the other hand, when we did get up on the stage, we mostly went through the scene quickly and coherently. And our director made at least one major change (moving my character from the chaise to the settee, in fact), which indicates to me that he is willing to adapt to what the rehearsal process brings forward. So that’s all right.

So the problem isn’t the process. The problem is that so far I don’t like the blocking. It’s too static, and it isn’t centered, and I can’t figure out what the director people to focus on. Are we focused on Lord Windermere? On Lord Darlington? Are we focused on the two offstage women? What story are we telling?

Actually, that’s a problem with the play: why on earth are we listening to these gentlemen piffle for twenty minutes before we get back to the plot? The answer, I would say, is that we are heightening the tension. There’s a scene of comic relief, before the thing we all know will happen: the discovery of one or both of the women hiding in Lord Darlington’s rooms. We don’t know who will discover them, or what the consequences will be, but the story is that Lady Windermere’s marriage is on the precipice, and Mrs. Erlynne’s future is at risk, and these self-satisfied fellows are piffling their way closer and closer to them. That’s the story we’re telling, and it doesn’t feel like the blocking emphasizes that at all.

On the other hand, I am not very good at judging these things before the audience sees them. And, then, it’s early in the process. It may all come out right on the night.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger mentioned the other day that I was putting on my dancing shoes for some quadrille action in relation to the production of Lady Windermere’s Fan. Our Dance Captain (who is actually choreographing the dancing, and may not be taking part in it at all) found a nice set on YouTube; we are doing a modified version of the third round in this video. We have been rehearsing it, so far, to the music of the video itself: the Dance Captain plays the video on a laptop with some speakers, and we cavort. The sound is not terribly good, and the instrumentation is Not Period, but the melody is nice and suits our dancing quite well. I wanted to help out by getting a clean recording of the song.

Well. The first thing I did was to poke around the internet a trifle, doing no more than twenty seconds of research myself. Then I gave up and asked on Facebook; most of my FBFs who dance are Scottish Dancers, not English, and English Country Dancers don’t do the Quadrille anyway, as I understand it, but I tend to assume that any piece of music that is used for any English Dance is also used for a million other Dances, and hoped for some recognition. Worth a shot, I thought, and it was, although I did not come up with the title of the piece.

So. What did I do next? I asked a librarian, of course.

It took all of thirty minutes, perhaps, for the reference librarian at the music library to bring to my desk the sheet music for Les Moulinets from the Original Lanciers from Polite and Social Dances: a Collection of Historic Dances, Spanish, Italian, French, English, German, American; with Historical Sketches, Descriptions of the Dances and Instructions for Their Performance, compiled and edited by Mari Ruef Hofer; 1917 Clayton F. Summy Co.

He also linked to the Amazon site for the mp3 as recorded by Smash the Windows. So. No problem.

The best part is that I’m pretty sure I already own the Smash the Windows album with that track on it.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 9:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger cannot sing or dance. Well, I can, and I frequently do, but the results are painful for those around me. Sometimes literally. The singing and dancing is not my forte.

It’s an odd thing, then, to be learning dance choreography again. In Rough Crossing, there was a final Big Dance Number that was deliberately cheesy enough that the audience could be amused by the non-dancers amongst us as well as the dancers. Nobody thought the dancing was good, but it amusingly (I hope) indicated Big Dance Number, which was the point, and that was sufficient.

This time, a key scene takes place in Windermere House (in St. James’, I believe) while a dance is being held in honor of the titular character. The action takes place in the drawing room; Oscar Wilde did not indicate that we see any dancing whatsoever. On the other hand, people like dancing. I would be surprised if there wasn’t a producer or director in 1893 that wanted to stop everything and have a big lovely popular dance. Our group isn’t doing that (and I mock it, but seriously, audiences like dances) but we will be peeking in to the ballroom by means of a scrim. We will project Society in silhouette. This means that we supporting cast will be required to waltz (Ha! Ha! My waltzing has been declared a weapon of mass destruction by the UN High Commission on Nasty Bruises) and we will be carrying out a couple of quadrilles.

Quadrilles would have been a touch old-fashioned, I’m thinking, by 1893, but then Lady Windermere is plausibly setting herself up to be deliberately old-fashioned. And the quadrille in silhouette will be lovely. On the other hand, we will be in a very tight space, and very close to a light, in very warm clothing—I’m thinking it will be like the Black Hole of Calcutta in the Up Left corner. On the other hand, the men’s part of the set involves standing still for twenty-four out of the thirty-two bars, or if we include the entire dance, 80 out of 136. Not too strenuous.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 9:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger will be playing Cecil Graham in Lady Windermere’s Fan this spring. If you don’t remember the character, he’s one of the lads, one of Lord Windermere’s friends who attends the ball (six lines in Act II) and then stands around trading witty comments in Lord Darlington’s rooms after they are all thrown out of the club (thirty-nine lines in Act III) (unless they cut some of them; I haven’t seen our performance script yet), one of the largely interchangeable witty and cynical minor characters in the four Oscar Wilde plays and the dozens of imitations. I get to say my experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don’t know anything at all and Wicked women bother one. Good women bore one. That is the only difference between them.

It’s not a very good part, honestly. If I were to list my preference for parts in this play, it would start with Tuppy (a frankly wonderful part, but there are jokes about his stoutness, and while I am no longer thin, I am not yet stout enough for the jokes, I suppose), then Dumby (like Cecil, but with better lines), then Lord Windermere (who I am too old to play, and who isn’t very interesting or witty anyway), then Lord Darlington (who I am also too old to play), and then Cecil. Actually, I am too old to play Cecil, only because I think it’s much funnier if Cecil is one of those super-sophisticated, utterly jaded, weary and patronizing nineteen-year-olds.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Windermere on stage. And the only film I’ve seen is A Good Woman, which changed all the dialogue, so it doesn’t count. I’ve seen Ernest, of course, and I’ve seen A Woman of No Importance and Salome, and that’s it for Oscar Wilde. Well, I have read Windermere several times, and I’ve read Dorian Gray and many of the fairy stories and some of the poems (I’m rather embarrassingly fond of “The Harlot’s House”) and other short stories and essays. I am very fond of Oscar Wilde, as a historical personage and a writer.

The one really good thing, though, about being in the play (apart from simply being in a show again, after many months) is that I assume I will get to wear evening dress. I’m not sure exactly what I would put Cecil in. Lady Windermere says specifically that it isn’t a ball, but a simple dance, “small and early”, so I would think not white tie, but black tie and tails. He must have a boutonnière, probably something frilly like a dyed carnation (not green but perhaps a pale yellow) or a blue cornflower, or even a sprig of lavender. Yes, lavender would be excellent. Or statice. At any rate, when the men arrive at the afterparty at Lord Darlington’s rooms, they should still be in evening gear, or the remnants thereof, but with hats and coats and scarves and umbrellas and so on, which we would either keep on or strew about the room. But we’ll see what the director wants.

Anyway, I expect I will be posting more notes about the text of the play, my preparation, and other exciting trivia of the community-theater life. The other day, I heard a PSA on the radio, encouraging people to get their kids involved in some activity alongside grown-ups, claiming that teenagers who were involved in such an activity regularly were less likely to take up drugs. The example activity was community theater, and I’m afraid my reaction was No! Marijuana is cheaper and less addictive! Probably, the poor decision-making under the influence is about the same, although I will say this for community theater: the risk of jail time is quite low.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Benjamin Rosenbaum has an interesting note about the past’s future, wherein he complains about (to simplify beyond recognition) stories that are set in the future, but it’s the future of 1985, a future without (or largely without) GPS and social media, or rather a future with a feigned ignorance of those things. There is a deeper point, and a wider one, but to go off on my own tangent…

A world with GPS and social media is a world that (it seems to me) is very difficult to tell stories about. Everywhere around the plot, and all through it, you have to ask yourself: why didn’t he just text her? Why don’t they link to a picture of the Mysterious Stranger and ask their friends if they know him? Why don’t they use the app to find out if it’s poisonous? Why doesn’t he look at her recent calls? Why don’t they just Google it?

The obvious answer to that is to set things either in the past or in a future that is lower-tech than our present. I think the dystopias and post-holocausts that have become so prevalent are derived from our present day anxieties and millennialism—but also because it’s an easy solution to this plot problem. In The Wikkeling, for instance, there is a vast network, but (a) it only shows what The Man wants you to see, and (2) it’s broken. That’s better than the another book I recently finished, Floors, which simply ignored the existence of mobile phones or the internet altogether, while having fantastical advances in things like holography, controlled magnetic levitation, and, um, stuff. There were good things about Floors, and there were bad things about The Wikkeling; I’m just thinking about this GPS/social media thing. And, because that’s the way I am, the theater.

My Best Reader and I are working on a playscript which is set in the present day, and I am finding the mobile thing difficult. Two or three of the people involved would be very connected—texting and tweeting and so on—and I want to work it in as a plot point, or at least as a series of jokes. It does, for instance, allow two characters from different class and social circles who would otherwise have never met to have a history together. On the other hand, nobody wants to watch an actor thumb-typing for minutes on end. And as it’s a farce, there will be times when the plot relies on imperfect communication; a properly written and read tweet would screw everything up by unscrewing everything up, as it were. And texted crosstalk isn’t funny on-stage. Nor is Damn You Autocorrect. And the cheap tricks—accidentally swapping phones so that the wrong person gets the text, or sending the text to the wrong person, or the reply-all thing—are all cheap tricks, and obviously so. Deadening. The easier cop-out is to set the thing in 1985. Or, as Mr. Rosenbaum says, to collude with the audience in a feigned ignorance of the last twenty years, a refusal of now.

So. Here’s my question for Gentle Readers: Can you come up with examples of plays set in the last twenty years that Get it Right? At least partially? Any aspect of it, of course, but mostly I’m thinking of the plot-point problem where the audience thinks why don’t they…

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Your Humble Blogger was, a few months ago, flipping through one of those books offering advice on one’s putative professional stage acting career, or perhaps it was just on preparing audition monologues. I don’t remember. I occasionally flip through those books as they cross the circulation desk, and I suppose I glean bits from each, but without taking any bits of any of them very seriously. Actually, the best bit I read recently was from a book on stage management and other technical stuff, in which the author advised potential stage managers, ASMs, prop and costume masters and mistresses and other reasonable, rational hard-working crew not to think of actors as intrinsically stupid, but to think of them as perpetually having a lot on their minds. Not, it was hastily made clear, that such thinking was more likely to be accurate, but that it might cut down on the amount of bile in the lives of the crew. This is a piece of advice I have found widely applicable: whenever possible, attribute obvious stupidity (on the part of others, naturally) to everyone being excessively busy, and commiserate rather than rant.

Well, in theory it’s a good idea.

Anyway, one or another of those books decreed than anyone who wanted to regularly work as a stage actor should be reading at least two plays a week. It might have been three, actually, but whatever it was, it seemed absurdly high the moment I read it, and then after a while I thought to myself hmmm (not even addressing myself by name, because we’re that close) it really doesn’t take long to read a play, does it? The point of the advice, I would think, is not to be choosy in reading plays, but to just keep reading them, that familiarity with a lot of plays, good and bad and clever and formulaic and successful and that other thing, helps an actor prepare for any specific play. And while of course there is limited time for play-reading as there is for anything else, reading a play is a good use of that limited time (even if, as in my case, my interest in acting is only amateur). So if a playscript comes across the circulation desk and it looks remotely interesting, rather than spending time looking through it to decide if I think it’s worth reading or not, I try to just read the thing.

Which is not to say that I wouldn’t have read Superior Donuts anyway, and in fact I’m not absolutely sure I read that two-a-week advice before reading this play. Tracy Letts had a monster hit with August: Osage County, and this was his follow-up play. I had read the reviews and found them intriguing. And, most important, there’s a part for me. Actually it turns out there are two parts for me: the aging pothead owner of the store and the raving Russian Mafioso neighbor. The neighbor is the good part, the supporting role that has some actual tension. The lead is an interesting challenge, as the actor would have to portray an even-tempered hazy drop-out with enough energy and intensity to keep the audience awake without betraying the character’s traits. On the other hand, it’s not a challenge with a lot of reward.

The play is dull on the page. I imagine that given the right actors it could spark to life, but there wasn’t anything in the script that made me itch to see (or produce) this rather than any other play.

The good news, though, is that there are plenty of other plays.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger was reading a 1971 play in which a television network brings together a bunch of stereotypical mystery novelists to collaborate on a television series, and then people start dying and so on and so forth. Hilarity ensues. Except it doesn’t seem to, and besides, the problem with a play that is mocking all of these outdated mystery styles is that forty years later Your Humble Blogger is mocking the 1971 stuff as much as the parody 1930s stuff.

But it occurred to me that it’s a terrific idea for a reality show. I mean, in theory, because I don’t watch them myself so I don’t know how they really work. And since I don’t watch them myself, I may well have missed a version of this that bombed. So there’s that. But here’s my version:

The show gathers together eight (or so) mystery novelists into a secluded house outside a small town in, probably, Vermont. The contestants are all published novelists with a series of books featuring a detective; part of the deal is that the TV show will talk a little about each detective. In each episode, as I understand the formula, there is a sequence of challenges that the contestants must rise to, with one or more of them getting either a Benefit of some kind or safety from elimination for the week. These challenges will of course have a mystery-novel theme of some kind.

But the great part is that the first challenge each episode is to solve the murder of the contestant that was voted off at the end of the last episode, and we get to see the murdered novelists come up with the murders, scatter clues and play the corpses.

Or, I suppose, the stuff over the course of the show indicates both a murderer and a victim, and at the end of the episode we see the designated murderer have to dispose of the victim in such a way that the other housemates will be mystified. I’m less keen on this idea, actually, because (a) having an unsuspecting victim is actually creepy, and (2) the other way provides more opportunities for the team of writers to help an eliminated novelist whose ideas are either totally unworkable or just bad television.

If the idea worked, you know, you would have the reality-tv show crew and the mystery-fan crew watching. I suspect that half-a-dozen mystery novelists shut in a house for a month would generate lots of dramatic scenes of interpersonal whatsit, although I do not actually know any mystery novelists, so that’s not necessarily an accurate assessment. Still, it shouldn’t be hard for the production company to find eight mystery novelists that (a) have published three or four books in a series, (2) are in need of the money and publicity that such a stunt could provide, and (iii) would themselves make good television. I mean, if they can do it with cooks.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Well, and my Rough Crossing is done. Fourteen performances, all in all, counting the benefit and the private one, but not counting the dress rehearsal that had half-a-dozen invited guests to give us practice holding for laughs that might or might not come. Probably something like five hundred people attended—I’m making that number up, actually, but there were a couple of nights in the maybe-twenty range, and then the rest were in the perhaps-forty range, except for opening and closing, which were in the nearly-eighty range. I wouldn’t be hugely surprised if my estimate were off by more than twenty percent. But I would be a little surprised. I hope the show broke even (I always hope the show breaks even), but I suspect it wound up in the red by a trifle. Well, there it is. A number of Gentle Readers came, which is always nice.

I have been doing a wrap-up on previous shows, detailing some positives and negatives of the experience. This was a strange show, though, and I’m not sure how much this all will make sense.

The Positives

• It was, I’m pretty sure, a terrific show. I can’t tell for sure, not having seen it. I don’t know that I am altogether blinded by ego, but I certainly concentrate on the more successful aspects of any show that I am in, to the point where I probably overrate them quite a bit. On the other hand, I am onstage for the whole darned show, pretty much, and we get laughs aplenty, which is how you know a comedy is working, right?
• It was the largest and most central role I have had in years. I don’t call it a lead role, because it is quite an ensemble cast, but my role had the most lines and the most minutes on stage, and was in many ways the plot driver as well. So that’s nice. I was always really a character actor; I am now old enough that I will only have character parts. So it’s nice when the character part is a big ’un.
• The part is pretty much in my wheelhouse, and I think I pretty much hit it.
• We did come up with a fair amount of physical business that I think added to the show, including what may well be the first time I have ever juggled on any stage.

The Negatives

• The lack of audience, of course
• I dropped a tray on Closing Night, marring what had been a run of successful attempts, and in front of something like a sixth of our total audience. On the other hand, my partner caught the bread roll I threw at him all fourteen performances.
• there was a shortish telephone conversation in Act II that I never managed to get word-for-word correct to the script. Or even particularly close. I got all the bits in, but there was a lot of paraphrasing, and it never really felt right.
• There were some stretches where the boat was supposed to be swaying, which was indicated with the actors tottering back and forth. There was a light system set up to time it, which turned out to be very difficult to whilst doing the blocking. We did not choreograph the swaying to the lines, either, preferring (in theory) to keep to the rhythm of the boat rather than that of the particular audience. Unfortunately, without specific line cues to change sides, and without the cues provided by the lights, we were a very ragged crew indeed, with some people starting the return trip to stage right as others were still staggering left. While I of course never actually saw any of that, what with being one of the ragged staggerers myself, I believe it looked amateurish and shabby. The thing about that sort of co-ordinated business is that if it looks good, it looks great, but if it looks bad, it looks awful.
• This isn’t so much about Rough Crossing, but doing two shows in a row has left me very, very tired and not interested in doing any more theater for a good, long while.

Another negative that is only somewhat connected with the show itself is that I have not written about it much for this Tohu Bohu. This is largely because I was in the middle of a note about how things were going rather well when a castmate had a stroke (or what I will call a stroke without knowing if that’s entirely accurate; it was a massive brain trauma) and was evidently on the brink of death. He has recovered miraculously well: he came to closing night, and while he leaned on a cane some of the time, he was able to walk without it. Still, this was a catastrophe for him, and didn’t do the show any favors. Now, we did find somebody to play his role, and that person was very good in it, so that’s all right in that sense. But the stricken fellow was just starting to inhabit what showed promise of being a very interesting take on the part, and I will never see where he was going with it.

And every time I would think about what to write for this Tohu Bohu about the show, I would think of that unfinished note that began Things are going very well, and decide I didn’t want to write anything at all. Well, anyway. It’s over now, and there will be other things to write about in the summer.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When Your Humble Blogger mentioned to an Equity Actor that the next show was to be a comedy, the Equity Actor (who is, by the way, terrific) gave the well-known advice to play the comic characters straight, that is, that the characters don’t know that they are funny. Like all the worst advice, it is completely true.

Well, not completely—there are a handful of comic characters who know that they are funny, with Pseudolus the first that comes to mind. Characters, like people, do crack jokes on occasion. Richard III. Falstaff. The Fool. The Porter. But on the whole, yes, comedy comes from the character being oblivious to what is funny about the situation, or about the other characters, or even about himself. In the current show, I think Sandor Turai (whom Your Humble Blogger plays) has about three lines that he himself finds witty, and even with those, his reaction is more pleased self-regard than laughter. So, yes, I play the comic character straight.

And yet—it’s terrible, terrible advice. So you play the character straight. So what? Why is that funny? You could play King Lear straight and it wouldn’t be funny. If you played the Tyrones straight, it wouldn’t be funny. Why would it be funny to play Sandor Turai straight?

The first thing that comes to my mind is the script. If you have a good script, then the character played straight may be funny simply because of the situation. Take, for instance, the People’s Front of Judea:

Nobody is doing anything funny. Nobody is using a silly voice, or a silly walk, or even wearing a particularly humorous costume, given the setting. The lines are funny, and the situation is funny, and the people are funny. They play it completely straight—in fact, John Cleese is almost deadpan here.

Contrast, though, with this other scene from the same film:

Silly voice! Silly costume! Silly wig! Such silliness! And, of course, they are playing it straight. Well, playing it straight with some extra eyebrow waggling and general goofiness.

Now, what about this?

Margaret Dumont is playing it straight, but is Groucho? I mean, if you can claim that Groucho Marx, with greasepaint moustache and eyebrows, silly voice and all, is playing it straight in this scene, does playing it straight have any meaning whatsoever? And yet… that’s the way to play this scene and have it be funny.

Here’s the thing: if you are doing something that’s funny and playing it straight, it’s going to make the funny thing funnier (probably). If what you are doing isn’t funny and playing it straight, then playing it straight is not going to make it funny, and in fact might make it less funny than doing the unfunny thing while wearing a funny nose and glasses. So the advice, as far as I’m concerned, is start with something funny, and then play it straight.

Alas, I have no way of knowing whether a thing is funny or it isn’t. Not until someone laughs. During the last dress rehearsal, I spent the bulk of the second act with the part of me that watches observing me playing the temper tantrum as straight as I could possibly do it, and saying This isn’t funny at all! This guy’s just an asshole! What’s funny about that? Too late to change anything, of course, and I had to trust that my director had good judgement. Until we had an audience, at which point the laughter confirmed that it was, at any rate, funny enough.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Your Humble Blogger thought that this Playlist was going to be easy. The play is set among musical comedy folk on an ocean liner in the 1930s, and I have a reasonably extensive collection of music from the 1930s and of songs from musical comedies. In fact, I wound up having some difficulty because I had too many choices. I was afraid I was on the road to making a generic Great Music of the 1930s album, or a Guy Bolton’s America album—which wouldn’t be bad, but wasn’t what I was looking for, either.

So. I started over, concentrating on songs about the sea. Well, mostly about crossing the ocean, ideally, although in many of the songs the sea is either metaphorical or tangential to the lyric. Still, it’s a pretty good mix.

1. “Reckless Night On Board an Ocean Liner”, Raymond Scott. This is the only instrumental on the mix, and makes a nice mood opener.
2. “Bon Voyage”, from the 1962 Broadway Revival of Anything Goes. This seemed to be a requirement, pretty much, hitting the time period, the setting and also jokes about the French language that play a minor role in our play.
3. “Hold Tight, Hold Tight”, the Andrews Sisters. This song has the subtitle (Want Some Seafood, Mama), and is evidently actually about cunnilingus.
4. “Beyond the Sea”, Rod Stewart vocals. No really, Rod Stewart.
5. “A Ship Without A Sail”, Dave Frishberg vocals and piano.
6. “My Ship”, Judy Garland vocals. Lyric by Ira Gershwin, music by Kurt Weill for 1941’s Lady in the Dark, but evidently written to be old-fashioned; it’s a song the Gertrude Lawrence character remembers from her childhood.
7. “Home By The Sea”, Mel Torme vocals. I have no idea where this song comes from, but it’s catchy.
8. “I Threw A Kiss In The Ocean”, Peggy Lee vocals, an Irving Berlin song and the Benny Goodman Orchestra. Obviously a WWII song, but still worth sneaking on to the list.
9. “Like a Ship in the Night”, Jean Eldridge vocals. Technically the Johnny Hodges Orchestra with Duke Ellington on piano, but it’s a Duke Small Group.
10. “Sail Away”, the Noel Coward recording. This is originally from a show called Ace of Clubs that I have otherwise never heard of.
11. “Little Boat”, the Cleo Laine recording. Bossa Nova, originally titled “O Barquinho”
12. “Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea”, George Harrison vocals and ukulele. No really, George Harrison.
13. “I Cover The Waterfront”, the Sam Cooke recording, amazingly upbeat and wonderful.
14. “How Deep is the Ocean”, Eric Clapton vocals and guitar.
15. “Slow Boat to China”, Bing Crosby & Peggy Lee vocals.
16. “There’s A Boat That’s Leaving Soon For New York”, George Kirby from the bizarre 1956 Bethlehem Records recording of Porgy and Bess.
17. “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ The Boat”, Stubby Kaye in the Original Broadway Cast recording of Guys and Dolls.
18. “Sea Fever”, Flanders & Swann. Not actually a great song, but sufficiently entertaining to claim a spot.
19. “Seaside Rendezvous”, Queen. Oh, how I love this song.
20. “I Saw A Ship A-Sailing”, Natalie Merchant vocals and setting of the Mother Goose rhyme.

Yes, I’ve gone pretty far afield stylistically from the 30s. Listening to it through, it doesn’t sound jarring to my ears. It’s a mix I enjoy listening to straight through, which not all of them have been; the Higgins Archive coming to mind. So that’s all right.

Posted by Vardibidian at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tech Week for Rough Crossing. Some call it Hell Week, but Hell doesn’t rhyme with Tech, does it? Anyway, while Tech Week is always exhausting, it isn’t always Hell. Usually, though.

See, here’s the thing: Tech Week is, pretty much by definition, when rehearsal time takes a detour from focusing on what the actors do to what the technical people do. So whenever anything doesn’t work, we all stand around and wait while it gets fixed. Now, early in the process, when it’s all about the actors, when a scene doesn’t work, the actors who aren’t in that scene do have to stand around and wait while the scene gets fixed—by which I mean rehearsed more, usually, or re-blocked—and that, too, is frustrating and exhausting, but a halfway experienced director can either prepare for that in advance or recognize what’s going on and do something about it, either letting some people go home early or skipping the bad bit and rescheduling the call for the next day or two, or something of that sort. Furthermore, many actors are interested in the craft of acting, and at least somewhat in the related crafts of directing and blocking scenes, so standing around and waiting whilst scenework is taking place is not such a hardship. Also, early in the process the standing around can be done seated in plush comfortable chairs in the house, or sometimes in the diner or bar next door.

During Tech Week, it’s a different story. First of all, the replaying of sound cues over and over in order to get the mix right is not interesting to anybody, even the sound guys. They have to do it, sometimes, and we understand that, but—not interesting. Same goes for lights. We know you want to get them right, we want you to get them right, it’s just not very interesting to watch.

A bigger contributor to the irritation, though, is that by Tech Week, we actor types have been rehearsing for ages (well, most of us, at least in community theater) and are this close to being ready for an audience. The sound and light techs may have been preparing a bit (or a lot, depending) but they haven’t been rehearsing. It’s awfully easy for us, who have been through each scene perhaps fifty times, to expect that the sound and light people will get it right after their first time through. They won’t. Or the second. The amazing thing is how much they get right on the third time through.

And then—do you remember how close we felt we were to being ready for an audience? By this point, the odds are that we’ve had a couple of full run-throughs that went moderately well, where the flubs and lulls were salvageable and were saved. All we need is some people to laugh at the laugh lines and Bob’s our proverbial. Right?

The first technical is where we learn that we weren’t actually that ready at all. Not just because the lights and sound aren’t ready, but because that’s where you learn that you have to close the door behind you, so the line delivery doesn’t work. That’s where you learn that you can’t cross between the table and the chair, and will have to either walk all the way upstage and back down again or deliver the line from down center. That your mightily effective bit on the very edge of the stage will be taking place in complete darkness, and so won’t be effective at all. And, disconcertingly, that the tray of sandwiches that I fling about in my rantiest moments unexpectedly has sandwiches on it. Why did no-one tell me? The entire bit has to be reworked now, and we only have three days.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger gets an excellent double take opportunity in this play. Like a lot of Tom Stoppard bits, it is both a simple joke and a place where several threads in the play cross. Of course, since this play is fundamentally a silly play, the threads are pretty much joke threads rather than a cross of a running gag, a deep philosophical question and a meta-theatrical device, but that’s all to the better for me.

The main running gag involved is people talking on the telephone to people who have already hung up and left. My moment is the second of three instances of that—out of five telephone conversations, I think, altogether. As my character is comically garrulous and my partner on the other end of the line is in the cabin next door, before I realize I’m talking to myself he has entered the room. I halt my rant with him over the phone to say Hello, come on in and only then realize what is going on.

The classic double-take, of course, is in three parts: the actor looks at something surprising without registering surprise, then looks away, and then registers surprise and looks back. It can be fast or slow, the second take can be exaggerated to varying amounts (John Cleese is knocked into the air by the power of whiplash, hopping away from the object of the double-take by anywhere from a few inches to (at The Hollywood Bowl, I believe) what appears to be more than six feet, but that must be an optical illusion), but that’s the basic move. Look, look away, look back.

This gag allows me to do the triple-take: I look at Alex Gal entering, without of course registering any surprise at his presence, then turn my attention to the phone before turning back to stare at him in surprise—and then turning again to stare at the phone, which is now a surprising item due to my realization that the person I thought I was speaking to is in the room with me. It would be possible to do yet another take after that, switching my attention back to Mr. Gal, but that seems to me excessive, particularly as the bit can perfectly well end with my slamming the telephone down on the hook. On the other hand, how often does a fellow get a chance for a quadruple-take? I mean, a legitimate one, not just mugging? Or not completely mugging, anyway.

Also, Mr. Gal is joining Mr. Adam, who is already in the room, and they don’t have very many lines before I am off the phone and monopolizing the conversation again. In fact, I don’t think I’m going to have time to let the second take be a slow one and the third a quick swivel, which might be even funnier… I think it’s going to be Hello, Gal, come on in and then bam-bam-bam-hang-up. I still have a few weeks to play with it, though.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is Rough Crossing a farce?

What are the markings of a true farce? Well, that’s an excellent question. I think we have to use syndrome thinking here; of the n symptoms of farce syndrome, a play that exhibits all of them is clearly a farce, a play that exhibits none of them is clearly not a farce, and a play that exhibits, oh, two-thirds n of them is a farce, and a play that exhibits about half is a source of argument. So. What have we got? I think of a farce as having

1. laughs
2. repetition
3. a fast pace
4. disguises or misidentification of persons
5. cross-talk (misidentification of subjects)
6. overheard conversation
7. coincidences
8. repetition
9. hiding, ideally multiple people behind multiple doors
10. slapstick
11. taboo-violation (violence, nudity, profanity, etc played for laughs)
12. character types (the trickster or promiscuous servant, the doddering scholar, the lustful priest, the unfaithful wife, the innocent virgin, the separated twins, etc)
13. repetition

Rough Crossing has some of those: it’s a fast-paced comedy with a lot of repetition and cross-talk, and the plot is driven by an overheard conversation. That’s four. On the other hand, everybody knows who everybody is, and nobody is mistaken for anyone else. Nobody wears a disguise. There is no nudity or even particularly revealing undress; there’s next to no profanity and there is no violence; to the extent that there is taboo-violation at all it consists of shouting a few relatively mild insults. There are some physical gags, verging on slapstick, but nobody even falls down. And I’m not actually clear to what extent the characters are character types; they are recognizable, but they are not written as types, confined to their type-actions. Even the servant character, is not so much a variation on the type as a… well, I’m not sure. Our Director calls Dvornichek a fool, which is not from the farce tradition at all, but also is not quite right, I think, as the purpose of the character is not truth-telling or trickery at all. I don’t know what the purpose of the character is, come to think of it. It’s a brilliant creation, a magnificent thing in itself, but it doesn’t move the plot along, or hinder it, or pass along messages (to the wrong people or with the wrong words) or otherwise do the things I would expect a servant type in a farce to do. So that’s four that are missing.

On the other hand, it’s a fast-paced comedy with a lot of repetition and cross-talk, and the plot is driven by an overheard conversation. That’s four. So I think this falls clearly into the subject of argument category.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So. Rough Crossing. A play about a bunch of people preparing to put on a play. There are six characters, in order of appearance:

• Sandor Turai: The older of a duo of playwrights of continental repute, Turai is a garrulous dandy, a selfish and dishonest but kindly rogue, constantly concocting ever more extravagant responses to the frustrations and thwartations of theatrical life. Your Humble Blogger plays this fellow.
• Dvornichek: The cabin steward, Dvornichek is new to the sea, and while totally unfamiliar with the crossing, is mysteriously conversant with the plot of Rough Crossing; among the many excellent services provided is exposition. Of a sort. We have a cross-cast Dvornichek; I think of the part as an imposingly masculine presence, so the diminutive woman playing the role in this production seems incongruous. On the other hand, why not?
• Adam Adam: The young songwriter and composer discovered by the playwrights, Adam would make a terrific romantic lead if it weren’t for his unfortunate speech impediment. Also, he is in the grip of young love, the inexpressible highs and lows of passion—at least inexpressible by the poor lad, under the circumstances. Our Adam is, alas, not quite matinee-idol handsome, but has a winning manner and also (I think) the musical chops to make the required piano-playing work.
• Alex Gal: The younger and more practical of the playwrights, Gal is a needed weight to Turai’s blustery dreaming. Gal is often exasperated by, well, everything, but takes consolation in food and drink, and in the knowledge that it probably will all turn out all right in the end, as it has so often before. Our Gal is a handsome fellow with a saturnine look to him and a kind of jovial humor that I think audiences will find appealing.
• Natasha Navratilova: Natasha is the lead of our play, the idol of theater lovers across Europe, and the object of Adam’s devotion. A rising star, she is just starting to feel her power; she finds the world at her feet. Our Natasha is not what I would call classically beautiful (although she is certainly good-looking enough, for a real person), but will wear fabulous gowns well, I expect. She is funny, which is more important, and has a good singing voice, besides.
• Ivor Fish: An aging matinee idol, poor Ivor is the object of everybody’s contempt. He is hoping for a theatrical success to revive his career as well as his the embers of his romance with Natasha. Our Ivor is extremely well-cast, a tall, balding lantern-jawed deep-voiced stick of a man, quietly funny, a willing butt of jokes.

I think the whole thing is going to be very funny indeed, if we can get the audiences.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

OK, a question: why doesn’t Samuel French or The Dramatists Play Service offer electronic editions of plays? I suppose what I actually mean is: why don’t they have, as part of the licensing deal, a requirement that the theater pay, oh, four bucks per cast member for an electronic edition?

It wouldn’t help me at all, as I type in the text as a start to the memorization process. And of course many actors will still for a long time want to have a paper script in hand during blocking—but it’s easy enough to print out sides for the scenes you are in, and for most parts in most plays, that would be easier and less paper-intensive than having a whole script. Or, of course, the licensing publisher can insist on the company purchasing both a paper and an electronic copy for each cast member; I don’t see a problem with that, myself.

I suppose that I am just assuming the demand. Presumably, the two companies have done (or certainly are capable of doing) actual market research. It’s just that the last two shows I have done have been adaptations of public domain works, the adaptations being done by people involved in the show, and so the electronic files were in the hands of the producers, who distributed them via email/download as well as in paper copies. For Rough Crossing, they were compelled to distribute paper copies only, which meant that (due to conflicts arising mostly from my not having quite finished the last show) YHB didn’t get a copy for two weeks after the casting announcement. I mean, I didn’t get a copy of the acting script; my employer has both the version published with On the Razzle and the Collected Works Volume Four, so I was able to begin work without waiting. Still. I would think, at this point, that there’s no need to wait.

It also seems to me that many actors—no, actors are of course different one to another, just like people, but many actors—are quite tech-happy. Not particularly clever or anything, just happy to adopt any new tools that will make our lives easier. Well, as long as they don’t interfere with our superstitions and prejudices, of course; and there’s the argument about microphones, etc, etc, but I can imagine many people finding a tremendous comfort in having a copy of the script on their telephone or netbook or e-reader, to scan while on trains and waiting in lines and even walking down the street.

It’s also possible, once you have the text electronically, to use software to check your memorization; if you don’t mind the typing, any reasonably current word processor will compare two documents and tell you where you have gone wrong. I don’t use a dictation system, but presumably that would be even easier—and if there isn’t a bit of software specifically for the purpose, then once playscripts were regularly distributed to casts, software would appear to fill the market. Right? Again, not that everybody would want it, just that enough people would want it to make it worthwhile, considering how easy it seems to be to implement.

Anyway, I was just wondering. It seems like such an obvious thing to me, and since Samuel French and DPS are making their real money (I assume) on licensing fees, I would imagine they would be in a better position to absorb the downsides of making their product available for easier copying. Of course, it could just be that the Standard Contract doesn’t allow it, and that the really prohibitive cost is rewriting the Standard Contract to make it allowable. And I don’t really know how those companies work; perhaps the individual playscript sales are enough of their product that having more copies around would hurt more than could be covered by the extra licensing money. Or perhaps theater companies would rise up in anger against having to pay for electronic copies of scripts that they neither want nor know how to use. Still. Doesn’t it seem, somehow, not right?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 8:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Your Humble Blogger has begun rehearsals for the new play, in which I will be playing Sandor Turai in Rough Crossing, Tom Stoppard’s sparkling adaptation of Ferenc Molnar’s brilliant Játék a Kastélyban. I’m a huge fan of both playwrights, and am absolutely tickled to be in this thing. Although it’s a lot of work—I will not be posting and analyzing each of my three hundred and sixteen lines, as I will be concentrating on memorizing them. Some of the lines, of course, are nice short things like No or What? or To whom? or Perhaps a cognac, but I also get to say Naples has fallen below the horizon. Mother has eluded the Italian police only to come to grief in Casablanca where she is in the hands of the white slavers. Ilona finds Justin on deck. With luck, I will get to put a substantial level of thought and analysis into each line, but as for typing that all up for Gentle Readers, well, I think not. If I am lucky, I will have time to post my thorniest lines for your advice and support.

The play, for those who can make their way to Greater Hartford, will run in late May and June; if you don’t get an email from me with the info, let me know and I’ll get you on to my shill-list.

This is, I should just mention, pretty much the opposite of the last production. Where the last production was semi-professional, and certainly from my point of view was run more professionally and efficiently than any show I have ever been involved with, this next show is at the community that I talked about the last time I discussed community theater, a group of hippies who like to drink and put on plays and build a community. The director of the last play is, as I have said, Nearly Legendary; the director of this next play is a wonderful goof of a man who is younger than I am (and not much more experienced, perhaps). In the last production I was a supporting player with a lot of time backstage (including one stretch of more than 45 minutes); in this next show I am onstage from the beginning to the end, except for three pages in Act One, one three-page musical interlude and one stretch of about eleven lines toward the end of Act Two. And the intermission; I get to come backstage during the intermission, although I am onstage when the lights go down and again when the lights come back up.

What else… well, both plays are adaptations, although the last one attempted to be faithful in tone and content, while the next one says Freely Adapted on the cover, and means it, too. The last play uses a sort of heightened archaic speech that verges on tushery; this next play uses a sort of heightened thirties-style speech that verges on Archie-and Bertie-ry. Both plays and parts required some shouting; this one also requires wheedling, double-talking and possibly juggling.

And in this one I will wear a significantly smaller hat.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I think this is Volume Seven of the Play Playlist Lists; it’s the prettiest of them, I think, despite everything.

1. Ten Commandments: Psalm 6 (Bay Psalm Book), Margaret Dodd Singers
2. Psalm 24 (Bay Psalm Book, set: Henry Ainsworth), Gregg Smith Singers
3. Psalm 39, "Martyr’s Tune" (Thomas Ravenscroft), Gregg Smith Singers
4. Mein Heiland geht ins Leiden (Georg Muller), Charles Bressler
5. Thanks Be To Thee (Johannes Herbst), Charles Bressler/Harriet Wingreen
6. Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes (Heinrich Schütz), Philippe Herreweghe
7. Audivi vocem (Thomas Tallis), Taverner Choir
8. Vigilate (William Byrd), The King’s Singers
9. De Profundis (John Dowland), Consort of Musicke
10. When Jesus Wept (William Billings), Colonial Revelers
11. Jesus Makes My Heart Rejoice (18c hymn), Boston Baroque
12. The Image Of Melancholy (Anthony Holborne), Hespèrion XXI
13. Daphne (John Playford), Hesperus
14. Greene-Sleeves (Traditional), Paul O’Dette
15. The Fox Went Out On A Chilly Night (Traditional), Custer LaRue
16. The True Lover’s Farewell (Traditional), Baltimore Consort
17. Old Wife Behind The Fire (Traditional), Bare Necessities
18. The First of the Princes (Robert Johnson), Musicians of the Globe
19. Cuckolds All In A Row-Rufty Tufty-Parson’s Farewell (John Playford), Hesperus

Let’s see… the Bay Psalm Book was the first book published in the New World, and had the melodies that were used in Boston in the time that was used. These setting are not exactly what my character would have heard, mostly because these people are professional singers, and the settlers perhaps not so much. There are a lot of things that are fifty to seventy-five years too early, but then these people might well have old-fashioned ideas about music, and may well have heard (probably in Amsterdam) some of the older stuff still being performed. Of course, the Latin stuff is Right Out for our Puritans, but the “Vigilate” is particularly wonderful, so there. There are also a couple of things that are clearly too late, mostly the Billings setting for “When Jesus Wept” and “the Fox”, but they seemed to fit anyway and I liked them.

I tried to make a nice shift between the sinners-in the-hands-of-the-proverbial stuff at the beginning, stuff that the Other Clergyman might have heard or even sung in his church, to the secular tunes that the Other Clergyman would have not quite prohibited.

Oh, one more thing about these: my character was named after the real-life Pastor of the First Church of Boston at the time of the events of the play. That real-life person was known for his fondness for and facility with anagrams, which I do not actually share, but thanks to the wonders of the internet, I can fake. So, I gave this mix the title Let’s Clatter There: a list for the cast of Retell That Secret; I individually lettered copies with anagrams (such as Let Her Test Claret or Test, Err, Cheat, Tell or Tell Tech Retreat) as well. It amused me, anyway.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 2:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger has been intending to write a wrap-up about the play that closed last weekend, but frankly this morning has been entirely taken up with refreshing the OBO on India-Australia. Kohli just got caught out, and that makes India 143-3 after 29 overs, chasing 261. I think this may well come down to the last few balls again. I find I’m rooting for India, mostly because I would like to see India meet Pakistan in a later round, although of course I would also be worried about violence. Still. Pakistan are incredibly erratic, but you would have to think they would hit another level in a one-day against an at-home India side for the World Cup.

Anyway. A few thoughts about my experience doing this semi-professional theeyater.

Positives

• Nearly Legendary Director was wonderful and twinkly and said things like “The props don’t know they are in a play” and “The audience hears your vowels but they understand your consonants”. Actually the main thing I learned from him is that it is possible to be as good as he is at a variety of things. He blocked the play for a thrust stage without ever seeming to have to think about its requirements; he is such an old hand that he simply set things up on the diagonals and everything built from there. He also not only knew exactly what he wanted from any scene (at least any of my scenes) but was able to get it, which he did by simply and clearly explaining his demands. That may not sound like much, but damn.
• I learned a lot from our out-of-town cast (particularly from the actor playing the Man, who was very pleasant to share backstage with) about what it is like to work as a professional actor on an equity contract. This is the first time that I have worked with equity actors, and while I do not want to become one at least I now have some sense of what that life is like in a practical sense.
• The production values of the show were very high, certainly much higher than I am used to. The costumes were terrific, and there were people taking very good care of them (and being paid to do so). The set was very simple, deliberately so, but was excellent and again well cared for (mopped before every show, for instance). The props were not particularly good, but they weren’t awful, and more importantly I didn’t have any. The lighting and sound were very good, as far as I could tell, with one moment of thunder-lightning-fog that would really have been lousy if it didn’t work, but did seem to work, so that was nice. Rehearsals began on time and ended on time—this is more to do with the last point than this one, but still, it was very pleasant for me.
• The show as a whole seemed to be very good, as far as I could tell.
• Both Nearly Legendary Director and the actor playing the Man made a point of telling me that I was doing a good job; the Man told me that if a revival did happen, he would be happy for me to revive my role. Which doesn’t mean that I would actually be offered the part, and I wouldn’t take it if I were offered it if it meant going to New York for a month, but it was a lovely thing to hear.

The Disappointments

• Ticket sales, mostly. For our nine open performances, we never sold more than a hundred of the seats in our 150-capacity house, and half of the time there were between forty and fifty. That’s just weak. The last time I was in that house (under different, and much more amateur management) we averaged a hundred, and sold out a few.
• The professionalism of the whole endeavor has both good and bad; it was a lot less fun, and the cast didn’t really go out together after shows. At least, I actually never went out with the cast, but there was only one night where I know the cast did go out as a group, and even then it was only two-thirds of them. It wasn’t really a social group, in fact, it wasn’t a community. It wasn’t an unpleasant dynamic or anything, but it was much more like a workplace than a playspace.
• Frankly, being in a tiny part wasn’t all that great. There was a stretch of around 50 minutes where I sat in the back and wrote letters or did crosswords. In addition to the shorter backstage stretches, that is.

All in all, I’m glad that I was in the thing, and I’m glad it’s over. …and in between starting this note in the morning (my time) and finishing in the afternoon, the match ended with India winning at a canter, 14 balls left. After, of course, they dropped two fairly quick wickets, giving them a run required rate of more than one a ball with twelve overs left; Australia ought to have been able to put India away, frankly, but couldn’t do it. So Pakistan meets India in Chandigarh on Wednesday for a semi-final. Looking forward to it, particularly as I don’t give England much chance in their quarter-final on Saturday against Sri Lanka in Colombo.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The run is over, but the memory lingers on. At the end of the scene, as the Child leaves, the Husband (who is (or is posing as) a scholar) asks if a Philosopher could deduce the Child’s father from what we know of the Child and the Woman.

Nay, let us not invoke secular philosophy. Better to fast and pray upon the question. Still better, leave this mystery as we find it, till Providence reveal in its own accord.

I make a clear distinction between the first two sentences, which are to the Husband, and the last, which is to the Governmental Authority. I also use this to sort of build on the triumph of my protégé (or what I perceive as a triumph); the Governmental Authority is bound to agree with me, not only because it means less work for him but because after nine years, the subject has been nigh exhausted.

As such, I am against secular philosophy, of course, and fasting and praying, as well as for this mystery (in this context) and obviously for Providence and its accord. It is a major-key speech, and it has a taste of the lectern about it; this is the moment where I try to let peek through the circumstances the nature of the Other Clergyman to be, by his natural instinct, a rather dull village rector who likes to hear himself speak, and is considered a harmless and pleasant dullard by residents who fondly avoid him. In the context of his religious doctrine and the requirements of a new settlement, the Other Clergyman is all brimstone and no treacle, but I want ideally to have just a taste of the sweetness present if possible.

…and that’s my last line. I do have two further entrances: I come through in the storm, through fog and lightning, under the Man as he rants on the gibbet, but I don’t see him or hear him and exit without speaking. That’s near the end of the first act. The second act gets rid of the crowd for 40 minutes or so, concentrating entirely on the Woman, the Husband, the Man and the Child; only in the last scene do all the townsfolk (and there are seven of us) come out to witness the dread revelation of sin and redemption. But we don’t have lines, other than some verbalization to cover our getting in to position for the tableau.

Which reminds me that I have given a tremendous emphasis to the lines and the words in them, in large part because (as Nearly Legendary Director puts it) this is a play of words, not a play of actions. It’s also easier to talk about the words, as YHB can quote them and a G.R. can go back and forth between what I’m saying and what I’m saying, if you know what I mean. I am also making choices (or embodying Nearly Legendary Director’s choices) about actions, how I sit and stand, how I gesture, what sort of faces to pull while some other sorry bastard is speaking his lines, who to stare at when, all that sort of thing, and while in this play it is perhaps less important than deciding whether to end a line on a rising or falling pitch, it’s still pretty important. So I wanted to mention, as I get to the end of this series of notes about lines, that I am aware the lines aren’t everything.

I should have two more notes about this play, and then turn to the next one. You are warned.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After the Governmental Authority has granted permission for the Woman to keep the Child, she wordlessly thanks the Man for pleading their case.

The little baggage hath a witchcraft in her, I confess.

This is an odd thing to say, isn’t it? It’s a joke, of course, but a dangerous one. I wonder if it’s an attempt, possibly a not entirely conscious attempt, to keep a sort of deniability in case anything goes wrong. In case the child does turn out to be of demonic origin, I mean, or in case the decision leads to some further trouble in the town. On the other hand, it could just be an expression of wonder that we all, authorities assembled including the speaker, permit this child to misbehave in a way that would certainly not be permitted in another child, one with a father. The waywardness of the child is clearly a matter of significant concern to the town, and yet somehow there is charm in it.

Which brings up the question: is my character for or against this? The answer that I came up with is that the statement isn’t about the Child at all, but about the Man—I am excusing his behavior in being thanked by the Child. Thus, why I am against it, I am not so strongly against it as I am for him; I am, in effect, apologizing. It’s a minor key speech, or the closest thing to it that I have in this shouty role.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger has three more lines to blog and two more performances. I had better get on that, hadn’t I better? The Man is orating with great effect, and the Husband says that he speaks with enthusiasm.

And with wisdom, may it be said. What say you, Governor Bellingham? Hath he not pleaded well for the poor woman?

I like the phrasing here: the Man has pleaded well, not logically or correctly or according to Writ, but well. The phrasing also gives me a chance to do that against/for thing that Nearly Legendary Director is on about: I am so clearly for the Man and his skilled oratory, and against the poor woman, and it makes a nice contrast in the line.

I am also pleased about this moment in the play, as it is one of the few moments in this particular production where I came up with a bit. Nearly-Legendary Director is not enamored of actors coming up with bits—oh, he does make the usual mouth noises about actors experimenting and so forth, but in point of fact, given two weeks of rehearsal time with the full cast, and given that he did not want us experimenting or inventing during the blocking process, and that he wanted everything locked down by the dress rehearsals, there was no time for us to come up with things that might work and might not, and I was not under the impression that he regretted that lack in the slightest way. I am complaining, of course, because I do like the opportunity to come up with business or body language or such to add my own touch to the story, but I must admit that the final result does not appear to have suffered at all from this exclusion.

And, when I say exclusion, it wasn’t forbidden at all, it was just…much less of a priority than other shows in my experience.

So. In this line, when I am responding to the Husband, the line is actually communicating to the Man; I reach out my hand to him in a sort of benedictory clasp, if you know what I mean—my palm is down, and he takes it in both of his hands and bows over it. I am giving him my imprimatur, my countenance. It is congratulatory, but clearly from a greater power to a lesser; I am his patron, and I am, in that sense at least, patronizing him. Just a moment, a trifle really, not something that would (I imagine) break through to the awareness of the audience, but a helpful part of the story, anyway. And it’s one of the non-shouty bits, which is nice for a change.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You may believe this or not, as you like, but the twelfth line is perhaps my favorite in the play.

Oh? How is that, good Master Dimmesdale? Make that plain, I pray you.

Why is it my favorite? Because it was in studying that line and making choices with it that I was able to come to some fundamental choices about my character’s relationship with the Man, and those choices were not only helpful to me, but to the actor playing the Man. Let me explain.

If you have been following these lines, you presumably have figured out that the Other Clergyman comes in to this scene arguing that the Child must be taken away from the Woman. He is pestering the Governmental Authority about it; he interrupts the Husband (not that he knows it’s the Husband, but still) and generally causes a fuss. The Man (and no, my character doesn’t know it’s the Man in question, but still still) is asked by the tearful Woman (yes, I do know it’s the Woman) to plead her case, which the Man has begun to do.

Two minutes later, I am completely and utterly convinced, and appeal to the Governmental Authority to rule according to my new position, the opposite of the ruling I was demanding when the scene began. This was difficult for me. People don’t act that way. People do change their minds, yes, over time, but not usually like that. It didn’t seem to be done for comic emphasis, either; that wouldn’t be appropriate for the rest of the people in the scene. I didn’t find the book helpful, either; the adapted scene is lifted nearly intact out of the book, and there isn’t any helpful explanation in Mr. Hawthorne’s narrative voice (which does happen elsewhere). So I needed a reason for my character to change his mind, and I needed a way to play that change that made sense and wouldn’t be distracting.

What I came up with is this: the Man is my character’s protégé; the older Clergyman is bringing up the younger both as an eventual replacement in the position of authority and as an ornament on the young church’s crown. This, by the way, in addition to being a common and understandable relationship that the audience should be able to relate to, is in keeping with the historical person who shares a name and a job with my character. There are several incidents of the Real Person taking visiting dignitaries to see the preaching of the young clergymen under his wing. In this scene, then, once the Man has been set the task of pleading the Woman’s case in front of the Governmental Authority, my character is likelier to be rooting for his success in that pleading than against it.

Thus, this line. My younger colleague, there, has been struggling, and is starting to put some words together in vague but coherent sentences, mostly to himself. I interrupt to encourage him to make that plain to the Governmental Authority (complete with gesture) rather than to me—the kindly advice of his somewhat stern debate coach, not the challenge of his opponent. Then, as he gathers steam and begins a nice line of oratory, I am with him, not against him.

The actor playing the Man (who has a very difficult job) found that very helpful; suddenly he’s got somebody on his side. And suddenly, instead of just desperately responding to the clearly implied blackmail, or even acting out of some affection for the Woman and the Child, he is also getting to show off for his mentor. This makes the transition from the abovementioned vague coherence into the nice line of oratory work. It also, as it happens, makes a couple of other parts of the play work better, as that relationship can inform his public actions and interactions with me when we are together.

And, really, the future of the Man (my protégé, who is tightly bound to the future of the settlement of the new world) is more important than the future of the Woman and the Child, who are after all a Woman and a Child. I mean, really. As long as she’s unhappy and everybody knows it, so that there isn’t any more adultery going around being found out about, I can live with her raising the demon child just fine.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So. There we are, all of us, the Man, the Woman, the Husband, the Child, the Governmental Authority and the Other Clergyman, and the last two mentioned have threatened to have the Child taken away from the Woman and raised with a foster family. The Woman is distraught.

My poor woman, the child will be well cared for—far better than thou canst do it.

Nearly-Legendary Director gave the note, early in the rehearsal process, that my line should top the previous line, meaning (he explained) that it should be both higher in pitch and greater in intensity. This is the secret to interrupting, he said. This makes very good sense, and is a lesson learned.

Unfortunately, the Woman’s line is You shall not take her from me. I shall die first!

I do give my line at a higher pitch and with substantial intensity (if not actually greater intensity than the cue line, which is difficult to measure), but it isn’t easy. And having interrupted at that pitch, I have some difficulty with the rest of the line. The way it goes, now, is that the first word my is nearly at the top of my range, then drops quite a bit to poor and then drops again to a very repressive woman. I suppose I could pick out the notes on the piano, but it seems to my ear to make a chord with the three falling notes. My—poor—woman. In, actually, increasing volume.

Then I can go back up a bit to will and then down again and then up again to thou with a little twist upward on the last word. So. Exhibiting a bit of vocal range on that line.

As for our earlier questions, I’m pretty much against everything here: the Woman, the Child, the thou. Even the better is focused not on what my character is for but on what he is against, that is, the better is in contrast to what I am really talking about. I am also choosing to have my character speak this line directly to the Woman and for her (its meaning being, essentially, shut up and do what I tell you, stupid female person) rather than speaking for the benefit of the Governmental Authority. Which would have been a legitimate choice, emphasizing the Other Clergyman’s sycophantic nature. It would change that better to a for, either sincere or otherwise, as an attempt to convince that Governmental Authority of my character’s good intentions.

Alas, it is not a story about relationship between the Governmental Authority and the Other Clergyman; our job is to support the story about the Man, the Woman and the Husband, and given a viable choice with my lines and character to do that, we go with the one that does that.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, where was I? Oh, yes, Act One, scene seven. My character has been asked by the Governmental Authority to examine the Child to see if she is being Well Brought Up:

Pearl, comest thou hither. Child—Pearl, thou must take heed to instruction. Canst thou tell me, my child, who made thee?

There’s (obviously?) a lot of business here to go along with the words. A gesture for the Child to come closer, the child’s reluctant foot-dragging, an attempt at an avuncular pat on the head with attendant revulsed flinching, and then (this is the bit I particularly like), my character, who is sitting square and upright in a wooden chair, holds out his two hands in front of him for the poor Child to step in between, so I place her by the upper arms in an over-the-top imposition of authority. In this short moment, the Other Clergyman goes from an incompetent attempt at twinkliness to outraged authority and back more than once—it’s a hint (at least in my mind) that the character is not only unsympathetic but fundamentally untrustworthy, fully capable of convincing himself and other people that things are as they are not. Or at least himself, and I hope making it at least plausible for the audience that I will sweep others up in my delusion of myself as kindly, stern, loving, pious and ultimately concerned with the Divine Will for the community of faith.

Which, at least in my character’s mind, I am.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know this blog has been silent lately. This is Hell Week for our production, and as it happens there are other things taking up time that I could have spent with my Sixteen Lines. Including running those lines, which I have also been remiss about. Well.

The show is proceeding more-or-less normally; I have a good feeling about the thing as a show, and almost none of the panic I am supposed to be feeling, or was supposed to be feeling a few days ago. Had an audience snuck in a couple of nights ago, they would have enjoyed themselves despite a couple of moments that were tentative or imperfectly executed. By tonight, when the front-of-house gang are sitting in, they should be seeing a show that is realio trulio ready for an audience. Tomorrow night, the paying customers arrive.

In addition to falling behind on my Sixteen Lines, I haven’t blogged the Scarlet Playlist, which could have used the advice of any Gentle Readers with a knowledge of music from the early 1600s. I did OK, I think, and I will post the list and some commentary when I have a chance. Which may be Saturday, and may be in May. We shall see.

In the meantime, Gentle Readers, smoke ’em if you got ’em.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Child has just said that her name is Pearl, which leads to more jocularity, and then a turn:

A pearl? A red rose, at least! But where is this mother of thine, eh? Eh? Ah, this is the self-same child of whom we spoke, and behold, her unhappy mother.

So. I begin this line as a continuation of the last, in a stiffly jocose manner—again, I am notionally speaking to the Child, but actually speaking for the other men in the room. The Child, naturally, flees from my patronage back to her mother’s arms, which precipitates the second half of the line.

The for and against, then, is complicated. I am essentially pretending to be for this pearl, while being against children and other disruptive elements. Then, again, I am against a Mother that lets her Child run loose (and dressed like that), but am covering it in hilarity. Then, as I the Child with the Mother, I am very clearly against them both (but for beholding them).

The music of the line shifts entirely with that percussive Ah that begins the second half of the line. No, it’s not actually percussive; you can’t actually make the sound ah percussive, but it is metaphorically percussive, and I mean to convey the sound as being sudden and sharp, and not at all a reflective Ahh-h-hh-h. Just Ah following the ehs that…

Here, I’ll record the thing:

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our colloquy is interrupted by the appearance of the Child, dressed in a bright red dress with incredibly fancy embroidery. The Governmental Authority is pleased at the interruption, and jocularly scolds the Child, comparing her to something from a court mask from Old King James’ time—’we called them then the Children of Misrule! My character attempts to join the jocosity:

Indeed, a little bird of scarlet plumage? Art thou a Christian child? Or some naughty elf or fairy?

So. This is a very complicated bit to answer questions about, although not very difficult to play (he said, courting disaster). It is addressed to the Child, of course, although it is only notionally addressed to her, as my character is mostly speaking to the other men present by speaking to the child. He doesn’t have (I think) any particular reaction in mind from the Child, but he very much wants the Governmental Authority, and to a lesser extent the Man and the Husband, to chuckle approvingly at how terrific he is with children. Which, alas, is not very terrific at all; his attempts at hilarity are stiff and awkward, and rather than bring my character in to the circle of grupps, the effect is to unite the other men in sympathy with the Child. But I don’t know that.

Furthermore, while my character is against children wearing bright colors, and against elves and fairies, he is for his little jokes and the putative hilarity that ensues, or doesn’t. And while there is no reason for the line to be in a minor key, best of all is to hit false notes, fail to resolve, clink on the ear like a, um, well, you know what I mean.

Actually, my key for the line so far is to pronounce the word Christian with three syllables: kriss-tea-an. That bit is directed right in the little girl’s face, before turning to present the point of the joke to the grown-ups.

Of course, it isn’t really a joke, which makes it funnier.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger’s character is attempting to persuade the Governmental Authority to take the Woman’s Child; I relate that the village folk believe the child’s father to be the Father of Lies himself.

Should the child prove, after all, capable of moral and religious growth, possessed of the elements of ultimate salvation, then surely its prospects for these advantages would be improved by being transferred to wiser and better guardianship than Hester Prynne’s.

One thing about the Other Clergyman is that he is somewhere between comic relief and a villain; he is not a sympathetic character at all. He is not the Bad Guy in the piece, but he is bad—he dislikes the Woman, who is our heroine, after all. His fondness for the Man is fondness for the parts of the Man we don’t like, the parts that prevent him from pairing up with the Woman for a happy ending. In fact, his presence as the Other Clergyman makes him a symbol of the Clergy in an anticlerical play; he stands in for all the oppressive prudery we associate with the Puritans. He is also a pompous git, a preacher who likes the sound of his own voice, and clearly our Nearly-Legendary Director wants the audience to react to his speeches by almost instantly hoping for someone to shut the man up.

I can play that.

None of that, however, makes the questions about the lines unnecessary. In some ways the fact that nobody is really listening to the words makes the close examination of the line even more important for an actor, if only because it’s easy to get lazy and play it for laughs. So.

My character is against the child, for moral and religious growth, for the elements and particularly for salvation, and very much for surely, for the advantages, for improving them, and for the Child being transferred. Oddly enough, I am againstwiser and better guardianship—I mean, I am in favor of the guardianship being wiser and better, but I am against in the sense that I am speaking of them in contempt as being an easy, almost trivial matter to be a wiser and better guardian than Hester Prynne. Who I am against.

It’s a major-key speech, clearly. He’s a major-key guy.

The speech is addressed to the Governmental Authority; it is also addressed to the Man and the Husband, not in those roles but as a preacher and a philosopher. Mostly, its address to those two is designed to block any arguments they might make against fostering out the child. That is, its intent is not to get agreement, but to get silence or acquiescence, presenting the opposing view as being in favor of the Woman, which of course no man in his right mind could be.

I’ll add, thanking Christopher who brings it up, that the lines to fall into a rough pentameter:

Should the child prove, after all,
capable of moral and religious growth,
possessed of the elements of ultimate salvation,
then surely its prospects for these advantages
would be improved by being transferred to
wiser and better guardianship
than Hester Prynne’s.

I don’t want to overstate the matter, as any flowery speech of complex syntax could probably be divided into groups of five stress beats with some jiggery-pokery like the above, in which I have taken words such as salvation or capable and given them one stress, eliding the minor stress, but having a caesura when I want it so that surely its prospects is three beats and so on. Still, it does seem to work. And, if nothing else, it indicates the sort of person the Other Clergyman is: the sort who extemporizes in pentameter.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now. My character had just coerced the Governmental Authority to repeat Stumbling block?, allowing further explanation:

A substantial number of my flock believe this child, Pearl, to be of demonic origin, and that it would be better for Hester Prynne, the child, and our community of faith that the child be removed from her mother’s care.

Nearly-Legendary Director was talking to me about this line last night during rehearsal, pointing out the tremendous contrasts available to me. My flock: for. The child, Pearl: against. Demonic origin: very against. Better: for. Then, a ladder up the triple, as being better and better before plunging down in pitch to child: against. Removed: for. Her mother’s care: against.

What my character is really against is disorder, and (in his interpretation) (or, rather, my interpretation of his interpretation) any possibility of the Woman being seen to be happy or even not-entirely-miserable is a temptation to disorder amongst the populace. Further, children are inherently prone to disorder, and this child seems to be particularly irreverent and willful. The clergy cannot be soft or lenient in these matters or there will be chaos.

Not you, Chaos.

Anyway, the suggestion that the Child be removed into foster care has two obvious benefits: (A) it will make the Woman unhappy, and (secondly) it will make the child unhappy. It’s a win-win!

In this line, by the way, I turn to include the Man (who I know only as a somewhat soft-hearted clergyman prone to misguided compassion) as I suggest that my advice is best for the Woman and the Child, before capping the triple with the community of faith delivered directly to the Governmental Authority, who is responsible for it.

I will add another note about line reading… one of the tricky things about, well, about acting, I suppose, at least in the naturalistic style that is most common and popular in our culture, is that the character must act as if he is thinking up the words as he goes along. Yet doing so is not the best way to tell the story that must be told. If an actor pauses as long as a person really would pause who had no idea what was coming next, the audience would fret. Even if they didn’t notice it, they would fret. Even if they didn’t fret at the moment the gap was too long, they would fret when it came to be eleven o’clock and they weren’t on the way home. Thus, the pauses have to be quick. Infinitesimal, really. But still noticeable, still breaking the sentence into thought groups as a person might.

Nearly-Legendary Director will interrupt a line like this if it is flowing so smoothly that it doesn’t allow the listener any entrance points. A substantial number of my flock believe—believe what?believe the child Pearl to be of—to be what?of demonic origin! He is saying that the audience should be thinking (tho’ not verbalizing it) those questions at those points in the script. We don’t have time to keep them in suspense, but we have to allow them to think the thought. If they are quick. It’s a tough trick for me—I have written before about my tendency to creeping Shatnerism, which leads me to (correctly) mistrust my sense of pacing. I am having a great deal of difficulty with the pacing, but at least I am getting near-legendary directing. Stretch it out, I am being told. Slow it down. But without taking too much time.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Nine years pass in the twinkling of a Fresnel, and I have my Big Scene (with the rest of my lines). The scene begins with my character pressing the Governmental Authority (in the presence of the Man and the Husband, although they are not their in those capacities, nor do either of us minor characters know this about them) for approval of the fostering of the Child. The scene will expand to include the Child and the Woman (or, as we may now call her, the Mother); it’s a lively scene with much of interest. And I get the first line.

I tell you, Governor Bellingham, a Christian interest in Hester Prynne’s soul requires us to remove this stumbling block from her path.

Asking our questions: I am for the removal I speak of, although of course I am against the Woman. It is to the Governmental Authority I address by name, and it is (within the context of a play) entirely to him, seeking a response only from him. In fact, the line is phrased so as to elicit an tell-me-more response, rather than a final approval; this is a lead-up to the point, not the point itself. However, that tell-me-more response (“Stumbling block?”) is almost compulsory; not to provide it would be outright rude.

It is a major-key speech#&8212;I should take a moment a talk about the music of the speech. Nearly-Legendary Director admonished us that while in conversation one almost always wants to end your line—that is, end the bit you were going to say, whether it is one sentence or a few—by lowering your pitch, on the stage, it is generally better to end a line with a rising pitch. This is not the Valley Girl tic of turning everything into a question, but an emphasis on the final word (because the last word of the sentence is likely to be the most important, or at any rate, quite important) as well as leading the audience in to the next line. Let me demonstrate:

Here’s the line as I might say it under a different director (pardon the pops and hisses):

And here’s the line as I might say it tonight at rehearsal:

Do you see?

And it goes on: in my Second Line, it ends take the scarlet letter off thy breast on a rising pitch rather than a falling one, as might be more natural—but the reason the falling pitch is more natural is that it serves to put a finish to the discussion, to make anyone who wishes to disagree re-open the subject rather than continue it. One can’t score every line like that, of course, but more than you might think.

One of the great things about having sixteen lines with a Near-Legendary Director is that the odds are pretty good that he will listen to every one of them at least once, and may well give me notes about each one of them. He is extremely attentive to details of intonation, of course, as well as the blocking (ours is a thrust stage with two extra bonus columns for added excitement) and the timing and all the rest of it. Evidently we can expect to get detailed notes scrawled in his handwriting—maybe there will be something I can scan and post.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So. The Woman has emerged from prison and begun her new life as a mother and as an outcast. After a short exchange where she is abused by the nastiest of the local women, the Other Clergyman (that is to say, my character) walks through the square and sees her with her infant:

Ah, Hester Prynne. Still silent? All the world knows thou didst not sin alone. Confess, and lessen thy pangs of guilt. How say you, now that time has done its work?

This is the first time my character speaks in private—or semi-private, anyway, as it is on the street and there are other people nearby, and I’m not foolish enough to believe they aren’t listening, even if I can’t see them.

I mentioned, I think, that privacy is one of the themes of the book; for the play, this is (perhaps necessarily) narrowed to secrecy. Each of the three characters keeps a secret (the Woman keeps two), and those secrets work to the detriment of their souls. In the book, the destructive nature of secrecy is played against the perhaps equally destructive nature of full disclosure: the question is not necessarily how to reveal everything to everybody, but what to reveal to which people. It is, I think, quite a modern question, a Facebook/Twitter question, but I wouldn’t want to adapt the whole book to that phenomenon. But in the play, there is very little difference between those secrets revealed to a particular person (perhaps the wrong person) and those revealed to the entire populace, as peopled by the audience, who are there even in the private thoughts of the three of them. As such, the rigor of the Other Clergyman’s view that confession must be public to be helpful (to the soul and to the community) is part of the character detail that falls by the wayside.

The interesting decision here is one I talked about in a different context at one point: is this the first time this character has spoken this thought, or is it a thought expressed before, perhaps in these words. This major-key minor-key business is affected by this decision, as is the for/against. Nearly-Legendary Director has instructed me that this is a weary repetition, said without expectation of success. The music of the line reflects the resignation, sadness, and frustration of the character.

A side note: as we shall see, the Woman’s silence and the unruly child she ill-raises eventually lead many of the townsfolk to believe that the Devil was the father, and thus that in some ontological sense the Woman did sin alone. It isn’t clear to me whether the Other Clergyman in this play believes in such things, in that literal sense—it is tempting, of course, to imagine the well-educated traveler as being above such superstition, but that’s a projection of our own time and place. The line, though, takes on a new meaning in that context: rather than a faintly ribald wheedling, it’s a flat denial of the rumored diabolism. This makes the otherwise familiar rhetorical stakes-upping inclusion of all the world to be, rather, a warning to the listening townsfolk that they, too, should know what all the world knows. Not a moment to be played for (we are telling the story of the Woman and the Man and the Husband) but an interesting thing to keep in mind.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So. Unless there is a rather surprising ad lib, the Woman does not reveal the name of the Man in question, leading to my character’s third line:

Woman, the scarlet letter shall there burn forever on thy remorseless bosom, echoing with its hue the flames of the eternal pit. Remain then, confined for a time to expiate thy sin, and on thy release, wear thou the letter still, as symbol of the brand upon thy soul!

Here’s a story: when I began to learn my lines for this play, I completely missed this one. I simply didn’t notice my character’s name. Which is inexplicable, as I have the script in a searchable PDF, and I did, in fact, do a search to see where my lines were. Anyway, when I was very-nearly off book on the rest of it, I went to format my sides for blocking (I think I have mentioned that I prefer to work with just my own pages, formatted with my own lines in big bold type, and lots of space for writing) and discovered this line, which needed to be memorized in a hurry. My Best Reader worked with me, and in an ingenious attempt to give me hints without giving me words, came up with a series of gestures that go with the words. I hope I don’t absent-mindedly use them on-stage.

Anyway, the first questions I am asking myself about each speech: Is my character for or against what he is saying? I have been directed to emphasize the defeat in the speech, the extent to which my character is aware that the Woman has successfully defied myself and authority (civil, ecclesiastical and Divine). I am against what I am saying, in the sense that I would rather not be saying it. This for and against is not terribly easy, it turns out—it does seem useful, as a question, perhaps because, not despite, the difficulty of answering it simply. I am for the punishment as appropriate to the situation. I am against the situation.

I think, for that reason, there is a minor key element to the speech. Certainly, this speech lacks the triumphal fierceness of the previous blasts. I am lifting it up for the middle part about the flames, addressing that (to begin to segue to the next question) to the circumjacent villagers rather than to the Woman. But then it modulates (if that’s the word I’m looking for) to a resigned tone that is, if not actually in a minor key (because my ears ain’t that good), metaphorically in a minor key.

This speech is followed by the Governmental Authority ending the ritual and the crowd dispersing, clearing the way for an expository scene which Your Humble Blogger is not in. Well, and actually I have been given the task of calling for the servant from off-stage, which was not among my original sixteen lines, and which I will not honor with its own entry. When I come back for my next line, the Woman has served her term of confinement and begun to settle into her new life.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My character’s second line comes after the Woman does not respond to the ironic plea of my younger colleague to expose her lover to public censure.

Woman, speak the name! That, and thy repentance, may work to take the scarlet letter off thy breast!

Shall we go to our questions from before? Clearly, I am for the speaking of the name, and I am for repentance, and although I am not for removing the titular mark of shame, I feel that it’s a worthwhile bargain. My character also feels, clearly, that the marker is a severe punishment indeed.

In one of the introductory essays to one of the editions I read from as I went through the novel as preparatory research, the scholar suggests that the main character is neither the Woman nor the Man but the titular character—a character in that sense, not a person at all. We begin with the scrap of embroidered cloth (in the book, I mean, as the play dispenses with that bit) and follow it back to its occasion, and see it as it changes meaning, as it signifies one or another thing, changing over the course of the story. A badge of shame, of course, and a punishment. When (in the book) the townswomen grow to respect the Woman for her rectitude over the years, it is said by some that it stands for Able, rather than Adulteress. The Man thinks he sees an A in the sky as he stands out his mad midnight vigil, and of course in the end, as he dies, some people see the red letter on his bared chest. Others claim they did not. In the show, we do see the letter (just to give away the ending), because doing the effect where some of the audience see the A-shaped wound and others do not requires giving out those glasses, which would mean increasing the ticket price. At any rate, the letter and its various locations, meanings, attributions and possibilities is very much a concern throughout the play. We even play the entire show under a big red A—I was going to say we play it literally under the shadow of the letter, but presumably the lighting will prevent that.

So. The second first question I have been using is who the speech is too (clearly it is to Woman, and while there are of course multiple audiences and the speaker is aware of them and attempting to manipulate them as well, still, the speech is clearly to Woman) and what response the speaker hopes to achieve. Again, in this simple speech it is to have the Woman speak the Name—but does my character actually want the letter removed? Would that serve the Pastor’s purposes? I think this can be answered either way and therefore requires a choice, and I think, insofar as I have to make the choice at this stage, that I choose to portray a Pastor who does not, in fact, want the letter removed. Who does want the name, and is willing to bargain for it, but is also reserving the right to deny that there was an agreement and compel the Woman to remain branded even after giving up the name (judging, for instance, that the repentance is insufficient).

That isn’t the Pastor of the book, but it is (I think) the Pastor of the play, or of this version of the play, or of this production of this version of the play. On Thursday, with two weeks before we open.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger has sixteen lines in this play. I am thinking about blogging each of them. I mean, there aren’t that many, and if it’s too deadly dull, y’all can go back to reading about Rahm Emanuel, right? And to start it off, I’ll spice it up with a visual:

How’s that? It’s a Wordle, of course, of all my lines. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, the bigger words are repeated most often; it’s a trick to make rhetorical conceits and habits pop out. In this case, it revealed to me my character’s habit of referring to non-men in the generic: Woman, Child, Mother. Not a good way of thinking, but not a bad way for the actor to think about the character, in a general sort of way. And, of course, Gentle Readers will be able to discern the title of the play in the Wordle. Perhaps I should take other words that pop out and refer to the play as The Child of Sin.

Well, and here’s my first line, directed from a public platform to the prisoner in the pillory:

Hester Prynne, I have striven with my younger colleague here, under whose preaching of the Word you have been privileged to sit, that he prevail with you, here in the face of Heaven and in the hearing of the people, as touching the vileness and blackness of your sin, no longer to hid the name of him who tempted you to this grievous fall. The name! The name!

Near-Legendary Director says that the first thing one should ask one’s self about a line is whether the speaker is for it or against it. Another first thing one should ask one’s self is who it is to, and what the speaker wants from the person so addressed. Another first thing is whether it the line is in a major key or a minor key. There are other first things, too, but that’s enough to go on with.

As for whether my character is for or against the speech, he is for his younger colleague, for prevailing with Woman, for the face of Heaven and the hearing of the people, against sin, and against the unnamed tempter (who is, of course, the unnamed colleague he is for earlier in the sentence, but he is still unaware of this—as may be some portion of the audience, still). More closely touching on the meaning of the question, the speaker is speaking what he believes to be true: he is neither speaking ironically nor deceitfully. He considers this to be a straightforward account of the situation: the fall was grievous, the woman is recalcitrant, the colleague ought to prevail.

The second question, of address, is complicated. Or would be, in real life or even in a major character. As in most occasions of public address, the speaker has several audiences. He is, of course, addressing the Woman, and wants her to speak the name of the Man, both as an acknowledgment of her deference (to him, to moral and legal authority, to the Divine) and in order that the Man be appropriately punished for his Sin. He is also speaking to the Man (who may be in the crowd, and in fact is on the platform), in hopes that he will confess himself. He is speaking to his colleague, who he considers soft and who he wants to adopt a more confrontational method of admonishment. However, he also speaks to the populace assembled, and what he wants from them is more complicated. He wants to scare them straight, for one thing, to make them sufficiently afraid of being in the Woman’s place that they do not commit adultery. He also wants them to agree with him, to add their pressure on the Woman to his own. He wants them to indicate their own sense of appropriate deference to authority and his ownership thereof. He is also speaking to the Governor, who is on the platform next to him and has just introduced him, wanting the Governor to approve his statement and extend their authority together. In the real world, or in a novel, or even in the main character in a play, all of those are important components of the speech.

As a supporting character in a play, though, it is better to narrow the speech to its address to the main characters. I think, in this instance, it’s better to focus on the Woman. It’s true that the tactic of shaming and browbeating is the wrong one to get the results he wants, but his character would not bend his tactics to circumstances, seeing that as weakness and irresolution in the service of the Divine.

I should say—in the novel, the character is somewhat more fully sketched, and the portrait is of a man who is by nature kindly and sympathetic, but who by education and belief feels that nature ought to be suppressed. There seems to be some historical justification for that sketch, actually—the clergyman was noted both for zealousness in fighting apostasy and in generosity to individuals under his pastoral care. I would like to have some sense of that in the show, but there really isn’t much time to portray all of that, and it’s very important not to distract attention from the story. The supporting actors should support, after all.

Next question: my musical ear is not sophisticated, but I would say the line is in a major key. It is a brassy speech, a fanfare of sorts. I suspect I should do it as a rising pitch sort of thing, starting low and pitching each clause higher until the call for the name at the end is a blast at the top. I guess. Possibly drop the vileness and blackness clause deeper before going back up to the demand for the name. Either way, it will be important to start in the lower register.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Your Humble Blogger has at last begun rehearsals for the new play. It’s a very different experience from anything I’ve done, and very very different from what I’ve been doing these last few years.

A Nearly-Legendary Director, who has worked with everybody and done everything, has as one of his latest ventures started a small non-profit theater in New York. One of the actresses in the group wanted to play the lead in an adaptation of the Great American Novel (well, you know, I suspect she identified it as such, and is scarcely the only one). However, the existing adaptations for the stage are not terribly good. When she brought them to Near-Legendary Director in frustration, he said so write your own damn adaptation, Pomerantz, which she more or less did, eventually bringing him an incomplete draft, which he whipped into a play, and which is the script we are using.

They played the thing in New York, to good reviews (some of which are available on the internet), but it didn’t take off. They like the thing, though, the actress and the Near-Legendary Director, and have been trying to get it revived, doing a few readings and, now, a Regional Premiere in an attempt to drum up interest. The Near-Legendary Director himself is directing, and the core of the original cast (the Woman, the Man, and the Wronged Husband) have come to reprise their performances. The rest of the cast (the Daughter of Shame, the Peasant Fellow, the Four Townswomen, the Government Figure and the Other Clergyman) are local, cast by audition here. The original cast members have been rehearsal for a week up in New York, where they live (their comically overplayed delight at our town’s enormous grocery stores with ludicrously cheap food was a successful icebreaker), and we joined them last night for the read-through. Now we have all of fifteen rehearsals until a paying audience comes in. A short, intense rehearsal period, with a short, intense run, and the whole thing over in a month.

So. Last night was the read-through, and was unlike any read-through I’ve ever done. The leads gave extraordinary performances. Extraordinary for a read-through, I mean, although it is obvious already that the Wronged Husband will give an extraordinary performance when he is on his feet, and will steal the show entirely, as is proper. But the rest of the cast also gave readings much better than the average read-through, too. This is presumably because we are all well-prepared, as we need to be—we were asked to be off-book by last night, and clearly most of us mostly were, which makes a read-through more performance-y. Or it’s because we are all extremely good at this acting thing. But probably the well-prepared thing.

And then, after we read through the play, our Near-Legendary Director gave us a little lecture about theater, acting, speaking, history, performance, story-telling, and a hundred other things. It was wonderful—no advice I hadn’t come across before, but stories about people he had studied under or taught or been robbed by. And someday, you know, I will be able to say it was like Near-Legendary Director once told me: Speaking is Discovery.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger has been pseudonymous on the Internet for years and years, now. Actually, I’m only pseudo-pseudonymous—I would guess that 80% of Gentle Readers at this Tohu Bohu know my real name, and the rest could easily find it if they bothered themselves for some reason. It would not be difficult to take the stuff I am on about and put it into a search engine and come up with my name, my employer, my address, a satellite photo of my house and its valuation, pictures of my wife and kids, and probably my Social Security Number as well. Which is fine. I never intended my pseudonymity to completely insulate me from myself. My intention was, primarily, to prevent any potential employers from starting with my resume and coming up with this blog in ten seconds of research. Which may or may not still be true; if I were stalking myself I would find this Tohu Bohu pretty darned quickly. But it would be easy enough for somebody who was working with me or somebody who was considering working with me to go blithely on her merry way without being presented with my views of the politico-rhetorical landscape.

With this divide in mind, I necessarily want people who are looking, f’r’ex, for information about a punk production of Richard III to wind up here rather than at the official page for the show. Not that it would be too terribly confusing, but it would be confusing enough. I don’t think of myself as using this blog specifically as a publicity vehicle (although, of course, y’all should come see me in shows, and y’all did come to R3 in tremendously flattering numbers) (and although when the show does have a blog as a publicity vehicle, I have cross-posted from here to there as seemed appropriate) (I’ve forgotten where I was before the first parenthetical remark) (Oh yes, this Tohu Bohu and its connection to my so-called proverbial), but I do find it interesting to write about the process.

So. I put it to y’all, Gentle Readers. Would it be terribly annoying and fey to pseudonymously talk about my next show without mentioning its title? It’s an adaptation of a famous novel, arguably the Great American novel (I use arguably here in the Alex Beam sense of course); if y’all haven’t actually read it or seen a film of it (with Demi Moore, Gary Oldman and Robert Duvall—or with Meg Foster, or with Colleen Moore, or with Lillian Gish, or with Sybil Thorndike, or with Mary Martin) you probably still know the basic idea. A woman in 1650s Boston bears a child that is not her husband’s; the child’s father is a secret until one day…

I’m not altogether sure why I am so hesitant to write about it under it’s proper name. The adaptation is new, and GRs are unlikely to have read or seen it, or in fact to have access to it if they want to. Unless you can come to Greater Hartford between March 9 and March 20, that is.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So. Your Humble Blogger did, in the end, audition both for Earnest and (with the Coriolanus monologue) for the local semi-pro theater, one right after the other.

The Earnest call was the evening before. It was an open audition at what is very much a community theater; anyone who wanted to came in, filled out a little form, and read from the script. We were all in the house watching and listening to each other. The evening took an hour and a half, maybe more. I met four actors I worked with the last time I was in a show at that theater and another three or four people I had met during the course of the run. We chatted, filled each other in on our lives, and noshed on the snacks provided. We ran through the scenes in various combinations, sometimes going through one scene four or five times. I read one scene three times hand running, with different people on the other end of it. I absolutely killed as the Reverend Doctor Chasuble (my metaphor was drawn from bees), getting laughs from my assembled competitors. I got to read Algernon, despite being twice his age (Point of Fact: Your Humble Blogger is not twice the age of Algernon, being only forty-one; Algernon does not, as far as I can remember, state his age, but his buddy Jack claims to be twenty-nine), and even better, I got to read Lady Bracknell. I had mentioned to the stage manager that Lady Bracknell was the part I would really want, and he passed that along, and the director kindly indulged me, and we all had a good time. Well, at least I had a good time, and the other people seemed to have a good time, is all I can really say.

Anyway. The other call was the day after. I had my appointment at 4:05; I ran through my monologue at home a bunch of times—

Digression: One of my methods for cramming this piece was to record myself doing it.

When I have very nearly memorized a speech, there isn’t much point in running through it without somebody holding the text and pouncing on the word substitutions. Otherwise, I’ll finish it and have no idea whether it was correct or only mostly correct. Well, and I had exhausted everyone in the house, so I spoke the text into a recorder, and then listened back with my eyes on the text. It’s slow going, but I didn’t want to lose a part because somebody listening had been involved in the play two years ago and know whether it was witness of or witness to. And they would be completely correct not to cast some guy who can’t even properly memorize his two minute monologue.

I considered recording the actual audition, but figured I didn’t need the distraction. End Digression.

I went over to the theater to arrive at 3:50, which I judged to be eagerly but not inappropriately early. I met the woman with a 4:00 appointment, who seemed nice and vaguely familiar, and she seemed to find me vaguely familiar, and we laughed about that while we were sitting in the lobby filling out the form. Then the flunky brought her in to the house, and I looked at my monologue text again. After five minutes or so they brought her out and the flunky brought me in and introduced me; he gave the first names of the half-dozen or so people there, but not their positions in the theater or the show. Somebody asked me what are you going to give us today, just like in the movies, and I said Coriolanus, and the director (who I was able to identify because he was sitting in the middle, and because I had looked up his name beforehand, and because he was the one who responded) said we don’t see that very often! So that’s all right.

I went through the monologue. I don’t know whether I made the small errors (witness of instead of witness for) that I was making over the previous days, up to that morning, but I didn’t dry altogether, and I am pretty sure I didn’t butcher the thing too badly. That is, I think anyone who didn’t know the piece well would not have spotted any errors I made, if I did, in fact, make any errors at all. I had not sufficiently prepared my body—I had no prepared gestures, and had only vaguely decided to walk two or three steps at a couple of transition moments—but did not feel overly amateurish. The Director asked me about my availability (my handwriting on the form was evidently sufficiently illegible to make that necessary), said I gave a nice reading, and then I went away. I was gone from the house a total of half an hour; even granting that I live in the neighborhood, that’s a quick event.

I am bothering telling you so in such detail because the whole thing was so stereotypical of the two kinds of theater. One was fun, time-consuming and unprofessional; one was tense, brief and professional. I enjoyed the silly one; I respected the proper one. They are both doing what they are doing—back in my callow proverbial, I thought of community theater as simply amateurs doing what they can’t hack at a higher level. I stopped doing it largely because I found it so unprofessional. Since coming back to it, I have started appreciating community theater more for what it is, and being less critical of it for what it isn’t. I think community theater is more or less evenly about community and about theater; it’s really about maximizing the fun quotient between the audience and the cast and the crew. An efficient audition process does not do that. The silliness of the auditions for Earnest and R3 doesn’t actively prevent good casting, and it does to some extent select for people who will be enjoyable to work with. The efficiency of the other audition selects for people who it will be efficient to work with. People who are inefficient to work with can be an irritation of community theater, but in a professional context would be far worse. People who are unpleasant to work with can be an irritation of professional theater, but in a community context would be far worse.

So. Doing the two very different auditions within twenty-four hours made me think a little bit about what kind of person I am. Is YHB a community theater person, interested in community as much as in theater, maximizing the fun quotient, being silly? Or is YHB an Ack-tore, interested in the theater more than in the community, keen on the Next Step, the best show possible, the efficient production? I’ll tell you: I don’t know.

But I can tell you that when they offered me a part in the professional production, I took it, and withdrew from consideration for Earnest.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

The middle of my monologue has two lovely bits. First, the disdainful if I had feared death bravura, and then the triple my misery, my revengeful services and my canker’d country, ending in that lovely over-the-top rant.

Now this extremity hath brought me to thy hearth; not out of hope—mistake me not—to save my life, for if I had feared death, of all the men i’ the world I would have ’voided thee, but in mere spite, to be full quit of those my banishers, stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast a heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight, and make my misery serve thy turn: so use it that my revengeful services may prove as benefits to thee, for I will fight against my canker’d country with the spleen of all the under fiends.

Actually, I have found myself peaking on canker’d, and then dropping down to mutter about the under fiends practically under my breath. I don’t know if that’s right. It seem effective, paying against expectations, but then I don’t know that there are expectations there, and I can’t really hear it.

The theater is intimate, in the language of these things; it seats a hundred and fifty, but it feels smaller than that. If I were in a big place, the iconic audition where one guy in street clothes is on a fifty-foot proscenium stage playing to three people in a four hundred seat house, I would play it differently. Or not—the effect of someone holding in anger is great for tension. On the other hand, I have two minutes to show some range, so maybe holding back isn’t such a good idea.

By the way, once of the nice things about this middle bit is that it reads very quickly. There are phrases that run together very nicely (ofallthemenitheworld I wouldhavevoided thee), punctuated nicely by sharp syllables (spite quit here then straight fight) that don’t require extra pauses around them to make them stand out. The first bit has, for me, a lot of tricky rhythms. It’s choppy, preventing me (or Coriolanus) from getting into the flow of the thing. For example, the verse line which thou shoulds’t bear me; only that name remains is extremely awkward. It’s meant to be. It works by being awkward. But it’s still tough to do. There isn’t anything like that in this bit, which says to me that Coriolanus has got into the swing of his speech, and now has to worry about being too comfortable, not controlled enough, and that brings us back to the under fiends, muttered rather than shouted. Or am I just talking myself into it?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, and Your Humble Blogger just discovered that the community theater where last YHB trod the proverbial is doing The Importance of Being Earnest in the Spring; the auditions for that are this weekend as well. This presents me with a dilemma. I would (I estimate) be quite likely to be cast in Earnest as either of the manservants or, possibly, as the Reverend Canon Chasuble, D.D.; I am alas, too old to play Jack, and far too old to play Algernon. Now, Merriman and Lane have some good bits, and of course Chasuble is terrific, but they are small parts, and it would mean a good deal of night driving on February roads. On the other hand, it’s a fun, fun show. And the group is a good group putting on good shows, for the most part, and I am hoping to be in Rough Crossing there in the late Spring when the weather is better. Auditioning for smaller roles in Earnest may be in the way of paying dues, hoping for one of the juicy parts later. Or it could just be hogging the stage; I don’t know.

On the other hand, the audition I have been preparing for is for a paying part that is within walking distance of my home. The show is more ambitious, more serious, more difficult… less fun, probably, but likely more satisfying. The parts I am trying out for are also small parts, but in a show where the leads are Equity, so I am curious about it. Of course, it is much less likely that I will get cast in the thing at all, because the caliber of auditioners is presumably higher. And I have auditioned for this group twice already without being cast. So there’s that.

I could audition for both of them, of course, but I suspect from the timing of things that Earnest will be settling its cast list by Wednesday or Thursday, and there’s no need for the other one to settle until later in the week. If it were the other way around—the less likely one going first, so that after they rejected me I could accept the more likely—I would just audition for both and enjoy the auditions. Probably. I really am worried about driving home after a snowstorm, though.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger was talking about an audition monologue. I’m just going to continue talking about it—not that I have any special insights, I’m just typing up what is more or less the thinking that I would be doing anyway. I hope it’s at least moderately interesting for y’all.

Anyway, the first paragraph:

My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done to thee particularly and to all the Volsces great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may my surname, Coriolanus: the painful service, the extreme dangers and the drops of blood shed for my thankless country are requited but with that surname; a good memory, and witness of the malice and displeasure which thou shouldst bear me: only that name remains. The cruelty and envy of the people, permitted by our dastard nobles, who have all forsook me, hath devour’d the rest; and suffer’d me by the voice of slaves to be whoop’d out of Rome.

The trick here will be to punch that first line. As with anything of this kind, while in theory I have two minutes to make a favorable impression, really if by five seconds in I haven’t got him, that’s the end of it. The other minute-fifty-five helps to distinguish the people who haven’t been rejected already after five. Of course, it’s not just the first five seconds—there’s the walking in part, too, that is usually another ten seconds or so, and proportionately does probably make two-thirds of the impression. But as far as this monologue goes (as YHB would have to walk in no matter what monologue was prepared), the key is my name is Caius Marcius.

Which is going to be a bit tricky. In the play, it’s a bit of a big deal: Coriolanus enters with his face partly hidden (muffled, actually) and refuses to identify himself to the servants (at least one of which he thrashes). Aufidius (the general to whom the speech is addressed) comes in and says

Whence comest thou? what wouldst thou? thy name? Why speak'st not? speak, man: what's thy name?

Coriolanus unmuffles himself and says, essentially, if you don’t recognize me, then I will name myself (a bit of a pun, there, for complicated plot-related reasons, but never mind), and Aufidius asks again, What is thy name?. Coriolanus warns him that he won’t like it, and again Aufidius asks Say, what's thy name? Coriolanus still stalls, asking once more if he recognizes him and Aufidius says I know thee not: thy name? And then Coriolanus says: My name is Caius Marcius.

It’s a build-up that I don’t get the benefit of in the monologue, alas. Nor can I expect that the casting director will know the play well enough to supply that build-up without having seen it, and even so, that sort of thing simply can’t be assumed. So. I have to make the line work without it.

How? I don’t really know yet. The situation calls for mingled emotions: Coriolanus is afraid that he will be cut down without a chance to present his plan, he is defiant and unwilling to apologize for his history, he is proud, he is embarrassed, he is aggrieved, he is uncertain and he is clearly a man used to certainty. That’s a lot to get in to five words.

Once he gets his name out—particularly once he hits Coriolanus, on a lower pitch I think, he senses that he will be allowed to continue, and feels his way into the meat of the speech. From that point on, he is attempting to persuade, and the first part of that is to convince Aufidius that he is sincere in his offer, sincere, that is, in his hatred and bitterness. And, perhaps, indulging himself in that bitterness more than he expects to, or realizes. But, you know, without going over the top, because it’s only the first third of the monologue.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 2:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done to thee particularly and to all the Volsces great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may my surname, Coriolanus: the painful service, the extreme dangers and the drops of blood shed for my thankless country are requited but with that surname; a good memory, and witness of the malice and displeasure which thou shouldst bear me: only that name remains. The cruelty and envy of the people, permitted by our dastard nobles, who have all forsook me, hath devour’d the rest; and suffer’d me by the voice of slaves to be whoop’d out of Rome.

Now this extremity hath brought me to thy hearth; not out of hope—mistake me not—to save my life, for if I had feared death, of all the men i’ the world I would have ’voided thee, but in mere spite, to be full quit of those my banishers, stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast a heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight, and make my misery serve thy turn: so use it that my revengeful services may prove as benefits to thee, for I will fight against my canker’d country with the spleen of all the under fiends.

But if so be thou darest not this and that to prove more fortunes, thou’rt tired, then, in a word, I also am longer to live most weary, and present my throat to thee and to thy ancient malice; which not to cut would show thee but a fool, since I have ever follow’d thee with hate, drawn tuns of blood out of thy country’s breast, and cannot live but to thy shame, unless it be to do thee service.

I have, of course, retyped this as if it were prose, because that’s the way I do Shakespeare. Not that I am unaware of the rhythm and meter, but to take that into account as only one factor in the reading. I find that taking the text out of pentameter line breaks helps me avoid being locked in to the rumty-tumty of it. The meter is strong enough in Shakespeare to come through without that—even working against the meter, as I like to do, brings out the meter, because he is just that good.

I have also divided the speech into three paragraphs, to denote (to myself) three different ideas, or tones, really, that I see in the speech. The divisions are simplistic; there are any number of places where I could have divided the speech, and any number of resonances across any divisions that I make. It’s a tool for an audition, though, and within my two minutes, I have to show that I am more than Johnny One-Note. So. The first paragraph is who I am, and the second is what I want. And the third is a taunt, a goad to add to the persuasion, and to bring both the tempo and the intensity up for the finish. Or, rather, to bring it up again: each paragraph has an upward momentum, starting lower and ending just on the verge of over-the-top, to be mastered and brought down again to start the new paragraph quieter and more reasoned and build again. Three beats.

It’s true that they show mostly one emotion: anger. A really good audition monologue will have a change of emotional state over the course of the two minutes, from anger to sadness, or from grief to hope, or from indecision to resolve. Or vice versa, of course. The point is to show the range; if I can play anger well in my two minutes, that’s fine, but over the course of the play I will need something else, and they can’t necessarily guess that I can do sadness and merriment and hope just because I can do anger. On the other hand, this piece does have a sort of variety, where the speaker tries different tactics of persuasion: he tries to frighten his listener, play for his sympathy, browbeat him, embarrass him.

And I like it for what it doesn’t have, as much as for what it does. It doesn’t have a lot of names that have to be explained or passed over. Or pronounced correctly, for that matter. It doesn’t have a lot of set-up; it doesn’t require them to be familiar with the play at all. It doesn’t require me to mime anything, to pretend to drink or jump over something or fall down.

It does, however, need to be memorized. So I should probably get to that.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 7:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Your Humble Blogger will be auditioning again, in a few days. I’ve had quite a nice time off, but I’ve started feeling that desire again, wanting to wear other people’s clothes and speak other people’s words.

This audition is for a group that I have auditioned for three times, already, without being cast. I don’t really expect to be cast in this one, either, but it’s worth a shot— a theater within walking distance of the house is kind of a Golden Ticket, and I’m willing to keep buying a lot of chocolate bars on the miniscule chance of payoff. Plus, if there’s no ticket, there’s still chocolate, and I’m afraid I do enjoy auditioning, particularly when I don’t feel pressure because I don’t expect to be cast.

The interesting thing for this one is that I am required to prepare a monologue. I don’t have one in my pocket anymore. Back when I thought I wanted to be a professional actor, to attempt to earn a living at it, I had my tight two minutes, classical and modern, and I have to admit they didn’t get me any parts, so I don’t entirely regret having lost them in the dim recesses of my memory. This time they want a Shakespeare serious two minutes, and I will have to memorize it by next week.

Now, working at a library as I do, I went to a reference book. I could have waded through my Riverside (actually my Best Reader’s Riverside), but that would have been silly: the lists of suggested audition monologues are pretty darned comprehensive, and much much lighter than the Riverside. Throwing my back out now would put me out of the show for sure. So. Shakespeare audition monologue, male, middle-aged (there are three available parts, one thirty-ish man and two fifty-ish, so go where the numbers are) (plus, while I insist I can still play thirty-ish, that has not been confirmed by independent sources for a while) (where was I? Oh, right, male and middle-aged) and not too overused. I am not going to give them the Prayer of Claudius; I’m not going to give them Now is the Winter; I’m not going to give them the World as a Stage; I’m not going to give them Iago’s Villainy. No, my slot is not the end of the audition day but it isn’t at the beginning, and I don’t want to be the third person giving them those lines. And I’m not going to try to give them Titus’ Recipe, either, although it is not among the Most Overdone Monologues.

I have settled on Coriolanus, having been expelled from Rome, showing up at the house of his defeated enemy and volunteering to lead their armies against his old city, purely out of spite. It’s a nice monologue, which I haven’t seen before—I’ve never seen the play produced, and I’ve only skimmed the text of it— and if it does happen to be new to the casting people, it’s rather amazingly straightforward. The speaker not only introduces himself by name, he states his current situation, his motivations, his goals. Within the context of the play, of course, these aren’t necessarily reliable, but for an audition monologue, it’s nice to be able to say: this is who I am, this is why I am here, this is what I want you to do. Clarity.

I’m planning to write about the piece over the next few days, as I work on it. I don’t know if it will help me get the part, but I’m hoping it’ll be interesting. So. Next time, the text and my initial thoughts.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’m not sure what to write about The Pillowman. It’s a… fascinating play to read. I wish I had seen it. I actually wish I had seen both the London version and the New York version; it’s easy to imagine David Tennant and Billy Crudup playing the writer, but the lead cop was played by Jim Broadbent and Jeff Goldblum, who are more difficult for me to imagine in the same role. Also, of course, this play like others of Martin McDonagh’s, was evidently screamingly funny while it was screamingly horrific, which honestly did not come through in the playscript.

So. Mr. McDonagh is a writer who, for this work, came up with a story that is just about the most appallingly revolting thing you could imagine, and which (perhaps just by virtue of being imaginable) has elements of uncomfortable realism in it, while being disorientingly unreal. The main character is a writer who comes up with stories that are just about the most appallingly revolting things you could imagine, and which (perhaps just by virtue of being imaginable) have elements of uncomfortable realism in them, while being disorientingly unreal. Which is not to say he is writing about himself. One of the underlying jokes of the piece is that the law has come down on him because of the one story, out of hundreds he has written, that somebody somewhere was willing to publish. Mr. McDonagh by this point is a highly successful writer—but then, supposedly he wrote all of his celebrated plays in a short time long before he got anything produced.

Lately, I’m afraid, I have been reading plays and then thinking what’s the point? Not the point of reading them, but the point of, well, of writing and producing them, I suppose. What is the audience supposed to get out of it? I don’t mean, I think, whether they are supposed to learn and grow and become better people, although that may be part of it. No, I mean—well, I read Equus recently, and while there is certainly a voyeuristic thrill from watching the sheer fucked-upness of the boy, and I suppose a sense of accomplishment when we are able to trace it back to what fucked him up, I just don’t really get it as a play. I felt much the same about Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and still do, really. I didn’t feel that about Richard III, of course, which is mostly because it is Shakespeare! but also because I fully buy in to the premise that it matters who is King and how they get to be King. Well, and I admit it is because I love the character, and want to watch what happens to him, and do find watching what happens to him fulfilling because it fulfills (if you’ll allow me to claim it) the nature of Richard himself.

Anyway, I was going, in a roundabout way, to say that I don’t think what’s the point about The Pillowman. I’m not sure I know what the point is, mind you. Mr. McDonagh is having too much fun twisting the point around to ever let it, well, come to a point. I’ll note that once I understand as a reader that everything you see or hear is likely to be false, that this scene’s revelation is the subject of the next scene’s revelation that the earlier revelation wasn’t so, I can’t be properly surprised anymore, even by the bits that are surprising. But I don’t think that falseness is itself the point. I think the point is that…

Well, I don’t know. But I would say this: In Mr. McDonagh’s world, not only of this play but of the others I’ve read, and probably including the movie as well, stories are always both fundamentally false and fundamentally true; storytelling is both fundamentally evil and fundamentally necessary for survival. You can’t trust anybody who tells stories, but you certainly can’t trust anybody who claims not to tell stories, and you really really can’t trust yourself, because your own stories are the worst betrayers of all. But when you are not telling stories, then you’re really in trouble.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 9:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So. This was more than a year ago, now, that my Dear Director (the one who directed Man Who and Liaisons and Pyggie and the reading of Bound, way back when) mentioned that she was considering putting on The Dresser. It hasn’t happened—the rights are evidently not available just now—and if it had, I don’t know that I would have committed to the ridiculous travel time to do it. I might have, though.

Actually, I had never read the thing; I know it from the wonderful film. Tom Courtenay is the titular Norman; Albert Finney plays Sir (and Eileen Atkins who is probably the best film actress ever plays Madge). I haven’t seen the film in fifteen years, I would guess, but I can remember their line deliveries as clear as anything, their faces, bits of business. Ronald Harwood, who wrote the thing, did the screenplay and added a few things (and I think took a few away, but as I say, it has been fifteen years), but I would say three-quarters or more of the playscript is in the screenplay and vice versa. I don’t generally recommend things, you know, but any Gentle Reader who has any interest in the Theeyater at all should definitely watch this thing.

Being in it, though… I can’t imagine being in it. In the main roles, I mean, as I am egotistical and, tho’ I say it my self, successful enough to think that I would have a shot at the main roles, and wouldn’t be Mr. Oxenby or Mr. Thornton, and wouldn’t drive across half the state to play the small roles, I’m afraid. But reading the play and imagining doing Norman or Sir, that is very difficult indeed. Tom Courtenay in the movie is doing the role he created and played in London and New York. I can’t read any of his lines without hearing his voice, his inflections, seeing his gestures and his grimaces. Not a line. Not a pause. If I were forced to play the part, I would do a Tom Courtenay imitation, which would be sad and wrong and bad, and not worth seeing. Oh, in the event, given time and direction, one hopes to come up with something, but I have read through the play twice now, and I am baffled.

On the second time through, though, I did come up with some… well, not ideas, properly, but possibilities of ideas for Sir. Things I might want to emphasize that Albert Finney did not. Even, here and there, a line reading that isn’t an echo of Mr. Finney’s powerful voice. A possibility of delineating the sudden mood changes, or even a physical aspect to the disorientation. Something, anyway. Is it because I know that other people have played the part, and played it well? Freddie Jones was the first Sir, and Paul Rogers took the part in New York (evidently because Mr. Jones didn’t have a Green Card and didn’t want to bother with the paperwork, figuring that his success would give him plenty of opportunities at home, which it did), so there is in the back of my mind the idea that it can be done. Which is not so much true for Norman; I don’t know of any sizable revival of the play at all, and there definitely hasn’t been one in New York or London.

Which, bye-the-bye, makes Samuel French’s restriction very interesting indeed. The most likely reason for it is that somebody has put a hold on whilst putting a New York production together. But who? I mean, who for the actors, not the producers. For Sir: Frank Langella? Michael Gambon? It’s hard to imagine that Mr. Gambon would do the part here and not in London, or not in London first. Is Christopher Plummer too old? I would think so, but wouldn’t he be wonderful? What about Philip Bosco, is he still working? Simon Russell Beale? I think there’s something to be gained by having a Sir that’s not actually elderly, but is old young, as it were. And for Norman, there’s… um… Philip Seymour Hoffman, maybe? Seriously, I can’t think of anybody at all that I want to see in this part. Of course, I haven’t seen very many people. For all my interest in the theater, I have seen very few professional productions, and know the great stage actors of this era through recordings, films, television and YouTube clips. Still.

As a side note, just because I think it’s interesting, in the latest Queen’s Birthday Honours List Ronald Harwood, C.B.E., was added to the list of Knights Bachelor, and will be a Sir, now. Tom Courtenay has been a Sir for some time now, and Albert Finney has reportedly turned down a knighthood more than once. So it’s Sirs all around. Well, Freddie Jones isn’t a Sir, but Eileen Atkins is a Dame, so that’s all right. The irony—well, it isn’t actually, irony, as such—is that Sir is not a Sir himself, which we don’t find out until two-thirds of the way into the play:

HER LADYSHIP: […] And you drag everyone with you. Me. Chained. Not even by law.
SIR: Would marriage have made so much difference to you?
HER LADYSHIP: You misunderstand. Deliberately.
SIR: I should have made her divorce me.
HER LADYSHIP: You didn’t get a divorce because you wanted a knighthood.
SIR: Not true.
HER LADYSHIP: True. You know where your priorities lie. Whatever you do is to your advantage and to no one else’s. Talk about being driven. You make yourself sound like a disinterested stagehand. You do nothing without self-interest. Self. You. Alone.
SIR: Pussy, please, I’m sinking, don’t push me further into the mud—
HER LADYSHIP: Sir. Her Ladyship. Fantasies. For Gd’s sake, you’re a third-rate actor-manager on a tatty tour of the provinces, not some Colossus bestriding the narrow world. Sir. Her Ladyship. Look at me. Darning tights. Look at you. Lear’s hovel is luxury compared to this.

That moment comes as a shock to me still, even reading the play through twice in a month. I believe in Sir, still, because of course I want to believe in him, and Sir feels that pressure the way we all do up there, that we trade our love for his agreement to be what we want to love. Norman, of course, loves him even more for failing.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, and R3 has been closed for more than a month now, right? If I am going to do a post about it, I should just start typing, because otherwise it’ll all be a blur…

Things of which I am Proud of:

• doing Shakespeare at all, frankly. This is my third in twenty years; I hope I get to do more. Any of my complaining about the production or the theater group should be put into the context of how pleased I am by a community theater that does Shakespeare every couple of years.
• Chemistry with Richard. If Richard and Buckingham don’t have a kind of chemistry together, Act Three is going to really drag. I think we nailed that part of it—it’s always possible that two actors feel they are working well together and the audience doesn’t see it, of course, but you have to trust your instincts sometimes.
• My death scene. If y’all are interested, I can write it up in detail, but in general, I think I managed to be just sympathetic enough to make the scene matter, without ruining the whole thing by making Buckingham into some sort of Righteous Wronged figure. Also, my Big Idea about the scene and the part (the notebook, and destroying it at the end) seemed to work, which was nice.

Things in which I am (somewhat) Disappointed in:

• The houses, of course. We should have drawn more people. I don’t really understand that end of the business at all, but seriously: damn.
• My costume. Our costume mistress kind of pooped out on us partway through rehearsals, and we wound up on our own, for the most part. Costume is really not-my-forte (despite my own fondness for dressing up), and I feel that Buckingham’s costume just didn’t really work. The punk costumes were great (Richard’s Act One leather jacket with the boar on the back was a highlight), and my inclination to dress against the punk thing may have been an error. Ah, well.
• I,iii: the scene where Buckingham stands around for a long time in the background. It is hard on a fellow to start with a scene like that (or to only have scenes like that, which must be excruciating), but I don’t think I overcame it. Not that I think I was awful, but I don’t think I either prepared the audience for Buckingham’s important role in the middle of the play, or prepared the audience to be surprised by Buckingham’s important role in the middle of the play. Mostly, I just stood in the back and wiggled my eyebrows. Hm.
• My lines. I did a good job but not a great job. I think I only really screwed up once, when I absolutely blanked and floundered for a couple of minutes before somehow getting back on track. On the other hand, I misspoke myself slightly every night in one or another place, got a couple of words consistently wrong, and in general satisfied myself with speaking mostly Shakespeare. Not good.

Other Things:

• I met some very nice people who I enjoyed spending time with. It doesn’t look like any of them are going to wind up close friends, alas, but Facebook means never having to say goodbye.
• Within thirteen months I had been in three shows with three different theater groups. The three have each had their own problems as companies. The one that seemed to consistently sell tickets is now defunct and bankrupt, but the people in charge will open a new place soon. The one that owns a humongous house that seats two hundred and fifty is happy to sell fifty seats, and had in the past year a significant changeover of the board, with quite a bit of bad feeling, and is struggling to put on three shows a year. The one that does six shows a year plus showcases, with very few dark weekends, is organizationally a mess, priding itself on its post-hippie leftover structure that leaves nobody responsible for anything. I really really really don’t want to get involved in community theater politics, and it looks like if I want to do community theater in this neighborhood, I will have to either get involved, or keep doing one show with each company.
• I am due for a break from theater for a few months, possibly until the new year. I enjoy it, but it takes up a whole lot of evenings. And after a month, I am not missing it yet.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today’s Shakespeare News is that Roland Emmerich—yes, Roland Emmerich—is directing a movie about the man who wrote all those plays. No, not William Shakespeare. That would be too easy.

See, here’s the thing: it’s not like I care very much who wrote the plays. I tend to think it was William Shakespeare, because, you know, he said he did, and there is no evidence whatsoever that he didn’t in the contemporary record. But I don’t care very much, and if it turned out that it was someone else, well, it doesn’t change the text at all, so that’s OK. But really, the reason why I tend to think that William Shakespeare wrote the plays is because almost everybody who writes trying to persuade people that it was someone else is a dickish snob.

I don’t mean that it’s impossible to believe that W.S. was a front without being a dickish snob. It’s certainly possible. And I suppose it’s even possible to care about it enough to try to talk people out of their belief in the Stratford fellow without being a dickish snob. I haven’t seen it happen, though.

And I have to say that I don’t expect it to. Part of that is simply that I find it a bit dickish just to keep hocking about the whole thing, trying to persuade me that I am Wrong Wrong Wrong; I try to keep an open mind about things, but I do get defensive when attacked. And a lot of the writing on the topic that I have read (or skimmed, or began and given up on, more likely) seems like an attack on the deluded fools who are so simple to believe that William Shakespeare—a nothing from nowhere, practically a peasant—wrote those plays. And more than that, an attack on the poor deluded fools who believe that they enjoy the plays without grasping the True Key of Understanding. In all honesty, if it isn’t possible to enjoy them properly without knowing who wrote them, then the pseudonymity of authorship implies to me that they plays aren’t very good, and that we shouldn’t care about them at all. But of course lots of people have enjoyed the plays just fine whilst believing they were written by William Shakespeare, going back to their first productions when presumably the whole audiences were taken in (except the Queen, of course, and other select aristos).

That’s the snobbish part, of course. Not just that there’s the classic snobbery of locating all positive attributes in the hereditary aristocracy, although that is very prominent in Anti-Stratfordists. But there’s another kind of snobbishness, the inner-ring delight in having Special Knowledge, being among the elect who are In On It. They transfer that delight to an inner ring in Elizabeth’s court, duping the groundlings who didn’t get all the political undertones. That’s pretty dickish, too. I do get the inner-ring temptation, of course, and it’s a powerful one, but the right thing to do is resist it, not promote it.

Mr. Emmerich’s movie appears to be based on a recent book by Charles Beauclerk. Mr. Beauclerk is (unless there’s something that doesn’t show up in the family tree) a descendant of Edward DeVere, the current favorite in the Shakestakes; since he argues that his ancestor was not only the greatest playwright in the English language but an illegitimate son of Elizabeth I, which would make him an heir to the Tudor line, and quite possibly a Pretender to the Crown. When his father dies, of course; his father Duke of St. Albans and head of the Royal Stuart Society (which lists among its aims opposing republicanism). And, according to Wikipedia, Charles Beauclerk was banned for life from the Palace of Westminster for misbehaving in the House of Lords.

I should add—Mr. Beauclerk recently came to speak at an event held by my employer, and by all accounts didn’t, you know, do anything to get himself banned. I saw the man briefly as he walked through the library; he seemed a bit like a dickish snob, but then, so does YHB, probably. And while I am spending time mocking Mr. Beauclerk, he didn’t have anything to do with the 1998 Godzilla movie, so there’s that.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

When I was thinking about auditioning for R3, I knew I would want to read Year of the King, Antony Sher’s Diary and Sketchbook about his preparation for playing Richard III. I have read one other of his diaries, and enjoyed it tremendously. He has a nice touch with anecdotes and name-dropping; enough to give you a sense of traveling in heady circles (—then you had better crawl, hadn’t you?—said Michael Gambon) but not so much to exclude you. And he makes himself the butt of the joke, usually.

Anyway, I failed to get hold of a copy by the auditions, but eventually my ILL librarian turned it up for me. And it’s a marvelous book, really enjoyable. And it occurred to me, as I read it, that that is what I thought I wanted to be when I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be paid a salary by the Royal Shakespeare Company or some similar repertory company, get leading parts in fantastic plays and spend months working with wonderful people on all aspects of putting on a complex play. And there are, presumably, people who have lives like that, the bastards. What I failed to understand is that not only to most people who attempt to make a living acting on stage fail to do so, almost all of those people who do manage to make a living at it are going to spend most of their time either in long-running shows doing the same role eight times a week, with very little creativity involved once the show is formed, or else very quickly ginning up a role in a slapdash way. And I envy those people, too, of course, although I am unwilling to pay the cost in auditions, misery, ill-treatment, low pay and time away from my family. No, when I imagine myself as a professional actor, I imagine myself as a Star, I’m afraid, going from playing the Fool and Tartuffe to playing Richard III.

Anyway, it was startling, in a way, to recognize my youthful dreams in that book, although I had never read it. I am just, really, adjusting to the idea of myself as a community theater guy. I had adjusted to the idea of myself as not being an actor, but I hadn’t adjusted to the idea of my being an amateur actor. And a lot of the stuff he talks about? Just isn’t in the world of amateur acting.

OK, I’ll pass along one story, or at least a version of it. They had decided not only to have the coronation on-stage but to have the King and Queen stripped to the waist for it. We see them from behind, you understand. And there’s Anne, perfect and pretty and sexy. And there’s Richard’s hideous deformity.

Well, naturally if you are showing the hump onstage, out there under the lights, you can’t just use Lord Larry’s old one, you are going to need something new and designed to look realistic. And so they budget to have Christopher Tucker, the movie makeup artist (Company of Wolves, Mr. Creosote, Elephant Man, original stage Webber-Phantom), do up a fancy hump. Mr. Sher, who has a very visual imagination, wants to have the hump be in the center, a huge build-up of flesh that would remind the audience of a bull and lend emphasis to his nearly-useless little legs. The idea, aside from it just being a great visual, is that we would get a sense of tremendous upper-body strength overcompensating for lameness; Richard is simultaneously vulnerable and imposing.

Well, in they go to Mr. Tucker’s studio, where there are werewolves lying about in various stages of completion, and he immediately asks if the hump will be on the left or the right. No, the center, he is told. That’s not right, he says, humps are on one side. Well, this is true for scoliosis, but not for kyphosis, and anyway they are looking for this kind of impression, and so on and so forth.

Well, and nobody seems very happy about the discussion, but they agree to keep working, and the cast is made for Mr. Sher’s back, and so on and so forth over weeks and weeks, and meanwhile the costume people are very upset. You see, in a show like this, it’s best if you can make the lead’s costume first, so you can make sure that everybody else’s costume works with it. But they can’t make the costume, really, without the hump. So they are waiting, and doing the other costumes, and waiting, and so on, and finally, we are about a week before opening, and the final fitting happens and the hump is ready, a really disgusting lump of putty-like substance that will look absolutely hideous when he is stripped for the coronation.

And under the costume, it barely makes a ripple.

This, I think you will agree, is the kind of situation that calls for freaking out, and Mr. Sher is freaking the fuck out. Here’s this hideously expensive bit of stage magic for in between Four, one and Four, two, and it’s going to make him look like an idiot for all of Acts One, Two and Three. So the director comes around to the costume shop to look, and yes, we are all in agreement that this Will Not Do. So he takes the second version of it (if you have the money, it’s best to have two of any costume piece, just in case) and shoves it on over the top of the other one, and pulls up the back and starts shoving stuff in between, bits of fabric, some foam rubber, some batting he found lying around, and there. Now you look like Richard.

Meanwhile, with all the money from the budget going to the Hump, they wind up with a Hasting’s Head that looks like utter crap. But that’s all right. Nobody expects Hasting’s Head to look good, and honestly, when you have Brian Blessed playing Hastings, there is just no way for artifice to catch up.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 9:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, and the show is over now. Twelve performances. I don’t have audience numbers, as they were not relayed to us, alas, but my impression is that we had something like four hundred people over the twelve shows, with two really decent-sized houses (for the venue) of sixty-plus, and two houses under twenty, which isn’t good for anywhere. Thinking about it, that four hundred is probably high. Ah, well. I will say that we had only one performance that I thought was below par throughout, and one or two that started slow or low-energy but picked up steam. There were two or three that stood out for me as really good all the way through, at least as far as I could tell from where I was.

For one of the shows, I posted here some of the things I was pleased about and some that I was disappointed in. I’m not really prepared to do that for R3, at least not yet. I will say that I was particularly pleased and proud that nine Gentle Readers come to the show (if I have counted correctly, and if nobody came and went without telling me); I hope you all had a good time. In fact, I just realized that I brought in a pretty good share: twelve tickets, I believe, were attributable to my having pushed the show to friends and acquaintances. With a cast of eighteen plus a crew of five or so, if we had all managed a dozen tickets we would have cleared five hundred tickets, right? That said, I am quite sulky about none of my co-workers coming to see the thing. This is the third show I have been in locally since starting work there and nobody has come. This bothers me more because the two people I work closest with are occasional theatergoers; it seems like it would be a fun night out for them, rather than a social obligation. Further, since the theater where R3 was produced has a pay-what-you-will policy that seems ideal for students, I was hoping that some of my student workers would have made their way. Not so.

Well, and that’s all right. I pushed the show on y’all, because we are part of this Tohu Bohu voluntarily and without obligation; I am circumspect and diffident pushing the shows at work. I put up a poster and make sure everyone knows about it, but I try not to mention it more than once. And while we are co-workers, we are not really social friends—we do not invite each other to dinner at our homes, or go out to clubs and bars together after hours. Still, I am sulky and petulant.

Most of that, of course, is the usual post part-um depression that kicks in when an actor realizes that doesn’t get to play dress-up any more for a while. I am also very aware that I am unlikely to get to play another Shakespeare part for quite some time—I am lucky to have been in three Shakespeare plays, more or less ten years between them. And I am, I rush to clarify, really enjoying not being in the play, having no theatrical responsibilities to add to my family ones, seeing the lovely quiet evenings stretch out before me into the summer. I would not audition for a show this month if they were doing Comedy of Errors (I like to think I am not yet too old to play Antipholus); I want some time off.

I am, in fact, simultaneously relieved and saddened. But extra emotional, either way. I blame William Shakespeare.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And we head in to our last weekend of Richard III, I feel I should write something to observe the anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death. And probably birth, although that anniversary is just within a day or two. And even then, the baptism was recorded as being April 26, 1564 old style, before the calendar reform in 1582 (which was not actually accepted in the UK until 1752, because you don’t want to rush into things). So although this is, by any useful reckoning, the anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death in 1616, it is not the moment at which the earth is in the exact position relative to the sun than it was when he died. Much less when he was born.

Are you all clear on that, now? When you read your This Day In History lists and discover that it is Admiral William Penn’s Birthday, do you question what that this day in History means? The good Admiral was born on the 23rd day of April in England, but it was already May in France, or possibly Mai, and I’m afraid I have no idea what it would have been in the area that was later named after his boy Billy. When Pedro Alvares Cabal claimed it for Portugal on this day in 1500, what day was it in Brazil?

You are better off with Camryn Walling, born twenty years ago today. You may never have heard of Camryn Walling, but then he may never have heard of you. And he knows who lives in a pineapple under the sea, which is more than you can say about William Shakespeare.

Well. All right, technically, you can say that William Shakespeare knows who lives in a pineapple under the sea. Just like William Shakespeare can say that Richard III was a murderous hunchback. Doesn’t make it true.

It does make it memorable, though, which is what this calendar-based anniversary system does, too. So even if William Shakespeare was not born on April Twenty-third, and even if April Twenty-Third didn’t fall on April Twenty-Third in 1564, still, this is the day we use to commemorate. So go and commemorate it.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

People, it occurs to me to say, are different one to another, and that is what makes the world interesting and fun. The specific instance of this general observation that sparks its repetition is from a green room conversation about acting classes and books. I have never taken a proper acting class—I took Drama in high school for three years, I think, and I took an Intro to Theater course in college that wound up focusing on acting. But none of those were proper acting courses. And I have read a bunch of books about acting, and read in a bunch more, but I can’t say I have adopted any sort of school of either method or technique. Mostly, I make it up as I go along.

In the conversation, though, I did mention that the only book on acting I have ever really liked was A Practical Handbook for the Actor, by a bunch of people associated with David Mamet and the Atlantic Theater Company. The next day, that very book came across my desk (or rather came across the shelving area next to my desk) and so I decided to pick it up and reread it for the first time in years. And I didn’t really like it.

It turns out that the reason I really liked it was that it was incredibly snarky about Method acting. It states that most acting teachers are frauds, and that most acting classes are fraudulent, and most of the people in them are faking it and faking themselves out in an attempt to be what they think an actor should be. When I was a teenager, this was an wonderful affirmation that (a) I was completely right in my opinion of my high school drama teacher, and (2) I was so, so superior to everyone else I had been doing theater with. Reading it all again now, I am suspicious. Yes, I think my high school drama teacher was a fraud, and both mistaken and deeply confused about theater. She did, however, put on great shows. Which is a point.

More important, though, the so-called Practical Handbook presents a formula for analysing a scene that seems utterly without value. I know the book is not supposed to replace actual work with actual teachers, and it seems possible to me that the actual work with actual teachers would be valuable to me, but a third of the book or so is taken up with this formula that I cannot imagine is useful to use from the book. Not very practical or handy. I can only surmise that the book is intended to be a reminder of techniques learned and practiced in person, and that the formula is useful in that context. That isn’t how the book is presented, but I can imagine that the writers would have found it difficult to imagine how it would look to people without that practice, and thought it was useful when it wasn’t.

The other thing that I found completely lacking in the book, which I don’t remember noticing when I read it twenty-odd years ago, was any recognition of the existence of non-naturalistic acting. I don’t think it would be a problem to fit stylized acting into their Practical Aesthetics, if they wanted to, but they don’t seem to have even thought about it. It’s not going to help you, then, with a commedia production, or The National Health, or Aladdin—again, I suspect the authors and their troupe could adapt to the needs of the show, but the Handbook doesn’t give any idea of how. This is a frustration for me with a lot of the stuff I read about theater—while naturalism has thoroughly dominated the American and English theater scene for a couple of generations, it isn’t the only style in the history of the world, and it even the only style that playwrights are currently working in. It certainly isn’t the only style that audiences like. It’s a perfectly good style, don’t get me wrong—although I have begun to think that some familiarity with, some more presentational style is a very helpful tool even in the naturalistic actor’s kit.

Hmph. This has become a very negative note, and I don’t think the book deserves quite such a negative note. I would break it down like this: about one-third of the book is nasty snarking about the Actor’s Studio-derived Method, which is (imao) a well-deserved corrective; about one-third is the useless formula for scene study; and about one-third is useful observation about the theater, with which, of course, one can agree or disagree, but which are in either case useful for anyone interested in theater.

I would definitely encourage any young person who has gone through some half-assed Method training to read this book; I think it helped me, not only in my theater work but in a larger sense. I don’t find it useful anymore, myself. I wonder if the writers still find it useful. I know their school is still going, quite successfully as I understand it, but they haven’t put out a new edition of this book or a replacement in the last twenty years. Either they are happy with this one, or they have given up on the idea of it. I suspect the latter, although of course there could be a million other reasons.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don’t know how many GRs are fans of Shakespeare’s sonnets, but I thought I would throw this one out to y’all… We have a performance of R3 on April 23, which is the anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth. Relevant, because, you know, William Shakespeare wrote R3, as well as writing all the rest of Shakespeare’s plays (with certain possible exceptions). So we are having a little post-show shindig, with cake and champagne and the reading of some of the sonnets.

YHB has scanned the sonnets in the past, but has never made anything like a study of them. I am fond of 116 (Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment), but that one was claimed by someone faster off the mark than I am, in my ear-infected state. 130 (My Mistress’ess’s eyes are nothing like the sun) and 138 (When my love swears that she is made of truth) are also claimed, as is, I think, 27 (Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed). Does anyone have any suggestions? It’s not a Big Deal of any kind; I don’t have to participate at all, and it being more of a lark than a performance, I can just grab one and read it off the cuff, as it were. Still, I think it would be nice to work something up.

Any favorite Shakespearean sonnets, Gentle Readers? I will promise to record and post my interpretation of the one I actually perform, unless I get sicker and die before the 23rd.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Malcolm McLaren has died.

It’s hard not to feel personally bereft, at the moment, although of course I am not really basing my Buckingham on Mr. McLaren so much as on a kind of stereotype (or archetype, if you will) that Mr. McLaren himself used and subverted and ultimately fed into. I admit that I thought, briefly, that it would be great to have his curly mop of hair atop the Duke of Buckingham’s head, but (a) my hair is not curly, and (2) no, it wouldn’t be great. Still.

As it happens, I don’t really have much good to say about Mr. McLaren on the occasion of his demise. It’s an odd thing—I don’t particularly like his music, or his fashion design, or the staged outrages and Situationist stuff that he perpetrated so effectively, but I am glad that they exist. I think his attitude (Turn left, if you're supposed to turn right; go through any door that you're not supposed to as quoted in the Observer recently) is self-indulgent and self-defeating, and that it is far likelier to lead to bad art as good, and that even more the dissemination of that idea is far likelier to lead to a docile and easily-manipulated crowd than an independent and progressive one. On the other hand, I would hate to live in a world without punks. I want my daughter to grow up, as I grew up, in a world where people are trying to sell previously-ripped jeans and t-shirts. I want her to do what I did: experience the thrill and energy of contrarianism, and then find some deeper and more satisfying joy.

I want the establishment, and I am specifically referring to myself and the things I like and support, to be faced with the sort of aggressive and frankly stupid disrespect that typified the punk movement. I want taboos (and calling a shop 'SEX' and putting bondage gear in the window was very very taboo when they did it) to be smashed—I don't want to smash them myself, thank you, but I want to be making the choice to follow the traditions I value, not just following along without thinking.

I asked a few college kids today if they had heard of Malcolm McLaren; they hadn't. That's too bad. If you are eighteen or nineteen, and you think of punk as being your parent's generation, you're right—but you are also wrong. Punk is for all time, but not for everybody; punk is about looking for something to smash, and discovering, with any luck for the first time, that a lot of our assumptions and our traditions and our taboos and our social structures really are fragile. Yelling boo! at the right time, in the right voice, loud enough, really does work. And it's a great thing for people who want to take those traditions and social structures and assumptions and taboos seriously to know that, too.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Four down, eight to go. I suppose that’s one-third in, although it’s also two-fifths, as the remaining three weekends include the two matinees. The shows have gone well, for the most part. We were a trifle overrehearsed, I think—two nights before we opened we were ready but for lights and sound, so we kept running the show for our lights and sound people, which was correct and needed, but took a bit of the edge off our performances. This is a problem for us community theater amateurs; we tend to be either overrehearsed or underrehearsed, and we haven’t the years of experience or the technique to just do it all the same.

I was concerned about the audiences: after getting a fairly nice house of 67 for Opening Night (the place seats a hundred or so), we had only 34 on the second night. The next weekend, we had 17 on Friday, and I began to perceive a pattern. Fortunately, however, we had more than 9 in the house on Saturday, actually bumping up to 25 or so. Still quite low in absolute numbers, and in terms of the theater making any money to speak of (or at that level, keeping the losses down) it ain’t great, but not so bad as I had feared. And, in fact, the smallish audiences on the second weekend were more appreciative and noisier (in a good way) than the somewhat bigger audience on the previous Saturday.

In fact, that Saturday was the worst of our four performances so far. We did not have the nervous energy of Opening Night, and the initial quietness of the crowd fed into a fall-off in the energy level (after tech week, we were very very tired) which of course led into the audience being less entranced, and therefore giving us less, which brought us further down, and so on and so forth. In my case, I misspoke several of my lines—not forgetting the line but hearing it come out of my mouth incorrectly. That’s exhaustion.

In point of fact, just today I was wondering what was up with the odd feeling I had, strangely energetic and alert, and realized that it was just that for the first time in three weeks, I’m not tired. That was kind of scary.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the things about this last week before we open is that we are running the show from front to back, you know, in order. While it’s true that I originally read it in order, I had, over the course of the rehearsal process, lost the order of it in my head. This is very common and perfectly proper, and we properly and correctly are readjusting our heads to the show as a whole. This usually gives us new insights on character arcs and pacing, which is happening, but for YHB and the Duke of Buckingham, there was something else I hadn’t noticed.

So. The Duke first enters in I,iii with Stanley, and is immediately confronted with the factionalism in the court: The Queen says to Stanley that she doesn’t blame him for his wife being in the anti-Queen faction. The words are conciliating, but there is steel behind them; he is immediately wrong-footed at the very beginning of the scene. And I am standing right next to him.

I have been playing this by taking a half-step away from him during the Queen’s speech, without looking at him, just a tiny separation, as if to say we are here, together, but we aren’t here-together, if you know what I mean. Then I take the Queen aside to tell her privately about the King’s plan to make peace between the factions—you see, by coming in with Stanley, I may have already compromised my position as a neutral arbiter. Then, when I am speaking privately with the Queen, Richard comes in. So I have again compromised my position.

The second time I come onstage is for the grand reconciliation scene, and while it is implied that I am not in the Queen’s faction (as I am reconciling with her, and why would I need to do that if I were in her faction), at the moment that Richard comes in, I am in fact shaking hands with her brother. So the first two times that Richard sees me (on stage, of course) I am in close conversation with the Queen’s faction. And at the end of that second scene, I declare myself on Richard’s side.

The point, here, is that I think of myself (or rather, the Duke’s self) as neutral at the beginning of the play, successfully avoiding committing myself until I see that (a) Clarence is dead, and (2) Edward is dying, at which point the choice is between Richard and Young-Edward-as-a-proxy-for-the-Queen-his-mother, and I quickly make that choice, throwing the balance decisively in Richard’s favor (a show more focused on the politics could do something with the fact that Hastings is on Young Edward’s side but very much not on the Queen’s side, which leaves the young prince with two champions at odds, which is worse than having one champion and certainly worse than having two in partnership). But my studied neutrality may well be a figment of my imagination; Richard, certainly, has every reason to think of me as in the Queen’s faction. So my declaration in the second act has a different meaning, perhaps, to Richard than it does to Buckingham.

And to the audience? I wonder.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tech week is upon us, the time when everybody in the show, not just the actors and the director but the sound and lights and tech and costume and props and front-of-house and publicity people all think to themselves, wouldn’t it be nice to have a hobby that involved less work? Like building those ships inside bottles? Or maybe butter sculpture?

Call last night was for 6:30; YHB left at 11:30, and I am told that the remaining crew left around midnight. We were painting the last bits of the set, hoping it dries before 6 this evening, when we start assembling again. I am not much of a hand with a paintbrush, but I did a little bit before realizing that I really was tired enough to be problematic for the short drive home in the rain. Which, since this morning my Best Reader found the bottle of port in the fridge, seems to have been a more or less correct assessment of my mental state. Safety, as our fight choreographer says, is reallyreallyfirst.

I do feel bad that I have managed now to show up at three work calls and do almost no actual work. For those of y’all that haven’t done community theater, one of the sources of tension is that many of the actors simply never show up on a Saturday to paint or build or shift furniture. I generally am an offender in that, which I justify to myself by the importance of spending time with my children, when I can manage it. Probably the same is true of the other people in the cast; we do spend many, many hours at the theater, and volunteering to spend more is not really high on our whatsit. For myself, there is another issue, which is that I am not good at that set-building stuff, and I dislike feeling that incompetent. And, since I am incompetent, I am able to tell myself that the crew are not losing much by my absence.

In actual fact, I can wield a paintbrush without doing damage, and am perfectly good at, for instance, holding a bit of wood while somebody sinks a screw in it. Not to mention, my broom skills are actually quite tolerable, and when it comes to hauling a sack of trash to the dumpster, I admit to no better. There is always a large amount of unskilled labor involved, and if I don’t do it, somebody else will have to.

So, out of the eight or ten work calls for R3, I have made it out to three. For the first, logistics prevented me being there at the beginning, so when I arrived a couple of hours in, it was just in time to some ten minutes of sweeping up sawdust and flinging screws in the bucket, and then we broke up for the day. I joked about how brilliant my timing was, and posed with the broom. The second time, I arrived at the beginning, helped to tidy the green room, moved some bits of wood around, held a strip of wood while the set guy measured it, and then toddled off. I did not, this time, joke about getting credit for showing up without having to do any work. Last night was the third, staying around after the technical to help out with the painting, or rather “help out” with the painting, since I did a lot of very little. And then toddled off. Perhaps the other fellows made the jokes this time.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, and we open in less than a week. The show keeps getting better, at the very least in the sense that it gets more smooth and professional. The scene changes are still a trifle messy and slow, and there are the moments of Where is my prop? Where’s my fucking prop!!!! but that has to happen this week if it isn’t going to happen in front of an audience. None of that is any worse than it has been in any other show, and much of it is much better.

Anyway, do y’all remember the earlier R3 Spoiler note? In my final scene, now, I’m tearing up my precious, precious notebook. I didn’t mention it before, but the notebook is an Accopress Report Cover, not a three-ring. This means that the front and back covers are easy to separate, each from the other, being held together by presumably-patented aluminum prong dealie. On the other hand, the pressboard covers do show the wear and tear. Luckily, I happen to own two nearly-identical black Accopress Report Covers (although I believe one of them is actually Wilson-Jones), so I figured that I would carry the pristine-looking one through four acts, and swap out for the increasingly war-weary one for the last scene, which, you know, makes the scene even better, showing that I have been dragged halfway across England to my doom. Great, right?

Only, of course, there are limits to the abuse a little folder like that can take, and I noticed after one of the rehearsals this week that the holes were tearing through, or actually that two of the four of them had already torn, and that the remaining two were just barely hanging on. So. What do I need? I need reinforcements! Those little circles that people used to use so that their papers wouldn’t fall out of their three-ring binders. Only, you know, I really only needed four of them. Well, call it eight—may as well protect both binders, just to be safe. And I really didn’t want to purchase a package of two hundred and fifty little ring reinforcements when I only needed ten. Not that there was a lot of money at stake—what would a package cost, a buck?—but that’s the kind of thing I hate.

So, I ask at work whether we have any, and whether it would be OK if I took a few for my own personal use. Our office manager said that she didn’t think she had seen any for years and years and years, but I was welcome to go through the supply cabinet and take any that I found. So I hunted around in there (our supply cabinet is not well-organized, nor does it usually need to be, so there was a good deal of digging through stacks of things and moving things that were on top of plain cardboard boxes and so on) and lo and behold, just as I was about to give up, I get to the bottom of a stack and there is a whole little package of paper reinforcements. Success! I show them to the office manager, who tells me that they are mine, now, and that she thinks they are probably thirty years old.

And, in fact, there is no more adhesive on them, but it isn’t that big a deal to swipe it with a glue stick before pressing it on. So that’s all right. And I carefully prepare my folder for the rehearsal on Sunday.

And then, in my frenzy of tearing, I rip the whole back cover of the binder in half.

Ah, well.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger doesn’t have any news from last night’s rehearsal. We’re getting close, now: last night we did after-the-intermission twice, tonight we’re doing before-the-intermission (twice, I hope), and after that it’s just running the play through from beginning to end, over and over, until somebody starts applauding.

It is a trifle strange for, running the second half twice like that. The second half is my quiet half: I’m in IV,ii (at the beginning, and then exiting for a page or two and then coming back on) and V,i (my death, a one-page scene) and then I’m one of the ghosts in V,ii and that’s it. So I have a lot of sitting down in the green room in between scenes of tremendous emotion and stress. It’s not actually that hard to gear up for the tremendous emotion and stress; the hard part is sitting back down quietly in the green room afterward. The first half has a lot less backstage time for me, and a lot less emotion on-stage. Build-up, don’t you know. The second half is the payoff for my character#&8212;but since it’s not a play about the Duke of Buckingham, it’s a payoff well before the play actually ends.

And, of course, running the thing twice means that the moment I am backstage, I am thinking about what went wrong in the scene, and what I need to do to get it right. If we’re just running scenes, then I don’t have that moment—I’m just up and doing it again. If we’re running the whole play, then I know I can’t do anything about the problems until tomorrow, so that’s all right. But running half the play is the maximum time for me to fret about doing it again the same night, which is what really makes the whole sitting-in-the-green-room bit so difficult.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, I have decided, unless I change my mind, to go with the easiest idea for a Richard III mix: songs about kings and queens. What the heck. I have a lot of such songs, and it looks to be a good mix, so why make trouble for myself?

Here’s an initial list, with some notes and possibilities, and then I’m throwing the floor open for comments and GR help. My restrictions on this were (a) no instrumentals, (2) no jazz numbers this time, and (iii) um, I had to kinda like the stuff. I am tempted to break the no-instrumentals rule to end the Mix with Queen’s recording of “ God Save The Queen ”, but then, they are my rules and I can break them if I want to, right? Your advice is, as always, gratefully appreciated, both on more tunes to add and what to leave off (as well as what must stay).

• “I’m King”, B.B. King: I’m stuck between this slow sexy blues and “Riding With The King”, a duet with Eric Clapton.
• “The King Of Bedside Manor”, Barenaked Ladies: A fun song, with some relevance to the Boar
• “Kings Of The Highway”, Chris Isaak: a ballad, which could either provide a nice variation with a mostly uptempo mix or be a stone cold drag.
• “Rock’N’Roll is King”, Electric Light Orchestra: Rama-lama-lama-lama!
• “King Of Confidence” or “King Horse”, Elvis Costello: or, I suppose, “Brilliant Mistake”, which begins he thought he was the King of America; another ballad, though
• “The King & Queen Of America”, Eurythmics: I had forgotten this song entirely until I did a search in my library for the words, but it’s a good song.
• “Duke Of Earl”, Gene Chandler: This is the only song left on my list with duke rather than king or queen, but it does seem to belong.
• “Wanderlust King”, Gogol Bordello: Gotta have some of that gypsy shit.
• “The King Is Gone”, Heads: This is from that odd and inconsistent album that the rest of Talking Heads did without David Byrne; it’s a good song, in its way, and has a bit of that punk sound to it.
• “New Crawlin’ King Snake”, Howlin’ Wolf: This is not about a king, actually, but a king snake. Well, it isn’t actually about a king snake, either…
• “Babydoll, The Beauty Queen”, Jabbering Trout: One thing about a Mix Tape is the right combination of familiarity and novelty. I like to have a couple of obscure things like this one.
• “King of the World”, Joe Jackson: a live cover of the Steely Dan song.
• “King Of Spain”, Moxy Früvous: Gotta have this.
• “King of the Dogs”, Iggy Pop: this sounds nothing like Iggy Pop to me, but I like it
• “La Femme duDoight”, Queen Ida: The chorus goes Queen Ida/Is her name
• “King Of Comedy”, R.E.M.: Off my least favorite album, one of those grungy songs, seems to suit the mood of our show
• “King Of Bohemia”, Richard Thompson: Another somewhat obscure track, and, alas, another down-tempo one
• “King Of The Hill”, Roger McGuinn: The former Byrd, the side is pretty much indistinguishable from Tom Petty, which isn’t a bad thing
• “Sun King”, The Beatles: Hard to leave the Beatles of a list if there’s an excuse for including them
• “The Rascal King”, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones: Love, love, love this one, which is of course about Mayor Curley
• “King Dork”, The Mr. T Experience: The chance to include this track is what made up my mind about using the K&Q theme.
• “King Of The Hill”, The Nields: another obscurity, alas, but one that begins Gimme my bomb back, yeah
• “King of Pain”, the Police: this Mix? Needs Moar Eighteez.
• “King For A Day”, XTC: one of their cheerful Colin Moulding numbers

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 9:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Your Humble Blogger has ruminated in the past about adapting Leave it to Psmith for the screen, at which time it was suggested by Gentle Reader Chris Cobb that I get my grubby paws on the stage adaptation. Yes, that was more than two years ago, but I only recently got around to requesting the thing through interlibrary loan. I was disappointed in the adaptation, frankly. For reasons that are not clear to YHB, they transported the thing from Blandings to another Stately Home very similar to Blandings, replaced Lord Emsworth with another Stately Peer very similar to Clarence, and replaced Lady Constance with a character substantially inferior to Lady Constance. And Phyllis Jackson is replaced by an entirely different character named Phyllis Jackson, one not married to Mike Jackson at all but engaged to Freddie (who is not Freddie). On the other hand, Eve is pretty solidly Eve, Miss Peavey is gloriously Miss Peavey, and Psmith is Psmith, which is the best thing you could say about anyone.

As for the adaptation, Mr. Wodehouse (and probably some other uncredited writer) put Act One at the door to the Tube station just down from the Senior Conservative Club. This allows for a lot to happen quite quickly. Alas, that means we only see Psmith go into the club and come out again with Comrade Walderwick’s umbrella, but we do meet Comrade Walderwick, not once but several times, as he is one of the Berties and Algies who come to the weekend at not-Blandings.

Which brings me to my real disappointment, which is that Mr. Wodehouse writes with a very free hand to paying castmembers. There are about a million of them. Many with lines to say. I cannot imagine attempting to cast the thing at a community theater, drawing on available talent, and I cannot imagine attempting to cast the thing at a professional theater, drawing on available money. Things must have been very different in the old days. I mean, I know it was, I have read plays of the thirties before. But this was ridiculous. Utterly prohibitive. The thing would require an altogether new adaptation of the adaptation, if anyone wanted to try it.

On the plus side, the play is in a collection called Four Plays, and although I didn’t manage to read the Jeeves play before returning the thing to my ILL hero, I did reread The Play’s the Thing, which really is a wonderful play. It’s good to be reminded of that, because I do prefer the adaptation by Tom Stoppard, which is called Rough Crossing. The original is called The Play in the Castle, and it is by Ferenc Molnar, who is, of course, wonderful. The last play is also an adaptation of a Hungarian play, this one by Ladislaus Fodor, and this one is really good. I mean, snappy. And with a managable cast, too. There is a moment near the end where our Leading Man threatens to rape the Leading Lady, which might ruin the whole play, though. I mean, it’s pretty clear he doesn’t mean it, and it’s very very clear that it won’t happen, but even to be brought up in talk, well, I don’t know. Do productions of Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam these days cut out the lines about rape? I certainly would. Well, anyway, I hadn’t read Bill before, and I really enjoyed reading it, so that’s all right.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

No, seriously, actually, this isn’t about plot spoilers, but about production spoilers. Because it occurred to me that four Gentle Readers of this Tohu Bohu have already made plans to see the thing, and it’s possible that perhaps half-a-dozen more are contemplating it. Which y’all should be, if the logistics work out—I’m starting to get the feeling that this is going to be a good show. It’s early yet (two weeks from tonight!), but there are bits that are very good indeed. So if you can come to Greater Hartford on a weekend night in April (or late March), come. If you need details, let me know and I will email them to you.

And there are a few details of the production that will probably work better if you haven’t read too much about them beforehand. So I was going to refrain from writing about, oh, the really cool thing that we did the other night, because I don’t want to Ruin It for the folk who are coming to see.

Still, of the three dozen or so Gentle Readers, two thirds at least are simply unable to arrange a trip. Not going to happen, and I do understand. Frankly, I understand even if you could possibly make it to town and you don’t. I have missed my friends in shows this Winter just out of laziness and cheapness, and I’m OK with that in myself and others. And I believe that some of those GRs who are not coming (for whatever reason), are amongst those most interested in Shakespeare and theeyater. So. Rather than continuing to refrain, I think my plan is just to mark some of these notes as containing SPOILERS for the production.

SPOILERS

Really, not just warning you to avoid wagering on Richard in the final battle (I will give you 7-2 odds) but that as with any production, we have made some new choices and you will enjoy the show more if you don’t know what all of them are. So if you are even thinking about the possibility of coming and seeing the show, stop reading here. You can always come back in a month or two and tell me how it worked out for you.

OK?

Everybody good with this?

Ready for the production SPOILER? It’ll be a letdown now, I know, but still, it’s a bit I do like, if I say so myself.

Right, then. Act V, scene i: my death scene. We have discussed the scene before, and how it ends with my telling my executioner to covey me to the block of shame and the closing couplet. I haven’t talked about the beginning of the scene, where I list the dead:

Hastings, and Edward’s children, Rivers, Grey, Holy King Henry, and thy fair son Edward, Vaughan, and all that have miscarried By underhand corrupted foul injustice.

In the full text, Buckingham is addressing the shades of the dead, whose moody discontented souls are invited to mock him as he dies. We cut that bit of the address, as we have cut a lot of the supernatural elements of the show. So as I was preparing the scene, I was just listing them, in a sort of hysterical laughter: he knows he’s going to die, and now look at the people he has had killed for (it turns out) no benefit at all. A cosmic joke, and the panicky laughter as he faces his own addition to the list was, I must say, working for me.

And then I happened to sit in on the rehearsal for IV,i (in which Buckingham does not appear) and saw that Lady Anne responds to the summons of Lord Stanley that Come, madam, you must straight to Westminster, there to be crowned Richard’s royal queen. is stunned and panicky laughter, rising to hysteria as she contemplates the cosmic joke that her own curses redound on her head as the unhappy wife of the accursed Richard. And that was working very well, indeed, and was not only pathetic (in a good way) but a highlight on her basic instability (as opposed to the Duke of Buckingham, who is not inclined to regret and second-guessing). Only… if I respond the same way twenty minutes later, it makes me look dumb, and make the show work worse. So. Ah, well, what the hell. Back to the old proverbial, eh?

What to do, what to do. And then what comes to the rescue but my trusty notebook, and the rumination of the other day that I had a little list and could, in my own words, Cross them off, one after another. So, despite it making no real-world sense whatsoever, I determined that when I was caught and brought to execution, I would be clinging to that notebook of mine, and

[opens Notebook, glances at executioner, shows him page] Hastings [Rrrrrip!], and Edward’s children [Rrrrrip! Rrrrip!], Rivers [Rip!], Grey [Rip!], Holy King Henry[Rip!], and thy fair son Edward[Rip!], Vaughan[Rip!], and all [Rip!]that have miscarried [Rip!]By underhand [Rip!] corrupted [Rip!] foul [Rip!] injustice[Actually, by this point I have torn out the pages, torn the covers from each other and am surrounded by the fluttering shreds of my life].

A couple of things to note: first, of course, this is exactly the sort of thing that I love but don’t do well, what I have called physical inventiveness, coming up with bits of business that bring out something in the character and the text in a way that would not be present without the business. As such, I am really, really hoping it works. I have done it once, and it seems to work, but, you know, it is a bit over the top, and I can only justify it by doing it really well. A trifle daunting.

The other thing is that this business brought out Buckingham’s anger at his betrayal. Buckingham, of course, is a mix of emotions at this point (as is everyone at every point, but this is dramatically heightened, being, you know, in a play), and the text emphasizes his acknowledgement of the irony, his wittiness, as it were, over everything else. But of course he is also angry at Richard’s betrayal of him (I feel sure Buckingham never sees the raising of a rebel army as a betrayal on his part), and afraid of his immanent death and damnation. Regret? Sure. Defiance? All right. All of that. The question is which come to the front in the portrayal to make the better theater. And when, urged to by the list-shredding, I brought the anger to the front, it seemed to make the scene work better, and (I think) the play, as of all his emotions, the anger is the most Richard-directed, and the play is all about Richard.

And best of all, it brings the whole Buckingham’s-notebook thing to a satisfying conclusion. It’s a version of Tchekov’s law, right? If you show the audience a notebook in Act One, somebody has to tear it up before the final curtain.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of days ago, when my Director asked if we had any production or schedule type questions, and I asked for an off-book date. She said that we should definitely be off-book by the 26th. That is Opening Night, you see. A little joke.

My preference is to have a deadline, some date to prepare for, after which any actor clutching a script will be scorned and derided. I have been in shows where actors were simply Not Allowed to clutch a script after that date; I don’t approve of that. So, I suppose there’s some sense in being unwilling to declare a deadline you are not going to enforce. Still, there has to be a time.

Now, as for myself and the Duke of Buckingham, we both carry around a folder. And, in fact, it’s the same folder. Although, presumably, what’s in the folder is a trifle different—the Duke probably would not carry around a printout of everything he is going to say for the next two hours. He might, if he could, but most likely he does not.

So. I found myself, at that rehearsal, carrying around a prop notebook with an actual script. And although I am mostly off-book, I mean, off-book enough to be off-book, but not yet off-book enough to get all the lines exactly correct, the temptation to open it up to the correct page and take just a little peek was overwhelming. Just, you know, while somebody else is talking, open the folder and glance down at the page and back up, refreshing my memory that I address the Queen as Madam not Highness or that it is for shame if not for charity and not vice versa. And we’re not past some deadline for off-book-ness, so it’s not, you know, cheating. There’s no scorn or derision. There’s only the beginnings of the formation of a bad habit.

Therefore Your Humble Blogger, being a Good Lad, has transferred the sides to a new folder, a new blue folder, and put a bunch of random pages out of the recycle bin into the black folder I will be carrying properly. I will probably want to make up something that looks good (for mid-70s values of good) before we go up, but the key thing is to get the book out of my hands so I get used to being without it.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Do you know what the secret is to all good theater? No, it's repetition. And timing. And repetition. But mostly timing.

YHB has an unfortunate tendency to slow pacing. Not terrible, and at least I'm aware of it, but still—I like to create a silence to speak into. A rather effective technique, if it is used very, very sparingly.

I should say that I am not generally slow to pick up cues, that's not the issue. It's that once I get into a speech of any length, I tend to find places to pause, to create emphasis with stillness, a kind of creeping Shatnerism, to be honest. As I say, I am aware of this, and I know that it can be easily overused, very very easily, and so I struggle with it.

My point is that I have a line, one line in particular in this play, that seems to me to require a pause before I speak. There's my cue line, and then I come to a decision and speak. In order for the audience to follow that I have come to a decision, and that I am coming to a decision right at that moment, there needs to be a pause.

But how long a pause?

My instincts will tell me to prolong the moment, that the tension is continuing to build. My instinct will continue to tell me that for at least, oh, three or four seconds after the last audience member has dropped off to sleep. My instinct is not to be trusted. So I will not trust my instinct. I'm not sure how I will wind up judging the pause—there's the simple method of counting two, or I could find a way to have Richard (for it is Richard, inevitably, to whom I speak) cue me on his instinct by raising an eyebrow or otherwise unobtrusively kicking me. Or something will come up—the one thing I know for sure is that whenever I do speak, it will feel to me rushed.

Which means that every night, at the end of that scene, I will leave feeling a twinge of dissatisfaction. And I will feel that twinge of dissatisfaction no matter what. If I don't feel that I rushed the line, I will feel that I dragged it out; if I nail it by any objective measure—including an audible gasp from the audience and a chorus of ooooohs—I will still feel rushed.

Ah, well. Such is life. As we hear in They Might Be Giants, everybody dies frustrated and sad, and that is beautiful.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We are slowly settling on a character for Buckingham. Not as comic as I would make it, which makes sense, as we are not doing the play as a whole as a comedy (alas). There will be some laughs, but we are going to emphasize Buckingham as a capable political player, albeit overmatched. He is the money and the repute, the public face of Richard’s faction. Do y’all remember, and I hate to bring this up, but ten years ago there was this idea that Our Previous President’s callow and stubborn inexperience would be tempered by the wisdom and statesmanship of Old Hands, of the ilk of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld? There is some sense in which our Buckingham makes our Richard more plausible, easier to support. Only, of course, Richard doesn’t have any loyalty.

Well, and one of the things that has guided YHB into a nearer orbit of this particular Buckingham has been a prop. I asked our Director, possibly at the first blocking rehearsal, if I could have a hand prop of some kind, something to hold during my first scene (which for me consists of long stretches of standing quietly at the back, watching), and she suggested a notebook or portfolio of some kind. Since I have been carrying my script with me at the blocking rehearsals since then, of course, it has been easy to incorporate that into my various bits of business. There was one moment, really, when it came together for me, as we were blocking II, ii a couple of nights ago.

So, King Edward is dead; Richard and I come to the Queen and Rivers along with Hastings and Stanley for an impromptu Privy Council meeting, to conclude that it is time for the Young Prince to be brought to London. My line is “Me seemeth good, that, with some little train, forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fetch’d hither to London, to be crown’d our king.” At this point, I know the line well enough not to have to read it off the page; I am now carrying around my folder more as a prop than a script (particularly in these scenes where I have so few lines). On the spur of the moment, I flipped open the folder to get information: …forthwith from what the hell is the name of that place, oh, right Ludlow… and flipped it quickly closed again.

And, there, you see? So much in that half-second the notebook is open. Buckingham is the sort of fellow who keeps lists. He’s got the train schedule in there. He can’t remember the name of the Prince’s school, so he writes it down. He is persistent but not inspired. He has written down Earl. Hrfd; moveables, so he thinks he will get them. He’s a list-maker. Who needs to sign off on Richard’s investiture? Hastings, Stanley, Bishop, Mayor. Cross them off, one after another. Who has a claim to the throne? Edward, the Princes, Clarence, Richard, Buckingham, Richmond. Hm.

Of course, it doesn’t always work like that. Last night in III,vii when I dragged the Lord Mayor off (Come, citizens: ’zounds! I’ll entreat no more), I did an absolutely lovely spin. Headed for the U.L. Exit, I have the L.M. on my right arm (Come, citizens!), and then turn back to my left (’zounds!) dragging him across my body upstage and then turn to exit again (I’ll entreat no more!), dragging him downstage of me in a full circle. This also was on the spur of the moment—it came as a surprise to the Lord Mayor, who is a very funny fellow and reacted perfectly (I am guessing, because of course it is essential to the bit that I not look at him or acknowledge him at all during the spin), and to the cast and crew who erupted in screams of laughter. I love screams of laughter. Alas, when the Lord Mayor backstage said it was a terrific bit, I immediately said yeah, but I don’t think we’ll be doing it in three weeks. And in fact, at the end of the night in the Notes, our Director quite rightly said that it would have to go. Because, you know, it could be a good bit and still ruin the scene. And, as I think I said, we’re not doing it as a comedy.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, and I don’t know if we have at last finished blocking the whole play, but we have finished blocking the bits I am in, so that’s all right. After we did my death scene in V,i, I was released to go home, and I did, and thank goodness for that, because the roads? Not so good.

Anyway, before we did that, we did the ghost scene. Now, I don’t like the ghost scene at all. We’re doing a reasonable job of it, but frankly, I would cut the whole thing. We have already cut two-thirds of it, so it’s just a little bit more.

Now, I could imagine a terrific production of the show that emphasized all the occult and unnatural elements. Ours is not that production, but I imagine it could be terrific. It would begin, I imagine, with Richard spying his shadow on the wall, and then, when he moves to the left, the shadow moves to the right, and then perhaps morphs into a boar—or perhaps just into a bigger, more grotesque version of Richard, more deformed. Maybe… with horns? Or tusks, anyway. Still, that would set up a special-effects laden version, a dark Richard. Margaret, of course, becomes more prominent. Perhaps she is onstage more frequently than is written, observing and casting spells—if you can have her appear and disappear, perhaps overlooking the seduction of Anne, it can prepare us not only for her arrival later, but for the strange behavior of everybody else, who seem not to see her at first, and then inexplicably fail to have her arrested and confined. And then, possibly, when Queen Elizabeth asks her, in Act Four, how to curse her enemies, she could …not sure. Something, though.

And, of course, there are the dreams. Clarence’s dream, Stanley’s dream, and Richard’s dream of the ghosts—if we see the other two performed, brought to vision for the audience, then the ghosts fit in. How to do it? Puppets, I am thinking, behind a scrim. Hard to have it be appropriately spooky, but there are people who do that sort of thing very well. And then, perhaps, begin the ghost scene with puppets and have them appear to climb down and become life-sized people? Just a thought.

And in a play like that, there is the possibility of having ghosts appear throughout. Bloated and disfigured Clarence watches his nephews being sent to the Tower. Wasted and debilitated Anne watches Richard attempt to negotiate a second marriage. Rivers, Grey and Vaughn take up the empty seats at the council table to watch Hastings’ destruction. Henry VI could show up. Dead Rutland could play jacks with Dead Edward while the bodies pile up around them on Bosworth Field. The dead could outnumber the living.

But if that’s not what you are doing with the play, which we’re not, and thank goodness for that, and if furthermore you are not doing the whole text, which we’re not, and thank goodness for that, I firmly think that the ghosts should be the first things cut. Well, the second, after the scene with Clarence’s children. But early in the cutting process.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night we blocked IV,ii, which is probably known as the ‘giving vein’ scene. Immediately after the coronation, Richard suggests to Buckingham that he take care of murdering the Princes in the Tower, and Buckingham equivocates, and then asks for the Earldom he was promised. Richard dicks with him and then tells him “I am not in the giving vein today”. Buckingham sees the writing on the wall and flees the court to raise an army.

So. I found it particularly difficult to learn the lines in this scene. Not just straining to get the exact words right, as I have been having problems with in all my lines, but missing whole lines or getting them in the wrong order. That’s because through a page or two I am trying to get Richard to respond to me and he is conspicuously not responding to me but talking about something else. Our lines don’t match, deliberately. I ask about Hereford and he answers with Richmond; he asks about time and I answer about promises. We’re not listening to each other. It’s harder to find hooks to attach the lines to each other.

Mind you, it’s a terrific scene. Lots of conflict. Just hard to memorize.

Well, and last night we blocked it. I had been imagining possible blocking problems as I was preparing it, imagining possible solutions, ways to make the scene work in different ways. And I had kinda figured on one particular way as working well with what we’ve done so far, meshing with some of the earlier stage scenes and themes and working with the scene itself. And what our director did is just about the opposite of what I had been thinking. I don’t think I want to be any more specific—I am hoping that a few Gentle Readers will make their way to see the thing, and there should be some surprises for you—but I will say that never in a million million years would I have thought of blocking IV,ii like that. And it’s brilliant.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK, so you know how helpful you all were with my exit line last time? Well, I have a different problem this time.

First of all, I have a great, great speech for when I’m about to die. But the last couplet, which is one of the few well-known lines I have, which is in fact one of the very few well-known lines in the whole play that is uttered by anyone other than Richard, that last couplet? Doesn’t make sense to me.

That is, I know more or less what it means. Here’s the line: Come, sir, convey me to the block of shame; Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.. I have admitted, at this point, my complicity in underhand corrupted foul injustice, and I have further admitted that foreshadowing is a legitimate literary device my own pledge had asked for and deserved nothing better than betrayal in response to my own. So what I’m saying is that I am being wronged by Richard in response to my own wrong behavior toward the Young Prince, and that insofar as I blame Richard, I needs must blame myself as well. Right?

Or, as SparkNotes and the No Fear Shakespeare site have translated it, I have done wrong, so I will suffer wrong. I have been blamed because I deserved to be. Boy, that’s terrible writing.

But the problem—my problem—is that I can’t make the words of the text mean that. If I am saying Wrong hath but [the seeds within it that grow into greater] wrong, that’s an awful lot of implication to put in between the words. If I am saying Blame [that I place on Richard is] the due of blame [that I place on myself], then not only am I jamming a lot of implication in between the words, I’m using due in a way that is difficult to understand. For me as well as the audience.

Now, I don’t mean to say that I can’t deliver the line. Frankly, if I do say it myself, I think the bit that leads up to the closing couplet is going to be terrific, and then, I straighten myself, look at Tyrell (who I think will be my executioner, although it may be Brackenbury), take a deep breath and snap Come, sir! Convey me to the block of shame! before smiling ruefully, opening my arms and saying Wrong hath but wrong, and blame… the due of blame. Or, of course, I could play it the other way: resignedly asking to be brought to the block, and then suddenly turning on my escort and snapping out that wrong hath but wrong, and so on, as a threat that he, too, will pay for his support of Richard. In some ways, when the structure of the sentences are opaque, the actor is released to use the words as floaters, independent of the surrounding sentence, and shouting out wrong! and blame! will carry (I would think) the audience to the meaning I put into them.

On the other hand, it would be nice to feel like I’m working with the text and not around it. I don’t ordinarily feel any difficulty with Shakespeare’s language, you know. Oh, I like to work against the meter, but not against the language itself. I almost never have a problem with understanding the basic meaning of the sentences, or figuring out why the various parts of the sentence are presented in the order they are. I have lots of lines that I can say a number of different ways, even within the confines the character than I am narrowing, but the different ways is because they all make sense in different ways. And, in fact, for all of Buckingham’s courtly language, with his unnecessary modifiers and intensifiers, his sentences are for the most part straightforward. Either straightforward lies, or straightforward truths. This last couplet of mine, though, is baffling me.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Your Humble Blogger has spoken before about two schools of thought about acting, and how while my sympathies are with the English, my training (such as it is) is with the Russian. Since that time, I’ve done some more shows, am on my third director since then, actually, and none of the directors has engaged in improvisation or any of that Method stuff. Which is fine with me—although I do enjoy improv generally, with the typically limited rehearsal time available to Community Theater, I’m in favor of just getting the blocking right.

And, I feel, over time I have become more and more sympathetic to the Technical style anyway. One of the ways people have described the difference is that the English style is outside-in while the Russian is inside-out. The Technical actor will begin with the externals—a hat, a limp, an accent—and fill in the character from there, whilst the Method actor will begin with the internal emotions and sensibilities—relationships, motivations, instincts—and fill out the character from there. I have always felt better when I have the externals—the hand props, the shoes, the hat. It is true that on occasion, I have had to ditch an external, when it doesn’t work with the internal, but that’s part of the process, too.

I mention it because as we have been blocking the scenes, I have been touching the other actors a lot. No, not like that. At least not yet. No, I’ve been putting my arm around them, grasping their forearms, putting a hand on a shoulder, turning them by their shoulders, and generally being the kind of guy who is always touching you. That had not been a plan of mine, and I was honestly surprised to discover it happening over and over again.

When I first come in, after my greeting, my next line is

QUEEN ELIZABETH: God grant him health! Did you confer with him?
BUCKINGHAM: Madam, we did: he desires to make atonement Betwixt the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers, And betwixt them and my lord chamberlain; And sent to warn them to his royal presence.

As the Queen’s brother is there in the room, I thought it might be nice if I took her arm and drew her aside, speaking to her as if in confidence, while Lord Rivers (her brother) conspicuously eavesdrops. The scene (I,iii) is all about the intrigue, making clear to the audience the factions, insofar as it can be made clear without having people wear different colored track suits (which has been done, you know). So, the two obvious options are to say the lines to Lord Rivers through the Queen, and to say them to the Queen around Lord Rivers. Well, and I suppose the most obvious option is to say the line broadcast, but that’s the least interesting option as well, and fails to contribute to the sense of factionalism and complottery. So I went for the most secretive one.

Then, later in that same scene, I am drawn aside for private talk myself. The Duchess of York (who has been given some of Margaret’s lines, which is very interesting and probably worth a note in itself) warns me against Richard, who is in the room at the time and wonders what’s up. We kiss hands (the Duchess and I, not Richard and I, at least not yet), and I take her glass away and hand it to Hastings as I feel she has had enough. That’s two.

In the next scene, although I am speaking to a group, I speak to each in turn, taking hands with a symbolic handshake—that’s three handshakes in the scene at least. I enter with my arm around the Young Prince’s shoulder, and then later, I draw Catesby aside and put my arm around her shoulder. In my scenes with the Lord Mayor, I steer him around the stage so that he can play his part properly. Richard puts his arm around my shoulder (his shoulders are off limits, of course), and I take Hasting’s arm to lead him to the Tower. In each of those cases, or almost all of them anyway, I was doing what the scene seemed to require without thinking of Buckingham as touching people rather a lot.

In real life, as it happens, I don’t touch people very much. I suspect it’s not uncommon for a week to go by without my touching anyone other than my Best Reader, my Perfect Non-Reader and the Youngest Member. Oh, I shake hands, now and then, but not every day. When I come in to work, for instance, I do not greet anyone by touching them, with a high five or a back slap or whatever. When I come in to rehearsal, I don’t generally speaking touch people—I don’t shrink from a proffered hug or handshake, but I don’t offer them myself. I have a few friends with whom I am physically affectionate, but not many, and not new ones. It would not have occurred to me to develop Buckingham as a character who is physically—what—not affectionate, certainly. Physically insinuating, let’s say. But once the actions are there, it makes sense for the character, too. Outside-in.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So. We had a cancelled rehearsal on Tuesday, due to the storm that wound up dumping eight inches or so of the white stuff on our roads. SNo Big Deal, since we are naming our storms these days. And can I suggest, if the Baltimore/DC area is hit with another one in the next few weeks, we call it SNo Mas!, which I think has the proper sound of defeatism and disbelief.

Anyway, we were back to rehearsal on Wednesday, and one of the other actors, sitting around, came up with a great image that I think I may make use of, which is the idea of Buckingham as the manager of the band. He’s enough older than Richard and Richmond and all of them that he doesn’t really get the punk thing, but he sees that there’s money in it, so he’s all in favor. He’s the link between the punks and the straight world, the one who gets the gigs and collects the money, and maybe hands some to the band, but not too much, because they will just piss it away. He loves everybody, because anybody could be useful, and if possible, when he screws people over, he won’t be there to watch it, he’ll be in the back room gladhanding the next contact.

And then, you know, once the band has a hit and a contract, they don’t need him any more and out he goes.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The thing about putting on a Shakespeare play is that you have to set it somewhere.

So, in my positivist way, shall I do a breakdown? Yes, I shall.

Shakespeare in tights: This is in some ways the first thing that people think about, when they think about Shakespeare on stage. The cast dress in something approximating Elizabethan style, or what Shakespeare’s colleagues would have worn on stage. The setting approximates an Elizabethan theater setting, adapted to the physical layout of the theater. Drawbacks: comes with a sign marked Warning: Shakespeare is Dull. Relegates the actions to long ago, when things were different. Advantages: Audiences are expecting it, usually, and aren’t confused or distracted by it. Also, it’s what Shakespeare had in mind, so there is rarely any need to modify the text or otherwise put effort into making the setting work. Personal Taste: We hates it.

Historical Accuracy: That is, setting the production when the story itself is set, whether that is Ancient Greece or Medieval Italy or Imperial Woam or Scotland’s Dark Ages or Fairly Recent England. The idea is that the modern, clever, analytical dramaturg can bring out things in the setting that Shakespeare could not in his day, not having Wikipedia. Drawbacks: Togas. Also, Shakespeare is the total king of anachronisms, so you have to do some fancy footwork. And in the case of R3, it would be difficult for a Production Team to make it clear that this was not, in fact, Elizabethan, but a few generations earlier. Advantages: Well, it does have a sort of literal consistency. And some of the settings are pretty cool. Personal Taste: I’ve never seen it work really well. But then, I don’t particularly like Julius Caesar, which is the one that gets that treatment.

Modern Dress: Actors wearing the same clothes as the audience, pretty much. Advantages: It’s cheap and easy. And you can indicate quite subtle differences in class, regional background, ethnicity, climate, affluence, rank and occupation in ways the audience can pick up on. Disadvantages: No sensawonda. Difficult to explain references to horses, heralds and hogsheads. Throws the non-naturalism of Shakespearean language into sharp relief, as well as the archaisms. Personal Taste Fine. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages for me.

Brilliant Idea: There is a time and place (possibly imaginary) that totally works on a bunch of levels. It casts new light on the play as well as on its setting, and also on our own situation. Not only does the main setting work, but all the other places fit as well, and the class/race/wealth/culture/religious differences between the characters translate beautifully. Advantages: Wonderful, wonderful show, talked about forever. Disadvantages: Largely mythical. No, but extremely rare. The Fascist Julius Caesar, maybe the Voodoo Macbeth, the Fascist Richard III, perhaps the white box Midsummer. Alas, most ideas are not brilliant. Personal Taste: A wonderful, wonderful thing. When it happens.

Something to do: Something that looks good, at least part of the time. Coriolanus in Imperial Japan. Titus with tanks. The Comedy of Errors in Postwar Italy. Twelfth Night in the Wild West. Advantages: A couple of cool effects, some awesome costumes. Perhaps some cool music in between scenes. Doesn’t actually have to be consistent throughout the show; if you want to have the Capulets in kimonos and the Montagues in muumuus, heck, go for it.Disadvantages: Not making consistent sense. Can be distracting, when the audience is wondering why these dogfaces don’t have a radio, or why this importer doesn’t go to a different insurance house, or why that guy is wearing that thing on his head. Personal Preference: Actually, I like this sort of thing a lot. Oh, sure, I spend the intermission and half-an-hour afterward complaining about it (OK, half-an-hour a day for a week), but that’s part of the fun.

If I were to rank my preferences, I would say top would be the Brilliant Idea, of course, but second would be Something to Do, ahead of the other three. So as much as I am complaining and will complain about the whole Punk R3 business, and as much as I still don’t really get the point of it, the truth is that I’m just glad we’re doing the play, and I’m happy for the bits where the punk thing will work, and will live just fine with the bits where it won’t.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

As I have not yet finished my post about designs and settings for Shakespeare’s plays, and as I haven’t anything else to say at the moment, I would encourage Gentle Readers to view this publicity photograph of a Richard III performance. First of all, is it not a thing of beauty? And second, do all y’all recognize that Richard? No? Look closer.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

So. A quick breakdown of the 25 scenes of the play, with particular focus on Buckingham’s through-line. OK?

Act One, scene one is The Monologue, Hastings and Clarence. The important thing here is that in the politics, the following people are mentioned along with their supposed factional differences: Clarence and Hastings, of course, the Queen, Rivers, Mrs. Shore and the King. And, I suppose, Warwick’s daughter, the Lady Anne. Nobody mentions Buckingham.

Act One, scene two is the Seduction. Nothing to do with Buckingham, at least in the short term.

Act One, scene three begins with the Queen and Rivers (and Grey, cut in our version) and continues with Buckingham coming in with Stanley. We immediately learn that Stanley’s wife is in the anti-Queen faction; Stanley manages to straddle the fence (as usual). Buckingham passes along the idea of reconciliation from the King, but is not at this point included in that. Richard comes in and starts fighting with the Queen, and then old, mad Queen Margaret comes in (although this part is given to the Duchess of York in our play). Margaret has a happy facility for getting different people to agree, that is, to agree on how much they hate her. Buckingham is finally singled out for address by this powerless outsider, but he dismisses her and is brushed aside. After the gang all go see the King, Richard includes Buckingham in his list of “simple gulls”

Act One, scene four is Clarence’s murder. The key here is that this is the first murder, possibly the first violence. This is where things begin to actually move. Buckingham is outside this and pretty clearly doesn’t know anything about it.

Act Two, scene one is Edward’s deathbed; Buckingham is there and makes it clear that foreshadowing is a legitimate literary technique. After the reconciliation, when Richard drops his bomb (the news of Clarence’s death, blamed on the Queen), Buckingham does not go with the King and the rest but waits with Richard and whoever is with him. He has the last line of the scene (“We wait upon your grace.”), which we are playing as a formal declaration of support to Richard. A private declaration, but clear.

Act Two, scene two is Richard’s mother, the Duchess of York, and her orphaned grandchildren (that is, Clarence’s children), and then Queen Elizabeth and then Rivers and Dorset (still on the fence) and then Buckingham comes in with Richard and that faction (Stanley and Hastings and Ratcliff). At the tail end of the scene Buckingham is seen in active political maneuvering for the first time, but still subtly, waiting until he is alone with Richard to speak openly.

Act Two, scene three is a group of Citizens discussing the political scene. We cut this. The only thing worth mentioning is that they mention only the young Prince and his uncles (Richard and Rivers, and the Queen’s other brothers); there is no mention of Buckingham at all, nor of Hastings or Stanley or Dorset or anybody else on any side.

Act Two, scene four is Queen Elizabeth and her younger boy and her mother-in-law getting the news that Rivers and Grey and Vaughn are prisoners, sent up by “the mighty dukes Gloucester and Buckingham”. Gloucester is Richard, by the way; most of the characters are referred to variously by their first name, their title lands, their family and their rank. Buckingham is never anybody but Buckingham, which is nice. But the key thing here is that Buckingham has by this time declared himself publicly, and is known to be on Richard’s side against the Queen and her family.

Act Three, scene one is the first time we see Buckingham and Richard working together. They have come to meet the Prince of Wales and divert him to the Tower; they make a show of convincing him that it is for his own protection. Then Buckingham has a political conversation with Catesby, of all people, as if Richard hadn’t been directing Catesby from the beginning. The notable thing there is that although Buckingham and Richard are publically allied, he spends a lot of effort on pretense: they are civil to the Young Prince, although he pretty obviously sees right through that (and also sees that he has little choice), and his instructions to Catesby are clumsily subtle, if that makes sense.

Act Three, scene two begins with a lot of Hastings and Stanley business, and ends with Buckingham coming in and having a brief and somewhat odd conversation with Hastings. Buckingham reveals to the audience that Hastings is for the chop in an aside that reads like a sort of Richard-knockoff. It’s Buckingham using the Richard technique, but badly, and to no great purpose. It’s also odd that Buckingham is here by himself, one of the few places he isn’t with Richard.

Act Three, scene three is the deaths of Rivers, Grey and Vaughn, and we have cut it. It’s a shame, really, but as we are making Rivers stand in for all three of them, it would make the scene awkward. This scene, by the way, has another reference to Buckingham in his absence, in a way that clearly ties the Richard and Buckingham together.

Act Three, scene four is the strawberries scene. There’s a bit at the start where Buckingham jests about not being as close to Richard as Hastings is. That’s contradicted immediately on Richard’s entrance, when it is clear that they are buddies, and in fact leave the room to speak privately. Interestingly, when they come back in and Richard accuses Hastings, Buckingham doesn’t speak at all.

Act Three, scene five is the scene of Hasting’s Head, where Buckingham and Richard pretend to have just barely fought off a murderous attack. It’s a hilarious scene, and the two of them seem to be almost equals. They alternate advice to each other, and play to each other’s lines. Fun to do.

Act Three, scene six is the Scrivener scene, and cut. I think I want to write about this scene later, but for now, there’s nothing Buckingham in it.

Act Three, scene seven is the photo-op, where Buckingham arranges to bring the Lord Mayor to disturb Richard at prayer, and then offer him the Crown, which he reluctantly accepts. It’s a lot of fun. At the beginning of it, Buckingham talks about his appearance before the electors, and how (a) Richard has no popular support at all, and (2) he is able, with the help of a claque, to provide a facade of popular support, enough to go on with. In all of this, Richard is listening to Buckingham—in the full text (not in our version) it is clear that Richard’s earlier advice was insufficient without Buckingham having thought to pay a claque. Then Buckingham gives Richard advice on handling the photo-op, which he meekly takes. We do not, alas, get a moment between them to private enjoy the success of their plan.

Act Four, scene one is the womenfolk learning (from Stanley) that Richard is going to be King. Nobody talks about Buckingham.

Act Four, scene two is the giving vein scene, just after the coronation. It begins with Richard drawing Buckingham aside for private consultation and ends with Buckingham kicked to the curb and fleeing for his life. A great, great scene. I don’t know if it can be a surprise to the audience, which has over the last half-hour or more been seeing Buckingham not only increasingly at the center of things, but tied very strongly with Richard as a character and his success. Now, gone.

Act Four, scene three is Richard and his goons. Buckingham is mentioned, but is not considered a threat.

Act Four, scene four is the wooing of Elizabeth, a long and lovely bit in the middle of a very long and rather muddled scene with a lot of mostly unconnected bits. One of the bits is the news that Buckingham’s army is scattered. The last bit is the news that Buckingham is now a prisoner.

Act Four, scene five is a short scene between Stanley and one of Richmond’s supporters;

Act Five, scene one is Buckingham’s death scene. Or at least, his just-before-being-taken-offstage-and-killed scene, depending on how bloodthirsty the director is feeling. We haven’t blocked it yet. It’s a nice bit, short enough not to slow down the action, in which Buckingham more or less goes over the story so far.

Act Five, scene two is Richmond and his buddies.

Act Five, scene three is a long and bizarre scene, containing in it a bunch of plot stuff and fight stuff, and the Ghost Scene, where Buckingham is the last ghost, in the chiefest place, but, you know, still dead. After the ghosts is Richard’s last great monologue (very different from the earlier ones) and then the battlefield speeches and the battle begins.

Act Five, scene four is a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse. Which is pretty much the whole scene.

Act Five, scene five is Richmond killing Richard, and getting the crown from Stanley, and the end of the play, hurray.

This is all somewhat misleading, as the division into scenes is not necessarily going to be visible to the audience. But still, I think it should give an idea of what I’m talking about with my character arc, and how it helps tell the Richard story.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I’m not sure which kind of rehearsal dream is worse.

There’s the kind where you wake up absolutely convinced that you have had a brilliant idea in your sleep, and that you really should deliver the line not to the glassblower directly, but to the glassblower’s cat, which would totally bring out how bompstable the relationship between you and the glassblower really is. And then only later, when you are fully awake, does it occur to you that the glassblower doesn’t have a cat, and that you don’t have any scenes with the glassblower, and there isn’t a glassblower in the play anyway. And that bompstable is a perfectly rippin’ word but it doesn’t so much have any meaning, alas.

And there’s the kind where you wake up already unable to remember what brilliant idea had come to you in your sleep. But that one probably was brilliant, right? If only you could remember it.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There are, of course, a million different ways of playing Shakespeare for an audience, and not all of them are wrong. What I’m on about at the moment is the verse.

I assume that y’all know what I mean when I talk about Shakespearean verse. Perhaps I shouldn’t. Essentially, Shakespeare wrote big chunks of his plays in a highly rhythmic style, not much like common speech. This is separate from the language—Shakespeare has a largish vocabulary containing a fair number of words that you won’t come across very often, and very very often uses words you know in ways you don’t, but I think that’s exaggerated in people’s minds. The thing about the verse is that the demands of its rhythmic structure (among other things) push the structure of Shakespeare’s sentences well out of what we expect. This is not a problem unique to Shakespeare, or unique to iambic pentameter; David Mamet, f’r’ex, and Martin McDonagh f’r’another’ex, bend grammatical syntax to their rhythmic demands. But with Shakespeare, which has a reputation for unintelligibility, it’s something that requires real and serious thought.

There are two major schools of thought: some people emphasize the verse, other people play against the verse. If you figure that Shakespeare’s intent in writing in verse in the first place should be a high priority, you focus on the beats and play them up. If you figure that the verse is a problem for audiences, you focus on the beats and break them up.

Let’s take a look, shall we, at one of Buckingham’s most famous speeches. It’s not terribly long. Seven lines. Buckingham and Richard are preparing for a photo-op with the Lord Mayor and a crowd of Citizens, during which Richard will be formally offered the Crown and will accept it.

The mayor is here at hand: intend some fear;
Be not you spoke with, but by mighty suit:
And look you get a prayer-book in your hand,
And stand betwixt two churchmen, good my lord;
For on that ground I’ll build a holy descant:
And be not easily won to our request:
Play the maid’s part, still answer nay, and take it.

First of all, it’s written here as verse. As a clue to which school I am in, here’s how I formatted it in my sides for the scene:

The mayor is here at hand. Intend some fear; be not you spoke with, but by mighty suit. And look you get a prayer-book in your hand, and stand betwixt two churchmen, good my lord, for on that ground I’ll build a holy descant. And be not easily won to our request: play the maid’s part—still answer nay, and take it.

What’s odd to me is that on the whole my instinct is for stylised acting, rather than naturalism. I don’t have a problem in theory with the idea of verse; it doesn’t bother me at all that people don’t talk like that. But when I see a passage like this one, my first idea is to see where I can break up the verse.

Perhaps some noise will help. Here is YHB reading the thing with an eye to keeping the verse. I’m trying not to exaggerate. Emphasizing verse is not just going rumpty-tumpty-tumpty-tum. More than anything, it’s finding those places where the verse is not regular. Now, having said that, R3 is very rumpty-tumpty compared with later plays, and this is a pretty rumpty-tumpty passage. All seven lines have all their feet; there are two lines that have an extra soft syllable at the end. There are a few more beats that have an extra soft syllable in them, barely. The last line is the furthest off, with no introductory soft syllable and that double off-syllable in the middle. You could think of it as two trochees at the beginning, followed by three iambs, or you could think of it as the first two iambs of five being busted. Whichever it is, it’s clearly a break, there.

OK, now here’s the other way, where I look for ways to break up the verse and emphasize the meaning rather than the rhythm. I again am trying not to exaggerate. The way I do this is to treat the speech as if Buckingham is making it up as he goes along. Say the first bit, get a reaction, decide what to say next. It’s actually perfectly plausible that Buckingham would have had the idea about the churchmen and the prayerbook while walking back from the hall, but what the hell, it’s more exciting if he comes up with it on the spur of the moment. I’m also trying to play up the connection between the two, where they are working together on this project, and Richard is for the moment at least pretending to take his cousin’s advice.

The second version is a few seconds longer. That may not seem like a lot, but with thousands of lines of verse, adding a second to each line can add up to a very long time indeed over the course of the play. On the other hand, if the only way to get through your text in a reasonable time is to gabble it at tremendous speed, perhaps you need to cut some more.

The real issue, though, is that the two instincts don’t work very well together—if Richard is emphasizing the verse, and Buckingham is breaking it up, they sound like they are in two different plays, working against each other. And I think my Richard likes him some verse. And given his lines, who could blame him?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I haven’t yet reported on our first rehearsal, which was on Thursday last. This was our first proper rehearsal, I should say; the read-through doesn’t count.

The evening began with a rehearsal with Richard alone, which is as it should be, and then I joined them all for some general discussion about the relationship between Richard and Buckingham and the way that plays out in our production. We have agreed that Buckingham is not a punk, or at least not at heart; he follows Richard out of opportunism, and indeed does not so much think of himself as following Richard as being equal partners with him, and perhaps even as Richard’s puppetmaster. But then (and I should discuss this with Maria directly) one of the funny things about Buckingham is that his high opinion of himself is very much at odds with his deserts. He genuinely believes that he played a crucial role in Richard’s ascent; it doesn’t cross his mind that nobody actually believes his play-acting. They are bullshitting him as much as he is bullshitting them; they acclaim Richard because he would have them killed if they don’t, rather than out of faith in his Buckingham-described virtues.

Which is not to say that Buckingham is not important to the politics of the play. He is. It’s the fact of Buckingham’s active support of Richard’s claim that is important, not the actions themselves. If Buckingham is making an idiot of himself in Richard’s cause, rather than protecting the Young Prince, it’s clear which side is going to win. From the Lord Mayor’s point of view, or Oxford’s or Blunt’s for that matter, Buckingham’s support for Richard makes it clear that the Prince will never reign; it is time to find somebody else. In that sense, the moment when Buckingham and Richard ally themselves in II,ii is pivotal, and neither Catesby’s bungling nor Buckingham’s clowning are enough to shift the balance in the other direction.

Well. All that’s not actually a rehearsal report, just my thinking about it, mostly since that evening. At the rehearsal itself, as I said, we talked in general terms and then blocked out III,v and III,vii. Or mostly blocked them out; we still are lacking a Lord Mayor, so things will no doubt change when we have a real actor rather than an Invisible Man and the Stage Manager’s voice.

III,v is the scene of Hasting’s Head, a tricky scene to manage, particularly in an intimate theater. We will be following the time-honored tradition of keeping the head in a sack. I remember they brought Sir Ian the head in a metal pail, but I’m pretty sure he brought it out for us all to see. But that was a proscenium, and I was in the balcony. Although I had little opera glasses, as I recall. Anyway, there will be laughs, particularly when the Lord Mayor is left holding the proverbial; the trick I think will be to keep just on the straight side of the clowning line. We are laughing at the Lord Mayor ourselves, so the audience should laugh too, but then (ideally) feel just a bit guilty about it.

III,vii is the balcony scene, which will not of course involve a balcony in any way. This is where Buckingham pretends to implore Richard to take the throne on behalf of the people, and Richard pretends to be reluctant. It’s a goofy scene, frankly; by that time we know (or ought to) that Richard isn’t going to leave anybody any choice. It doesn’t matter whether the Lord Mayor consents, because we can find another Lord Mayor. It doesn’t even matter whether the Lord Mayor believes that Richard is piously reluctant, just that he is willing to say that he believes it. Nobody will believe the Lord Mayor, but that doesn’t matter either. It’s not unlike a coronation—it’s not going to convince anybody who thinks the monarch is illegitimate, but you have to go through with it anyway.

On the other hand, it is important, I think, for the audience to see that Richard and Buckingham do work well together. They generate a sort of rhythm together, feeding each other lines and relying on each other to carry through with them. It’s not a perfect partnership—I should go into detail at some point on the minor specific instances where they cross each other—but the audience should both (a) enjoy watching them work together and (2) imagine or almost believe that there is something genuine behind it.

Of course the audience should imagine or almost believe that Richard is in love with Anne. And that Richard is on Clarence’s side. And that Richard wants to protect the Young Prince. And that Richard is determined to prove a villain only because he cannot prove a lover. The audience should keep falling into the trap of trusting Richard, even trusting him to be untrustworthy, and then realizing they’ve been played again.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gentle Readers will be asking themselves, what about the Mix? Well, some of y’all might be, anyway. Maybe. Others, particularly if you are new-ish here, may not know what I am talking about. Well, Your Humble Blogger has started a tradition, of sorts, where I make a playlist of an hours worth of music for my castmates for Opening Night. As the first rehearsal for Richard III (or Gd Save the King and His Fascist Regime) is tonight, it is not too soon for YHB to start thinking about the Mix.

But what sort of a Mix shall it be? One way is clearly to do a mix of the 70s punk sides that are the artistic overlay to the show. On the other hand, I’m guessing we will be listening to that stuff in the theater itself. If it isn’t piped in as scene-change music (and I’m thinking it will be), the director is bound to be playing it just for us to get us in the mood. So there isn’t really any necessity to do up a playlist of it. Besides, I’m afraid that the pre-1980 punk stuff isn’t really my strong suit; I’m more of a post-punk guy. Oh, I like that punk stuff all right, but I don’t think I’m going to come up with anything that would go on the mix that I’ll be introducing to anybody.

The other idea that occurred to me, naturally enough, is to do a mix of Elizabethan music, or even music from the late fifteenth century (when Richard was King and everybody was nervous). The advantage to that is that I like that music, and I probably know more about it that my castmates, just because most of them probably don’t know anything about it at all. So that’s a possibility.

Another thing that comes to mind is an hour of songs with the word king in the title. Everything from “The King Porter Stomp̶ to “King Dork”. Or add in some songs with queen and duke; that has the advantage of allowing me to call the mix Duke’s Place, because, you know, Duke of Buckingham. That would be pretty easy to do, and I would have a lot of choices, so I wouldn’t wind up throwing in lousy songs to fill an hour.

What else… songs about killing people, of course. Songs about ghosts? War songs? A whole hour’s worth of songs by people named Richard? That would be funny, actually.

Anyway, Your Humble Blogger has a little time to think about it, so now would be a perfect time for a Gentle Reader to provide inspiration. Come on now, inspire!

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, and the rehearsal process has begun. Last night was the first read-through, and I’m working on my lines.

The first read-through is a strange thing. For one thing, sitting around reading a play is a strange thing in the first place, somewhere in limbo in between acting and reading. For another, we are at the very beginning of the process, in a room with strangers and near-strangers (and friends and lovers as well, depending), and as much thought as we may have put into our characters in advance, this is the first moment when our castmates hear it aloud. There’s something tentative about it, and the lack of gesture and movement makes it even more so.

And, of course, actors react to that tentativeness in different ways. I tend to go over-the-top, trying to make up for the lack of visuals and for the unfamiliarity with volume and expressiveness. Also, you know, there’s nothing like getting a laugh out of the rest of the cast. Other people go the other way, bringing the energy down, keeping their eyes on the page and concentrating on getting through it. That’s a perfectly good reaction (although, as it isn’t mine, it is a little strange, isn’t it?); any particular line reading or any idea of character arc that you have at this point is certain to be demolished over the next few weeks. So I don’t have any sense of how our Richard is going to play the thing—but then he doesn’t have any sense of how I’m going to play Buckingham. Until Thursday, when the first rehearsal is just we two. And maybe later.

Our Richard is not, as it happens, the Richard I had been willing to wager we would have. I don’t mean that I’m questioning the decision—our Richard gave a good audition, as did three or four other potential Richards, but I had pegged one fellow as Richard, and they went the other way. The casting table had seen both of them in previous shows, so it’s not surprising that they know more than I do. Anyway, I’m happy with him. Envious? Yes. But happy.

And the rest of the cast is very good, too, at least as far as I can tell. Our women are conspicuously good. Our women playing the women’s parts, I mean. The woman playing Hastings and the woman playing Catesby, as well as the very young woman playing Ratcliff, are good, but our Anne, our Elizabeth and our Duchess are all marvelous. The Duchess will be interesting, as they’ve given her some of Queen Margaret’s lines (having cut Queen Margaret altogether), which makes her much less sympathetic. She storms into the squabble scene and publicly insults and curses both her youngest son and her daughter-in-law; she appears to regret the entire war, despite being on the victorious side. As well she might, as her husband was killed in it, and she is mocked, disparaged and discarded by both political factions in the aftermath.

The great moment in the read-through, though, came late in the play courtesy of our Young Prince Edward. This punk R3 has, quite correctly, got rid of most of the kids. Clarence’s brats are gone altogether (hurrah!) and the long taunting Richard receives from the Younger Prince Wossname is gone, too, as is the Younger Prince. Edward is the only representative of that generation we see. Our Prince is a very cute kid, excited about the idea of doing a real play, and perfectly able to get his mouth around the few lines of verse he has left. I don’t know how old he is, and I’m not good with guessing those ages, but he could be twelve or thirteen, say. Something in that range. He did his bit very nicely in Three, one and was carted off to the Tower.

Later, on the eve of the Battle of Bosworth Field, Richard (and Richmond, in the full script, but we’ve cut that) is visited by the Ghosts of the Dead, specifically the people who Richard has had killed or killed himself. Or some of them, anyway; in the full script it’s eleven ghosts. In our version it’s not so crowded. But we still have some ghosts, at least for now, and we get to Five, three and Dead Hastings has told sleeping Richard to despair and die, and there’s a pause. A longish pause. And we’re all looking around, and there’s Young Edward, sound asleep in his chair, his head resting on his mother’s shoulder.

Cutest. Read-through. Ever.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Rereading the play with an eye to Buckingham, Your Humble Blogger noticed that the part is structured very oddly. It starts out as a small supporting part, which becomes a very big part in the middle, and then, just as the play is coming to a climax, he is cut off, and makes just a couple of small appearances in the second half.

I'm going to go through the scenes, as they are in the full (Penguin) text. First of all, there are a lot of scenes. 25 scenes in the five acts altogether, with no act having fewer than four. Some are short, and some are immense, and the whole division into scenes is a bit suspect from the start, but still: lots of scenes. And Buckingham is in eleven of those 25 scenes, a bit less than half. In the first act, I have only a few lines, and again in the last act, but I am in five of the seven scenes in act three. Well, I'm going to go through them one by one, which you knew anyway, so here we go.

I'm not in either I,i or I,ii. The first scene is the monologue and the scenes with Clarence and Hastings, which set up the politics of the factions; Buckingham isn't even mentioned. The second is the seduction of Lady Anne, which doesn't touch on Buckingham at all, so that's all right. Those scenes, by the way, total about 430 lines of verse (if you do them all, which nobody does). The third scene is all politics. It starts with the Queen's faction, and Buckingham and Stanley come in quickly. It's established that Stanley's wife is not in the Queen's faction, although it isn't clear whether Stanley himself has chosen sides, and Buckingham stands aside and is ignored. Then Richard and Hastings come in and squabble with the Queen's faction, to which Stanley and Buckingham stand apart, and then the old banished Queen comes in and everybody joins together in vilifying her. Buckingham is actually pulled aside by the old Queen to make two points: first, that Buckingham and his family were neutral in the civil war just concluded, and then that Buckingham should not trust Richard. Buckingham dismisses the idea, and is cursed for it. I enter on line 17 and exit on line 323 but have only a dozen lines of verse of my own in between. At the end of the scene Richard is left behind to arrange Clarence's murder, in a sort of after-scene; the whole scene is 356 lines. And then there's Clarence's murder itself, of course, a long, long scene of 286 lines, and Buckinham isn't in that or mentioned at all.

So. The first act is between eleven hundred and twelve hundred lines, of which Buckingham delivers twelve. He is on stage for three hundred or so, perhaps a quarter of the act, but most of that is spent in the background. And in the real business of the act for everyone other than Richard, which is finding out who is in which faction, Buckingham is oddly unidentified. There is no reason for the audience to suspect that Buckingham will be important. Certainly Rivers, Hastings and Stanley are placed more obviously in the plot. But things are about to change.

Act Two opens with what I think of as Edward's deathbed scene, although really it's just the dying King's final scene, where he demands reconciliation between the factions. Buckingham is singled out and gives a short speech in which it is revealed that foreshadowing is a legitimate literary device. 140 lines in the scene, Buckingham has a dozen of them but is singled out more than once. Still a minor character, but gaining. Then there's an inevitably cut scene with Clarence's children (I came across a great quote from Brian Blessed, in reference to cuts in this play, who claims that nobody in the history of the English Theater has ever even known that Clarence had any kids) which leads into a bit arranging for the arrival of the Young Prince. Buckingham takes the front as arranging everything. It's only 24 lines out of 154 in the whole scene, but it's a key plot mover, particularly as it's the first moment where we see a relationship between Buckingham and Richard. Buckingham refers to us two: it's not clear whether he has already started to conspire with Richard or if he is now proposing to begin, but either way, the audience is now alerted to a change.

The third scene is between three unnamed citizens, worrying about the realm in the aftermath of Edward's death; it's 48 lines that have probably never been performed, unless the leads need time to change costumes. The fourth is another short and often-cut one, 73 lines between Edward's widow, his mother and his younger son. And that's the end of Act Two, a bit over 400 lines of dialogue, of which Buckingham still has only thirty or so, but (and this is crucial) spends less time being ignored.

And now Act Three, in which Buckingham has the first line, as he greets the doomed Prince. We are now suddenly seeing a Buckingham/Richard double act, dishonesty and subtle mockery and plans within plans. That scene is 200 lines; Buckingham has more than fifty, almost the same as Richard himself. Then there's a short scene with Stanley and Hastings and a lot of politics. It's 123 lines, and Buckingham comes for the last eleven and delivers six and a half of them—when he comes in, he dominates the scene for the moment (and in the absence of Richard). The third scene is the death of the Queen's faction, 26 lines and not necessarily performed. And the fourth is the immediate power-grab, orchestrated by Buckingham and Richard together: the scene is only 107 lines (I think if it as longer) and Buckingham has only eleven, but spends a portion of the scene in private (unheard) conversation with Richard, clearly at the center of attention. The fifth scene is the scene of Hasting's Head, where Richard and Buckingham play-act that Hastings attacked them first&8212;it begins with a wonderful, wonderful exchange between them about their ability to lie and be believed. It's also short: 109 lines, but Buckingham has 39 of them, and much of the rest are addressed to him directly. It's still Richard's scene and Richard's play, mind you, but Buckingham has stepped up to a major supporting part. The Act ends (after a 14-line comic bit with a Scrivener) with another scene cooked up between the two of them, where Buckingham persuades the oh-so-reluctant Richard to accept the kingship, all put on of course for the benefit of the Lord Mayor. It's a longish scene and Buckingham spends most of it talking, 155 lines out of 247 total. And that's the end of the act: 800 or so lines, and Buckingham has 250 of them, about a third of all the lines in the Act Three. Act Four, and Richard is King, and Buckingham wants to be paid but finds his buddy is not in the giving vein. He is only in IV,ii, which is a great scene. Buckingham has 30 lines or so in that 124-line scene and then flees. The act is five scenes and something around 850 lines or so, most of which take place rather conspicuously in Buckingham's absence.

And then Buckingham is executed in V,v. It's a nice little scene, 29 lines and of course all but two of them are his. And we move on. The play is moving very quickly now toward its end; The second scene is only 24 lines long. The third is the center of things, 351 lines covering the whole night and dawn, and including the appearances of the Ghosts, including Buckingham's Ghost, who gets another bonus lines. The fourth scene is all of thirteen lines and ends in Richard's death, followed by another forty lines in the last scene of all. That's 467 lines (if I've counted right), and Buckingham or his ghost get to deliver 36 of them.

So, you see: 350 lines or so, of which 250 are in Act Three. The whole play is around 3700 lines, if I'm not confused. So Buckingham is a third of Act Three, and a thirtieth of the rest of the play. That's not so unusual—after all, Clarence dies in Act One and has very little to do for the rest of the night, and Lady Anne gets one huge and important scene at the very beginning and then kind of wanders through the play for a bit before being forgotten entirely. Richmond doesn't poke his nose onstage until the fifth act and then pretends to be a major part through the end. There a hundred million characters in the play, and only Richard is consistently important throughout. But it does lead to questions for me as an actor preparing the role: should we clue the audience somehow that Buckingham will become important later, or should he surprise the audience by coming out of nowhere (and surprise them again by disappearing as quickly as he came)? Should we play that Buckingham and Richard are old buddies who seize on the chance to work together, or are they comparative strangers who find they have like souls? Or do they have like souls—is Buckingham a dupe all along and only deceives himself into thinking he is a partner? Is he betrayed or just discarded?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, and the news is very good indeed. I mean my personal news, of course, not any news of national or political import. My news is that I have been cast as the Duke of Buckingham in that punk Richard III I’ve been hocking about, and that means that for the next few months this Tohu Bohu will (if all goes well and the creek don’t rise) feature reports from rehearsals and the whole process of putting on a show. And none of the political commentary that I used to do so much of.

Which is just as well, really, because, honestly: a spending freeze? What the fuck? I mean, what the fucking fuck sense does that make? I don’t think I could write a blog note that said anything more coherent than that, and knowing that, I wouldn’t write anything at all, and then, you know, not so much blog any more.

So here we are on this Tohu Bohu, having become a books-and-theater-and-sometimes-music blog, more than a political rhetoric blog. Except, of course, that R3 is political rhetoric, and more than that, it’s political rhetoric about political rhetoric. And so much more. I really love this play.

For those of y’all who don’t know the play at all, or who are vaguely familiar but (very reasonably) can’t tell your Buckinghams from your Ratcliffes without a scorecard), Buckingham is a very good part indeed. The show is Richard’s, of course, and far more of a star piece than many of Shakespeare’s plays. But then I assumed I wouldn’t get that part—you don’t choose that play and go into auditions without having a pretty damned good idea who your Richard is, and it wasn’t me. Because, you know, they didn’t know me. Still, there are a bunch of very good parts in support of Richard: Clarence, who has one magnificent scene and then has the rest of the night off; Hastings, who is loyal and true and utterly, utterly hosed; Richmond, who is young and hopeful; Edward, who is old and dying and then has the rest of the night off; and even Catesby and Ratcliffe and Tyrell.

But Buckingham is Richard’s main partner in crime, and the betrayal of Buckingham immediately following the coronation is a major turning point in the play, as well as being a great scene with several famous lines (Richard’s, of course, not mine). It was Ralph Richardson in the Laurence Olivier; it was Jim Broadbent in the Ian McKellen. And it’s me in this one in April. During the audition, I wrote the words I want Buckingham in my notes, and I got him.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Well, and as mentioned previously, YHB has auditioned for Richard III. I won’t know for a couple of days if I will be cast, but the audition went well, if one can speak of an audition from a process-oriented stance, independent of outcome. Of course, if I don’t get a part, the audition will have gone very poorly in retrospect, but at the moment, I would say it went well.

This was one of the auditions where we are all in the big hall and watch each other. It seems like a very community-theater way of doing things, assuming that we are not all completely eating our proverbials over the audition process and therefore able to be a big community together. I quite like it, as a way to spend an evening, actually. Which you may believe or not.

The thing about auditioning for a really great play is that a really great play is capable of a million interpretations—I should probably say that when I find a play really great, it is because it is capable of a million interpretations, each line capable of being shaded in a variety of different ways, each potentially powerful and freighted in a different way. That said, there are wrong ways to read a line, and with Shakespeare particularly, it is difficult, if you haven’t prepared the text, to get the meaning and the rhythms to work together, much less to work with the characters. Most of the people auditioning were quite good, but I heard about four people read the line in I,i

We speak no treason, man. We say the King is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen well struck in years.

and I wanted to get up and shake them and say it’s a joke! Pause after the word queen and think! And then, of course, somebody did, and I hated him for it.

But the real anecdote of the evening was that after we did our readings (mostly the Clarence scene from I,i; the Elizabeth scene in IV,iv; the Anne scene in I,ii; and the Prince Edward scene in III,i) the director asked if anybody wanted to read anything else. One young man asked if he could read the opening monologue, and the director said yes. And then, well, as one fellah said, how could any of us resist? So it was, I think, seven consecutive winters of our discontent. And it was a hoot. I mean, we were doing it seriously, we weren’t spoofing it (although I’m afraid I did do it in my Ian Dury voice), but come on—it’s just inherently funny.

Of course, my instinct is to play up the humor in the scene, anyway, as it is with all scenes. But this monologue really is funny. The whole series of comparisons between war and peace, leading up to his conclusion that… war is better! And then the outright statement of intention: I am determined to be a villain. That’s a laugh line, if I’ve ever heard one. And, of course, if it’s a laugh line at the beginning of the play, it sets us all up for real gasps when it turns out that he means it, surprising even (I think) himself with the extent of his villainy. And if you play the scene without humor, getting the audience to hate Dickon from the start, then where’s the play?

Oh, another comment from the audition, while I’m at it. None of us limped. None of us hunched over. Nobody cradled a withered hand. The director didn’t ask us to (she gave very little direction), and I suspect that we were all a bit embarrassed to pull out the crutches. And, I suppose, she feel that she has enough sense of our physical acting and our movement from the scene readings. And likely enough she is planning to downplay the whole limping business anyway, or else (she is a choreographer) she is confident in her ability to teach the physical business if she gets somebody who can do the lines. Still, a roomful of aspirant Richards, and no hunchbacks.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Your Humble Blogger will be auditioning in a week or so (if nothing prevents it) for a production of Richard III set “Set in late 1970’s London … amid the punk culture of the time.”

Now, Richard III is one of my favorites. I was lucky enough to see Sir Ian McKellen play it in 1992 or 1993 or so, his famous production having toured for about a million years at that point, and it was heartstoppingly wonderful. Magnificent. I mean, you have no idea. Well, except my Best Reader, who was there, and who in fact bought me the tickets as a gift. Did I say thank you? Thank you, Best Reader. Anyway.

My immediate reaction was that it made no sense at all to set R3 in punk London. I mean, it made no sense to me to have the main characters, who are all in the elite, royals and mandarins and whatnots, be punks. You could have the murderers mohawked and strung out, but big deal—if you are going to set the thing in the punk culture, you have to have Richard and his brothers be punks, instead of being duke’s sons, military officers and magistrates.

Having said that it makes no sense to me from a narrative standpoint, I do have to say that over the last few weeks the idea has been growing on me from an emotional standpoint. I think this is because I have been following Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll, the Ian Dury biopic (starring Andy Serkis), and I’ve been thinking about that kind of twisted gleeful rage fitting young Gloucester pretty well. And, of course, I suppose one could imagine the plot being driving by Richard’s drug-fueled descent into paranoia, while simultaneously coming tantalizingly close to achieving the mainstream success and respectability that he rejected because it was out of reach. Ian Dury as Richard III.

Mind you, I still don’t think it makes any sense. And I don’t think that is exactly what they have in mind. But the idea has been rattling around in my brain for long enough, now, that I’ve decided present it to y’all for kicks and proverbials.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Richard.mp3

Posted by Vardibidian at 9:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Your Humble Blogger just had an odd theater experience that I thought I would share with y’all, as why not?

Gentle Readers will remember that YHB has been doing community theater over the last few years, not starting one play as soon as the other is finished (some start rehearsals for one show during performances of the last, actually, which I have never ever done) but allowing a nice rest in between. I did a show this past autumn, and one last spring, and one the summer before, and so on. Well, and I had been settling in to my time-in-between-shows, glorying in my evenings spent with Best Reader, tucking the Perfect Non-Reader and the Youngest Member in to bed, and generally not missing rehearsals, when I got a telephone call.

The director of Prisoner of Second Avenue, which was in rehearsals at the stage I was most recently allowed to tread, had come down with a bad case of lead-drop. I don’t know the details. But there he was, still eight weeks before opening, with no lead actor. So he called up two men he had seen recently, and one of them was Your Humble Blogger.

Now, I had seen the audition notice for 2nd Ave. I decided not to audition for it, because, as I say, I did not want to be in a show this winter, and I didn’t want to be in that particular show enough to overcome that. On the other hand, I was being offered a lead (or, more accurately, a 50% chance at a lead), and a lead that I think I could do well (Neil Simon should be in my wheelhouse). It would certainly be good for my future in the community to (a) be good in a lead role, and (2) help out a director in need. And, of course, it would be good to help out a director in need—it must be just utterly awful to have somebody drop out in the middle of rehearsals. So of course I said I would come in and read for him, and let him see.

The telephone call was Wednesday evening. We arranged for me to go and read on Thursday evening (latish, as my Best Reader had a thing scheduled, and I was on tucking-in-duty until she returned). That gave me all day Thursday to think about it, and since I was working in the afternoon, I could get a copy of the play and re-read it.

Digression, I suppose: I saw the thing ten years ago in London with Richard Dreyfuss in the lead, and my impression was that it was kind of a nothing part. I mean, a big part, sure, but it was just tossing out the wisecracks. It turns out, upon inspection, that Mr. Dreyfuss, the sonofabitch, is a good actor—the character is incredibly unlikable, but the audience needs to like him or the play doesn’t work at all. It is difficult to carry that off, and he did it without making me aware that he was doing it. At any rate, I was surprised, when I looked at it, how little idea I had what to do with the part if I wound up with it. Imitating my memory of Mr. Dreyfuss clearly wouldn’t work. End Digression.

So I went and read for it last night, and the director said he would get back to me today. So I went to bed thinking I might be in a show, and woke up thinking I might be in a show, a show that I had had no intention of being in until the night before.

So I was in a state of advanced ambivalence. On the one hand, I was thinking of all the reasons I wanted the director to pick the other guy. I don’t want to be in a show again so soon. The show isn’t really that great. I don’t have any idea what to do with the part. The weather is going to get ugly, and I would have to drive back late at night in January and February. It’s more work for the Best Reader. I would miss my Best Reader, and I would miss tucking the kids in, too.

And on the other hand, of course, I was thinking of all the reasons I wanted him to pick me. It’s a challenge as a part. I am building a reputation. I like being in shows. I would meet some new theater people. I am better than that other guy (whoever he is).

Well, the call came in around midday, and he picked the other guy.

Just as well, really.

Although I would have been better than him. Whoever he is.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 8:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You might think, on first glance, that a Noel Coward musical based on Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan, would be a good idea. Further thought, however, would probably lead to the realization that what Oscar Wilde does not need is to be a bit more Noel Coward, and vice versa. Or would lead you to invest a bunch of money into a production starring a woman with a singing voice that Mr. Coward described as sounding like someone fucking a cat.

Ah, well. I haven't heard it, but I have read After the Ball (a Concert Version), adapted, edited and rewritten by Barry Day, and frankly, unless the music is utterly utt, I don't see any reason for it at all. I mean.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the great things about working in an academic library is that when I have three auditions in a week, I can pretty much walk upstairs to the P section and grab copies of the plays. Not that our collection is all impressive compared to other such libraries (I had browsing privileges in one of the five great superlibraries for five years, so my comparisons are just a trifle unfair perhaps), but it was three-for-three for me this summer.

In fact, what I got was not just the script for The Trip to Bountiful but Horton Foote’s Three Trips to Bountiful, which included the telescript, playscript and screenplay. For those who don’t know, and why should they, the thing started as one of those plays-on-television they used to have in the fifties. It was so successful (and Lilian Gish was such a macher) that it was produced on Broadway the next year. Then it sorta kinda faded into the that-was-interesting history of American Theeyayter; Horton Foote did not become the Great American Playwright (or if he did, as some argue, he did certainly was not considered the Great American Playwright), and the play was not revived on Broadway. There were a few regional productions, and it was done in London I think, and there was an off-Broadway production, but it was not in the canon. The people who liked it, liked it a lot, but most people had never heard of it, or of Horton Foote for that matter.

Then some of those people who liked it made a movie, and that (I think) was the big move to Horton Foote becoming at least a Great American Playwright to those people who think about those things. Certainly Barbara Moore and David Yellin, who edited the Three Trips book think so. Well. Different people like different things, because people are different one to another, which is what makes life interesting and fun. And I am glad that Ms. Moore and Mr. Yellin put the book together, because knowing (a) I am just interested in adaptation, as a process and a problem, and (2) the differences between the three and the interviews and such that supplement them in the volume did provide me with some interesting and perhaps useful background when I was working on the show.

And no, I still haven’t seen the movie. And I don’t think there is any recording of the original television play.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)