Final dress for Sanity 2 last night. What a traffic problem. But it's being fixed by smart, capable people. It's just the nature of the evening. Eight one-acts, one after another, is bound to create a bit of scene-changing chaos. I'm not too concerned. It's a very casual evening of theatre. The audience realizes this. The point of the night is to showcase some writing and acting. That's the gist of the whole thing. So towards that end, I think it will be successful in the final analysis.
Still some line work to be done today by yours truly. Pacing, shouting out loud, mumbling curses when I can't find the line in my memory. The usual.
The good news is my director for Praying Small and one of the acting artistic directors for the company, Victor Warren, brought me an amazing suit to wear in the plays. It fits like a glove and it's sort of 1940's looking. I feel like Edward G. Robinson when I put it on. "Where's your Moses now, see?"
I have, throughout my career, had some wonderful costumes to wear. Had a great one in both 1776 productions that I did. In fact, you can see the one I wore for Richard Henry Lee to the right of this page. Every single time I did Lost in Yonkers (five to date) I had a suit BUILT exclusively for me. In hindsight I wish I had purchased one of them at the end of one of the respective runs.
I remember doing Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls some years back. Had on an all black suit with a shining white tie. Opening night I'm backstage having a cigarette and dropped ashes on it (I was supposed to be wearing my "smoking frock" but I wasn't). Tried to rub the ashes off. Ended up with a huge black spot on the tie. Costumer saw me before curtain and turned a shade of red I didn't think possible in a human being.
The first 1776 I did was with Jim Barbour as Jefferson in Virginia's Mill Mountain Theatre. I had to wear tights. They didn't quite fit. So I would struggle with them every night. The upshot was that they would droop. They sagged. Jim said to me after one performance, "You are the most talented scene-stealer I've ever met. But I didn't think even YOU would stoop so low as to steal a scene by making your tights sag." As God is my witness, it was entirely unintentional.
When I did Sunday in the Park with George at that same theatre they rented all the costumes from the Broadway production. When I got my costume I was putting everything on for the costume parade and inside the socks was sewn a label that said M. Patinkin. I was star struck.
Here's an odd one. First time I did Arnold, the mentally handicapped character from the beautifully written Boys Next Door, was at The Wayside Theatre outside of D.C. I was wearing Keds Tennis Shoes. I thought it might be a nice touch to label them. Something I thought the character might do. So I wrote, in magic marker, on the toes of the sneakers, "Left" and "Right." So, you know, Arnold would never be confused. Two years later I did the same role in a small Equity theatre in Florida. Unbeknownst to me that theatre had done some sort of 'costume trade' with The Wayside. So I get my costume for Arnold and what'd'ya know. There are the Keds. Written prominently on the toes? "Left" and "Right."
The very first play I was ever in was MacBeth at the local college in the town where I grew up. I played MacDuff's son. One small scene in which MacBeth's murderous henchmen stab me and my mother, Lady MacDuff. The tech people decided to put a blood packet on my back so that when I'm stabbed I turn, back to the audience, and they can see the blood stain all over my back. That was how it was ostensibly supposed to work. Opening night I got the biggest laugh of the play (although to be fair, MacBeth doesn't have a LOT of laughs). The murderer grabs me, turns me upstage and stabs. The packet on my back burst with a loud POP (I think they used a balloon half-full with water). And then a cup of water fell between my legs. It literally looked like my water had burst. Big laugh. I was mortified. It's a wonder I even continued in the theatre.
My buddy Jay Willick, a very fine actor himself, and I were talking last night about how sometimes the costume can completely find the character for you. It's true. I recall Brando's dismissive quote about acting once, "I haven't acted in years. I just put the costume on and let it act for me." There have been many times when I couldn't find the character completely until I put the costume on. Especially the shoes. Once I get the shoes on and find the walk, sometimes the rest just follows quite naturally.
I'll end with the famous Streisand audition story, which may or may not be apocryphal. A director recalls her coming to his audition before she was a star. The stage manager calls her name. "Barbra Streisand? You're next!" A few seconds pass. Finally she stumbles onstage for the audition wearing high heels with one heel off. She's lurching to the stage and talking all at the same time, "I'm so sorry, I just got my heel caught in a grate. Was stuck for ten minutes trying to pull my foot out. People were lined up tugging me. It was a mess. I kept telling them to pull harder. A whole line of people I don't know, lined up on the sidewalk, pulling me and my foot out of this grate. Finally it popped out, my foot, I mean, but the heel was still stuck in the grate. Anyway, I'm here. I'm ready to sing for you. Just try to ignore the shoes." And she lurched up on stage and sang. Unbelievably well, of course.
A month or so later, this director is talking to another director and told him this story. The other director looked at him in disbelief. He said, "She did the same thing at my audition." Pretty smart cookie, that Streisand.
See you tomorrow.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
A Short One...
A full tech/run last night with the one-acts at NoHo ACE. Unfortunately I was trapped backstage most of the night and didn't get a chance to see any of the ones I'm not in. But judging from the dressing room speakers they sounded fun. Full dress tonight. My day is about working the lines in the two I'm doing. One is pretty much down and the other is close. And, joy of joys, as soon as these are memorized I start learning Praying Small (although I may take the weekend off).
My buddy James Barbour and I have decided to work together in a four-week-long teaching workshop under the auspices of Naked Face Los Angeles, my professional acting studio. I'll teach monologue, audition and scene study and he'll do musical theatre. Jim, of course, has a much bigger and more recognizable name than I do in the theatre community so I think that alone will attract students. We're meeting soon to work out a syllabus and a business plan. At the end of the workshop we hope to have some casting directors (Angela has given us the guidelines from CSA - casting society of America), film and stage directors, producers and possibly some working composers and lyricists, watch the participant's final product.
On the health front, "the silent killer" is being silenced by the new meds. And I couldn't be happier. For the first time in months I'm beginning to feel normal again.
More on the Naked Face workshop as it unravels. More on the one-acts as they continue thru the run of the show.
Another beautiful day in Southern California. I might even take a shower today.
See you tomorrow.
My buddy James Barbour and I have decided to work together in a four-week-long teaching workshop under the auspices of Naked Face Los Angeles, my professional acting studio. I'll teach monologue, audition and scene study and he'll do musical theatre. Jim, of course, has a much bigger and more recognizable name than I do in the theatre community so I think that alone will attract students. We're meeting soon to work out a syllabus and a business plan. At the end of the workshop we hope to have some casting directors (Angela has given us the guidelines from CSA - casting society of America), film and stage directors, producers and possibly some working composers and lyricists, watch the participant's final product.
On the health front, "the silent killer" is being silenced by the new meds. And I couldn't be happier. For the first time in months I'm beginning to feel normal again.
More on the Naked Face workshop as it unravels. More on the one-acts as they continue thru the run of the show.
Another beautiful day in Southern California. I might even take a shower today.
See you tomorrow.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
On Dress Rehearsals and Tech Nights...
Another tech last night for Sanity 2. Eight different short plays. Oy. Lots of tech and lots of quick scene changes. I must say I'm really impressed with Karesa's good-natured attitude as she guides some of the feckless actors (ME!) through the process. I've known directors to go a tad crazy during tech week. With all the chaos at a fever pitch last night I only heard one "Quiet in the house!" bellowed.
Got the full rehearsal schedule for Praying Small yesterday, too. My mind is eased a bit knowing we have an attack plan.
When tech stuff goes wrong in a performance, odd things happen to actors. Usually it falls into one of two camps: those who go with it and adlib their way out or those that panic and freeze. One of the most famous stories about tech gone wrong is the off cue phone call with Olivier. He was doing a Noel Coward play in the West End. Onstage with a young actor. Phone rings off cue. The phone is not supposed to ring for another two pages. Both actors stop and stare at the phone. Finally Olivier walks over and answers it. "Hello? Um, yes. Yes. I see. Uh-huh. Yes. Why, of course, he's right here. (turns to young actor) It's for you."
I once did the play Wait Until Dark in Florida some years back. I was doing the sociopathic killer, Roat, in that play. In the climactic scene where the blind girl stabs Roat with a kitchen knife, I stalk her. Cat and mouse. Roat knows she can't see him and is toying with her. Suddenly she reaches into a drawer and pulls out a long knife and goes for him. That's the way it's supposed to work. Dress rehearsal. She makes a dash for the drawer. Fumbles around in it forever. I could have killed her ten times over in the time she spent searching for the knife amidst the silverware in that drawer. Goes on and on. Dead air. I'm just standing there watching her. She's staring off glassy-eyed in the distance, acting "blind." More time. She pulls a spoon, discards it. Then a fork. Then a ladle. Then a spatula. Finally, from the house we hear a booming voice from the director. "YOU'RE NOT REALLY BLIND!" She looks in the drawer and gets the knife.
The first time I did A Few Good Men was at Mill Mountain in Roanoke, VA. After an eight week run there we transferred the whole thing to Wayside Theatre up the road in Middletown. Wayside, a smaller theatre, didn't have the resources Mill Mountain had and thus some adjustments were made. Huge blacks (curtains, for the uninitiated) were hung to frame the stage. During the climactic courtroom scenes in the second act, one had to negotiate through a series of hung teasers (small, thin curtains hanging down) to get onstage. It was like a maze. Kind of like walking through a funhouse in pitch black darkness. Dress Rehearsal. Full costume, which means we're all in our military dress uniforms. As each character's name is called to testify, there would be a flurry of curtain punching and under-the -breath cursing as the actors tried to get onstage. Finally, one by one, the actors would find the entrance and emerge, hair mussed, wild-eyed, staggering slightly, realize where they were, smooth their hair and walk sternly and seriously to the witness chair. Would have been funny if it happened once. It happened to every single actor. The actors onstage were a mess. Church giggling. You know. When you try not to laugh in church and that makes it all the funnier. Finally my turn. I get lost in the curtains just like everyone else. I finally make it out. I've dropped my hat. I come out facing the wrong direction. I trip on the last teaser and fall to one knee. Everyone to that point has just gone on with the play as though nothing happened. I look up and see the whole cast staring at me (about twenty men on stage). "Broken Arrow!" I scream. Cast loses it. Director not happy.
Another time I was doing Sondheim's Company in Connecticut. I was working with an actor that would talk and yammer and chit-chat endlessly right off stage before making his entrance. Each night he would completely forget to listen for his cue and I would have to interrupt him and say, "it's your entrance." Dress rehearsal. We're standing off stage. He's saying, "...and then I asked them if I could get a discount on the shoes because they were just simply too tight. I called the manufacturers, I called everybody. They wouldn't let me exchange them. I wrote them a letter saying..." It was about ten minutes before he was supposed to enter. I stopped him and said, "It's your entrance." He charged on stage and started talking. Hehehehe.
Hundreds of other memories about tech nights and dress rehearsals. Every actor has them. I suspect we'll have some confusion with this one, too.
And on another note. The new medication for "the silent killer" is working. I feel like a new man, or at the very least, a slightly used one. BP down, more energy, better outlook on everything. The foot is still numb making me walk a little like the kid in Jurassic Park when he gets blown off the fence, but I'll learn to compensate eventually I'm sure. Angie is devouring online recipes for diabetes victims. She did, however, say something last night that alarmed me. She said, "you just have to get used to thinking of food as fuel rather than an event." Well, I don't think I can ever do that. A good meal, prepared with care, presented with aesthetic forethought, each dish and course complimenting the other, color coordinated...well this is the mark of a civilized people as far as I'm concerned. For me, regardless of my diet, food will never be "fuel." We'll just have to figure this one out.
The puppies are frolicking. The next door neighbor's rooster is punching his time clock. The sun is up and benign. And I'm getting married someday this year, if the rumors are true. Things are okay.
See you tomorrow.
Got the full rehearsal schedule for Praying Small yesterday, too. My mind is eased a bit knowing we have an attack plan.
When tech stuff goes wrong in a performance, odd things happen to actors. Usually it falls into one of two camps: those who go with it and adlib their way out or those that panic and freeze. One of the most famous stories about tech gone wrong is the off cue phone call with Olivier. He was doing a Noel Coward play in the West End. Onstage with a young actor. Phone rings off cue. The phone is not supposed to ring for another two pages. Both actors stop and stare at the phone. Finally Olivier walks over and answers it. "Hello? Um, yes. Yes. I see. Uh-huh. Yes. Why, of course, he's right here. (turns to young actor) It's for you."
I once did the play Wait Until Dark in Florida some years back. I was doing the sociopathic killer, Roat, in that play. In the climactic scene where the blind girl stabs Roat with a kitchen knife, I stalk her. Cat and mouse. Roat knows she can't see him and is toying with her. Suddenly she reaches into a drawer and pulls out a long knife and goes for him. That's the way it's supposed to work. Dress rehearsal. She makes a dash for the drawer. Fumbles around in it forever. I could have killed her ten times over in the time she spent searching for the knife amidst the silverware in that drawer. Goes on and on. Dead air. I'm just standing there watching her. She's staring off glassy-eyed in the distance, acting "blind." More time. She pulls a spoon, discards it. Then a fork. Then a ladle. Then a spatula. Finally, from the house we hear a booming voice from the director. "YOU'RE NOT REALLY BLIND!" She looks in the drawer and gets the knife.
The first time I did A Few Good Men was at Mill Mountain in Roanoke, VA. After an eight week run there we transferred the whole thing to Wayside Theatre up the road in Middletown. Wayside, a smaller theatre, didn't have the resources Mill Mountain had and thus some adjustments were made. Huge blacks (curtains, for the uninitiated) were hung to frame the stage. During the climactic courtroom scenes in the second act, one had to negotiate through a series of hung teasers (small, thin curtains hanging down) to get onstage. It was like a maze. Kind of like walking through a funhouse in pitch black darkness. Dress Rehearsal. Full costume, which means we're all in our military dress uniforms. As each character's name is called to testify, there would be a flurry of curtain punching and under-the -breath cursing as the actors tried to get onstage. Finally, one by one, the actors would find the entrance and emerge, hair mussed, wild-eyed, staggering slightly, realize where they were, smooth their hair and walk sternly and seriously to the witness chair. Would have been funny if it happened once. It happened to every single actor. The actors onstage were a mess. Church giggling. You know. When you try not to laugh in church and that makes it all the funnier. Finally my turn. I get lost in the curtains just like everyone else. I finally make it out. I've dropped my hat. I come out facing the wrong direction. I trip on the last teaser and fall to one knee. Everyone to that point has just gone on with the play as though nothing happened. I look up and see the whole cast staring at me (about twenty men on stage). "Broken Arrow!" I scream. Cast loses it. Director not happy.
Another time I was doing Sondheim's Company in Connecticut. I was working with an actor that would talk and yammer and chit-chat endlessly right off stage before making his entrance. Each night he would completely forget to listen for his cue and I would have to interrupt him and say, "it's your entrance." Dress rehearsal. We're standing off stage. He's saying, "...and then I asked them if I could get a discount on the shoes because they were just simply too tight. I called the manufacturers, I called everybody. They wouldn't let me exchange them. I wrote them a letter saying..." It was about ten minutes before he was supposed to enter. I stopped him and said, "It's your entrance." He charged on stage and started talking. Hehehehe.
Hundreds of other memories about tech nights and dress rehearsals. Every actor has them. I suspect we'll have some confusion with this one, too.
And on another note. The new medication for "the silent killer" is working. I feel like a new man, or at the very least, a slightly used one. BP down, more energy, better outlook on everything. The foot is still numb making me walk a little like the kid in Jurassic Park when he gets blown off the fence, but I'll learn to compensate eventually I'm sure. Angie is devouring online recipes for diabetes victims. She did, however, say something last night that alarmed me. She said, "you just have to get used to thinking of food as fuel rather than an event." Well, I don't think I can ever do that. A good meal, prepared with care, presented with aesthetic forethought, each dish and course complimenting the other, color coordinated...well this is the mark of a civilized people as far as I'm concerned. For me, regardless of my diet, food will never be "fuel." We'll just have to figure this one out.
The puppies are frolicking. The next door neighbor's rooster is punching his time clock. The sun is up and benign. And I'm getting married someday this year, if the rumors are true. Things are okay.
See you tomorrow.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Sanity 2...
Yesterday the members of NoHo Ace (North Hollywood Arts Center Ensemble) gathered at the theatre for a dry tech run-through of Sanity 2, an evening of one-acts running from April 30 to May 30. The idea is this: a year or so ago, before my time with them, the theatre ran a weekly night of one-acts written, memorized and performed all within 24 hours. The themes were given and, voila, 24 hours later a play. Apparently it was a pretty big success for the company.
Now the best of these hastily written plays have been tuned up, re-visited and rehearsed in earnest. The playwrights have done some re-writing, tightened everything up and given the short plays some real attention. Directors were brought in and real rehearsal time was assigned.
My friend, James Mellon, asked me to do a couple and I gladly complied. In fact, the two I'm in are pretty good pieces. The first, one James wrote himself, is a bit more dramatic than one might expect. It's a piece about what would happen if the President's daughter publicly announced she was a lesbian. (This kinda already happened with Dick Cheney's daughter, actually.) I like it because I get a chance to take some shots at George W. and his abounding ignorance mixed with his Machiavellian smugness.
The second is an all-out piece of silliness in the vein of Waiting for Guffman. A small, midwestern dinner theatre hires a Broadway director to do a play. Turns out the play, called Annie and Oliver, is a phycho-sexual, scatalogical piece not fit for small town ears. The producers of the theatre beg him to do something else like Barefoot in the Park ("A little edgy but with a few cuts here and there...LAUGHS!") This is the one I'm doing with my Harry Morgan impression - sort of barking all the lines. Having fun with that one, don't know if it will be funny, but I'm amusing myself at least.
But the thing is, everyone gathered at the theatre yesterday and did everything...move the scenery, adjust the lights, bring a costume, set the travel patterns onstage, just everything. It was like going back in time to high school theatre when absolutely everything about doing a play was overwhelmingly fun. There are eight plays on the billet so there is a lot of moving of furniture going on. I don't mind in the least, although these days I sort of stagger around a bit like the creature of the black lagoon because of my "silent killer" distractions, but that's another story.
One of the many things I like about NoHo Ace is the total disregard of ego everyone brings to the action. The entire mind-set is one of, "we really don't care who you are or what you've done, just move that sofa." I like that. We're very Marxist, in that sense.
Besides, as most of my readers know, I'm about to embark on the lead role of Sam in Praying Small and it's a doozy. A huge role. So I'm looking at the one-acts as my warm-up fight. Kind of like when Ali came back after his exile and fought Quarry and Bonevena before taking on Frazier.
There's still a ton of work to be done on Sanity 2, but it's getting there under the inexhaustible leadership of Karesa McElheney, one of the acting artistic directors. I suspect it's going to be a pretty good night of theatre, overall. I haven't seen the other one-acts yet, but the two I'm in are not bad at all. I honestly don't think I've acted in a one-act since college.
On another note, the diabetes check-up yesterday was a total disaster. Blood work came back: glucose readings up, cholesterol readings up, BP up, right foot numb, eye sight worse, a host of other annoying things. As I told Angie, this whole thing is getting ridiculous. It's effecting my quality of life. I am on a very strict diet now, exercising, being careful about a bunch of things. I always wondered when age and lifestyle choices would catch up to me...I guess I don't have to wonder anymore.
Our neighbors have a rooster. He's doing his thing right now. The sun is coming up. It's a nice day. And all things considered, it could be a hell of a lot worse.
See you tomorrow.
Now the best of these hastily written plays have been tuned up, re-visited and rehearsed in earnest. The playwrights have done some re-writing, tightened everything up and given the short plays some real attention. Directors were brought in and real rehearsal time was assigned.
My friend, James Mellon, asked me to do a couple and I gladly complied. In fact, the two I'm in are pretty good pieces. The first, one James wrote himself, is a bit more dramatic than one might expect. It's a piece about what would happen if the President's daughter publicly announced she was a lesbian. (This kinda already happened with Dick Cheney's daughter, actually.) I like it because I get a chance to take some shots at George W. and his abounding ignorance mixed with his Machiavellian smugness.
The second is an all-out piece of silliness in the vein of Waiting for Guffman. A small, midwestern dinner theatre hires a Broadway director to do a play. Turns out the play, called Annie and Oliver, is a phycho-sexual, scatalogical piece not fit for small town ears. The producers of the theatre beg him to do something else like Barefoot in the Park ("A little edgy but with a few cuts here and there...LAUGHS!") This is the one I'm doing with my Harry Morgan impression - sort of barking all the lines. Having fun with that one, don't know if it will be funny, but I'm amusing myself at least.
But the thing is, everyone gathered at the theatre yesterday and did everything...move the scenery, adjust the lights, bring a costume, set the travel patterns onstage, just everything. It was like going back in time to high school theatre when absolutely everything about doing a play was overwhelmingly fun. There are eight plays on the billet so there is a lot of moving of furniture going on. I don't mind in the least, although these days I sort of stagger around a bit like the creature of the black lagoon because of my "silent killer" distractions, but that's another story.
One of the many things I like about NoHo Ace is the total disregard of ego everyone brings to the action. The entire mind-set is one of, "we really don't care who you are or what you've done, just move that sofa." I like that. We're very Marxist, in that sense.
Besides, as most of my readers know, I'm about to embark on the lead role of Sam in Praying Small and it's a doozy. A huge role. So I'm looking at the one-acts as my warm-up fight. Kind of like when Ali came back after his exile and fought Quarry and Bonevena before taking on Frazier.
There's still a ton of work to be done on Sanity 2, but it's getting there under the inexhaustible leadership of Karesa McElheney, one of the acting artistic directors. I suspect it's going to be a pretty good night of theatre, overall. I haven't seen the other one-acts yet, but the two I'm in are not bad at all. I honestly don't think I've acted in a one-act since college.
On another note, the diabetes check-up yesterday was a total disaster. Blood work came back: glucose readings up, cholesterol readings up, BP up, right foot numb, eye sight worse, a host of other annoying things. As I told Angie, this whole thing is getting ridiculous. It's effecting my quality of life. I am on a very strict diet now, exercising, being careful about a bunch of things. I always wondered when age and lifestyle choices would catch up to me...I guess I don't have to wonder anymore.
Our neighbors have a rooster. He's doing his thing right now. The sun is coming up. It's a nice day. And all things considered, it could be a hell of a lot worse.
See you tomorrow.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Random Sunday Morning Thoughts...
It's all about gratitude. Being grateful. Realizing one's plight is so much easier than it could be under different circumstances. It's Sunday morning and a lot of people are getting ready for their respective churches. A mystery to me. I've never understood the idea of "worship."
Now, don't worry, I'm not about to go on an anti-religion rant/blog here. The truth of the matter is a part of me envies the stalwart church-goer. Some of my best and smartest friends are tidying themselves up right now to do just that. I'm all for it.
In fact, for a long while in NYC I attended Catholic services on a fairly regular basis. Not because I for a moment believed in Catholicism but because I liked the pomp and circumstance they embrace in their worship services. Lots of robes and tradition and timing and candles and greek-chorus-like chanting. Plus I had a good buddy, a priest, doing the homily.
I would travel over to Brooklyn for his services. Once, I remember, we had a private lunch afterwards, just the two of us. After a bit, I asked him, "Tell me something. Do you really believe in all that gobbledygook you talk about up there?" He paused for a long time and then finally said, "Yes. I do."
We were close friends so I could get away with asking a priest that. Plus, he was a frustrated actor so his services were sometimes very dramatic and filled with costume changes and good lighting design.
My favorite was a little white chapel on the beach down on Sanibel Island. Used to go to that one on occasion when I was working down there. If nothing else it was certainly beautiful. If I got bored with the service I could just look around and admire the natural beauty all around me. The little white chapel wasn't Catholic, though. I think it was Methodist, but I can't remember. After attending a few times I started telling people I was a Methodist actor.
In my late thirties, I began intensive solo study of the bible. I wanted to get to the core of all this stuff that others took so seriously. Of course, it disappointed me. The bible is built to disappoint. No rancor intended, it just is. If one is incapable of making the paranormal, supernatural leap, it just becomes a silly, arcane book. Alas, that is what it is to me.
But I do want to recount one service I witnessed in the little white chapel on the beach. For others, I suppose, it was a service steeped in mystery, in divine knowledge, in the providential words of Jesus. For me, however, it was just good common sense and an example of the good things religion can supply.
The Pastor, I don't remember his name, had a large easel set up with a blank sheet of paper displayed. When we entered the chapel everyone was given another blank sheet of paper. As he started the sermon he said he wanted everyone to draw, to the best of their ability, a picture of someone we really hated, someone that was making our lives miserable, perhaps a boss or a relative or a neighbor, whatever. He said, let's get our aggression out today. Let's not go through the rest of the week being angry at somebody. Life is too short, he said.
So we all drew pictures of this someone that was bothering us. He collected them all up and put them on the easel and then one by one we all approached the easel and threw darts at the pictures we had drawn. It was fun and there was lots of laughing. We finished, still lots of giggling and murmuring, and he began to peel away the pictures we had drawn, dozens of them, one after another, there were holes in all the faces. "Feel better?" he kept asking. We did. We all did feel better. And then he stripped away the last hastily drawn face and underneath them all had been a picture of Jesus. The face of Jesus had hundreds of holes in it where we had thrown the darts. He said, "What you do to the least of my children, you do to me."
I liked that message.
There is a wonderful book called A Month of Sundays, by John Updike. It's about a preacher who loses his faith, has affairs; a man who deep down doesn't really believe in what he preaches. At the climax of the novel, the preacher says, "It was just a band of roving nomads. A group of ignorant sand dwellers who somehow stumbled upon the idea of One God. They didn't mean for it to get bent all out of shape like it did. Judeo-Christianity is a mistake, don't you see? It was meant for one lifetime, not thousands of lifetimes. It's word of mouth gone amuck! It was just something to make a hard life in the desert a little easier."
Ninety seven percent of the senior staff with NASA are unabashed atheists.
Almost all of the founding fathers embraced Classical Deism.
On the other hand, Einstein believed unreservedly in the existence of God. He said, "Just too much was left to chance. Not possible."
As I've mentioned before, my own religious beliefs were sorely tested when I worked as a drug and alcohol counselor for The Salvation Army (see my blog "The Banality of Evil"). It was a jarring lesson in the complications of melding religion with capitalism. It sickened me and still does. But I often think back to that little chapel on the beach and remind myself that not all religion is bad. Sometimes it is noble and kind. Sometimes, I suspect in its most righteous form, it is a wonderful teaching tool. A reminder to its followers to try and do the next right thing. In essence, to be good, to be "Christ like."
In one of my favorite novels, Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger says, "Don't you see, Franny? Don't you see? The Fat Lady IS Jesus Christ!" He's talking about the fat lady in the audience. The fat lady who has paid her money to be told a story. To be entertained and enlightened. Salinger is saying Jesus Christ is the very NOTION of helping someone. That He is the embodiment of reaching out to someone else.
I like that, too.
The closest I've ever been able to come to actual worship is the idea of gratitude. Some call it karma, some call it fate and some call it original sin. Regardless, it's very difficult to be pious and cynical about the idea of worship if one is filled with gratitude. My life with Angie and the puppies is sublime on occasion. I have so much to be thankful for. I have spent decades fantasizing about the life I lead at this very moment. And now, against all reason and formula, I am leading it. And I often ask myself, "Did I do ANYTHING to deserve this?" The answer, much to my chagrin, is no, I didn't. Some grace, some incomprehensible and inexplicable spiritual pattern is no doubt responsible. And I remind myself daily to be grateful.
And Jesus, in whatever costume He wears, In whatever skewered form of divinity He inhabits, is probably pleased with my daily choice to be grateful.
I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Have been for quite some time. In that expensive and altruistic club there is a saying. It goes like this: I know two things. There is a God and I'm not Him.
See you tomorrow.
Now, don't worry, I'm not about to go on an anti-religion rant/blog here. The truth of the matter is a part of me envies the stalwart church-goer. Some of my best and smartest friends are tidying themselves up right now to do just that. I'm all for it.
In fact, for a long while in NYC I attended Catholic services on a fairly regular basis. Not because I for a moment believed in Catholicism but because I liked the pomp and circumstance they embrace in their worship services. Lots of robes and tradition and timing and candles and greek-chorus-like chanting. Plus I had a good buddy, a priest, doing the homily.
I would travel over to Brooklyn for his services. Once, I remember, we had a private lunch afterwards, just the two of us. After a bit, I asked him, "Tell me something. Do you really believe in all that gobbledygook you talk about up there?" He paused for a long time and then finally said, "Yes. I do."
We were close friends so I could get away with asking a priest that. Plus, he was a frustrated actor so his services were sometimes very dramatic and filled with costume changes and good lighting design.
My favorite was a little white chapel on the beach down on Sanibel Island. Used to go to that one on occasion when I was working down there. If nothing else it was certainly beautiful. If I got bored with the service I could just look around and admire the natural beauty all around me. The little white chapel wasn't Catholic, though. I think it was Methodist, but I can't remember. After attending a few times I started telling people I was a Methodist actor.
In my late thirties, I began intensive solo study of the bible. I wanted to get to the core of all this stuff that others took so seriously. Of course, it disappointed me. The bible is built to disappoint. No rancor intended, it just is. If one is incapable of making the paranormal, supernatural leap, it just becomes a silly, arcane book. Alas, that is what it is to me.
But I do want to recount one service I witnessed in the little white chapel on the beach. For others, I suppose, it was a service steeped in mystery, in divine knowledge, in the providential words of Jesus. For me, however, it was just good common sense and an example of the good things religion can supply.
The Pastor, I don't remember his name, had a large easel set up with a blank sheet of paper displayed. When we entered the chapel everyone was given another blank sheet of paper. As he started the sermon he said he wanted everyone to draw, to the best of their ability, a picture of someone we really hated, someone that was making our lives miserable, perhaps a boss or a relative or a neighbor, whatever. He said, let's get our aggression out today. Let's not go through the rest of the week being angry at somebody. Life is too short, he said.
So we all drew pictures of this someone that was bothering us. He collected them all up and put them on the easel and then one by one we all approached the easel and threw darts at the pictures we had drawn. It was fun and there was lots of laughing. We finished, still lots of giggling and murmuring, and he began to peel away the pictures we had drawn, dozens of them, one after another, there were holes in all the faces. "Feel better?" he kept asking. We did. We all did feel better. And then he stripped away the last hastily drawn face and underneath them all had been a picture of Jesus. The face of Jesus had hundreds of holes in it where we had thrown the darts. He said, "What you do to the least of my children, you do to me."
I liked that message.
There is a wonderful book called A Month of Sundays, by John Updike. It's about a preacher who loses his faith, has affairs; a man who deep down doesn't really believe in what he preaches. At the climax of the novel, the preacher says, "It was just a band of roving nomads. A group of ignorant sand dwellers who somehow stumbled upon the idea of One God. They didn't mean for it to get bent all out of shape like it did. Judeo-Christianity is a mistake, don't you see? It was meant for one lifetime, not thousands of lifetimes. It's word of mouth gone amuck! It was just something to make a hard life in the desert a little easier."
Ninety seven percent of the senior staff with NASA are unabashed atheists.
Almost all of the founding fathers embraced Classical Deism.
On the other hand, Einstein believed unreservedly in the existence of God. He said, "Just too much was left to chance. Not possible."
As I've mentioned before, my own religious beliefs were sorely tested when I worked as a drug and alcohol counselor for The Salvation Army (see my blog "The Banality of Evil"). It was a jarring lesson in the complications of melding religion with capitalism. It sickened me and still does. But I often think back to that little chapel on the beach and remind myself that not all religion is bad. Sometimes it is noble and kind. Sometimes, I suspect in its most righteous form, it is a wonderful teaching tool. A reminder to its followers to try and do the next right thing. In essence, to be good, to be "Christ like."
In one of my favorite novels, Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger says, "Don't you see, Franny? Don't you see? The Fat Lady IS Jesus Christ!" He's talking about the fat lady in the audience. The fat lady who has paid her money to be told a story. To be entertained and enlightened. Salinger is saying Jesus Christ is the very NOTION of helping someone. That He is the embodiment of reaching out to someone else.
I like that, too.
The closest I've ever been able to come to actual worship is the idea of gratitude. Some call it karma, some call it fate and some call it original sin. Regardless, it's very difficult to be pious and cynical about the idea of worship if one is filled with gratitude. My life with Angie and the puppies is sublime on occasion. I have so much to be thankful for. I have spent decades fantasizing about the life I lead at this very moment. And now, against all reason and formula, I am leading it. And I often ask myself, "Did I do ANYTHING to deserve this?" The answer, much to my chagrin, is no, I didn't. Some grace, some incomprehensible and inexplicable spiritual pattern is no doubt responsible. And I remind myself daily to be grateful.
And Jesus, in whatever costume He wears, In whatever skewered form of divinity He inhabits, is probably pleased with my daily choice to be grateful.
I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Have been for quite some time. In that expensive and altruistic club there is a saying. It goes like this: I know two things. There is a God and I'm not Him.
See you tomorrow.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Move on...
I chatted a bit yesterday with my friend James Barbour. A couple of blogs ago I talked about going to see him in Nightmare Alley, the new musical that opened at The Geffen on Wednesday. Jim plays the lead character of Stan Carlyle. I talked about Jim being especially good in it but the play itself, I felt, needed a little tune-up. Since that blog several reviews have come out saying exactly the same thing (the L.A. Times review was eerily similar, in fact). For some reason Jim was a little depressed over the notices, which I found surprising. He's a pro and like us all he's been through the wringer with the press before. I certainly have and I know Jim has. When he did Jane Eyre on Broadway I know he took some nasty hits from the press on that one. The thing is, in this case the notices have all been spectacular for Jim himself. They just have a problem with the show.
Anyway, it all got me thinking about the critics. I blogged about this once before a month or so ago. But it's a big part of the actor's life, eventually, so I thought I'd write a little more on it. Some actors never reconcile the role of the critic in their professional lives. In an email yesterday to me, Jim nailed this specific feeling. He said, in effect, "we work so hard on a project, fill it with such passion, and with the swipe of a pen it's all undone." And of course he's right. I emailed him back and told him it was even worse when the play happened to be something you've written.
Here is an excerpt from a review of one of my plays called The Language of Cherubs from a newspaper in Chicago called The Windy City Times.
It's the last and longest piece that sticks in my mind as one of the vilest pieces of theater I've ever seen. The Language of Cherubs is anything but. The Language of the Despicable and Weak is more like it. Essentially the monologue of a dying southern woman (played with one-note weepiness by Jan Ellen Graves), the piece is an overview of her life with her husband. At first, their life together seems pedestrian, the stuff of thousands of American couples. But as the woman rambles on, we discover a dark underbelly. Her husband was a pedophile, preying on the high school girls he taught and exploiting his position of authority to take advantage of them. In one of the most chilling moments, the woman begins reciting the names of the girls ... and the list runs on into the dozens. But as she crawls back into her bed to sink under the oblivion of painkillers, with her Pat Boone look-alike husband at her side, she tells him that, in spite of all this, she really 'loves' him. What? It's hard to muster up any sympathy for this pair: a sexual predator and the woman who unquestioningly stands by her man, in spite of the rather strained efforts of the playwright to jerk tears from the audience (along with banal musical touches of recorded new-age piano music from Jim Brickman).
I told the Artistic Director of the theater producing this play they should put that quote on the marquis: "One of the vilest pieces of theater I've ever seen!" I joked about it for awhile with the actors. We all had a good time. "Vilest piece of theatre." That's a good one.
The truth is, stuff like that takes the wind out of a writer's sails. It's one thing to get a bad review as an actor (and trust me, I've gotten more than my share of those) but it's another to get one as a playwright. As a writer one's intellect is on trial. As an actor, merely one's choices. And the funny thing is, this same critic, a few months earlier, had hailed my play Praying Small as "a modern masterpiece."
My teacher of note and mentor and friend, the brilliant actor Michael Moriarty, has a bit to say on this 'reading your notices' business. He stopped reading his reviews back in the early eighties. He told me, "if you believe the good ones, you have to believe the bad ones, too. Best not to read any of them and keep trusting your instincts." He also told me something I have oft quoted, "Critics are like eunuchs at an orgy. The can watch, but they can't join in." In fact, I told Jim that yesterday and got a laugh from him. I hope he passed it on to the hard-working and talented cast of Nightmare Alley.
When I was doing Arnold in The Boys Next Door for the first time at Wayside Theatre in Virginia, I had a problem with doing such a dead-on impression of a mentally challenged man. I felt a little seedy doing it. I called Michael and told him this. He said, "Does the play offer redemption?" I said, yes. He said, "Then don't give it another thought. We can do anything as artists as long as what we're doing offers redemption." I have kept that piece of advice in the forefront of my mind for many years now.
Michael also told me recently he thought the late Pauline Kael, the former esteemed film critic for The New Yorker, was largely responsible for his career taking a nose-dive in the late seventies. Kael attacked Moriarty at every available opportunity. In particular a film he made called Report to the Commission, in which he starred. She lambasted it. She attacked his mannerisms, his sensitivity as an actor, his choices, even his physical appearance. Kael carried a lot of weight in the critic business back then. She was the grand dame of critics. Roger Ebert worshipped her. New York's intellectual community lived and died by her opinion. This is the same Pauline Kael who famously wrote upon seeing Last Tango in Paris, "Brando and Bertolucci have altered the face of an art form." At that time Moriarty, Pacino, DeNiro, Voight and Hoffman were the up and comers. Kael loved Pacino and DeNiro. Hated the rest. Michael says he went from A-lister to B-lister following her evisceration of him in that film. He may be right. She really did have that much influence back then.
I have twice written to a critic following what I felt was an especially unwarranted attack upon my work. The first was at Arena Stage when I was doing McMurphy in a production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The critic, one Donald Ames, wrote, "Mr. Morts ably carries this sordid mess on his capable back." He went on to say wonderful things about me and my performance but scathingly attacked the show itself and the other actors. I don't remember all I said in the letter, but essentially it was the same thing that Jim said to me yesterday. That is, how can you destroy all of this work and passion, thousands upon thousands of hours of it, with one careless and thoughtless swipe of your pen?
The other time was in Rochester, New York. I was doing a show called Redwood Curtain and I was not only directing it but acting the role of Lyman Fellars, the mysterious Vietnam Vet living in the humid forests of Northern California. The lead role in that show is the half-white, half-Vietnamese girl, Jeri. It was being played by my then girlfriend, Eileen. I thought she was really good in the role. When the reviews came out, again my work was praised but they attacked her mercilessly. I was incensed. I sent off a scathing letter to the critic for the main Rochester paper, the Democrat/Times. As it turned out I was invited to a charity event a short time later and came face to face with this critic. Back in those days I was little more volatile and actually considered punching the guy in the face. I was that angry. But he came over to my table and asked if he could join me. He was a very nice man which pissed me off even more. After a few sparring words he said to me, "let me give you some advice. You can't try and protect the actors around you that aren't as good as you are. That's a losing battle. You will never win that battle." At the time I simply smirked at that comment. Years later I think he may have been on to something.
Here's the bottom line for Jim. He's in a play that's not as good as he is. He can't protect it.
Sondheim wrote in Sunday in the Park with George when the lead character is depressed about his own critics, "You've got to move on. Show us more. Don't worry about what others are saying. So what? Let others make those decisions, they usually do. You've got to move on."
On June 11 my play, Praying Small, makes its West Coast Premiere. The play has garnished embarrassing accolades throughout the country. It has been hailed as a masterpiece, been given awards, submitted for the Pulitzer, critics have reached deep into their bag of adjectives for this one. And what if L.A. doesn't agree? What if my director pushes it into a realm of absurdism that mangles the message of the play? What if it's just too coarse? What if the scatological language is too much? What if my performance in it is pedestrian? What if one of a million things go wrong?
Well, I'll tell you. I move on. I show more. I write again. I do something new. I shake it off. I plunge myself into another artistic orgy and let the eunuchs watch all over again. I trust I have something to say. Something others want to hear. Something that offers redemption. And after that, I do it again. And again. I move on.
See you tomorrow.
Anyway, it all got me thinking about the critics. I blogged about this once before a month or so ago. But it's a big part of the actor's life, eventually, so I thought I'd write a little more on it. Some actors never reconcile the role of the critic in their professional lives. In an email yesterday to me, Jim nailed this specific feeling. He said, in effect, "we work so hard on a project, fill it with such passion, and with the swipe of a pen it's all undone." And of course he's right. I emailed him back and told him it was even worse when the play happened to be something you've written.
Here is an excerpt from a review of one of my plays called The Language of Cherubs from a newspaper in Chicago called The Windy City Times.
It's the last and longest piece that sticks in my mind as one of the vilest pieces of theater I've ever seen. The Language of Cherubs is anything but. The Language of the Despicable and Weak is more like it. Essentially the monologue of a dying southern woman (played with one-note weepiness by Jan Ellen Graves), the piece is an overview of her life with her husband. At first, their life together seems pedestrian, the stuff of thousands of American couples. But as the woman rambles on, we discover a dark underbelly. Her husband was a pedophile, preying on the high school girls he taught and exploiting his position of authority to take advantage of them. In one of the most chilling moments, the woman begins reciting the names of the girls ... and the list runs on into the dozens. But as she crawls back into her bed to sink under the oblivion of painkillers, with her Pat Boone look-alike husband at her side, she tells him that, in spite of all this, she really 'loves' him. What? It's hard to muster up any sympathy for this pair: a sexual predator and the woman who unquestioningly stands by her man, in spite of the rather strained efforts of the playwright to jerk tears from the audience (along with banal musical touches of recorded new-age piano music from Jim Brickman).
I told the Artistic Director of the theater producing this play they should put that quote on the marquis: "One of the vilest pieces of theater I've ever seen!" I joked about it for awhile with the actors. We all had a good time. "Vilest piece of theatre." That's a good one.
The truth is, stuff like that takes the wind out of a writer's sails. It's one thing to get a bad review as an actor (and trust me, I've gotten more than my share of those) but it's another to get one as a playwright. As a writer one's intellect is on trial. As an actor, merely one's choices. And the funny thing is, this same critic, a few months earlier, had hailed my play Praying Small as "a modern masterpiece."
My teacher of note and mentor and friend, the brilliant actor Michael Moriarty, has a bit to say on this 'reading your notices' business. He stopped reading his reviews back in the early eighties. He told me, "if you believe the good ones, you have to believe the bad ones, too. Best not to read any of them and keep trusting your instincts." He also told me something I have oft quoted, "Critics are like eunuchs at an orgy. The can watch, but they can't join in." In fact, I told Jim that yesterday and got a laugh from him. I hope he passed it on to the hard-working and talented cast of Nightmare Alley.
When I was doing Arnold in The Boys Next Door for the first time at Wayside Theatre in Virginia, I had a problem with doing such a dead-on impression of a mentally challenged man. I felt a little seedy doing it. I called Michael and told him this. He said, "Does the play offer redemption?" I said, yes. He said, "Then don't give it another thought. We can do anything as artists as long as what we're doing offers redemption." I have kept that piece of advice in the forefront of my mind for many years now.
Michael also told me recently he thought the late Pauline Kael, the former esteemed film critic for The New Yorker, was largely responsible for his career taking a nose-dive in the late seventies. Kael attacked Moriarty at every available opportunity. In particular a film he made called Report to the Commission, in which he starred. She lambasted it. She attacked his mannerisms, his sensitivity as an actor, his choices, even his physical appearance. Kael carried a lot of weight in the critic business back then. She was the grand dame of critics. Roger Ebert worshipped her. New York's intellectual community lived and died by her opinion. This is the same Pauline Kael who famously wrote upon seeing Last Tango in Paris, "Brando and Bertolucci have altered the face of an art form." At that time Moriarty, Pacino, DeNiro, Voight and Hoffman were the up and comers. Kael loved Pacino and DeNiro. Hated the rest. Michael says he went from A-lister to B-lister following her evisceration of him in that film. He may be right. She really did have that much influence back then.
I have twice written to a critic following what I felt was an especially unwarranted attack upon my work. The first was at Arena Stage when I was doing McMurphy in a production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The critic, one Donald Ames, wrote, "Mr. Morts ably carries this sordid mess on his capable back." He went on to say wonderful things about me and my performance but scathingly attacked the show itself and the other actors. I don't remember all I said in the letter, but essentially it was the same thing that Jim said to me yesterday. That is, how can you destroy all of this work and passion, thousands upon thousands of hours of it, with one careless and thoughtless swipe of your pen?
The other time was in Rochester, New York. I was doing a show called Redwood Curtain and I was not only directing it but acting the role of Lyman Fellars, the mysterious Vietnam Vet living in the humid forests of Northern California. The lead role in that show is the half-white, half-Vietnamese girl, Jeri. It was being played by my then girlfriend, Eileen. I thought she was really good in the role. When the reviews came out, again my work was praised but they attacked her mercilessly. I was incensed. I sent off a scathing letter to the critic for the main Rochester paper, the Democrat/Times. As it turned out I was invited to a charity event a short time later and came face to face with this critic. Back in those days I was little more volatile and actually considered punching the guy in the face. I was that angry. But he came over to my table and asked if he could join me. He was a very nice man which pissed me off even more. After a few sparring words he said to me, "let me give you some advice. You can't try and protect the actors around you that aren't as good as you are. That's a losing battle. You will never win that battle." At the time I simply smirked at that comment. Years later I think he may have been on to something.
Here's the bottom line for Jim. He's in a play that's not as good as he is. He can't protect it.
Sondheim wrote in Sunday in the Park with George when the lead character is depressed about his own critics, "You've got to move on. Show us more. Don't worry about what others are saying. So what? Let others make those decisions, they usually do. You've got to move on."
On June 11 my play, Praying Small, makes its West Coast Premiere. The play has garnished embarrassing accolades throughout the country. It has been hailed as a masterpiece, been given awards, submitted for the Pulitzer, critics have reached deep into their bag of adjectives for this one. And what if L.A. doesn't agree? What if my director pushes it into a realm of absurdism that mangles the message of the play? What if it's just too coarse? What if the scatological language is too much? What if my performance in it is pedestrian? What if one of a million things go wrong?
Well, I'll tell you. I move on. I show more. I write again. I do something new. I shake it off. I plunge myself into another artistic orgy and let the eunuchs watch all over again. I trust I have something to say. Something others want to hear. Something that offers redemption. And after that, I do it again. And again. I move on.
See you tomorrow.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Happy Birthday, William Shakespeare.
I despise memorization. The actor's life would be a perfect life if not for all of the memorization. I'm reading a biography on Sir Anthony Hopkins right now and I was pleased to discover that he, too, had a great deal of trouble memorizing lines. He hated it. And, of course, Brando is legendary for not being able to memorize lines.
A couple of months ago I wrote and directed a piece called From the East to the West. I remember we did our first read-thru at the theatre and then a couple of days later started blocking. I was astonished when a couple of the young actors came in halfway off book already. How the hell do they do that?
Olivier always espoused coming in to rehearsal off book. And he did just that throughout most of his career apparently. Even the big ones; Lear, Hamlet, Tyrone, Big Daddy, Othello. I'm not sure if the layman can understand just how much damned work that is. Nonetheless, I took my cue from Lord Larry and have done it many times. I came in off book for Give 'Em Hell, Harry, which is a two and half hour one person show about Harry Truman. Then again, I had nearly five months to prepare for that one. Olivier's point, and it is certainly valid, is that the real work doesn't start until the books are gone. Until the book is put aside the play still belongs to the playwright. Once the book is gone, the actor takes possession of the play.
I once did a production of Lost in Yonkers (did that show five times) at Chicago's Forum Theatre. I'd already done it twice, once at Arkansas Rep and once at The Asolo. Unbeknownst to me, however, all of the other actors had done it elsewhere, too. It was an all-star cast, Marji Bank, Paula Scrafano, a couple of others, and when the first table read-thru came along and the director yapped a bit about his "concept" of the play (fucking directors...don't get me started), we started the initial read-thru - common practice in the theatre. But this time, all of us just sat there with our scripts closed in front of us and started the play. Not one of us opened the book. It was amazing. An entire cast letter-perfect on day one. And we still had three and half weeks to play.
Another time when I was doing The Chairman in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, I noticed a note from the playwright in the script. Rupert Holmes had written, "At some point during the run The Chairman WILL go up on his lines. We suggest a handsomely bound manuscript onstage at all times for just such an occasion." It's a huge role with a bunch of fat monologues. Sure enough, about three weeks into the run, I went up. Thank God for that "handsomely bound manuscript."
I was once doing a supporting role in one of my own plays, Praying Small, in Chicago. There is a quick scene involving the lead character, Sam, and a lesbian lawyer. The woman originally playing the role had to step out for a weekend due to a family death. So the director brought in this really pretty young actress to do the role for a few days. The scene was blocked in such a way that the lesbian lawyer had only to sit there and say her lines. This new actress was really casual and assured back in the dressing room. We didn't even run through the quick scene beforehand because it was so easy. So the scene arrives and the young actress steps to the chair in the segue and the lights come up. The actor playing Sam turns to her and delivers the first line. Nothing. She just stares at him. Scared to death. He tries to cover, adlibs a bit, seeks a way to give her the line without actually saying it himself. Nothing. More terrified staring. Finally he just moves to the end of the scene, sort of does a wrap-up of what happened in the scene and moves to the next one. The young actress, who has not uttered a single word, confidently gets up and exits. Backstage we all look at her horrified. She sits and says, "Well, that could have gone better." She was replaced the next night.
Years ago I was cast as Lt. Schrank in West Side Story. Good little role. I've always contended that if I were to go on another national tour, that would be the perfect role to do. Rake in your 2200 bucks a week and hardly do anything. Anyway, in that production the kid playing Riff was not really an actor. He was a dancer. And whenever he delivered his lines, when he was finished with his sentence, under his breath, barely audible, he would say, "Your turn." Funniest damn thing I've ever seen. He did this IN FRONT of an audience. The first time he said it to me, I actually stopped for a second and said, "Excuse me?" Unbelievably he repeated it, a little louder, "Your turn." And remember, folks, this was a big-time, Equity show. Oy.
My favorite is a story told me by a friend of mine named Mitch Kantor who was doing Richard III at Riverside Shakespeare in New York. Mitch wasn't playing the hunchback, I forget what role he was doing, but anyway, as most actors know, the play starts with a very famous line from The Bard. Richard enters at the curtain and says "Now is the winter of our discontent." So, curtain up, out hobbles Richard, stares at the audience chillingly, and says, "Now is the summer...(pause). I'll come in again." And walks off stage. Curtain drops. A couple of seconds. Curtain up. Richard hobbles out again. "Now is the WINTER of our discontent."
Since it's Shakespeare's birthday I'll recount another story told me by my buddy, Bob Koch, who was doing the famous Julius Caesar in the park with Martin Sheen, Al Pacino and Ed Begley Jr. The director had a great idea of getting a ton of senators during the Caesar murder scene. Just like the Romans did it, Jr. Senators and Sr. Senators. So he went to the Equity lounge in mid-town where, back in those days, you could find a whole gaggle of old actors who date back to the vaudevillian age. Ancient guys who would sit around all day in the lounge gossiping and drinking coffee and smoking and talking about "the good, old days." They were really funny guys. Telling stories about doing the "circuit" in the Catskills and whatnot. I used to sit with them now and then and play gin rummy and listen to the stories. Anyway, Joe Papp hired every one of them for the play. They only had the one scene and no lines. Most of them were in their eighties. So the big death scene with Ed Begley comes along on opening night. The senators close in on Caesar. Deathly silence in the house. Finally they fall on him, stabbing him repeatedly with daggers hidden in their robes. Caesar goes down, blood packets have burst and he's covered in red. They all start to step backwards, shocked by the audacity of what they've just done to the Emperor of Rome. At that exact moment a phone starts to ring backstage. Very loud. Ring. Ring. Ring. Goes on forever. Everyone can hear it, audience and actors alike. Finally, one of the eighty year old, ex-vaudevillian actors can't resist and says in a loud stage whisper, "What if it's for Caesar?"
Learning lines. Ah, there's the rub. I hate it.
See you tomorrow.
A couple of months ago I wrote and directed a piece called From the East to the West. I remember we did our first read-thru at the theatre and then a couple of days later started blocking. I was astonished when a couple of the young actors came in halfway off book already. How the hell do they do that?
Olivier always espoused coming in to rehearsal off book. And he did just that throughout most of his career apparently. Even the big ones; Lear, Hamlet, Tyrone, Big Daddy, Othello. I'm not sure if the layman can understand just how much damned work that is. Nonetheless, I took my cue from Lord Larry and have done it many times. I came in off book for Give 'Em Hell, Harry, which is a two and half hour one person show about Harry Truman. Then again, I had nearly five months to prepare for that one. Olivier's point, and it is certainly valid, is that the real work doesn't start until the books are gone. Until the book is put aside the play still belongs to the playwright. Once the book is gone, the actor takes possession of the play.
I once did a production of Lost in Yonkers (did that show five times) at Chicago's Forum Theatre. I'd already done it twice, once at Arkansas Rep and once at The Asolo. Unbeknownst to me, however, all of the other actors had done it elsewhere, too. It was an all-star cast, Marji Bank, Paula Scrafano, a couple of others, and when the first table read-thru came along and the director yapped a bit about his "concept" of the play (fucking directors...don't get me started), we started the initial read-thru - common practice in the theatre. But this time, all of us just sat there with our scripts closed in front of us and started the play. Not one of us opened the book. It was amazing. An entire cast letter-perfect on day one. And we still had three and half weeks to play.
Another time when I was doing The Chairman in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, I noticed a note from the playwright in the script. Rupert Holmes had written, "At some point during the run The Chairman WILL go up on his lines. We suggest a handsomely bound manuscript onstage at all times for just such an occasion." It's a huge role with a bunch of fat monologues. Sure enough, about three weeks into the run, I went up. Thank God for that "handsomely bound manuscript."
I was once doing a supporting role in one of my own plays, Praying Small, in Chicago. There is a quick scene involving the lead character, Sam, and a lesbian lawyer. The woman originally playing the role had to step out for a weekend due to a family death. So the director brought in this really pretty young actress to do the role for a few days. The scene was blocked in such a way that the lesbian lawyer had only to sit there and say her lines. This new actress was really casual and assured back in the dressing room. We didn't even run through the quick scene beforehand because it was so easy. So the scene arrives and the young actress steps to the chair in the segue and the lights come up. The actor playing Sam turns to her and delivers the first line. Nothing. She just stares at him. Scared to death. He tries to cover, adlibs a bit, seeks a way to give her the line without actually saying it himself. Nothing. More terrified staring. Finally he just moves to the end of the scene, sort of does a wrap-up of what happened in the scene and moves to the next one. The young actress, who has not uttered a single word, confidently gets up and exits. Backstage we all look at her horrified. She sits and says, "Well, that could have gone better." She was replaced the next night.
Years ago I was cast as Lt. Schrank in West Side Story. Good little role. I've always contended that if I were to go on another national tour, that would be the perfect role to do. Rake in your 2200 bucks a week and hardly do anything. Anyway, in that production the kid playing Riff was not really an actor. He was a dancer. And whenever he delivered his lines, when he was finished with his sentence, under his breath, barely audible, he would say, "Your turn." Funniest damn thing I've ever seen. He did this IN FRONT of an audience. The first time he said it to me, I actually stopped for a second and said, "Excuse me?" Unbelievably he repeated it, a little louder, "Your turn." And remember, folks, this was a big-time, Equity show. Oy.
My favorite is a story told me by a friend of mine named Mitch Kantor who was doing Richard III at Riverside Shakespeare in New York. Mitch wasn't playing the hunchback, I forget what role he was doing, but anyway, as most actors know, the play starts with a very famous line from The Bard. Richard enters at the curtain and says "Now is the winter of our discontent." So, curtain up, out hobbles Richard, stares at the audience chillingly, and says, "Now is the summer...(pause). I'll come in again." And walks off stage. Curtain drops. A couple of seconds. Curtain up. Richard hobbles out again. "Now is the WINTER of our discontent."
Since it's Shakespeare's birthday I'll recount another story told me by my buddy, Bob Koch, who was doing the famous Julius Caesar in the park with Martin Sheen, Al Pacino and Ed Begley Jr. The director had a great idea of getting a ton of senators during the Caesar murder scene. Just like the Romans did it, Jr. Senators and Sr. Senators. So he went to the Equity lounge in mid-town where, back in those days, you could find a whole gaggle of old actors who date back to the vaudevillian age. Ancient guys who would sit around all day in the lounge gossiping and drinking coffee and smoking and talking about "the good, old days." They were really funny guys. Telling stories about doing the "circuit" in the Catskills and whatnot. I used to sit with them now and then and play gin rummy and listen to the stories. Anyway, Joe Papp hired every one of them for the play. They only had the one scene and no lines. Most of them were in their eighties. So the big death scene with Ed Begley comes along on opening night. The senators close in on Caesar. Deathly silence in the house. Finally they fall on him, stabbing him repeatedly with daggers hidden in their robes. Caesar goes down, blood packets have burst and he's covered in red. They all start to step backwards, shocked by the audacity of what they've just done to the Emperor of Rome. At that exact moment a phone starts to ring backstage. Very loud. Ring. Ring. Ring. Goes on forever. Everyone can hear it, audience and actors alike. Finally, one of the eighty year old, ex-vaudevillian actors can't resist and says in a loud stage whisper, "What if it's for Caesar?"
Learning lines. Ah, there's the rub. I hate it.
See you tomorrow.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Nightmare Alley at The Geffen last night...
Last night Angie and I took in a new musical at The Geffen theatre in Westwood called Nightmare Alley with one of my closest friends in the lead, James Barbour. It's a dark, cynical piece about a carnival worker who learns the game of conning an audience and eventually uses these skills to open his own church and scam his congregation out of their money. On the way he falls in love, accidentally kills another man and finally becomes a hopeless alcoholic. It's based on an old Tyrone Power film from the 1930s of the same name. The script has a lot of possibilities, most realized, some not.
First, let me say I have never been to The Geffen before last night. It very well may be the most beautiful 400 seat theatre I have ever seen. The lobby and courtyard alone are eye popping. The set and lighting design for the piece are really quite nice, managing to be both sparse and arresting at the same time.
The show, not surprisingly, reminded me of a couple of other shows written in the same style: Carnival, Carousel, Chicago, even Edwin Drood. Some of the music soars and some remains, purposely, dark and narrative. I didn't leave the theatre humming any tunes but I'm fairly sure the composer didn't want me to, either. That's the way it was with Sondheim's Bounce, which I watched at The Goodman some years back. One gets the idea the music is complicated. Although there is a very sweet ballad in the first act called I Surrender.
In any event, the play remains distant. Not engaging, really. And again, this is probably the whole point. The emotional distance is not an accident, it's what the creators want.
Halfway through the second act I whispered to Angie, "I know what's wrong." Jim's character, Stan Carlyle, takes a series of mighty emotional blows in the second act and eventually falls into the pits of despair and suffering. The point being he is reaping his just rewards. But no one really cares too much because the character has been an anti-hero the entire time. And that's what's wrong.
I told Jim afterwards that I thought the whole show could be turned around with the addition of a single monologue when the love interest is introduced. A monologue showing Stan's vulnerable side, his tender side, and explaining why he is the way he is. One can't really fall from grace unless one has grace to being with.
But that's all quibbling. Jimmy Barbour is the single most powerful musical theatre actor I have ever had the pleasure to watch. He is at the peak of his powers as a performer. Vocally he is downright shocking at times. There are three or four times during the evening he is called upon to really wail. He wails. I have never heard him in better voice. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone in better voice.
In addition to his remarkable prowess as a singer, Jim is a fine, fine actor in this style. He is angry and sharp and plays this kind of writing with tremendous clarity. Makes me really wish I had seen his Billy in Carousel on Broadway.
As I mentioned, the piece really has only one "traditional" musical theatre ballad in it called "I Surrender." It is touching and heartbreaking. And I'm just guessing here, but I think it's a two octave song. Probably G to G. Jim sings it as flawlessly as I can imagine.
I don't know if they'll do any reworking during the run. It's a fairly tight show as it stands. But I honestly believe the added monologue in the first act would make it soar. We'd LIKE this guy. And if not that, we'd at least understand where he's coming from. Again, it wouldn't have to be much, just an added half-page monologue that humanizes the character. Consequently when he reaches the end game, we empathize with him. His fate in the end is quite horrifying. It would be only more so if we really, really understood the guy. His conversion back to "honest guy" is too little, too late. And the advent of alcoholism in his life is foreshadowed with one or two lines from another character. I think a running acknowledgment from Stan himself would help clarify that. One doesn't become an abusive drinker overnight and it is usually hereditary anyway. In other words, if we hear the train coming it is far more sinister when it finally runs over someone.
But that's the playwright in me talking.
The place was packed last night. It's over near UCLA so it's quite a trek for Angie and I. Angie is good friends with the Managing Director over there so we stood and talked with him for awhile. Jim came out for the reception afterwards and posed for about a hundred pictures with people. But he's like I am and I know that's a chore for him. But he was really gracious about it and stood patiently as the flash bulbs snapped away.
Jim, incidentally, is my Best Man at our upcoming wedding. We've been best friends since 1989 when he played Lancelot to my Arthur in Camelot. We have been through a lot together, to say the least.
So Nightmare Alley, gentle readers. I think it plays through most of May. Eight shows a week at The Geffen.
And I think if Jim doesn't get an Ovation nomination for this, I'd be really surprised. He dominates in a very fine cast of actors. The eye finds him in whatever scene he's doing and is reluctant to turn elsewhere.
I was very, very proud of my friend last night. And all over again I realized why he is a star. He's a star because he happens to be very, very good at what he does.
See you tomorrow.
First, let me say I have never been to The Geffen before last night. It very well may be the most beautiful 400 seat theatre I have ever seen. The lobby and courtyard alone are eye popping. The set and lighting design for the piece are really quite nice, managing to be both sparse and arresting at the same time.
The show, not surprisingly, reminded me of a couple of other shows written in the same style: Carnival, Carousel, Chicago, even Edwin Drood. Some of the music soars and some remains, purposely, dark and narrative. I didn't leave the theatre humming any tunes but I'm fairly sure the composer didn't want me to, either. That's the way it was with Sondheim's Bounce, which I watched at The Goodman some years back. One gets the idea the music is complicated. Although there is a very sweet ballad in the first act called I Surrender.
In any event, the play remains distant. Not engaging, really. And again, this is probably the whole point. The emotional distance is not an accident, it's what the creators want.
Halfway through the second act I whispered to Angie, "I know what's wrong." Jim's character, Stan Carlyle, takes a series of mighty emotional blows in the second act and eventually falls into the pits of despair and suffering. The point being he is reaping his just rewards. But no one really cares too much because the character has been an anti-hero the entire time. And that's what's wrong.
I told Jim afterwards that I thought the whole show could be turned around with the addition of a single monologue when the love interest is introduced. A monologue showing Stan's vulnerable side, his tender side, and explaining why he is the way he is. One can't really fall from grace unless one has grace to being with.
But that's all quibbling. Jimmy Barbour is the single most powerful musical theatre actor I have ever had the pleasure to watch. He is at the peak of his powers as a performer. Vocally he is downright shocking at times. There are three or four times during the evening he is called upon to really wail. He wails. I have never heard him in better voice. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone in better voice.
In addition to his remarkable prowess as a singer, Jim is a fine, fine actor in this style. He is angry and sharp and plays this kind of writing with tremendous clarity. Makes me really wish I had seen his Billy in Carousel on Broadway.
As I mentioned, the piece really has only one "traditional" musical theatre ballad in it called "I Surrender." It is touching and heartbreaking. And I'm just guessing here, but I think it's a two octave song. Probably G to G. Jim sings it as flawlessly as I can imagine.
I don't know if they'll do any reworking during the run. It's a fairly tight show as it stands. But I honestly believe the added monologue in the first act would make it soar. We'd LIKE this guy. And if not that, we'd at least understand where he's coming from. Again, it wouldn't have to be much, just an added half-page monologue that humanizes the character. Consequently when he reaches the end game, we empathize with him. His fate in the end is quite horrifying. It would be only more so if we really, really understood the guy. His conversion back to "honest guy" is too little, too late. And the advent of alcoholism in his life is foreshadowed with one or two lines from another character. I think a running acknowledgment from Stan himself would help clarify that. One doesn't become an abusive drinker overnight and it is usually hereditary anyway. In other words, if we hear the train coming it is far more sinister when it finally runs over someone.
But that's the playwright in me talking.
The place was packed last night. It's over near UCLA so it's quite a trek for Angie and I. Angie is good friends with the Managing Director over there so we stood and talked with him for awhile. Jim came out for the reception afterwards and posed for about a hundred pictures with people. But he's like I am and I know that's a chore for him. But he was really gracious about it and stood patiently as the flash bulbs snapped away.
Jim, incidentally, is my Best Man at our upcoming wedding. We've been best friends since 1989 when he played Lancelot to my Arthur in Camelot. We have been through a lot together, to say the least.
So Nightmare Alley, gentle readers. I think it plays through most of May. Eight shows a week at The Geffen.
And I think if Jim doesn't get an Ovation nomination for this, I'd be really surprised. He dominates in a very fine cast of actors. The eye finds him in whatever scene he's doing and is reluctant to turn elsewhere.
I was very, very proud of my friend last night. And all over again I realized why he is a star. He's a star because he happens to be very, very good at what he does.
See you tomorrow.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Busy is as busy does...
Stopped into the theatre yesterday to watch a little bit of the rehearsal for Bachelor's Graveyard. Rob and Jon were doing the fifteen minute, two-person, opening scene about sex on a country road. It's a funny scene, I think, albeit a bit R rated. Actually, I was already at the theatre helping to paint the set on the mainstage for a whole evening of one-acts called Sanity 2. It's an evening of eight short plays, none of them mine. I'm acting in two of them. A piece called Annie and Oliver and another called The Connection. The former is flat out silliness and the latter a bit more serious. Painting the set itself was a comedy of errors for me because they're using three subtle shades of purple on everything and being color blind, I can't see the difference. I kept picking up the wrong color of paint and being stopped at the last second lest I ruin everything. "No, Clif, that's the medium purple. You want the darker purple."
For the one-acts, as usual, I'm basing my performance on an impression I have of someone else. I like to work that way. My impression, when filtered through me, becomes an entity in itself. I'm not a very good mimic so my take on someone comes out as a completely separate thing. In the first play, the silly one, I've decided to do the whole thing as Harry Morgan (MASH, Dragnet, etc.). So I'm trying to capture Harry Morgan's distinctive cadence.
In the second I'm using George W. Bush and his Texas drawl and his remarkable ability to make anything that comes out of his mouth sound vaguely stupid. "I decide things. That's what I do. I'm the decider."
The one-acts open a week from tomorrow and run five weeks.
Afterwards I met up with Angie and a friend of hers at a nice little restaurant around the corner called The Eclectic Cafe. I was a bit grungy, paint all over me, but they let me in anyway.
But back to the Bachelor's Graveyard rehearsal. What I've tried to do with this piece is make the audience somewhat of a voyeur and let them into an unedited session of conversation amongst five teenage boys. It's almost a top secret place to be. Teenagers are very inclusive about who is allowed into their world. Adults certainly are not invited. At least that's the way it was when I was eighteen. There's nothing in this play that Normal Rockwell would see fit to paint.
Had a quick conversation with Jon after rehearsal. He said, "It's tough to play eighteen again." I said, "If you were actually eighteen you couldn't play it." Fortunately all of these guys look young and can get away with playing eighteen.
Again, as I sat in the back watching the rehearsal, I was grinning. This play makes me do that. I hardly ever interrupt. Karesa has the rehearsal. She's on the exact right path. Occasionally I'll say something about the text. But mostly I just watch and let her take the actors where she's going in her own time. She's got a sharp eye.
I'm teaching a class today and then memorizing lines for the one-acts. Tonight Angie and I are going to the opening night of Nightmare Alley, a new musical at The Geffen headed by my good friend, James Barbour. By the way, Jim will be my best man in my upcoming wedding.
There's a lot of work being done these days at NoHo Arts Center Ensemble. Eight one-acts in rehearsal along with Bachelor's Graveyard rehearsals along with Praying Small rehearsals. I've gotten pretty busy suddenly. All of this plus my teaching and well, not a lot of time left over. I like it that way. An idle mind, after all, is the devil's workshop.
We're also adding a Writer's Workshop at NoHo. I'll facilitate it. Not sure what I can contribute exactly. I don't have any tried and true way that I write. I'm not very formulaic about my work. And I sure as hell don't want to take in any textbook of any kind. We'll see how that works out.
Got the coffee going. Gonna be a cool, crisp day here in the valley. Angie and the puppies are still comatose. Silence in the house with the exception of my clanking keyboard. My favorite time of the day.
See you tomorrow.
For the one-acts, as usual, I'm basing my performance on an impression I have of someone else. I like to work that way. My impression, when filtered through me, becomes an entity in itself. I'm not a very good mimic so my take on someone comes out as a completely separate thing. In the first play, the silly one, I've decided to do the whole thing as Harry Morgan (MASH, Dragnet, etc.). So I'm trying to capture Harry Morgan's distinctive cadence.
In the second I'm using George W. Bush and his Texas drawl and his remarkable ability to make anything that comes out of his mouth sound vaguely stupid. "I decide things. That's what I do. I'm the decider."
The one-acts open a week from tomorrow and run five weeks.
Afterwards I met up with Angie and a friend of hers at a nice little restaurant around the corner called The Eclectic Cafe. I was a bit grungy, paint all over me, but they let me in anyway.
But back to the Bachelor's Graveyard rehearsal. What I've tried to do with this piece is make the audience somewhat of a voyeur and let them into an unedited session of conversation amongst five teenage boys. It's almost a top secret place to be. Teenagers are very inclusive about who is allowed into their world. Adults certainly are not invited. At least that's the way it was when I was eighteen. There's nothing in this play that Normal Rockwell would see fit to paint.
Had a quick conversation with Jon after rehearsal. He said, "It's tough to play eighteen again." I said, "If you were actually eighteen you couldn't play it." Fortunately all of these guys look young and can get away with playing eighteen.
Again, as I sat in the back watching the rehearsal, I was grinning. This play makes me do that. I hardly ever interrupt. Karesa has the rehearsal. She's on the exact right path. Occasionally I'll say something about the text. But mostly I just watch and let her take the actors where she's going in her own time. She's got a sharp eye.
I'm teaching a class today and then memorizing lines for the one-acts. Tonight Angie and I are going to the opening night of Nightmare Alley, a new musical at The Geffen headed by my good friend, James Barbour. By the way, Jim will be my best man in my upcoming wedding.
There's a lot of work being done these days at NoHo Arts Center Ensemble. Eight one-acts in rehearsal along with Bachelor's Graveyard rehearsals along with Praying Small rehearsals. I've gotten pretty busy suddenly. All of this plus my teaching and well, not a lot of time left over. I like it that way. An idle mind, after all, is the devil's workshop.
We're also adding a Writer's Workshop at NoHo. I'll facilitate it. Not sure what I can contribute exactly. I don't have any tried and true way that I write. I'm not very formulaic about my work. And I sure as hell don't want to take in any textbook of any kind. We'll see how that works out.
Got the coffee going. Gonna be a cool, crisp day here in the valley. Angie and the puppies are still comatose. Silence in the house with the exception of my clanking keyboard. My favorite time of the day.
See you tomorrow.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Watching Lonesome Dove...
We started watching Lonesome Dove last night. Amazingly, Angie has never seen it. I've read the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel it is based on three times, I think. Larry McMurtry's best work as far as I'm concerned. And that's a lot of work. My buddy, Jeff Wood, turned me onto it. It's one of those novels that I couldn't wait to start reading again whenever I put it down.
Call and Gus are great literary figures of the twentieth century. Played in the mini-series by Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall respectively. In fact, I remember when it came out, late eighties, I was down in Morgantown, West Virginia, visiting my then girlfriend, Venice, and we got back to her place a bit late after having dinner out and we turned on the TV and started watching the show. I knew nothing of the casting and I actually thought Jones was Kenny Rogers for a second. I turned to Venice and said, "This is the best work I've ever seen Kenny Rogers do. Who would have guessed?"
But the novel. My God, what a great piece of writing. It stands among my favorite contemporary novels; A Prayer for Owen Meany, Life of Pi, Shogun and Watership Down. It is truly epic writing.
Books have always been my salvation. Not movies, not TV, not even theatre, but books. My mother is responsible for that. When I was very young, maybe ten or eleven, my parents bought a liquor store in the midwest. They struggled mightily to make it work. The store was open twenty hours a day, six a.m until two a.m., every day but Sunday. My dad would work twelve hours and my mom the other eight. I would go along with her at night and when I got sleepy, simply lay down behind the counter. To keep me from getting antsy she would often read to me. And one night, I remember with remarkable clarity, she started reading The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. I was captivated. It is to that very moment I can trace my fascination with reading. Later she read A Wrinkle in Time, Lord of the Rings, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and many others. She taught me to transport myself.
Today when I hear people say "I'm not a reader," I am astonished. How can anyone not read? How do they get by? Later, in high school, I discovered Hemingway and Faulkner and Thomas Wolfe. I lived a double life. The class clown, always in trouble, and the secret reader, always living someone else's beautifully drawn life. Every weekend I was dragged, against my will, to The Lake of the Ozarks to spend time on our houseboat. I, of course, wanted to be back home playing with my friends. So I learned to take books with me and, much to the chagrin of my father, spent those weekends in another world. Reading non-stop while everyone else swam and water-skied and frolicked.
Novels have taken me to moments so sublime in my life it would be impossible to describe here. I am often asked by students what they should do. How do I become a better actor every single day, they sometimes ask. My answer is always to read. Read everything, anything, I don't care, just read, transport yourself, live someone else's life, be someone else, read cereal boxes, sports articles, magazines, non-fiction, anything, just read.
A by-product of this has been an unusual grasp of trivia. Angie is always asking me, "how do you KNOW that?" And I always say, "I read."
I can re-live moments in novels that even today make me shudder with delight. Gandalf meeting the balrog in Lord of the Rings, Gus dying in Lonesome Dove ("Quite a party, Woodrow, quite a party."), Zooey telling Franny the meaning of life ("Ah, Zooey, don't you realize the fat lady is Jesus Christ himself?"), Bigwig refusing to budge in the tunnel ("My chief told me to hold this tunnel."), Jake refusing to go to bed with his lover in For Whom the Bell Tolls ("Wouldn't it be pretty if it were true."), Owen Meany dying ("Oh, Lord, I shall keep asking you - Give him back!"), Pickett telling Lee in Killer Angels, "I have no division, sir."
What wonderful moments when those lines are read for the first time.
I was recently at the theatre, breaking for lunch between rehearsals, and saw a young man sitting at Starbucks with a copy of Look Homeward, Angel. I said, "God, how I envy you." Because I knew what a great journey he was about to take. He smiled. He got it.
More than any other form of creation I admire novelists the most. I am in awe. The great ones can paint a picture that lasts forever. Yes, I'm told writing plays is the hardest kind of writing. Well, not for me. And it's interesting because it seems prose writers always want to write plays and playwrights always want to write novels. But neither are very good at it. It's kind of like Michael Jordan wanting to play baseball. It's just not his gift. Mailer wanted desperately to be a playwright. Tennesee Williams wanted to be known for his poetry. And on and on. I think this is because they don't respect the gift they were given. It came too easy. For example, I know what I do well. I know I can write dialogue especially well. I know that. But I'm always fascinated with other ways to express myself. Singing, playing my sax, writing a short story. I do all of this on occasion but the truth is I'm not very good at it. It's hard for me. I have to struggle. It's work. Writing dialogue? It's easy, it flows, it comes quick.
I don't "know" John Malkovich, but because of my Chicago background we've met a few times and hung out. He once told me he takes very little joy in acting anymore. What he really wants to do is design clothes. Brando once said if it weren't for the money he would have stopped acting decades ago...what he really wanted to do was study ecology. Johnny Depp says he'd rather be a rock star. Acting bores him. Mick Jagger says he always wanted to be an actor. I completely understand all of that. The original gift comes too easy. People, artists especially, want to "work" at something. Churchill wanted to be a great impressionist. Truman wanted to be a farmer. And Picasso wanted to sing sad, French ballads in cafes all day long.
And I want to be a novelist. I want to write prose all day, sit quietly and alone and write great sentences and paragraphs, tell life-changing stories, invent people, paint joy and pain with words. Problem is I'm not very good at it. What I'm good at is writing plays. I can "see" that, I can "hear" that, I can be inside that. And, for better or worse, it's easy for me.
Eventually, of course, truly great artists realize it's not even about what they do. It's about something even larger. It's about loving your wife, or your children. It's about being good to other people. It's about enjoying life without suffering. It's about living everyday to the fullest without causing anyone else pain or consternation. It's about deflating the ego and finding a personal God that can bring solace. It's about something so much larger than the pursuit of art. With age small things get bigger and big things get smaller.
I'm about to get married later this year and I understand somewhere deep down that an era of self-obsession is about to end. Time to think of someone else first now. Time to make sure someone else is comfortable before I seek comfort for myself. Some time back that thought would have seemed tedious and unnecessary to me. Now, today, however, it gives me great pleasure.
When I'm on my deathbed, minutes, maybe moments left in this great adventure, I doubt I'll regret not writing one more play, I doubt I'll regret not acting one more role, I doubt I'll regret not being seen by one more audience. No. I'll regret not loving harder, not living easier, not caring more, not thinking of someone else's happiness first. I'll regret not being a better human being.
See you tomorrow.
Call and Gus are great literary figures of the twentieth century. Played in the mini-series by Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall respectively. In fact, I remember when it came out, late eighties, I was down in Morgantown, West Virginia, visiting my then girlfriend, Venice, and we got back to her place a bit late after having dinner out and we turned on the TV and started watching the show. I knew nothing of the casting and I actually thought Jones was Kenny Rogers for a second. I turned to Venice and said, "This is the best work I've ever seen Kenny Rogers do. Who would have guessed?"
But the novel. My God, what a great piece of writing. It stands among my favorite contemporary novels; A Prayer for Owen Meany, Life of Pi, Shogun and Watership Down. It is truly epic writing.
Books have always been my salvation. Not movies, not TV, not even theatre, but books. My mother is responsible for that. When I was very young, maybe ten or eleven, my parents bought a liquor store in the midwest. They struggled mightily to make it work. The store was open twenty hours a day, six a.m until two a.m., every day but Sunday. My dad would work twelve hours and my mom the other eight. I would go along with her at night and when I got sleepy, simply lay down behind the counter. To keep me from getting antsy she would often read to me. And one night, I remember with remarkable clarity, she started reading The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. I was captivated. It is to that very moment I can trace my fascination with reading. Later she read A Wrinkle in Time, Lord of the Rings, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and many others. She taught me to transport myself.
Today when I hear people say "I'm not a reader," I am astonished. How can anyone not read? How do they get by? Later, in high school, I discovered Hemingway and Faulkner and Thomas Wolfe. I lived a double life. The class clown, always in trouble, and the secret reader, always living someone else's beautifully drawn life. Every weekend I was dragged, against my will, to The Lake of the Ozarks to spend time on our houseboat. I, of course, wanted to be back home playing with my friends. So I learned to take books with me and, much to the chagrin of my father, spent those weekends in another world. Reading non-stop while everyone else swam and water-skied and frolicked.
Novels have taken me to moments so sublime in my life it would be impossible to describe here. I am often asked by students what they should do. How do I become a better actor every single day, they sometimes ask. My answer is always to read. Read everything, anything, I don't care, just read, transport yourself, live someone else's life, be someone else, read cereal boxes, sports articles, magazines, non-fiction, anything, just read.
A by-product of this has been an unusual grasp of trivia. Angie is always asking me, "how do you KNOW that?" And I always say, "I read."
I can re-live moments in novels that even today make me shudder with delight. Gandalf meeting the balrog in Lord of the Rings, Gus dying in Lonesome Dove ("Quite a party, Woodrow, quite a party."), Zooey telling Franny the meaning of life ("Ah, Zooey, don't you realize the fat lady is Jesus Christ himself?"), Bigwig refusing to budge in the tunnel ("My chief told me to hold this tunnel."), Jake refusing to go to bed with his lover in For Whom the Bell Tolls ("Wouldn't it be pretty if it were true."), Owen Meany dying ("Oh, Lord, I shall keep asking you - Give him back!"), Pickett telling Lee in Killer Angels, "I have no division, sir."
What wonderful moments when those lines are read for the first time.
I was recently at the theatre, breaking for lunch between rehearsals, and saw a young man sitting at Starbucks with a copy of Look Homeward, Angel. I said, "God, how I envy you." Because I knew what a great journey he was about to take. He smiled. He got it.
More than any other form of creation I admire novelists the most. I am in awe. The great ones can paint a picture that lasts forever. Yes, I'm told writing plays is the hardest kind of writing. Well, not for me. And it's interesting because it seems prose writers always want to write plays and playwrights always want to write novels. But neither are very good at it. It's kind of like Michael Jordan wanting to play baseball. It's just not his gift. Mailer wanted desperately to be a playwright. Tennesee Williams wanted to be known for his poetry. And on and on. I think this is because they don't respect the gift they were given. It came too easy. For example, I know what I do well. I know I can write dialogue especially well. I know that. But I'm always fascinated with other ways to express myself. Singing, playing my sax, writing a short story. I do all of this on occasion but the truth is I'm not very good at it. It's hard for me. I have to struggle. It's work. Writing dialogue? It's easy, it flows, it comes quick.
I don't "know" John Malkovich, but because of my Chicago background we've met a few times and hung out. He once told me he takes very little joy in acting anymore. What he really wants to do is design clothes. Brando once said if it weren't for the money he would have stopped acting decades ago...what he really wanted to do was study ecology. Johnny Depp says he'd rather be a rock star. Acting bores him. Mick Jagger says he always wanted to be an actor. I completely understand all of that. The original gift comes too easy. People, artists especially, want to "work" at something. Churchill wanted to be a great impressionist. Truman wanted to be a farmer. And Picasso wanted to sing sad, French ballads in cafes all day long.
And I want to be a novelist. I want to write prose all day, sit quietly and alone and write great sentences and paragraphs, tell life-changing stories, invent people, paint joy and pain with words. Problem is I'm not very good at it. What I'm good at is writing plays. I can "see" that, I can "hear" that, I can be inside that. And, for better or worse, it's easy for me.
Eventually, of course, truly great artists realize it's not even about what they do. It's about something even larger. It's about loving your wife, or your children. It's about being good to other people. It's about enjoying life without suffering. It's about living everyday to the fullest without causing anyone else pain or consternation. It's about deflating the ego and finding a personal God that can bring solace. It's about something so much larger than the pursuit of art. With age small things get bigger and big things get smaller.
I'm about to get married later this year and I understand somewhere deep down that an era of self-obsession is about to end. Time to think of someone else first now. Time to make sure someone else is comfortable before I seek comfort for myself. Some time back that thought would have seemed tedious and unnecessary to me. Now, today, however, it gives me great pleasure.
When I'm on my deathbed, minutes, maybe moments left in this great adventure, I doubt I'll regret not writing one more play, I doubt I'll regret not acting one more role, I doubt I'll regret not being seen by one more audience. No. I'll regret not loving harder, not living easier, not caring more, not thinking of someone else's happiness first. I'll regret not being a better human being.
See you tomorrow.
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