Well, and the news from Thursday night’s rehearsal is that I need to rethink Rich Alfie. There are two problems—well, no, I tell a lie, there are three problems. Problem the first is that Rich Alfie is too different from Poor Alfie. The audience need to recognize Rich Alfie as just Poor Alfie in a different outfit, or a different set of circumstances. Problem the second is that I’m coming in far too hostile, which puts the audience off. The audience has to like Alfie; they like Poor Alfie, and need to like Rich Alfie just as much. Problem the third is that it has to be funnier.
The good thing about having a director that I adore (and, perhaps more to the point, trust) is that I don’t really have to worry about it. I tried one thing, it didn’t work, now I’ll try something else. It’s much better than sticking to the thing that doesn’t work until the audience comes in. If I had a director that I didn’t trust, well, I’d be sitting here today coming up with all the reasons that my original stuff was better, and sulking about having to do her stinky way that nobody was going to like. Then I would do it badly, no doubt, because I wouldn’t really believe it would work, and it wouldn’t work because I was doing it badly, and the show would suck, and everything would be lousy. This way is much better.
Why do I trust our director so much? Well, I’ve bought tickets to three or four shows that she has directed, now, and enjoyed them all. That counts for quite a lot. I’ve also been in two shows that she has directed, and several times in those shows she made decisions that I would never have made, and they worked. That counts for even more. Sometimes those decisions have been about my characters, and sometimes they have been about other people’s, and sometimes they’ve just been about the set or the sound. Heck, sometimes they’ve been about the choice of the show in the first place. The point is that she has good judgment, and knowing that makes everything easier on me.
Of course, knowing that my own judgment is not particularly good also makes it easier.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.