On Becoming Harry...

There are those that don't believe in the concept of "becoming" a character. I agree with them to a certain extent. We are who we are on stage no matter what. DeNiro can gain 80 pounds to get to where he wants to be as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull or Daniel Day Lewis can twist his body into a pretzel to be closer to his version of the character in My Left Foot or Christian Bale can become a virtual skeleton in The Mechanic to make his point but ultimately it is still DeNiro, Lewis and Bale doing the role. In Stephen King's book "On Writing" he talks about how a character is but a mere "bag of bones" compared to a living, breathing human being. He says that's the most an author can hope for. So the Strasbergian idea of "becoming" a character is pretty much nonsense. However, having said that, an actor can still do things to create the "illusion" of being someone else on stage. At least in his own mind.

So I thought I'd write a bit about the process I'm taking to become Harry, the character I'm playing in From the East to the West.

My approach has always been an "outside in" approach as opposed to an "inside out" approach. It's the old Olivier quote...I run as fast as I can and hope someone throws me the ball (see earlier blog). The first thing I do is find the walk. I experiment with different centers of gravity, find out what kind of shoes or boots I'm gonna be wearing, go through my mental inventory of people I've known that might have a similar walk, throw it all together in a pot and see what I have. In the case of Harry, two things came to mind. One is a next door neighbor I had as a kid. His name was Freeman Stark and he was, earlier in his life, a star athlete. He still had the slightly pigeon-toed, swaggering walk of the confident athlete. But he was older, in his forties, by the time I knew him and there was an added element. His knees were going. So in addition to the "athlete" walk, there was also a slight groaning about his movement. He was still graceful, but there was a slight hitch here and there, and a definite reluctance of his body to get going. It was still a rather intimidating walk.

The other image was Tom Hanks way back when he did "A League of Their Own." Same sort of thing, an athlete gone to seed, his knees and hips refusing to do as ordered. I remember seeing that film a long time ago, this was before Hanks had established himself as the very fine actor he is today, and saying to the person next to me in the theatre, "This guy is good. He's more than just a sitcom actor." Little did I know.

So I practiced walking around my back yard as Harry. Finally, I found the walk. And as I've discovered throughout my career, once I've found the walk, the rest usually follows fairly quickly.

Next was the voice. As I mentioned before, I had in mind the growling, tender, volatile sound of George C. Scott. But I also had to incorporate that hard R, sort of ugly, southern Missouri sound. Listen to the actress Holly Hunter in nearly everything she does...that's the sound. Fortunately this part was pretty easy because that's where I grew up and many years ago had worked hard to actually discard that dialect in my voice. Now all I had to do was bring it back.

Next was the psychological gesture. Every character has something they do, either vocally or physically, that is singular to who they are. In this case, I've incorporated two gestures: the slight pause before certain words as Harry allows his brain to catch up with his mouth (Duvall does this especially well with some characters) and a sweeping, open hand gesture he uses to make a point.

Also the stillness of the character. Ben Kingsley once said he's spent his entire professional life learning to be still. I like that. A stillness on stage from a character can be quite chilling. Every instinct in an actors body tells him to move, keep moving, do something, shuffle, grimace, drop the head, lick the lips, clench the teeth, change the stance, sit forward, etc. To work against those instincts and find a stillness often times allows the audience themselves to place upon the actor exactly what they want him to feel at any given time. It is an aspect of "Naked Face" work, too. Lose the emotion in the face, and let the audience do the work for you. It is not easy because, as I said, it goes against every instinct the actor has. But, when done right, it is really, really compelling.

This is something I strive for with Harry.

Had a friend watch rehearsal a while back...afterward he said something to the effect, "I'd like to see in Harry this such and such reaction." I could not possibly agree less. I'd like to show NOTHING and let the audience decide what they'd like to see. It is an odd approach, I know, but that's what I teach to my students and that's what I strive for as an actor. A lot of times, like this guy, a respected veteran actor here in LA, they just don't get it. But that's okay.

Alright, so I've got the walk, the shoes, the voice, the inflection, the psychological gesture, the speech rhythm, the stillness, the motionless threat of the character. What next?

For me, what's next, are the externals, the costume, the set, the heat under the lights, the other characters, the relationships, the blocking, the props, the space itself. All of that is now incorporated. So how does Harry and his walk, his talk, his posture, his stature, react to all of this? Suddenly it starts to get interesting and really complicated. The fun part.

Moriarty once told me long ago when I asked him about the actor Jon Voight, whom Michael had known for many years, to take note at how brilliant Voight was when he "had something to work with." That is to say, an accent or a limp or something external. Then, he said, look how hard he struggles when he doesn't have any of that, when he essentially is just play Jon Voight. Day and night. Michael was right. Voight is one of those actors that soars when he has a hook to hang on to. Something to play with, some "thing" that is different. But take all that stuff away and Voight struggles. I know exactly how he feels.

Last night at rehearsal as we worked through Act II, several times I stopped and did it again as Harry would do it, physically, that is. Makes all the difference in the world. Cross stage left as Clif and it won't stick. But cross stage left as Harry, in his halting, swaggering, injured-athlete walk, and it sticks forever.

An old friend of mine, a director, once said something to me in passing that has been in my mind for three decades. He said, "What you do in rehearsal is what you're going to do in performance." A seemingly common sense piece of advice. I dare say it has turned out to be far, far more than that. Somewhere deep in an actors mind is the idea that he will "explode" on stage opening night, once the audience is there. It is not true. Even veteran actors think this sometimes..."well, I'm not worried, I'll pull all the stops out when I get an audience." This is very dangerous thinking. What we do in rehearsal is, when under moment to moment pressure under the lights on opening night, is EXACTLY what we will do on stage. A very important and often self-preserving piece of advice.

I also remember doing 1776 years ago. The guy playing Ben Franklin, an older gentleman, made me laugh very hard one day. He called me aside and asked me to listen to his "three different accents" that he had narrowed it down to for Franklin. He spoke a few lines in the first "accent." Then he did the second. Then the third. I swear they were exactly the same. No change whatsoever. But I didn't want to topple this guy's perception of himself. He, clearly, really thought there was a difference. I said, straight-faced, "Oh, the second one, definitely." He seemed pleased and went about his work.

The point is, sometimes the work is only visible to the actor. And that's necessary. It's important. And it's what this silly pretending business is all about.

See you tomorrow.

An Excerpt: From the East to the West - 2/16, 2/17, 2/18

FROM THE EAST TO THE WEST, a new play written and directed by Clifford Morts.

A Benefit Performance for the prestigious NoHo Arts Center.

Executive Producer: Teal Sherer

February 16, 17 and 18. 8:00pm.

Call 818-508-7101 Extension 1 for production information, Extension 7 for reservations.

Featuring: Chad Coe, Nickella Moschetti, J.R. Mangels, Alex Robert Holmes and Malcolm Devine.

Assistant Director/Production Stage Manager - Mary Evans.

An evening of wounds reopened, secrets revealed and a family in turmoil. Funny and dark, a play, ultimately, of forgiveness and tolerance.

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Harry

Kevin! (Harry suddenly gets up and crosses quickly down to Kevin on the lawn.) You marry that little girl! Don’t let her get away! Ask her now! Before you both go away to college. Ask her ‘for it’s too late!

Kevin

(Startled.) Well, we’ve talked about it and . . .

Harry

(Taking him by the shoulders.) Don’t talk about it! Do it! Ask her!

Kevin

Well, she . . .

Harry

You take her out to a field. Take her out to a fresh cut field, boy. Lay her down. Smother her with kisses.

Kevin

We don’t . . .

Harry

Listen to me! (Beat.) Listen to me. Don’t waste one more second, boy. Things’ll change on you if you do. Things’ll slip away, boy. Listen to me hard, now. You take that pretty little girl out to a field and spread a blanket. Lay her down and promise her the world. Tell her you’ll give her a life she can’t even dream of. Kiss her on the lips and set her on a cloud, boy. Set her on a cloud. Don’t lose the days, son. Don’t let ‘em get away! Don’t let ‘em get away. Don’t wake up alone one more day, boy!

Kevin

Okay! Okay! I will. That hurts.

Harry

(Easing his grip.) Oh. Sorry, son. (Beat.) It’s just that . . . I don't want you to not know what’s important. You do your runnin’, boy. You got your whole damn life to run. You go to college and get yourself a good job. Buy yourself a nice little house. Plant a garden. Do ALL of that! But take that little girl and make her your wife. Do it today, boy! Don’t waste no more days! Not one more goddamn day!

Kevin

Okay, Mr. Cooke. (Beat.) Okay. (Backing off.) I’ll come back by to see Cory, okay? Just tell him I said hey. (Beat.) I’m sorry about Mrs. Cooke, sir. She was a nice lady.

Harry

(Looking hard at Kevin.) Marry that girl.

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See you tomorrow.

And Once Again...The Damned Lines.

Sometimes I think it's good to let go of a play for a little while. That's what I did yesterday. My beautiful and empathetic girlfriend, Angie, encouraged me not to think of it for a day. Of course, it didn't work. My mind was whirling all day. But one good thing came from it; I figured out the last moment of the piece, something that was giving me fits.

Also, I have always been able to compartmentalize what is bothering me throughout my life. I get restless, irritable and discontent sometimes, particularly when I have a new play going up. I've been restless, irritable and discontent for a week or so now. But I couldn't put my finger on it until yesterday. My philosophy has always been, "Find out what's really bothering you and fix it. Don't wallow in it, just fix it." Problem is, until yesterday, I didn't really know what was bothering me. During the football game yesterday, I figured it out. (Saints! Yes!) The lines. I still don't have the damn lines.

So today, I'm in "fix it" mode.

Today, I attack the lines with renewed vigor. It is the old actor's nightmare (so perfectly described in Christopher Durang's one-act). If I don't have the lines down perfectly, I'm off balance. Insecure. Searching.

I have visions of what might happen if I'm still flailing about on opening night.

There are some very famous stories in the theatre about this. One is with Olivier. Although it is not so much about lines as it is false cues. It seems during a performance of a Noel Coward piece, Olivier was opposite a young actor when the phone rang on stage, completely at the wrong time. They both froze for an instant. Finally, Olivier picked it up, said hello, listened for a second, and then handed the phone to the terrified, young actor and said, "It's for you."

Another one of my favorites was during the famous Julius Caeser that was done in the park with Pacino, Sheen and Hermann. New York production. Apparently someone had neglected to turn the phone off backstage during one of the performances. Ed Hermann himself told me this story. The director, months earlier, had had the brilliant idea of casting both "senior" senators and "junior" senators in the assassination scene (when the senate rises up and brutally stabs to death poor Caeser). So he had gone to the Equity Lounge in NYC (I've been there many times) and simply shouted out, "Anyone in here over 60 wanna be in a play?" Now back in those days, at any given time, one could find a dozen or so old Borscht Belt actors, probably hadn't worked in years, hanging around, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, gossiping. They all leapt at the opportunity. Now, remember, these were guys that still remembered Vaudeville. So here they are, all dressed in togas, doing the very slow and menacing scene in which Caesar is riddled with knives. As they back away from the body after stabbing him repeatedly, fake blood everywhere, silence on the stage as they begin to realize what they've just done, the phone starts ringing very loudly backstage. There is a beat as they all process this. Finally one of the old guys, in a loud stage whisper, with perfect timing, in a Bronx accent, says, "What if it's for Caesar?"

I directed myself some years back in an odd, little play called Redwood Curtain, up in Rochester, NY. I was directing and acting in the piece. As usual, as opening night loomed closer, I was still dragging the script around with me. I was petrified of putting it down. One of the actors in the show came to me at one point and said, "You know, you walk around here telling everyone what to do, how to proceed, marking your lines, giving notes, and every so often you put the script down and act and it scares the living shit out of all of us." A backhanded compliment, to be sure.

So today is all about lines. Saying them, walking around, saying them again.

In the play, there is a moment when Harry (the role I'm playing) has to fall to his hands and knees because of the overwhelming emotion of the moment. It is a very dramatic beat. So, I'm an old guy now, somedays older than others, and I'm not fluid and comfortable about falling on stage (after all, at my age I could break a hip and have to push that little button on my wrist band and say, "I've fallen and I can't get up"). So there I am in my backyard practicing falling down. My dog Zooey was out with me that day. She was terribly disconcerted by all this. I'd say my line and then fall to the ground, over and over. Fortunately, we have an enclosed backyard, so no one can see in. I can only imagine what the neighbors might have thought.

I remember, years ago in NY, I had a buddy in to visit me for a few days. He was not an actor, not in the theatre, in fact he was an architect. I had an audition that I simply had to go to. So he went along with me. As we walked in, hundreds of actors were sitting around, staring straight ahead, and seemingly talking to themselves. To me, of course, I didn't think anything of it. They were simply saying their lines. But afterwards, my buddy said to me, "I felt like I was in an asylum."

I have a hundred weird audition stories, like any actor, and someday I'll recount a few. It is an odd time for the actor, full of tension and ego and insecurity. Of course, strange things happen.

But today...today I memorize. And memorize. And memorize. It just has to be done. No getting around it. Repetition is the soul of art.

See you tomorrow.

From The East to the West

An excerpt: FROM THE EAST TO THE WEST. February 16,17, 18, 2010,
NoHo Arts Center,
11136 Magnolia,
North Hollywood, CA.

Written and Directed by Clifford Morts
Featuring Chad Coe, Nickella Moschetti, J.R. Mangels, Robert Alex Holmes and Malcolm Devine.
Executive Producer Teal Sherer
Producer NoHo Arts Center
Assistant Director Mary Evans

HARRY (to his youngest son, Cory, on the death of his mother):

"Well . . . Cory . . . this is the first and last time I’m gonna say this. I swear that. You’re her son. You deserve to know. (Beat.) We was covin’ out. Back up in six-mile cove. That spot where we always go. Peaceful. Quiet. No boats to speak of, really. No wake, no waves. Momma was a-sittin’ out back. On the back deck of the houseboat. She was sippin’ a salty dog. She’d taken to those lately. Gin, grapefruit juice, salt on the rim. I was at the wheel lettin’ the anchor down. Just holdin’ the button lettin’ the electric anchor down. We’d only just stopped the engines. Just as peaceful. I heard . . . I heard, now that I think of it, a boat, an engine, a buzz, like a far off fly or something, off in the distance. It was pitch black. Couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Not close, I thought. She called up, "Harry, there’s a ski boat a-followin’ us." Pitch black. I said, "A what? Where is it?" It was so dark I was feelin’ around tryin' to find the guard rail. And then, good God almighty, that son of a bitch must’ve run right square into the back of the boat. I’d stepped around the wheel and was standin’ next to the rail lookin’ in the wrong direction. That son of a bitch hit us and I just went to flyin’. Knocked me way the hell out into the middle of the goddamned lake. I came up and looked and saw that damned boat parked right up on top of the goddamned houseboat. Right up on the top. The boat was sinkin’ then. Ass end first. Just sinkin’, quick as shit. I started in to swimmin’ back as fast as I could, and I got to within maybe ten, fifteen feet of the boat, half of it was underwater by then, and I run right smack dab into your momma. She was gone, I know’d it right away. Her body . . . her head was . . . she was in bad shape, Cory. And I . . . held onto her . . . she flipped up on me then, her body sort of corked up, wrong end up, and her . . . shoes came off. I grabbed ‘em. Both of ‘em ‘fore they could get away, float away, lose ‘em in the water, slide away, sink, sink. And I held your momma up by the hair, by her bloody, bloody red hair, and her shoes, her shoes, up with the other hand. Kickin’ my feet like crazy to stay afloat. Up over my head. I wanted to . . . it seemed important to . . . keep ‘em dry. I don’t know what the Sam-hell I was thinkin’. She just, she just liked those shoes so damn much, I didn’t want them to get ruint. I honestly don’t know how long it was. Long enough to have a long conversation with her. I talked a blue streak. The boat was sunk. Gone. Them two fellas in the other boat was both wearin’ life jackets and I could see ‘em floatin’ a little ways off. They was both knocked out, I guess. They was both quiet. So I just held your momma up and her shoes and kicked my feet till I started thinkin’ I would just sink right along with her. Talkin’ to her. Talkin’ ‘bout personal things, you know. Stuff only me and your momma cared about. Stuff only me and her would know. And then a-finally. I could hear a boat full-out. Full throttle. Off in the yonder. Coast Guard, I knew. I knew it would be just few seconds then afore I was okay. And I give your momma a kiss on her bloody face and her . . . bloody hair and . . . and . . . told her . . . I’d see her in a little while. Save a place at the table for me. (Cory whimpers and breaks someplace very deep.) I made sure she was decent, covered up. And they pulled us out. Took your momma away from me. Covered her up. Put a blanket around me. Tried to take her shoes from me. Tried to take those shoes from me. Tried to . . . they couldn’t get my fingers to loosen off-a them shoes. Had to pry ‘em. (Pause.) I never wanted a drink so bad in all my natural life. But I held onto them shoes like they was the goddamn crown of thorns or some goddamn thing. (Beat.) I got ‘em upstairs."

See you tomorrow.

On Giving Notes and Muhammad Ali...

Some time back I was watching an interview with Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali's trainer. Dundee was with Ali his entire career. He's a squat, little man with a glaring Brooklyn accent, exactly like a boxing trainer is supposed to look and sound. Right out of Central Casting.

So one of the questions asked was, "How did you train Muhammad Ali? With his ego and natural gifts, what could you tell him to make him better?" Dundee said early on he discovered he couldn't train Ali the way he trained other fighters. So what he did was this: if Ali were working in the ring and he wasn't doing something Dundee wanted him to do, say, throw the jab off the hook, Dundee would tell him in the corner between rounds, "I love the way you're throwing that jab off the hook. I've never seen another fighter do it so perfectly. It's a thing of beauty, watching you throw that jab immediately after the hook. I don't know how you do it, Muhammad." And then Ali, who was NOT throwing the jab off the hook, would get off the stool and go out and do exactly that. And more importantly, actually think it was his idea. Great insight from Dundee into working with this genius of a fighter.

It is a great thing for a director to know, too. Not that I employ it so shamelessly as Mr. Dundee. But sometimes its best to let the actor think he's come up with something on his own. As I've said before, I'm an actor first, a playwright second and a director third. I adore actors. They are the most fascinating, child-like, intelligent people I know; full of doubt and confidence all at once. And when they're at the top of their game, they are thoroughbreds. I have worked with so many directors that simply don't understand this.

So sometimes its necessary to use this backward sort of encouragement. "I love the way you're taking that tiny pause before the line in order to nail that laugh. Really nice moment for you." That's all that need be said. The next time through, you can be absolutely sure that tiny pause will be there.

This is not patronizing. Not in the least. I believe its making a point without the carnage of actually giving a note. Note-giving is a delicate thing. I used to work with this tin despot of a director down south that would give hours, HOURS, of notes...caustic, horrible notes that included personal attacks, long, weeping stories from his own childhood, a performance unto themselves, these note-giving sessions. I used to think, "Are we rehearsing a play or watching a one-man show?"

So, last night we threw off the sickliness of the night before and attacked the piece with renewed vigor. The play's lead actor, Chad Coe, came in rearing to go. He'd obviously done a lot of "processing" over the past 24 hours and was shockingly cleaner, sharper and more focused. His is the most difficult character in the play. I'm very careful with how I direct him because of that. Its just simply not a case of "you cross here and say the line." Its a tough-assed role to do. Glad he's doing it, in fact, and not me.

The other two principal actors in the play have their curious strengths and weaknesses, too. Nickella Moschetti, playing Eileen, is one of the most instinctive actors I've seen in many, many years. Frankly, I have no idea what her process is and I honestly don't care. I worked with another actress like her years ago named Katherine Kelly in Glass Menagerie. They seem to be incapable of being dishonest onstage. There is some governor in their internal engine that won't let them be fake. This can be daunting to another actor like myself who's just openly fake sometimes. Working with people like that makes me sigh and put my acting tricks away. Just tuck them all away in a bag somewhere. Cause if I'm not glaringly honest with her onstage, I come out looking very, very stilted and manipulative. Nickella makes me a better actor because of this. That's saying something.

J.R. Mangels is working on the other big role. I get J.R. I completely know where he's coming from. Like myself, he can sniff out a laugh line from about two miles away. And he knows, he KNOWS, he'll get the laugh, too. And like myself, sometimes he has to purposely NOT go for the laugh in order to serve the greater good, the play itself. He's a fun actor to watch.

So here we are, this little band of Charlie in the Boxes, at the exact halfway point of the rehearsal process. We open this thing on February 16, right around 8:00 at night. Eleven days, thirteen hours, or something like that. And I've gone from being a tad stressed and rather doubtful, to being full of optimism and rather sprightly.

Today we're adding the music and sound to the mix. Sort of like sprinkling some pepper into an already spicy chili. Should be fun.

See you tomorrow.

The Dreaded First Run-thru...

We ran the play last night. It was everything I expected it to be at this point: sloppy, slow, tedious, ugly, dishonest and chaotic. Aside from that, not so bad.

I was particularly bad. I'm wearing several hats on this one: actor, writer, director, producer, sound designer and cheerleader. The only thing I did well last night was cheerleader. That may have had something to do with the short skirt and matching sweater with the embroidered "E/W" on it that I chose to wear. I wanted to just wear jeans but Angie said the cheerleading outfit brought out my eyes.

Years ago I saw the great George C. Scott onstage with John Cullum (also a fine actor) in a terrible play called Boys of Autumn. It was about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer grown up. Huck (Scott) was an old hermit and Tom (Cullum) was on the run as a child molester. Talk about beating your sacred cow. Anyway, the play was pretty bad; talky, uneventful, full of rambling monologues. But, hey, George C. Scott. Wouldn't have missed it for the world. Scott barely moved a muscle during the performance. Stood like an old oak in the middle of the stage while Cullum walked around him most of the night. His performance, even in this dreck, was mesmerizing. And that growling, tender, scary voice of his.

That's my role model for Harry (the character I'm playing).

The problem is that he's George C. Scott and, well, I'm not.

We haven't even begun to plug in all the technical stuff - lighting, sound, props, etc. So that was bothering me. Also, I'm beginning to second guess myself. This doesn't come as a surprise. It happens in every play. But the thing to do, and this comes from a butt-load of stage time, is to remember that there is a reason the first choice was settled on to begin with. Trust that choice. I'm trying to.

My buddy, John Bader, watched it last night. And for a few minutes we discussed the play at intermission. Amidst all the gobbledygook (that's what I heard, anyway, cause my mind was a million miles away) I heard him say, "What are their objectives?" That stopped me. Wow. It suddenly occurred to me I had to go back to Acting 101 again. Indeed. What ARE our objectives?

It is the little things I miss, as often as not. It is sort of like attempting the triple gainer before you've learned the cannonball. As a director I have skipped over a few things, not because I didn't know they were there, but because I just assumed everyone knew about them. And what is it they say about "assume?" Heavens.

So Johnny is right on this one. Wrong on some other things, I think. But dead on with this comment. It is the lifeblood of the actor's work...what do you want? That's the building block for everything...what do you want? What do you want? It informs everything, every choice, every reading, every nuance and shading, every movement. What do you want?

I also learned last night that I don't have the stage stamina that I once had. In a role this large and with this much emotion involved, I pooped out. I got tired at round five or six. I didn't have the whole fight in me. This will come back, I'm sure. But it caught me off-guard last night.

As always, I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night because I was thinking of a thousand things that needed fixing. We still have 12 days left to put it all together. But the rubber is meeting the road now, the idealism of the rehearsal process has come to an end. We have reached the "put up or shut up" moment.

Fortunate for me I have some really fine actors around to make me look good. To make the play look good. To rescue this dismal business. I'm only joking, of course. But a part of me is really wary right now. Can this be done? Will anyone be the least bit interested in all this yammering? Can we fascinate? Are we on the right path? Does anyone even care?

Oy.

See you tomorrow.

On Dialects and Perception...

Watched Brando in a movie from 1967 called Reflections in a Golden Eye last night. It's one of those southern gothic things...based upon a Carson McCullers novel, Brando's accent is so thick at times it's almost impossible to decipher what the hell he's saying. Angela kept turning to me and asking, "What did he just say?" Elizabeth Taylor is also in it and she's at her callous best. But the movie is pretty bad. Brando stepped in as a favor, more or less, to Taylor and John Huston, the director, after Montgomery Clift died. When I first saw it years ago I was dumbfounded by Brando's eccentric dialect choice. And then a couple of years after that I listened to a live radio broadcast of an interview with Tennessee Williams. Suddenly it hit me. Brando was doing a dead-on impersonation of Tennessee Williams. How clever.

But the whole thing got me thinking about accents. Nearly every actor thinks he can do great accents. Nearly every actor is wrong. I used to do a lot of work down at a LORT D theatre in Virginia called Mill Mountain. I loved that theatre (they went under about six months ago, alas). Anyway, a good buddy of mine, Ernie Zulia, was the Associate Artistic Director there for some years and I would sometimes wander over to his office for a very specific fun thing I liked to do: look at the thousands of resumes and headshots he would get in the course of his day. I could spend hours doing that. And Ernie, cool guy that he is, used to just pile them up on a big chair as they came in. I'd walk into his office and he'd point to the stack of resumes and just go on about his business and I'd sit there quietly ruffling through them and occasionally giggling. So I noticed that nearly every actor in the stack felt compelled to list their "accents and dialects." They would say, somewhere down toward the bottom of the page, usually under the "miscellaneous" section: Dialects: British, American South, New York (those were always the big three) and then they'd get a tad more specific - German, French, Russian, Australian, Indian, Italian, etc. Sometimes they'd get weird - Cherokee, was one I remember. Huh? Casting Director: "Um, could you give those lines again, this time try it in a Navajo dialect." Actor: "I'm terribly sorry, I can only do Cherokee." Casting Director: "Ah, yes, I see that now here on the resume. Pity."

The other thing that used to tickle me was the "Age Range" that was sometimes listed up near the Height and Weight and Contact Number. This was really just unpredictable. Actors with wonderful credits on their resume, seemingly clear-thinking, talented people, would just fall apart when it came to this "Age Range" business. I remember one guy put down: "Age Range - 18-96." Oh, boy. So again, a scenario came to mind. There's a play called Night of the Iguana. One of the principal characters in it is an old man named Nonno. Nonno is decribed in the play as being 97 years old. Casting Director: "So, if you wouldn't mind, please, take a look at Nonno on page 26." Actor: "Excuse me?" Casting Director: "Yes, Nonno on page 26, please." Actor: "Do you have my resume in front of you?" Casting Director: "Yes, yes, right here." Actor: "And what does it say?" Casting Director: "Pardon me?" Actor: (getting upset) "What does it SAY?" Casting Director: "Say?" Actor: It says AGE RANGE - 18 to 96! Nonno is 97! I CAN'T DO 97! I CAN PLAY 96! 96! NOT 97!"

Actors obsess over their resume and headshot. It's understandable. We control so little in the business we've attached ourselves to so when we finally have something we can control, like a resume and headshot, we tend to get very obsessive. We show the pictures to everyone to get their opinion: friends, relatives, acting teachers, cab drivers, anyone who will take a moment to look at an 8x10 shot of us. "Do you think that little smile is too much like a smirk? Cause I really don't wanna come across as a smirker. What do you think? That blouse. Do you think it looks like something Melissa Gilbert would wear? Cause I really don't wanna bring Melissa Gilbert to mind. My hair. What do you think? I've parted it about a eighth of an inch higher than I usually do cause I'm trying to come across as a little smarter than I am in real life. What do you think? Is the picture of me smarter than the real me?" It gets silly, really it does.

But, having written all that, I love it. I just adore it. I would sit for hours in Ernie's office all those years ago, giggling at the resumes and headshots...but not AT the actors, I wouldn't think they were fools, no quite the opposite, I LOVED their little peccadillos, their private obsessions on how others perceived them. Actors are the most amusing, interesting, aware people I know. I love being around them...my own kind. And I love reading what they hope for themselves and love reading what they've done that they're proud of. Actors, with their resumes and pretty shots of themselves, are exactly like people....only more so.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go practice my mid-central-urban-ethnic-second generation-Irish Maryland dialect.

See you tomorrow.

Sick People in Love

Been sick as a dog for a couple of days. The old adage is true, "If you don't have your health, you don't have anything." Much better today.

On Sunday I saw a beautiful, quirky, little musical under development called Sick People in Love. Years ago I became infatuated with a musical called Falsettos, by William Finn. All through the night on Sunday, I was reminded again and again of that show. I saw it twice, in fact, once with Michael Rupert in the lead and once with Mandy Patinkin in the the lead. Rupert was better in the role but, as always, Patinkin was more fun to watch.

Anyway, the music in Sick People in Love reminded me of Finn's intricate melodies in Falsettos. Sick People was written by Nickella Maschetti and her husband (who's name escapes me at the moment). The dialogue is often sharp and witty with a couple of unexpected long monologues dropped in the middle of the piece. And, delightfully, a talking, singing boar's head.

Afterwards, the generous authors, allowed a "talk-back." That is to say, the audience (all invited) were allowed to suggest ideas and share their thoughts with the creators and actors. I, personally, am never comfortable with this sort of thing. Not to say I haven't done it. George S. Kauffman once said, "Human beings have four basic needs: the need to procreate, the need for food, the need for shelter and the need to re-write someone else's play."

The audience seemed a tad confused by the whopping monologues in the midst of this beautiful, little piece. I, too, thought at first they were out of place. Upon reflection, however, I don't. In fact, rather than an obstacle, I think they present an opportunity...sing half of it, speak half of it. Another musical I rather like, Working by Stephen Schartz and Studs Terkel, comes to mind. So add incidental music, simple melody lines, a little water and shake. Easily fixed and at the same time the information and subtle metaphors in the monologues are still there.

As a playwright I have always considered monologues to be arias.

The other thing that came to mind on Sunday was the fact that the audience can really only see about ten percent of what the author's see in their mind's eye. Plays are meant to be seen; not read, not contemplated, not workshopped, but seen. I think everyone can identify with sitting around some lame high school english class reading Romeo and Juliet out loud. Or in my case, Julius Caesar. Here I am sitting there at the age of seventeen, trying to grasp Shakespeare's allegorical history. Years later I saw JC on stage with Martin Sheen and Al Pacino and Edward Hermann in Joseph Papp's famous production in the park. It was meant to be seen, to be experienced. It was altogether a different play than the one I read in english class all those years before. See, plays don't come to life until they're onstage. Plays are quite literally Frankenstein's Monster, dead pieces of meat before the lightning is utilized...and the lightning is the audience, the final ingredient, the bit of brandy dripped onto the writing at the last second and the fire blazes up.

So I'm sitting there watching Sick People in Love and thinking to myself, "How extraordinary this moment is. I'm watching something from nothing. I'm watching someone else's vision being shaped from dust. This is Providence."

Now, of course, I've been there a few times myself. Early on I found myself in this artistic trial by fire. We read a play of mine called Death in Des Moines (based on Thomas Mann's Death in Venice) years ago in NY. The comments afterward lacerated me. Then and there, in that little studio on the upper west, I decided to never do this again. Don't get me wrong, I think at times, a little workshopping never hurt anybody. But its a very, very delicate thing. The absolute right people have to be in the room. And the comments can't be sweeping re-writes of the show itself. They must be specific. They must be helpful. They must be, in the true sense of the word, criticism. Often times what happens is that once the play is heard by an outsider, he then comments on what HE would have done with a similar idea. No. That's not workshopping, that's ego. In fact, it's detrimental to the project itself.

I hope NoHo considers producing this piece, this lovely Sick People in Love. James Mellon, the AD at NoHo, likes the piece a lot, I think, and not surprisingly, had the the single most astute comment of the evening. What a beautiful thing to have this great space called NoHo to create and breath life into our creations.

I could see the two young authors flinch a little as the comments roiled in Sunday night. To them I say, don't worry about it. Use what you like, utterly discard what you don't. This is your vision, your piece. Creation is not a democracy. Incorporate other ideas and let fly the dogs of new possibilities. Besides, at the end of the day, YOUR name is under the title, no one else's.

Sick People in Love is a small piece of joy. I can't wait to see it fly someday.

See you tomorrow.

On Put-ins and Generals...

For reasons beyond anyone's control, I've had to recast a supporting role in the play. The actor taking the role is coming in today. He comes highly recommended.

So today, consequently, we'll have what's known as a "put in" rehearsal. We literally put the actor into the show.

I've been here before as an actor. The first time was years ago in a six month tour of The Fantasticks. I was put in as El Gallo. The actor playing the role was in charge of teaching it to me which was unfortunate because apparently he was bitter about leaving the show. Had nothing to do with me but he was being replaced for some reason. The weird part was that he was the one putting me in. Just the two of us rehearsing the role, alone in a dusty rehearsal space with nothing but a few chairs and a step ladder (El Gallo spends an inordinate amount of time sitting on this silly ladder during that simple, but elegant play). I'd had a few days to memorize the songs and lines (back then I could actually DO that in a few days). So he was assigned, by some clause in his Equity Contract, to do this. He resented me deeply. Even though he immediately acknowledged that I'd had nothing to do with the replacement, he still wasn't too warm towards me. It was a long time ago and I don't remember a lot about it except one line he said to me during the put in. At one point El Gallo has to ride in on an "imaginary" horse. I ride up to the ladder, dismount, and as I recall, immediately sing a song. I asked him, "Okay, so what I do with the horse?" He said, without missing a beat, "Oh, fuck, I don't know, ask Uta Hagen what you do with the fucking horse." All these years later I still smile about that one.

Some years later I was asked to step into the opera singer's role (Tito) in Lend Me a Tenor at a small, Equity theatre down on beautiful Sanibel Island, Florida, called Pirate Playhouse. Yeah, I know, really dumb name for a theatre. I had two days to learn it and get in front of an audience. I was in rehearsal for something like twenty hours in two days. Which was a good thing. The bad thing was the director didn't believe in "marking" it, so he made me play it full-out for those two days. By the time I was in front of the audience I had virtually no voice left. This is the problem with directors that have never been actors - they don't understand what it takes to do the actual work. This guy certainly didn't. He'd never been on stage in his life.

It is a sorrowful thing, but somewhere in the early twentieth century the theatre in this country began to be run by directors and not actors. For centuries, here and in England, the theatre was run by actors. "Actor/Managers" they were called. Nowadays, nearly every major theatre in the United States is run by a director; more often than not, a director who has never acted a day in his or her life. Pity. What this means in the over-simplified, final analysis is that now most theatre in this country is about blocking rather than acting. It is singularly responsible, in my opinion, for a butt-load of bad theatre.

My next put-in rehearsal was a few years later for an innocuous little British farce called Run For Your Wife. I never got this play. Really dumb little show. But audiences LOVE this thing. They devour it. The first time I did it, the play itself ran an hour and forty minutes. On opening night it ran two hours and fifteen minutes...the added time was because we had to HOLD FOR LAUGHS. That means that the actor has to wait a bit because the laughter is so loud, he has to "hold." Fortunate for this put-in rehearsal, I already knew the lines.

So the put-in rehearsal is nothing new to me. I like to work fast anyway.

One final note about this business of directors running the theatre these days. It's natural, of course. The director runs the rehearsal process, so, by proxy, he runs the theatre itself eventually. I don't like it and I think it churns out bad work, but that's beside the point. A lot of theaters around the country call themselves "actors theatres" including the famous one in Louisville. Not surprisingly, however, that theatre is run by directors. Go figure. The exception to this rule for a long time was Chicago's prestigious Steppenwolf. Actors completely ran that thing: Sinise, Jeff Perry, Terry Kinny, Malkovich, John Mahoney, Laurie Metcalf, a few others. But now even that artistic giant is in danger of being over run by the renegade ego of the director.

NoHo Arts Center, where I work as the playwright-in-residence, is run by an actor. This is one of the things that drew me to it. An actor makes the final decisions. As it should be. His name is James Mellon, and, like myself, even though he does a lot of other things - direct, write, produce, sing, etc. - he is an actor first. To the layman this might sound like a small and possibly unimportant distinction. To me it is a huge slab of encouragement. It is tantamount to a soldier running the army that has actually been in a battle as opposed to a civilian running the army that has only watched movies about battle.

Controversial? No, I really don't think so. Just common sense.

See you tomorrow.

Making a Roadmap.

Sat around and did some table work last night. I know, I know, I wrote earlier how much I hated table work. Well, I do. But you have to do it at least once. And we skipped that part of the rehearsal because of our time constraints, so the cast and I decided to do it last night. And it was a good thing. Often what is obvious to me is not always so to the actor. And vice versa, I might add.

The funny thing is, the play apparently stands quite nicely on its own. This is a relief to me. As we all sat around the stage last night reading a bit, discussing it, going back to the text, doing it again, talking about a beat here, a beat there...well, a sort of weird thing happened. As we got into the second act. We stopped interrupting ourselves. We all just sort of hunkered down onto the play and started acting it. Didn't really occur to us to stop and discuss. So while we started out with good intentions, eventually all of us just wanted to act the play.

The second act of this thing is fraught with emotion. This is not "teacup acting" as a buddy of mine used to say about doing anything written by GB Shaw. It's also not typical "southern gothic" acting either (you know, as in a lot of Williams and Inge and those guys...everybody sweating and staring off into the far country, remembering some dead relative). This is. instead, quite definitely "early steppenwolf" acting. The entire play seems on the verge of breaking into a deadly fistfight at any given time. The press, early on, was calling this "Rock and Roll Theatre." In Chicago they called it "In your face acting." Whatever its called, that's what seems to be happening.

The best experience I've ever had in the theatre occurred twenty five years ago. It still remains unmatched in my mind. It was a production of the play Orphans at the Westside Arts in NYC. Steppenwolf had brought it to NY with Terry Kinney, Kevin Anderson and my buddy, John Mahoney. I didn't know John then, but we have since become friends. A dear, sweet, talented, funny man.

So I'd been in NY less than a week. My friend Robert Fiedler (who passed away this year, sadly) suggested we go see this "hot, new play" called Orphans. I had, up to that point, seen Hurley Burley (third row center, Sigourney Weaver on stage buck naked for about fifteen minutes less than twenty feet from me, thinking to myself, I LOVE THIS TOWN), Dreamgirls (the only time I've ever seen an internal standing ovation when Holliday belts out I'm Not Goin' at the end of the first act), and Kevin Kline in Arms and the Man (kinda dull, actually). So we go see Orphans. The play opens with Kevin Anderson sitting in a window sill blowing bubbles from one of those bubble bottles, the kind we had as kids. The great jazz artist, Pat Metheney, scored the entire piece. The stage lights were blue tinted, the music started low and began to build, Anderson sat placidly in the window doing his thing, the music continued to build...and build...and build. Finally, the entire theatre was rocking from the volume. Complete stillness, imagery, an eccentric pose on stage and this music is so loud the seats are shaking. Suddenly, after what seems an eternity, the stage lights bump up and the play starts. Doesn't sound like much when I describe it, but my God, it was terrific theatre. Gary Sinise had directed the piece. It was a magnificent start. After that the play is an emotional roller coaster. In my head, I always knew theatre could be this way, so immediate, so startling. But I'd never actually seen it with my own eyes. I was transported. Awash in the possibilities.

Since then I've stolen that opening (not literally) many times. I think there are two ways to start a play...either sneak up on the audience with a sort of fascinating ambiguity or come right out and slap 'em upside the head. Praying Small is the former, EAST/WEST is the latter.

That was a great week of theatre, my first week in NYC. A couple of days later I saw Mandy Patinkin in Sunday in the Park with George (to this day, my favorite musical theatre piece). He parted my hair for me. Even though I ended up doing a lot of musical theatre in my career (because I could sing), I was never a huge fan of it. But Patinkin...well, I'm not sure I can even describe how good he was in that role. He stamped it, in my opinion, the same way that Brando stamped Streetcar or Robert Preston stamped Harold Hill. I have seen the play many times since then (I even DID it) and can't get Patinkin's defining work out of my head. The role belongs to him forever, as far as I'm concerned.

Now, remember, these actors were all working on a new play when they did this. There was no compass, no video, no roadmap for any of them. Brando was doing the words to Streetcar for the first time, Patinkin was singing the soaring music of Stephen Sondheim for the first time, Robert Preston was spitting out the words to Trouble for the first time, and Kevin Anderson, Terry Kinney and John Mahoney were exploring Lyle Kessler's sad and brilliant play for the first time.

So last night as we sat down and earnestly read through From the East to the West I was thinking, "These guys are the first to do it, they're stamping it, they're defining who these characters, these people ARE." They are MAKING the roadmap as they go along, building the compass for what, hopefully, will be hundreds of actors to follow. They are not just pretending, this group of blazing, young pros. They are actually creating from dust a new thing altogether. How perfectly exhilarating.

Sometimes, like a few moments last night, the best I can do is watch them and shake my head.

See you tomorrow.