“Rarry Rarry Rar” means I love you

Howdy, folks.  This will be my last Milwaukee Shakespeare blog entry for Cymbeline.  Thanks for reading, and thanks for attending or working on the show.  I’ve enjoyed reporting on events and sharing thoughts on the process of acting in and doing educational outreach for this production, and of course I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity of doing said activities with this wonderful company made up of fantastically inspiring staff and artists.  

It’s been a hugely exciting and rewarding two seasons in Milwaukee for me, and though I’d love to continue on into next season (what a lineup! subscribe now!), my life is headed into a new, glorious and long-awaited direction. As I hinted last entry, Sunday’s show may very well have been my last performance on American soil.  I will be on a plane to London come Monday for a two-week preliminary visit, and if all visa hoops are jumped through, moving permanently to the UK by the end of the summer. I will come back and visit for sure, but who’s to say what’s going to happen professionally.  

So.  Knowing this, I lustily tore my disintegrating brown tights off my legs in three pieces after completing my final scene as Lord #2 on Sunday, and proudly tacked them up on display on the call board outside the men’s dressing room. Gross.  The rest of the show I was decidedly amped-up but also more focused than I’d been all week, and went out with one of my favorite shows of the run.

On Saturday night, I went up into the booth during the second half of the show to watch the “Cloten Goes to Milford Haven” sequence one last time.  It’s my favorite part of the show, the showstopping section featuring Joe Foust and Jonathan Smoots as Pisanio that I wrote about in the entry called “Rad” during rehearsals that first assured me that this was gonna be a very good show.  Since then, it’s gotten wackier and more intricate as Joe and Jonathan tirelessly refined it with an audience.  And it contains my absolute favorite utterance of our production, and forgive me purists, it’s one Shakespeare didn’t write: “Rarry rarry rar.” (I’m paraphrasing, of course.) We see Cloten the ridiculous spoiled prince given a new toy, the bear cloak of Posthumus, and take perverse delight in it and how he will use it to win Imogen.  Jonathan’s feigned trembling at the fearsomeness of the plushy cape would always drive me over the edge into hysterics, the two working their insane guy/straight man routine to perfection.

So yeah.  Just wanted to shout that out.  No big metaphor about why Cloten pretending to be a bear is like how as actors, we cloak ourselves in things that are sometimes furry and make funny voices so that people might come to a greater understanding of the nature of bears.  Not this time.  I’ve rambled and pretended to have big ol’ important ideas on this thing, in the theatre, and in the classroom enough these past  2 1/2 months.  It’s time to pack up and move on with a smile and a satisfied mind.  I hope everyone connected with this production remembers it fondly, if even just for one line that made you laugh, and that you dear reader, continue to check out what Milwaukee Shakespeare has to offer.

And with that, I’m peacing out.

 

 

eg

 

 

“Cymbeline” Love: Backstage Vibes

Whoosh, it’s Sunday morning of the last show of the run, a day in which almost everything I do will be touched by awareness of “This is the last time I’ll do this…” , which will elicit some sadness, but plenty of relief.  It’s been a long hard run. (Yes indeed I did finally get sick, albeit mildly.) But there is no denying I will miss this show.   Certainly there are more than ten things I love about “Cymbeline.”   There just won’t be ten blog entries about it.  Nonetheless, I’ll get as many as I can up between now and leaving Milwaukee on Wednesday.  There is much to be commemorated.  Just don’t expect too much is all I’m sayin’.

I never dreaded having to go to the theatre to perform “Cymbeline.” This is not always the case when you’re doing a long run of the same play day in and day out.  Some days you’re just not feeling it, or can’t bear to have to deal with so-and-so or what’s-his-face.  But I truly enjoyed the backstage atmosphere and eclectic camaraderie of “Cymbeline,” so I’ll share with y’all a handful of memories that’ll stick with me.

The endless free-associative dressing room jukebox, with Todd Denning especially standing out as someone who could pick up on an obscure lyric I half-mumbled and belt out half that artist’s oeuvre, or songmaster me (the process by which one person embeds another tune in your subconscious) with some blue-eyed soul one-hit wonder of the late 70s/early 80s.  Always kept me groovin’  like Earth Wind and Fire and reminiscin’ like the Little River Band.

Jonathan Smoots’s impromptu one-man tribute shows to William Shatner, spanning from Star Trek to Boston Legal with an easy and impeccable impersonation that made me feel like I was in the presence of ham-greatness.

I loved the diversity of conversation I found myself in during this run,  finding something in common with each company member to exchange ideas about, and thus maintaining an active, creative mind and spirit throughout the process, whether it was talking craft with Wayne, relationships with Amanda, sports with Jarecki or Darcy, politics, TV, the good ol’ days, cheese, whatever.

The calming zen presence of Patrick Lawlor, ambling in at 5 minutes till top of show like he just parked his surfboard outside.

The endearingly irritating nature of Joe “Why Don’t I Hate You More?” Foust, who when not doing a great job serving as Equity deputy or dispensing knowledge as a great Shakespeare authority, was acting like the older brother I never had, making me squirm and laugh with his disarming powers of scatology.  Literally. Once while having a perfectly normal (for once) conversation in the lobby while waiting to make an entrance, Joe pulled the sword out of my belt, farted on it, and place it back on my person. I just stared at him with my mouth open as he said, “Put THAT in your blog!” Quintessential Foust.

Cave boys.  Having to wait around for half the show before their first entrance, and then playing unsocialized lads o’ the wild, Andy and Nick developed a prep routine around intermission that was an amazing thing to behold to say the least.  Running, grunting, pushups, bellowing “Brothers!”, and taking turns hitting each other with various objects (including dowel rods, sandpaper, and Twizzlers) was their way of making sure the show’s energy did not flag at the top of the second half, and I believe kept excitement and enthusiasm in the air for everyone, even if sometimes (Flarp!) it resulted in a groan of “Oh, those cave boys.”  If the alternative is morose oh-so-seriousness, I’ll take overflowing cave boy energy for the rest of my life, please.

I have to cut this off to go get my gold tooth put in.  But I’ll get at least one more entry up.  ”Rarry Rarry Rar” is still out there, as well as noting what was potentially my last performance on US soil. So, lots of love, “Cymbeline” peeps, and more to come, readers!

Love me some “Cymbeline” IV: Iachimo on Wheels!

It’s been talked about in every talkback, but no harm giving another mention here to the commendable perseverance and ingenuity of the company–directors, designers, stage management, actors, and especially Mr. Todd Denning, in dealing with and integrating Todd’s injury into our show.

On a slick morning during the first week of rehearsal, Todd fell outside his home and broke his leg, the fibula, down there in the ankle region.  Almost without fail, Todd would say in talkbacks it was his “tribute to Joe Thiesmann,” which would always result in the sound of crickets at student matinee talkbacks, but seriously, if you’ve never seen the Washington quarterback’s 1985 injury at the hands of Lawrence Taylor, check it out.  Especially if you like watching horrifyingly gruesome leg breaks.

Anyway, Todd has profusely thanked the company for allowing him to stay in the show, and I for one am thankful too–I can’t imagine another super-oily smooth-talkin’ Iachimo at this point, and the clever adaptations necessitated by the injury actually added depth and dimension to the character.  A fly custom wheelchair was built, a covering for Todd’s massive walking boot was added to his costume along with a nifty cane, and stategic moments of unexpected standing were worked into his scenes to make the Italian master manipulator even more creepy, yet logically a guy that people might trust or  underestimate long enough for him to gain the upper hand on them.

Now, his cast off, Todd has to remember to act the limp from time to time, and we no longer get to see the enormous lucha libre-lookin’ boot cover, but his Iachimo stands (ah. ah.) as an excellent performance that overcame obstacles by integrating them.  Dig it.

And another thing I love about “Cymbeline”: Workshops

Being a workshop facilitator for Milwaukee Shakespeare is a blast, and it’s especially cool when I’ve designed sessions for the play that’s currently in production.  I have a living, breathing piece of work to refer to,  it makes me feel like a vital part of the company even when I’m not actually in the show, and it rounds out the theatre-going experience for the students, giving them the chance to try out some scene work and get started on thinking about themes before they see the show, or get some behind the scenes information on what they’ve already seen. 

Today I did the latter, an informal Q&A  at Pius XI High School with a group of very creative and personable seniors, whose work on a production of The Winter’s Tale I look forward to checking out tomorrow.  It’ll be good to do some scene study after I burned through an entire hour today expounding upon everything from careers in theatre to Cymbelinedesign choices to the evolving new-millennium relationships between audience and performers.  I have a not shutting up problem from time to time, and I wonder why these kids actually pay attention–if an accountant came into math class and started bloviating on the world of professional mathematics, would they want to listen? Huh.

The pre-attendance workshops for Cymbeline were anxious but ultimately satisfying experiences.  I whipped up two days’ worth of loose, interactive activities to help students begin to tune their ear to Shakespeare’s language (via a paraphrasing game show format), and to connect themselves to the outlandish but deeply felt circumstances of Cymbeline’s plot (via an improvised daytime talk show format).  Rufus King and Destiny High Schools were the participants, and I was thrilled with how eagerly they took to creating their own original pieces updating Shakespeare’s ideas, then bringing the energy and interpersonal connections back into the reading of scenes from a play they had only had a brief introduction to. 

Some of the very fine improv hilarity that ensued included an R&B-crooning Cloten type, complete with backup dancers, trying to romance an Imogen surrogate in “My Stepmother Tries To Control Me!”, a gender-flipped Posthumus/Iachimo wager that hinged upon a devious adulterer producing the cheating husband’s cowboy boots and naming the location of his tattoo in “My Spouse Is Cheating On Me!”, and a corporate CEO Cymbeline getting rescued from crazy racists when his car broke down in the backwoods, then learning his rescuers were not any old poor farmers but his long lost children in “Paternity Truths Revealed!”  Throw in some jaw-dropping shocker resolutions and audience members jumping up to perform hilarious commercial parodies during “station breaks,” and you had a roomful of laughing, engaged people who were, would you believe, getting closer to an obscure Shakespearean romance of the 17th century.  And on top of all that, I got paid to do it! What a country, says Yakov Smirnoff.

So thanks to students and staff at Pius, King, and Destiny, to Twelfth Nightcast member Brandon Vukovic for helping out at King, and to Marcy Kearns for booking me into the workshops, for hiring me to begin with.  I wish everybody could have played with us, but then you would have had to go back to high school.

More to come! It’ll be back to the play itself in Episode 4.

Another thing I love about “Cymbeline”: 5-5

Golly, only six performances left!  I’d better get crackin’ on my farewell tour of beloved Cymbeline momentry with #2 in the series:  Act V, Scene 5!

I.E., where all 6,000 of the plotlines get ironed out as everyone stands on stage being totally freaking amazed.  This was the last and most difficult scene to put together on this show, but I find it deeply satisfying, and not just because people clap for us at the end of it.  Since it’s where everything comes together, and almost the whole company is on stage for it, and so much is happening emotionally, even to a seemingly uninvolved Roman Soldier (though with all the revelations popping off, there are days when “Is one of these people my father?” pops into my inner monologue), the scene is like an entire play in itself.  If I’m having an off night, a good 5-5 can totally rescue the whole shebang for me.

Let me point out three moments I consistently love. (SPOILERS) The first is when Posthumus steps forward and reveals his presence after Iachimo’s confession that he’d manipluated him into believing his wife Imogen had been unfaithful to him.  Posthumus/Wayne and I enter together and stand way down left in the corner.  As Iachimo tells his tale, Wayne creeps out from behind me, until finally he steps center as if he’s about to throttle Iachimo/Todd.  Then he stops himself, turns, transfers his disgust and anger from the villian onto himself, and utterly destroys me.  The wretched sorrowful emotion that Wayne generates as Posthumus publicly decries his actions has never failed to hypnotically pull me deeper into the moment, and as his understudy, has taught me a lot about playing the role.  Mr. Carr, ladies and gentlemen.

Okay so, sublime to ridiculous–another favorite moment involves self-inflicted pain: biting on the inside of my cheek when Doug Jarecki as the doctor Cornelius, having found out that Imogen drank a really nasty potion that made her appear dead, pipes up and says “O gods! I left out one thing…”  and the audience erupts into laughter.  Having already unleashed a litany of plot-knot-tying bad news onto the King a few moments earlier, the potion explanation is a giant head-slapper for audience and actors alike, as I believe Shakespeare intended it.  Playing it straight-faced is a face-muscle challenge of Herculean proportions (the version of Hercules with a particularly muscular face, that is) and Jarecki does a tremendous job not breaking nightly.  I’m just happy I’m looking directly upstage at that moment.

Finally, a directorial imagistic nod: I love when Posthumus forgives and spares the life of Iachimo, and pulls him up by his arm, as Imogen comes over and takes his other arm, herself having moments before forgiven her husband for, well, trying to have her killed.   I call it The Chain of Forgiveness (Cadena de Perdon), and it is beautiful.  Though nobody knows what ”beautiful” means.  The audience and Cymbeline are looking at a couple acts of superhuman forbearance and kindness, the king so touched that he finally learns from the dignity and grace of a younger generation and pardons all trespassers, including one very grateful Lil’ Roman Soldier. 

So yeah.  That’s a good scene.  We had our final student matinee this morning, and tonight our final early bird start time, which is a decently quick turnaround on a two-show day, so excuse me whilst I nap.  Zzz!  More to come!

One thing I love about “Cymbeline”: Track Role

Week Four of the Cymbeline run and things are chuggin’ along.  If you’re a frequent visitor to the site, you’ll have probably noticed that I’ve found it increasingly difficult to find time to write with my time split between the theatre, the classroom, trying to sort my thrilling terrifying future out, and general upkeep of my health.  So this very well could be my last entry (but do check back, won’t you?).

 …and that’s all I wrote.  Now it’s Week Five, I am clearly a bad blogger, but as promised, let’s begin (in no particular order) TEN THINGS I LOVE ABOUT CYMBELINE!!!  Yay! Wooo!!! (Edit that, Kristin.)

Playing a Track role and the daily adrenaline rushes associated with it.  Sure, I don’t get gut-wrenching soliloquies or crackling verbal volleys with a scene partner, but I do get to disappear into three distinct identities and craft a logical and interesting (to me at least!) story arc for each one.  I could get real novelistic on each one and tell you their whole backstory and why the moments you see them on stage are the most crucial episodes in their entire lives! (Though you may be busy watching Posthumus or Cloten, but still.) 

What you don’t see during my track-role odyssey is pretty exhilarating as well.  Every day I chase Stacy Hicks down a long hallway with a sword tucked under my arm like a football and scream at him making my best Marvel Comics rage face in order for us to make an entrance on time at the opposite end of the theatre from where we’ve exited moments before.  The daily wind sprint.  One of the challenges is to see what the very last second you can stop full-on running is and still be able to do a Looney-Tunes one-foot hop-skid around the corner before crashing into the wall.  Yes.  I live my life as a cartoon character.

I also dig my quick changes.  I go from Roman Soldier fleeing the battle to Ghost Brother #2 (as opposed to Soul Brother #1, that was James Brown) back to Soldier with very little time to spare.  Amanda Schlicher, the fantabulous dresser assigned to me and I have developed a superkinetic unspoken system so that there is no wasted movement in the shucking of one set of elaborate garments and stepping into another.  Pit-crew worthy, for all you NASCAR fans. (Lots of overlap there–NASCAR and Shakespeare fans, right?)  All in the name of having six extra seconds to like, concentrate on the play or something.

Hey, theatre geeks–why are ensemble roles where you play multiple parts called “Track Roles” anyway?

 

More to come!  I can see there’s no way I’m gonna do one blog of ten things, so I’ll chop this up into multiple postings.  Disjointed, just like my brain. Hooray!

 

 

what’s doing with Cymbeline, hmmm?

Week Three of the Cymbeline run and the illness stuff I wrote about last week continues.  For Sarah Sokolovic, Week Two ended with a little hospital visit after Sunday’s evening performance.  Maggie Arndt, her understudy for Imogen, stepped in on Tuesday and Wednesday morning’s student matinee performances.  Having just held our first understudy rehearsal last week and from viewing Maggie’s continual and diligent presence during tech rehearsals, it was clear that if any understudy were ready to go on, it would be Maggie, and sure enough, she did a fantastic job and the show didn’t skip a beat.  Then Sarah came back Wednesday night like she’d never been gone.  I was very impressed.  Particularly since last season, when I went on in an understudy capacity during 1 Henry IV (at exactly this same time–first StuMat, weird), I was terrified and on the verge of hallucinating backstage. However this year I noticed what remarkably calm confidence the company maintained during the switcheroo.  Credit that again to Maggie, but also to this group’s inflappability.

Meanwhile, I started teaching some rather raucous Cymbeline-related workshops this week, and as a result, am experiencing a little vocal fry.  NOT a throat infection issue, I can assure you.  I’m trying to stay in the “Never Got Sick” column, and besides, who can afford health insurance?  (Yay, non-Equity status!)

In my dressing room downtime, I’m reading next season’s Milwaukee Shakespeare plays to prepare study guide materials for them, but they frequently get borrowed by other actors who are preparing to audition for roles in these productions starting next week.  I have mixed feelings about this, as I have had to turn down audition invitations for these shows.   I’d really like to be in them and work with many of these actors and this company again, but I likely won’t be living in this country at the time.  Which is hugely exciting for me personally, but doesn’t stop irrational professional envy from creeping in.  

Anyways, with Cymbeline running at such a smooth, professional level and pleasing its audiences (PS if you’re reading this and still haven’t seen it, Book Your Tickets, seriously), and with next season beginning to emerge, it’s an exciting time to be a part of the Mil-Shakes fam.  So next time, I’ll share a bit of my present glee with an extended answer to a question Marcy asked the cast at one of this week’s talkbacks: “What is your favorite moment of the show, either onstage or off?”  Stay tuned for “Rarry Rarry Rar: Ten Things I Love About Cymbeline.”

Later!

 

Hospital ward / Trust issues

Week Two of the run of Cymbeline and illness has stricken half the cast.  The dressing and green rooms are filled with the phlegmy hacky moany sounds of actors soldiering on.  Mass amounts of teas, vitamins and lozenges have been procured for us, yet the bug keeps wracking up victims.  I’ve watched at least two go from fine and jovial to miserable within a few hours’ span this weekend.

And this weekend is a tough one.  Two shows Saturday and two on Sunday, and for us understudies, a three hour rehearsal before a show on Friday.  (Which went smoothly, thanks for askin’.) It’s like bodies were waiting to get through the storms of tech week to finally relent, and now the battles are being fought not only on stage, but in immune systems.  (Mine’s fine, thanks for askin’.) (Knock wood.)

Meanwhile, the show itself seems in robust health.  Crowds have been highly appreciative, reviews are notably favorable, the cast is confident about what we’re delivering.  I’d encourage those of you who haven’t seen it yet to come check out our pre-performance discussions and talkbacks, both of which I’ve participated in, for behind-the-scenes perspectives, historical background, and even some lovely discussions of the play’s deeper human issues. 

At this Thursday’s talkback, the issue of broken trusts real and perceived was brought up, specifically as they relate to the love between Posthumus and Imogen.  Posthumus believes Imogen to have broken his trust when he is convinced of her infidelity, and proceeds to break her trust by attempting to commit heinous acts against her.  Marcy Kearns, moderating the talkback, asked the audience, can a broken trust ever be fully repaired? 
Does it  matter if the break was based on a mistaken perception? 
Will doubt have crept in anyway? 
Will a person always treat the breaker differently afterwards, even if they aim to return the relationship to the pre-break golden age of pure trust? 
What will it take for them to be able to forgive the trust-breaker?
Why do some of us have an easier time trusting than others? 
Is it ever foolish to totally trust someone?

These questions extend to numerous other characters in the play, and likely to occurrences and beliefs in the lives of each person reading this blog or attending our production.  Hopefully, the play can spur a personal exploration for many of us into these and other issues.  And it’s cheaper than therapy, less unctuous than Dr. Phil.  Come on down to the Broadway Theatre Center and join the Cymbeline discussion.  Catch the fever!

open / out of contact

It’s Monday and I’m on my weekend.  The show is open and I am back in Chicago.  I slept till 3 today, believe it.  Which means I sacrificed several to-do list activities today in the name of rejuvenation.  But it’s a happy time, no doubt, as that show I’m in has turned out pretty good, and I feel okay about my work in it so far.

(By the way, hooray to everybody for getting through that conveniently-timed storm!  I never want to have to spend the night on the Milwaukee Shakespeare green room couch again!)

So yeah, after 24 hours away from the show (though I did spend dinner hour last night prepping scenes for upcoming Cymbeline workshops, hi Rufus King), tonight I’m busting out my script to keep working on Posthumus lines for understudy rehearsal(s) this week.  It’ll be different to not have Wayne one floor above me saying them through a monitor.  For someone who’s always carrying his script around (sometimes actually looking at it!) it’s a long time out of contact with the material.

But having this much time off reminds me how out of contact I get from so much of my life on a run-up to an opening.  Giving family, loved friends, clerical duties and general cleanliness daily attention at these times is of the question.  The sheer hours you’re required to be at the theatre combined with the level of focus required to prepare mean that for me at least,  some things are gonna slip away from you.   My brain becomes momentarily disconnected from people I care so much about and from the small actions that maintaining a lifestyle necessitates. (Don’t worry, moms, I’m eating.  I swear.)

But they’re a pleasure to come back to then.  Great long talks with those friends on the phone I’ve been ignoring.  The pile of clothes is folded with a jaunty whistle, or in my case, beat-box routine.  Rounding my life back into order after the play becomes, necessarily, an obsession.  The perspective of friends, the rest, the meditative hours, bring balance back.  Let’s all exhale, shall we? There.  Doesn’t that feel nice?

PS_

Hey!  If anybody connected with Cymbeline is reading this thing, Congratulations.  You’ve been doing awesome.  I’ve seen you.

As promised, here’s… ANDY v. FIREMAN!

Cymbeline opens tomorrow night.  Come see us light the Broadway Theatre Center ablaze…with our Acting!