Well hello readers of my blog! Why am I addressing this as an epistle? Well, why not. Did you know that before the novel entered it's modern 19th to 20th century incarnation, epistolary fiction was a very popular form? Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for example. I learned in that my college expository writing class where I was supposed to have read a bunch of them but didn't really and still got like an A-.
Anyway, I feel like catching up on a few things with y'all. For instance, this is going to be the first of no doubt numerous blog posts on my second go around with Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead. This time as you know, I'm playing Alfred and at this rate when I inevitably do the show again because people do this play kind of a lot maybe I'll be Hamlet and the time after that, who knows! Anyway, so yeah, from my end of things we've had two rehearsals with the Tragedian ensemble mostly exploring physical character work type stuff through acting games, mimes and practicing dying different ways (as the player hammers him, his troupe of players are very into deaths) and a little bit of rough playing around sort of workshopping a few of the "play within a play" tableau type sequences. So far, so fun! As it turns out, we'll be the ensemble of tragedians for both the English and Spanish versions of the production. At the rehearsals I've been to, we didn't have the Player's Spanish speaking counterpart but that will be a serious trip figuring out how to coordinate those sequences in a language I don't particularly speak, para un pequito (which I think means except a little bit).
Last night was the first I'd been in a room with what was close to being but wasn't quite as if often the case the full cast for our read through, in English but trading off and stuff. And man, this play is dense. Our director Danielle has cut it down substantially in the hopes of making it run two hours or less and will probably cut it even more before we're through. To be honest, even having been in it, big parts of this play are still a little over my head. But then, I've never really put the full energy necessary to sitting down with the entire text, reading it through and putting all the pieces about the nature of drama and metaphysics together. Hearing it read again though, those things clicked for me in some new ways, so maybe I'll make it part of my blogging project this summer to chronicle both the bi-lingual experience and my own musings on the piece's dramaturgy.
As that is just now beginning to crawl along, Three Sisters is running to the finish line! But first we must overcome the massive hurdle... OF TECH WEEK. Tonight is supposed to be our first off book run, and I feel mostly ready. This past Sunday was our first stumble through and it definitely highlighted the problem passages for me, which isn't to say that this from a memorization stand point this translation is anything but problematic. But the character is there, the arc is there, the relationship with Irina is there and in theory this is the best and most fun part. Actually getting to do it!
As an actor getting the opportunity to act it's important to stop every once in a while and think "wow this is so great, I'm acting!" because hey, getting a shot at working your stuff in a room of people is hard to do so be grateful when it happens. In that way, acting is different than most creative pursuits. Painters, writers, musicians they can just sit and do there thing and take down their output even if it's going into a void. But acting doesn't exist in a void, inherently it requires an audience! Technology and Youtube and stuff has brought us closer to the model of a recording artist or writer, in that with the internet you can put yourself out into the world, but it's incredibly hard to create traction. Generally with theatre, some of that exists, although not always and that's one kind of experience that it's much more complicated to manufacture. So you know, I've hit on this theme before, remain grateful.
Speaking of being grateful, I had an experience to be grateful for yesterday, an audition for a part in a feature film. Specifically, The Way Way Back which was written and is being directed by the writers of The Descendants and will have Steve Carell in it. Exciting, right? I read for Charlie, an 18 year old hippy stoner dead head guy, who one of the leads a 14 year old kid has a brief interaction with at a beach party. It required me to act spaced out and do a sort of weird spacey dance and deliver a few lines. Which I did! I tried to keep it interesting and make fun dynamic choices while also bringing in the world of the party, the guy putting me on tape had me go gradually bigger and bigger with it, which I did hopefully without blowing out the frame, so to speak. And maybe I'll get a call back. More likely not because those are just the brakes. But again, I was grateful for the opportunity, and that's where you've gotta be.
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