Thinkin' Bout Actin (Like a Lady!) or; "Are You a Transvestite in Real Life?"

Edit: I feel I should preface this post with a note on how difficult it actually kind of was to write. I try not to be over indulgent in my own appraisals of my work, generally speaking, so I don't forget to keep trying to get better or lose sight of all the things I need to improve on. But for the purposes of this role and this post, allow me to be self indulgent.

I realize that in all my blogging about my movement class, which I felt the need to get down on blog while the experience was still fresh in my mind and on going, step by step... that I have savagely neglected blogging about our performances of Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead and my discoveries with Alfred! I know, it's appalling.

Let's see, as of tonight we're seven performances into our run, with five in English and two and a half in Spanish (one of them was cancelled part way through) with tonight being probably our biggest crowd and maybe my best performance. I've been getting great responses the whole way through to my portrayal of Alfred, lots of people saying "oh you were my favorite" but of course there's always an aspect of hyperbole to someone saying that (or so I make myself believe to keep my ego in check), several little kids asking for autographs, and someone asking me tonight "Are you a transvestite in real life?" sort of half seriously, half joking, in the kind of way that "of course I'm not a transvestite" but if I had been it would be like "yeah ok".

Is there any way to say this in a way that I'm more comfortable saying it? No, there isn't, so I'll just say it. I am fucking killing it as Alfred. This role plays perfectly into my persona as a comedian... goofy, physical, kind of dark and weird and highly but also ambiguously sexual in a way that works which Stoppard doesn't anticipate but compliments the debauched nature of this universe. But also caring at moments, like what my Mom singled out when I connect with Ophelia after Hamlet has so violently and viscously attacked and rejected her. He tells her to go and be a prostitute, well I am sort of a prostitute and hey, wait a minute Hamlet, what did you just do! And then oh, poor thing... but of course I'm powerless to help her, on so many levels. Existentially and literally, in that moment, how could I this weirdo bisexual actor/whore possibly relate or connect to this young woman from a level of society I perform for but have no way of understanding. And then of course, we're in the world of Hamlet so she's inherently doomed to lose her father and her lover and than drown herself.

All of which evolved from my experience of the moment as our director staged it (who deserves much praise for so flat out brilliantly staging the play such that I could kill it on the level I'm killing it) where the Player King and I's dumb show make out session is interrupted by Hamlet assaulting and admonishing Ophelia and leaving her there, before we take her in, and slowly creep of stage in one of many laugh out loud moments in the play.

The point being, I've discovered a lot of depth to Alfred's character which Stoppard explicitly did not intend to be there from how he's written in the script, which is of course as a weak young child actor who's forced by circumstance to serve as the company's female playing tragedian (as would have been the case in Shakespeare's time) and also the company cabin boy and sexual bargaining chip. Yeah, it's some dark shit. And in the name of that curbing some of that darkness to make it a lighter, more family friendly show, we toned down those aspects, the exchanges where Alfred is most explicitly offered a sexual object, etc, but kept the man in the dress goofiness. Everything I'm doing in this alternate version is extremely well balanced by the feminine strength which is also kind of masculine and a little ambiguous (just like me, but inverted) of the woman doing The Player(s), Sarah and Paola (guess which one does it in English and the other in Spanish?). My mother commented on the effect having women in the role that it makes the advances of the Player which are typically pretty creepy as played by an older man (as is sort of the standard interpretation of The Player) into actually kind of appealing, and went so far as to call them deity like in their power and presence. Definitely, as I've been killing it, so have them and everybody else in the cast, Ros and Guild, the Hamlet ensemble, our ensemble ensemble and of course my fellow Tragedians.

But more about how awesome I am, which is to say how much fun I've been having (because trying your best is what really makes you awesome, amIright kids?). I really love playing comedy, and I'm especially enjoying playing it over such a long run of performances (Seven down, five more to) is that no matter what there's something new to be found every single night. I think this is true even more so than drama, for me at least, in some ways... How do I put this? As Tuzenbach, who had some pretty goofy moments as well, of course I was constantly focused on rediscovering each individual emotional beat for every performance. And come to think of it, the same was true for Nick in Swimming in the Shallows (which the work that I did on maybe prepared more than any other previous role for Alfred) who was also though even more explicitly comedic, but balanced by comedic moments...

I think what I'm trying to describe is in part due to the nature of Alfred and his role in the overall show, in that it's like jazz, with Alfred I'm always trying to find ways to play the silences... find the harmony of my other actors, their rhythms, so I can syncopate with my own comedy and make existing moments funnier when I can or when there's an appropriate bit of empty space fill it with something and try to make it of that space or silence every single night. Riffs, variations on phrases, all through expression and physicality and little interactions, ya dig?

It's equally true that with drama or comedy I'm trying to play each moment as spontaneously and truthfully as possible for that night, night after night. But the kind of playing I get to do with Alfred is just so my jam. Not that I didn't love playing Tuzenbach or Nick, because both of them had so much beautiful text... and maybe that's what I find so freeing about Alfred, that it's just physical and it's with that in mind which I took on a role smaller in that sense than what I'd played in my last few shows because I knew it would be a chance to explore that. And it's with the same mindset that I entered Yo-el's class, such that physicality has been a big theme in my work this summer, which I feel fantastic about.

But yeah, it's that quality of reacting more than being the driving force (which any role is a balance of the two) that I respond to in Alfred, because being able to do that with my specific brand of comedy has also been one of my favorite parts to get to play. And this is possibly the most successfully laugh out loud funny work I've done in the whole of my acting career. Oh yeah, and that all comes from finding a  discovery in every individual moment and once I've discovered them bringing them back and honing them. Variations on riffs, like I was saying. The dumb show sequence is especially rife with these opportunities to find those riffs. Like the moment with Hamlet and Ophelia. I got a great laugh tonight from how I found to play my specific aghast reaction to Hamlet's treatment as Ophelia as he storms off. If you saw me across multiple performances, you'd probably see me playing a similar bit night after night, but tonight I really nailed it. And tomorrow night will be different, even if I do nail it again, it wont' be quite in the same way. But I also know that tomorrow will bring on a new set of discoveries, and the night after that, and so on.

Until the end of the run. And that is the beautiful, tragic nature of theater, isn't it? Unlike with film... you get to do it again! And again! And again! And then it stops. It becomes photos, maybe a video that of course never can represent the magic of the real thing, and oh so many memories. Here's to making more of those with the time I have left with this wonderful group, actors, stage managers, audiences, everybody.

Topping From The Bottom

I had one of my favorite discoveries thus far in the R&G rehearsal process just the other day when I discovered this weird new persona for Alfred; a gender-queer street smart bad ass drag queen doing what he has to do to get by. This runs contrary to my initial intention, and to Stoppard's script, but since we've cut all of the really explicit rape jokes and Alfred's exchange with Guildenstern, and also considering my physical size and the world of the play as my director has been shaping it... it makes the most sense. At first, I was interested in the idea of Alfred as a victim, someone who's been put through a lot, has probably been assaulted and is clearly used when necessary in a sexual way by the player. So I was interested in how that affects someone's physical state, you know when someone has been a victim of trauma it affects them in a certain way. Except I realized with Alfred, and remembered from people I've been close to the in the past who I know had gone through those kinds of experiences, it doesn't necessarily translate to weakness and in Alfred's case it's made him very tough and weirdly strong and resilient. I mean, just considering my physical size, I don't look like someone who takes a lot of shit when you remove my gentile personality from the equation. And neither does Alfred. Danielle is really interested in bringing this ongoing sense of menace and danger to the Players as a unit, and it's been really enjoyable exploring that with Alfred. And with the gender-queer aspect, Alfred wears the dresses and plays the women because he wants too and because he does it damn well, and when he gets down to business with the evil king in the dumb show, he really gets into it.

All of this power and toughness though is in spite of his intrinsically low status, arguably in the text as written Alfred is the lowest status character in the play. This kind of changes when you remove the rape element, and instead of Alfred being a smallish 14 or 15 year old as he would have been in Shakespeare's time and so might be traditionally played in a straight reading of Stoppard's text, he's me, a 6'2" 200 pound 23 year old dude, so I have to bring the truth of "what if I were this person" and not "what if this person in the text was me" does that distinction make any sense? I guess I mean I have to bring the character to myself, rather than vice versa. And I've been exploring that, and this new sense of physicality and having tons of fun with the costume (the full version of which I saw today and it's pretty great), and especially the physical comedy.

Which is a fairly efficient segway into the other thing I wanted to blog about tonight. As of tomorrow morning, every Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning at 9 AM I'll be reporting to movement class with Yo-el Cassell courtesy of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. As you may now, Commonwealth in it's third or fourth year of offering an apprenticeship program where you give them a bunch of money and in return they give you training, farm you out to do a "selection of scenes on this theme" style show in the 'burbs and you understudy and/or play a spear carrier in their main stage production. This year, in addition to all that, their offering parts of their training to the public, which will include me. So I'll be in with the apprentices and whoever else responded to the Stagesource post and had $500 doing Alexander Technique, Grotowski, Laban (don't know who that is but I'll find out), dancing and generally getting sweaty early in the morning for the next month. I'm excited! Having not done a BFA, movement is a big gap in my training and I'm looking forward to filling it in, becoming a more rounded actor and of course blogging about it.

Briefly, before I sign off, progress has been made in the podcast front. I have a tentative partner in the venture, someone I'm very excited to be working with and hopefully we'll be recording some stuff in the next few weeks. Till then!

Habits

I have a habit of habitually checking sites like Craigslist (where I first started finding acting gigs before I had the sense to finally pay for Stagesource), New England Film and New England Theatre 411 for auditions, if I'm really bored, sometimes more than once in a day. I think I'm getting better about it. This is in spite of the fact that I'm presently more or less booked out.

How booked out? As you know I'm doing Three Sisters this June, which now that the director has finished with her other directorial commitment for the Spring will be picking up in frequency of rehearsal, intensity and momentum and then the thing you don't know because I haven't told anyone I'll be playing Alfred in Apollinaire's summer outdoor production of Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead. I'm happy with this part. Obviously, of the speaking roles in the show of which there are only like eight if you think about it, Alfred is the smallest. But he's not a spear carrier, he's a living human being with a troubled past. Also he gets to wear a dress, and I'm sure I can find some fun physical comedy type business for him to engage in as part of the ensemble of tragedians. And he gets to imitate Gertrude. All in all, I think it's a win for me. It is a family show, and we are toning down the elements where the Player offers him as a uh... prostitute to Rosencratz and Guildenstern, but hey while I'm not doing anything else I can build those given circumstances into my portrayal. I mean think about it, this kid has been really actively abused up to this point. Probably he was sold to the Player, who hits him and makes him do things he doesn't want to do to the point of... yeah. How would someone who'd gone through that carry some selves? I mean this kid is a victim of serious trauma. Oh yeah though, it's a comedy. Look at the funny man in the dress!

So that'll be exciting. Another habit I have is not preparing as well I should. I have quite a bit of getting off book to do. For Three Sisters and for The Apology the one act which we're presenting on Friday at 7 PM in Roxbury, for free so come see that because I think it's going to be really good.

Also my staged reading of The Last Jews by Larry Jay Tish featuring Chuck Schwager, Amber Williams, myself oh and BOBBIE STEINBACH which is May 7th at Boston Playwrights Theatre. Our rehearsal for that is next Monday and it's pretty exciting too.

Before that though, my improv troupe is trying our first stab at doing long form at Improv Boston's Geekweek this Sunday at 7:30. So many awesome opportunities for you to see me doing great stuff. Which is to say if you are reading this you are invited to those things. So come see them. Or not. I'll understand.