Downplayed and Upstaged “As in a theatre, the eyes of men, after a well-graced actor leaves the stage, are idly bent on him that enters next.”

Two things first!

1. As the week goes along, I'll probably be revising past entries. I will try not to do anything dramatic, like add whole new paragraphs, but instead just focus on fixing grammar errors and typos (comma splices are the bane of my existence). If I do happen to expand on a previous entry, I will announce it in the most recent blog post so that you can scroll back and check it out.

2. A welcome to all my cast mates! Please feel free to share your own thoughts on the process or use the blog as a forum to spitball character ideas amongst each other. From what I understand, Carol will be letting her class know of the blog as well. Any other viewpoints shared will just make this a more comprehensive resource for her class to use.

Having said that, I have to restate one of Dan's major rehearsal rules: "If you can't communicate something nice, don't communicate at all." This does not mean you are not allowed to disagree with me. Please do. Debate is a healthy form of communication. But if you do disagree with me, keep in mind you're probably wrong. :P

Onto the actual entry!

First rehearsal last night! It feels rather natural to be back at Kent Trumbull. I've been doing theatre there since 1991. I don't know if an actor can feel truly at home onstage - but if he can, its probably how I feel at KSU-TC. Eighteen years... damn. I knew Dan way back then too -- way, way, way back when he was young and spry.

Actually, judging from last night's rehearsal, he moves pretty well for an old guy...

I tease because I love.

Anyways. After the normal greeting and reading of the rules the actual rehearsal began.

Remember when I said I hate auditions? Well, I love rehearsals!

I actually love rehearsals so much that I become disappointed when the show finally goes up. I always feel there's so much more I could have learned and discovered through the rehearsal process. When the show finally goes up, this learning stops as I am forced to "lock down" the character.

For instance:

Warning: In-Depth Textual Analysis to Follow

Note: Any textual analysis in this blog will usually involve me blowing smoke out of my ass. I over-analyze everything. By the end of the rehearsal process, when I've "locked down" the character, I've discarded most of the ideas I've been kicking around. I'd estimate that I only end up using 20% of the concepts I've played with.

The first scene of the show opens in a wax museum with the gods complaining about the state of humanity. They then decide to bring in Death to teach mankind a lesson. It is Buddha who brings up Death first by saying, "It's time to call up another One."

There are two interesting things about this sentence.

1. The capitalization of the word One. Capitalizing a pronoun is a Euro-centric practice used when referring to the Judeo-Christian God. So what does this say about the personification of Death? Is Death considered another God? Or does Death exist outside the realm of both gods and men? Since Buddha refers to Death as "another one", the short answer is that Death is a god. The complex answer may be that Death is the axle of the wheels used symbolically throughout the play.

2. The fact that the gods can summon Death and subsequently order him around means that they do not consider Death to be on the same level as they are. So if Death exists somewhere caste-wise between the gods and men, is he the author's personification of a psychopomp? Or is Death simply a lesser deity much like Hades was a lesser being when compared to Zeus in Greek mythology?

There is a second moment in the first scene that I want to touch upon as well:

After the gods order Death to get Everyone, Death's first question is whether or not he should get everyone, i.e. - the entire world.

Is the sign of a malicious or mischievous psychopomp who wants to reap the souls of all of mankind? Or is he a merciful mediator between the living and spiritual worlds who is initially surprised by the term 'Everyone' and wants to make sure that the gods did not screw it up? Personally I'm going to stick with the latter, though I certainly can see some mischief in Death.

I'm holding off on expanding any of these ideas until blocking is fully done, though I will continue to toss up random thoughts throughout the blocking process. We don't start character work until week two, and there's no real reason to jump ahead in that game.

Random Note: the above analysis came from TWO lines in the span of thirty seconds. If this doesn't prove that I over-think things, I don't know what does.

End Analysis!

There were a few other interesting things that came up in the rehearsal process. The first is the problem of dueling languages. Since the play is both spoken and signed it's taking a creative effort on the part of the director to create something coherent without being distracting. I'll say this - I feel for Joe Toto and Jenna Cintavey - it seems like they're going to end up memorizing the entire script as they are the primary 'voice' actors. Mad props to them!

Well, I'm interested to know how some of the other actors viewed the first rehearsal. Especially those who haven't acted before. For me, everything seems very normal. But I imagine for someone who hasn't had the same experience would see something and say, "that's weird, grandma."

Second rehearsal tonight! We're scheduled to block scene two and to discuss Deaf culture. I'm interested to see if a better understanding of a culture that is mostly foreign to me unlocks any additional layers to the script.

I've been getting a lot of questions at rehearsal as to why I, as a mostly deaf person, have never learned sign language or been a part of Deaf culture. And honestly - I don't know. It was never something that came up in my life. My only experiences with Deaf culture have been courses in ASL, a few meetings with Deaf people, watching the Flying Words Project, and discussions with Carol.

I'm also hoping to add photos and videos to future entries if a) I can get the camera to work properly and b) I can manage to steal video from Carol's class.

Way back when George Bush was still president, the economy hadn't yet tanked, and the majority of us were under the illusion that the war in Iraq was a righteous one, I had the privilege of being cast in the role of Dogberry in a production of Much Ado About Nothing at Kent State University's Trumbull Campus.

The play, directed by Heather Fenstermaker (now Heather Whetstone), was integrated into a course I was studying at the time, "Introduction to Shakespeare" taught by Dr. Carol Robinson. This course still stands as one of the seminal experiences of my college career. This is partly because of the sheer volume of work cleverly masked as fun-and-games and partly because I somehow ended up learning something, a rarity in the early days of my collegiate career (I barely payed attention in class back then).

While we studied other Shakespeare plays in the course, the main focus of the course was using the medium of video to present a report on the production of Much Ado About Nothing. Some of my fellow classmates chose to focus on the interplay between Beatrice and Benedick while others focused on the technical aspects. Me? I did a report on myself.

Fair warning for those who have not yet had the privilege of meeting me: I was, and still am, a huge narcissist.

"If there's anything around here more important than my ego, I want it caught and shot now!"
-Zaphod Beeblebrox in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

I'm also kind of lazy when it comes to coursework and figured that, hey, since I'm already doing research on Dogberry for the play -- might as well use that same stuff for the class and cut my workload in half.

But something odd happened in the middle of the process. I actually found myself becoming more involved than I usually did. I was forced to look at the play from both the actor's perspective and the scholar's. Right now, in 2009, I wish I did a better job chronicling my journey during that production. The opportunity was there was certainly there -- there's plenty of video footage of me with really bad hair talking about the various aspects of the production.

It was a missed opportunity, and one I regret not taking advantage of. I wish I had kept a written record of the process, something like a journal, or -- I don't know -- a blog.

But back then, in 2003, blogs were relegated to emo-wannabe and/or angry teens posting on livejournal and/or deadjournal about how much their life sucked.

I know. I was one of them.

These days, however, blogging has become rather mainstream -- some political bloggers have even been invited to the White House Press Corps. And various major news organizations are making the transition to the format.

Theatre blogging, on the other hand, hasn't quite taken off as well as political blogs. They mostly become relegated to theatre reviews or audition notices. There are exceptions, of course, including these two favorites of mine:

1. An Angry White Guy in Chicago is exactly what it sounds like. Unapologetically liberal, Don Hall bounces from discussing his political views to very informative posts on the state of independent theatres in the city of Chicago.

2. Angela Learns to Act is a blog chronicling Angela's "attempt" to earn her M.F.A. in Acting. She just completed her first year at the conservatory - and will be beginning her next year shortly. It's actually very fascinating to read, and her blog has garnered quite some attention - and is now being used as a marketing tool by the heads of her program.

Random Note: I met Angela while auditioning for grad schools in 2006 - we both visited Ohio State University's program - and we have since stayed in touch, mostly through the internet or enjoying giant margaritas and Mexican food. Yeah, I was a fan of Angela's blog well before she got all famous. She's as funny, warm, and engaging as her blog makes her out to be.

I have not yet met Don Hall, and probably would quake in fear if I did so - despite the fact he supposedly lives down the street from me in Chicago.

It is now 2009, blogs are mainstream, the economy has tanked, Barack Obama is the new president, Jay Leno no longer hosts the Tonight Show, and I have graduated from college with a B.A. in Theatre Studies and moved on to Chicago. There I helped found a small theatre company, Blackbird Theatre Company, which I have since left. I worked offstage for a Tony Award Winning theatre, which I have since been laid off from. And I have attempted to apply for graduate school twice - each time with comically disastrous results.

A few months ago, I received a somewhat cryptic message from a very dear friend of mine, Jess, who mentioned that my old stomping ground of KSU-Trumbull was putting on a 'deaf' play - Every Man, Woman, and Child by Willy Conley. Not long after, Dr. Robinson contacted me and nudged me in the direction of talking to Dr. Nadon, a longtime friend and mentor of mine and head of the theatre department at the Trumbull branch of Kent State University.

So I did.

Fastforward to August of 2009, I've stuffed the majority of my belongings into a storage unit in Chicago, packed up a suitcase, and made my way home to Ohio to take part in the production. Since arriving in the state two-weeks ago, I've pushed myself into a scholarly overdrive - analyzing and taking apart the play and comparing it to the medieval work that it is based on, Everyman.

In a recent conversation with Dr. Robinson, I mentioned that I was thinking of starting a blog to chronicle the whole process, and she enthusiastically urged me to do so. If nothing else, I figure, it can be used as an additional resource for her current class -- which she is integrating with the production of Every Man, Woman, and Child.

So, here it is: Downplayed and Upstaged. This is intended to be both for my own satisfaction, for students in Dr. Robinson's class interested at getting a more in-depth look at the process, and for theatre nerds who dig this sort of stuff.

I do not promise to update after every rehearsal, though I will certainly try. The way I see it, if Angela can update daily while juggling a full graduate-level course load AND rehearsals, I should be able to as well.

Random Note: In 2003, Dr. Robinson and Dr. Daniel-Raymond Nadon were supposedly working on blending together all the footage from Much Ado About Nothing to create a documentary of the whole experience. It has been "almost finished" for six years now.