#51: Castmates’ Parting Thoughts

Dear Friends,

A few castmates had some post-production reflections I’d like to pass along:

 Robert Spencer (Feste):

Last words, mmm, let me think.  Oh, yes, I VOW  NEVER TO WORK WITH KEVIN RICH AGAIN!!!  Just kidding!

Seriously, I am so missing everyone already.  This is one I would love to have played much longer.  I feel I was just beginning to reach that level of relaxation that allows for all those new little discoveries to take place.  Despite the short run, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to have been a part of this wonderful production and to work with such an extraordinary group of artists.  This Twelfth Night has managed to work it’s way into my “top ten list”.

Tami Workentin (Maria):

Joyful. 

I feel like the young theatre student that has the short runs pining for more.  I was teary when we went into curtain call looking across as my fellow players not at all ready to end the fun.  I felt as if we were all breathing into it and fully playing the play.  Looking across at one another and zinging it back and forth with confidence and fun.  The greatest joy for me is always in the run.  I love the playing of the play and the discovery what happens when something new lands on you during a show.  

The cast in general – Lordy Lordy Lordy.  Great people, good people.  The back stage antics were just beginning which is also one of the highlights of running a show. 

I felt like this was one of those times when the play felt special.  Something about it was ‘better then most’.  It was a quality gift that we served up generously. 

***

I’ll keep you posted (for a few more days, anyway),

kr

#50: The Question of Malvolio

Dear Friends,

A recent comment contained an excellent question:

“I couldn’t figure out the “purpose” of Malvolio in the play. His character and the sub-plot on him seems to me to be “filler” to make the play “the right length.” What am I missing?”

I have a few thoughts about this.  Here goes:

First of all, Shakespeare broke from traditional, Aristotelian ideas of climactic dramatic structure.  Rather than having one storyline which took place in one place and in one day, his plays were episodic in structure, frequently featuring multiple storylines and set in multiple locations over longer periods of time.

He also broke from traditional beliefs that a play was either a tragedy or a comedy – never a mix of both — by creating subplots that injected “comic relief” into a play.  Take for example, the seemingly superfluous “funny hat scene” between Osric and Hamlet right before the tragic, Jacobean ending in which virtually everybody dies.  Or the bizarre “Who’s knocking?” scene in Macbeth, featuring the clownish cameo of the Porter that takes place right before everyone finds out Duncan has been assassinated.  These scenes provide a moment of lightness right before darkness, which makes the darkness feel even darker.  Brilliant.

In a slightly different way, I think Malvolio’s traditional function has been as comic relief.  In fact, the earliest record of this show in performance is a journal entry by some Lord or other (can’t remember his name), who wrote in his journal, and I’m paraphrasing here: “Tonight we saw a fun play about twins, similar to Comedy of Errors or The Manaechmi, only this one featured a hilarious story about a steward who was tricked into thinking the lady of the house loved him.”  So from the beginning, the Malvolio story was the laugh riot.

I also think there’s a thematic similarity through all of the storylines in Twelfth Night: madness.  It’s mentioned something like 36 times in the play.  Everyone questions the sanity of themselves or each other, be it due to mistaken identity, or mistaken handwriting.

But back to the point about Malvolio providing comic relief, I think in many recent interpretations, that is less the case than it used to be.  Traditionally, Malvolio was always cast as a crusty old curmudgeon for whom no one could ever believe Olivia would fall, which made Malvolio a totally self-absorbed dunce for believing such a thing to be true.  But in recent interpretations, such as ours and the globally-touring Russian production directed by Declan Donnellan, Malvolio has been cast as an attractive young man, making the idea of Olivia desiring him much more plausible.  This, in turn, makes the joke much crueler, and his conclusion much more heatbreaking.  While this adds a great deal of complexity to that storyline, some may find that it confuses the structure of the play, leaving the audience wondering which story was the primary one.

Thanks for the great question!

 kr

#49: Snowflakes

Dear Friends,

 The hardest thing about closing the show last weeked was that we felt it had just arrived.  Which isn’t to say that our performances on opening weekend weren’t good– it’s just that it usually takes about five performances in front of audiences to really feel like you’ve hit your stride.  This is probably why many shows have five or more preview performances before opening night.  Here’s why I think it takes that long:

In the last week before technical rehearsals, you’re usually running the show.  But you’re running it without an audience, which begins to feel strangely like talking to yourself.  Everyone watching — director, stage management, etc — has seen everything already, so you begin to take risks, try new things, explore new territory, just to get a fresh reaction.  It’s a neat place to be.

But then, tech arrives, and you lose the show for several days.  The focus is on sound cues, lighting positions, and costume issues.  Usually, you only have time for one or two complete run-throughs before the audiences show up.

Then, you spend the first several performances trying to rediscover all that stuff you were finding before going into tech, while also intregrating the creative contributions of the rest of the team: costumes, sound, lights, etc.  Additionally, the audience reactions provide a huge amount of new information.  So it takes a while to sort through all of that.

For this particular production, I think we were finding depth and nuance in the days leading up to tech week that we lost for the first few performances.  The duping of Malvolio was heartbreaking, as were the departures of Sir Andrew and Antonio.  The reunion of the twins, and the subsequent coupling of the pairs of lovers, was a mixture of sweetness, confusion, and doubt.  Then, when the all the wonderful, colorful technical elements were introduced, everything, I don’t know, brightened up.  And I don’t know that any of us exactly realized it.  But at the end of the show, there was so much more laughter than we expected.

But as the week went on, and we settled into our new space and our new clothes, we began to rediscover the complexity that we were finding before tech.  Our final weekend of performances, I think, were very different than those of the previous weekend.

Again, this isn’t to say that the first half of our run wasn’t successful; but I do think that we came closer to fulfilling Paula’s vision of the story toward the end of our run.

Speaking personally, Todd and I felt like we were really cooking on Saturday and Sunday– I’d come off stage and wish I could rewind, and cut and paste that performance into our previous shows.  That’s the thing about live theatre– every show’s a snowflake: no two are exactly the same.

kr

#48: Show’s Over, Blog Isn’t

Dear Friends,

We closed our show yesterday– and I have no time to write about it! But I promise to catch you up later this week– so check back. Thanks!

kr

#47: No Such Thing as Late for Work

Dear Friends,

This morning we performed our final of four student matinees to a packed, enthusiastic audience.  It was great to see how many turned out, considering the snowstorms we’ve been having.  I carpool with a castmate from Kenosha, and it took a good thirty minutes just to get to the highway.  Bad weather is nerve-wracking in the theater, because unlike many professions, we simply CANNOT be late to work. 

Or at least not TOO late.  Normally, we’re called a half-hour before the show starts to get into costume and warm up.  Those of us who are involved in stage combat are called twenty minutes before that, for what’s called “fight call,” where we run through the choreography of the fights.  Today, I was late for fight call, but was able to squeeze in a quick run-through of the fight with Sir Toby before the show started.  We know it pretty well, but fight calls are always important– when you’re running the fight at speed during the show, adrenline’s always going and it can be dangerous.  As our fight captain, Todd Denning, says “the swords are not sharp– they’re dulled– but they’re still steel, and when steel meets flesh, steel usually wins.”

Today’s a two-show day; we have a show tonight– our first show for “grown-ups” since Sunday!

I’ll keep you posted,

kr

#46: Thanks!

Dear Friends,

Just a quick thank-you to the surprising number of you that I’ve run into after shows who have said such nice things about this blog.  Thanks for reading!  And a few of you even complimented my eyebrows!  I still haven’t gotten used to them…

One specific shout-out, to my former neighbors, John and Sara, who I discovered unexpectedly sitting in the front row with a group of home-schooled students at one of our student matinees.  What a small world!  Thanks for making the trip to Brookfield!

I’ll keep you posted,

kr

#45: Ladies and Gentlemen, There are Beads on the Stage

Dear Friends,

During our matinee this morning, my bracelet broke.

There’s a point in the play where I find a beaded bracelet on the ground and put it on.  Shortly after that moment, I’m challenged to a fight by Andrew and Sir Toby, and Toby grabs my arm.  Well, today, that broke my bracelet, and we both heard beads dropping on the ground.  This was particularly alarming, because we were about to begin a carefully choreographed swordfight, which a few slippery beads could quickly turn into something a little less than carefully choreographed.  Plus the bracelet was still hanging off of my wrist, and I didn’t have time to remove it, so I was concerned that if I moved my arm to quickly, it would fall into the lap of someone in the front row, or even worse, smack them in the face.  So our subsequent swordfight was hesitant, to say the least, and probably looked more like a ballet dance than a fight.  Or synchronized swimming.  But we pulled it off without falling, or blinding anyone, and when I left the stage, I alerted stage management, who immediately made this announcement backstage: “Ladies and Gentlemen, there are beads on the stage.  I repeat, there are beads on the stage.  Please be careful.”

Live theatre.  Gotta love it.

 kr

#44: New Shoes

Dear Friends,

 This is such a quick run– our show closes on Superbowl Sunday.  Want to know what I’m doing on Monday?

Conrad Cantzen Shoe Fund

Program Description

In 1945, actor Conrad Cantzen bequeathed his estate to The Actors Fund with the stipulation that it should be used to help actors purchase shoes so they did not appear “down at the heels” when auditioning. Mr. Cantzen believed that a good pair of shoes made a great first impression on casting directors.

Eligibility

Administered by The Actors Fund, this Memorial Fund reimburses eligible entertainment professionals up to $40.00 towards a pair of shoes costing no more than $80.00.

To apply to the Conrad Catzen Memorial Shoe Fund, the following criteria must be met:

• Must be currently unemployed in the field
• A current, paid-up member of a performing arts union
• Must be at least 12 months since you last applied

Contact

Please download the application, or send an e-mail or call to request an application.

A completed application should be mailed to:

The Actors Fund
729 Seventh Avenue, 10th floor
New York, NY 10019
Attn: Shoe Fund

If you have additional questions, please contact:

Jada Jones
212.221.7301 ext. 146
jjones@actorsfund.org

#43: I’m Back, Hello, Sorry

Dear Friends,

Ack!  Once again, my apologies for the infrequent posting lately.  I don’t have internet at home, for one thing (I know– can you believe it?  It’s like I’m some sort of caveman or something) and there’s no access at the theater.  Plus I’ve started on several other projects: I’m teaching two classes this semester at Carthage, including Theater for Children (in which I plan to have the class write a play about Shakespeare and tour it to local grade schools… should be fun!) and I’m also text and dialect coach for Playboy of the Western World at UW-Parkside, which is currently in rehearsal.  But Paula Suozzi herself sent me an email asking why I haven’t been posting lately, and when she talks, I listen!

So I think our play is pretty great.  The cast has been having a lot of fun, the audiences have been responsive, and the reviews have been positive.  (A quick note on reviews: Many actors don’t read them, and out of respect for that, it’s company policy not to discuss reviews in the dressing rooms.  In the spirit of this policy, I won’t go into details about them either.  But if you’re curious, here’s one.)

I can’t express enough how nice it is to finally have an audience.  It simply isn’t theatre until someone is watching.  Without an audience, we’re just walking around, talking to ourselves.  Which is weird.  The audience is the missing scene partner, and your reactions are palpable.  Your laughter fills the spaces between our lines and helps propel the energy forward.  At touching moments, we can’t hear crying, really, but we hear lots of sniffles, which is gratifying (is that a sadistic thing to say?).  And sometimes, your silence is louder than anything else– which, in moments of suspense, feels great, and when something should have been funny, not so great.

Anyway, thanks for coming.  It’s great to have you.

 kr

#42: Wigged Out

Dear Friends,

So busy!  12-hour days, hourlong commutes and no computer access at the theater have prevented me from posting, but here’s a quick note to tell you that tech week is almost over, and it’s gone very smoothly.  The show looks great.  We perform in front of a preview audience tonight, and we open tomorrow.

I owe you lots of posts, with information about what “tech week” is, exactly, and also details about the past couple days.  Once again, however, I don’t have time to write now: I’m off to a wig fitting.  Alexis’ wig looks great, but mine has been a bit more problematic.  First time around, I looked a bit like Eddie Munster; then I looked like Davy Jones.  (She loves me, yeah, yeah, yeah..)  I’m meeting with a wig stylist this morning, and am confident all will work out fine. 

I’ll catch you up soon,

kr