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.”

"Lord what fools these mortals be!"
-a Midsummer Night's Dream III, 2, 115

Near the middle of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream a troupe of actors are rehearsing a play when that merry hobgoblin, Puck, comes along and decides to have some fun. And what can be more fun than screwing with a bunch of presumptuous actors? So Puck changes the lead actor into an ass. The other actors scream and flee and the audience laughs uproariously.

I’m convinced that the spirit of Puck is alive and well – in every single show there is a moment when the shit hits the fan. Lines are forgotten, props break, entrances are missed, the power fails, a light fixture explodes, an audience member suffers a seizure, etc.

Side Note: All of the above have happened to me in various theatre performances I have either performed in, crewed, or watched.

Poor actors blink in the face of Puck’s mischievous prank and the show descends into disaster. Good actors maintain composure and push onwards. And great actors somehow turn the disaster to their advantage.

I’m reminded of a story of a show in Broadway where a famous actress (whose name escapes me – I want to say Carol Burnett) is onstage with a dog. The dog pees right there in front of the audience who bursts into laughter. The entire troupe freezes except for the leading actress who simply walks offstage nonchalantly, returns with a mop, and cleans it up as she continues on with the show.

That’s the very definition of a great actor.

Such incidents are funny, but sometimes Puck’s prank takes the form of something not quite as amusing. And if you’re lucky it happens during the rehearsal process. If you’re not – it happens during the run of the show. A few years ago during Othello – tragedy struck after the first weekend of the performance. One of the lead actor’s family members was very severely injured and the show had to be cancelled.

That’s a very extreme case, but in theatre, people say, anything goes. There’s lots of cases where actors have died, theatres have burned down, and in one very special incident – a president was assassinated.

Sometimes the figurative ‘shit’ that hits the fan is quite small. But it’s still important for the people working on the show to bounce back from it. It can take the form of something as seemingly insignificant as a bad rehearsal. I’ve seen a single bad rehearsal drag an entire cast down to the depths of mediocrity before.
Like last night’s.

The rehearsal stunk. There’s no other way around it. I stunk, he stunk, she stunk, we all stunk.

Dropped lines, missed cues, missing actors, and so on and so forth.

We stunk. And we all knew it. And we deserved every word that came out of our director’s mouth chastising us. We can go, “Well, so-and-so wasn’t there!” – but that’s just an excuse, and a piss-poor one at that. When the shit hits the fan and things get bad – it’s up to those of us onstage to soldier on and make something out of it.

But we didn’t. The energy levels last night was so abysmally low that I felt depressed while I was onstage. I’m not saying everyone is at fault for this – because some certainly did try to maintain the status quo of good rehearsals – but those of us (myself included) that stumbled every which way brought them down with us.

And for that, I am pretty pissed off at myself.

Theatre, more than any other art form, is collaborative. And one person stinking up the process has the potential to drag down the entire cast and crew. Tonight’s rehearsal will be a test of our fortitude – we will see whether or not we can bounce back from the awfulness that was last night’s rehearsal and turn it into something positive.

I sincerely believe we’re up to the task. I believe this because I know that we’re all very passionate individuals and we’re all determined to make the play succeed. So I’m not worried – but I wanted to express the feeling of a bad rehearsal so those people who read this blog (and are not theatre people) realize that the process of putting a show onstage isn’t all sunshine and roses. There’s plenty of bad moments to go around.

It’s how we bounce back from those moments that will end up defining the show.

And like I said, I’m not worried. I know we’re going to be fine. In my experience, Puck never wins. In the end everything gets put back together the way it should be.

This morning in Carol’s class we discussed the ‘Deaf Experience’ and started to go into how it relates to the literature we would be reading – but we ran out of time. I did relate my own ‘Experience’, or at least some of it, to the class (half of whom are in the play). I figured it would make a decent blog entry for tonight since we’re still blocking stuff and being boring.

Especially since Death’s primary role in the last half of the play is to watch – which leaves me with very little to do for the remainder of the blocking period.
I was born with a moderately severe to severe hearing loss in both ears, a trait I inherited from my father. Like my father, my left ear is slightly better than my right one. When I reached the proper age I was placed in a school for deaf children and this is what happened:

(I apologize if people become offended, but these are pretty much the words to come out of my mother’s mouth)

”We put you into a school for deaf children and for the first two days you sat in the corner quietly by yourself while all the other children screamed and yelled and cried and wailed. On the second day you walked up to the teacher and said, in perfect English, “Teacher, will you play with me?

“As soon as she heard that, she picked you up and took you straight out of the classroom. She called us to pick you up and said that you were far too intelligent and smart to be in that class and needed to be in a mainstream school.”

Confession: for a very long time after that, I refused the label of ‘Deaf’ because I felt that I was smarter than those weird people who couldn’t speak and had to sign. If someone called me Deaf, I would become instantly combative. This persisted for a very long time, I am sorry to say. It didn’t help that I never met another person with hearing loss until around my junior or senior year of high school.

Up until the end of my college career, the only Deaf members of society I had associated with more than once were my ASL teachers. I took about three semesters worth of ASL before graduating, and picked it up relatively quickly. Unfortunately, in the four years since my last ASL class, I have forgotten almost everything. Everything except cursing.

These days, I am happy to report, I no longer consider myself ‘better’ than Deaf people. Instead I consider myself better than everyone.

Just kidding.

…but not really.

Anyways.

…I never made much of an effort to connect with the Deaf community, despite the fact there is a thriving segment of the population in my hometown. This play, For Every Man, Woman, and Child is the first true interaction I’ve had with people who suffer the same prejudices as me. And I’ll probably be all the better for it.

Now, as for the play…

Warning: Annoying In-Depth Character Analysis to Follow

As always, this note bears repeating:

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.

To begin with, the character of Everyone in this version of the play has been split into two roles – representing the male and female halves of humanity. When I first heard of this decision, I could not help but think of The Origin of Love from the play Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

The above video is captioned but is probably not suitable, thematically, for younger audiences. If you are a young person and reading this blog, go do something more age appropriate and look at online porn.

When Death is onstage – he is, more likely than not, standing between the two halves of Everyone, serving as a bridge between the two of them. In the text Death also serves as a bridge between the Great Spirits of the Universe. Death, in essence, is written as a connecting force between two opposites: whether it is the divine and the mortal, or heaven and earth, or the future and the past, or life and… death.

The most intriguing aspect of this bridging? The choice of the author to have Death communicate through mime. Death does not sign (except once when he fingerspells his name), and he does not speak. Death is serving as a bridge between the hearing and Deaf cultures by breaking down the language barrier and communicating in a way that they can both understand.

That’s the idea, anyways.

Some phrases are actually proving far more difficult than expected. How does one mime ‘sister’ or ‘cousin’ without resorting to sign language or speech? It’s proving to be quite a task and I’ve spent countless hours on a gesture only to realize it makes no sense and had to start all over. These mimes have to be crisp, clear, and easily recognizable.

I can only hope I’m up to the task.

Attempt to blog after every rehearsal? Fail.

I don’t know how Angela does it.

It’s not that I haven’t had time or anything. It’s just that the blocking portion of the rehearsal process is the single most boring thing to experience. We’ve currently blocked a little over half the show so far and are off-book on the first two scenes of the twelve scene show – so we’re probably ahead of the game. Now if only we’d focus and get things done!

Actually, we’ve probably done a lot better job of focusing and getting things done than any show I’ve done in a long time. I am really surprised to see people running lines and blocking together before rehearsal starts, after rehearsal ends, and whenever they’re not onstage.

But this entry isn’t about that. This entry is about the director-actor relationship.

Let me start off by mentioning how lucky I am to be working with Dan Nadon again. I’ve known him since I was a kid and have taken several courses that he has taught. But this is my first ‘real’ play he’s directed that I’ve been in. I did perform as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves for him once, but that was Children’s Theatre so I don’t really consider it a 'real' play.

Plus, I sucked then.

I’ve always known Dan to be a very open person willing to listen to what you have to say and share his own opinions. And he brings this same mentality to directing. Earlier today I went to the theatre early to discuss the character of Death with him and walked away with a better understanding of his mentality. And it was a real discussion, a back-and-forth between the director and an actor where some ideas were clarified, some were thrown out, and some were left open for further exploration.

Example: I still can’t wrap my head around the idea of Family being considered a non-essential facet of life. At some point before the show opens, I’ll discuss this – because it’s probably the single most intriguing idea of the whole show for me. In fact, I’m currently attending Carol Robinson’s class where I hope we’ll dive into deeper detail about this.

Back on point:

Not all directors are very open. I had an acting teacher once who also directed several shows.

Disclaimer: I auditioned for two of the director’s shows but was not cast. While I was bitter at the time, I now consider it a blessing for the following reason:

This director/teacher was one of those, “do it this way,” directors. He would tell you exactly how to do a role in class. Right down to blocking. He was not in the least bit interested in exploration. If we tried something new he would inevitably say, “That’s nice. You should try this,” and if we came to class next day with something different – he would reiterate the original suggestion. One time I mentioned to him that I tried his suggestion at home but couldn’t make it work.

His response: “It works. You’re just not trying hard enough.”

After watching several of his shows I started to notice that all of the characters in his plays were the same. They all walked, talked, and acted like him. They were well staged, but I never saw anything resembling a collaborative effort onstage.
That, my friends, is Shitty Director Number One.

Shitty Director Number Two is the complete opposite.

If you ask him questions about the character he’ll inevitably say, “I don’t want to tell you how to do your character, you need to figure it out yourself.”

And that is an incredible copout.

Yes, the actor should have freedom to explore – but when the actor comes to the director with a question, it is because he needs help. If you don’t give them help? You suck as a director, sir. You don’t even deserve the title, you’re nothing more than a glorified babysitter.

I, thankfully, have never had this problem. Though I have been regaled with stories from those who have.

And the third type of Shitty Director?

The Incompetent. You may think Shitty Director Number Two is incompetent, but you would be very wrong.

The incompetent director chose a play that he doesn’t understand. But he saw it once and it looked cool and is doing it exactly like the show he saw. And the leads in his cast is made up entirely of his actor friends who have zero respect for him and just do their own thing. This director is the kind that just lets you do whatever the fuck you want. If you want to play Puck like Iago, he’ll laugh and say, “Interesting choice!” but doesn’t have the balls to tell you you’re wrong.

Dan Nadon, thankfully is none of these. It’s been a great joy the last two weeks discovering new things in For Every Man, Woman and Child with him and I continually look forward to rehearsal to see what the next idea he brings to the table is.

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.

I hate auditions.

I'm not one of those people that gets nervous before auditions, I just hate them.

I don't know if words can fully express the amount of loathing I have for auditions, but I'm going to attempt to explain as best as I can.

For non-theatre readers -- there are three kinds of auditions: cattle calls, monologues, and cold reads.

1. Cattle calls are horrible for your self-esteem. Just the name itself will give you an idea of how awful these types of auditions are. They are generally used for major productions (we're talking theaters with a million-plus dollar budget) and for film/television. What happens is this: You and about ten other people walk into a room and line up. The director/casting director/whoever looks you over and decides if you're good looking enough to be in their Beverly Hills 90210 ripoff and sends 99% of the people home.

2. Most theatre productions in the big cities rely on monologues. Monologues are the bane of actors everywhere. A good deal of your free time is spent reading hundreds of plays in search of that elusive monologue. A good monologue is something close to your type, close to the play you're auditioning for, and not over-done. Since most auditions require two contrasting monologues, you've got to hunt down TWO of them. A comedy and a drama. Good luck finding a funny comedy monologue that isn't a stand up routine. God forbid you do a monologue some other guy did not more than ten minutes ago. I've never seen a director more annoyed as when seven people did Puck's "If we shadows have offended..." speech for a production of Midsummer Night's Dream.

Protip: Never, never, NEVER, use a monologue from the show that you are are auditioning for. If you're auditioning for Hamlet don't use a speech from Hamlet. If you're auditioning for Boy's Life, don't use a speech from Boy's Life. Actually, don't ever use a speech from either of those plays they are both horribly overdone.

The reason most theaters require monologues as auditions is because they regularly get over 100 potential actors and have to weed that down to about twenty for the callbacks. It's a matter of time. If you fuck up ONE of your two monologues, you won't be asked back for callbacks. If you fuck up both, there's a good chance that theater will never ask you to audition for anything again.

3. Cold reads are my favorite type of auditions. You're given the script and put onstage to read directly from it. You'll either read with the assistant director or you'll read with fellow acting wannabe. Cold reads are most often used as part of the callback process. The director has more time during the callbacks to ask you to read the part a variety of ways, to see how well you adapt to his instructions and how versatile of an actor you are.

The major problem with callbacks is who you end up paired to.

I'm of the belief that acting is all about reacting. If you're paired with someone who is completely flat and unemotional - you don't have anything to play off of, and thus suck. If you're paired with an idiot that doesn't understand the play - you are given crap to play off of, and thus suck. But if you get paired with someone talented -- your audition is going to be all the better for it.

The good part about callbacks and theaters with enough time to audition with cold reads is that you are often given multiple chances to read different roles with different partners. But it all depends on who your partner is. It helps your own chances tremendously if you've acquired a copy of the script beforehand. That way cold reads aren't quite... as cold. If you can, ALWAYS read the play beforehand. That way you're not stumbling over lines.

If you're like me and OCD about plays - here is how you prepare for cold reads:

First you read the play from cover to cover so you know what its about. If the play is based on an old play, you read that play too. For Every Man, Woman, and Child is based on a medieval morality play entitled Everyman, so I read both of them. I had read Everyman several times in college, but it didn't hurt to brush up.

After reading the play, you read it again -- looking at the characters that most interest you. You read it at least once-per-character. After you've read it the second (or third or fourth) time, you start doing research. You read reviews of past productions to see how other actors tackled the roles. You read scholarly works on the play. You read alternative versions of the play. You read playwright's notes. You read whatever you can get your hands on.

And then, if the play you're auditioning for had an older play it was based on, you read all the crap on THAT play you can get your hands on. And then you badger your former professors (especially if one of them is the director) with the most inane questions you can think of. Because annoying the director before the show is always a good idea.

Thankfully, Dr. Nadon and Dr. Robinson were both good sports about my incessant babbling.

Then you read the play again.

And then you audition.

Not everyone is as obsessive as I am, and that's fine. Most people just read the play and do research after they are cast -- but I like to be obnoxiously prepared. You should read the play at least once, if you can. If it's a new work, you're just S.O.L..

I'm slightly worried about the auditions -- not because I think I'll suck or anything (although that's a very real possibility) -- but because the show requires a cast of 16-20 people, half of which are deaf. The show is supposed to be done half in sign language and half in verbal speech.

I'm hearing impaired. And as far as I know, I'm the only 'hearing-impaired' actor in the Youngstown-Warren area. If there are others, I haven't met them. I don't even know more than three people who can sign fluently, and I only know one deaf person. My worry stems from the fact that I do not know if there will actually be enough deaf actors in the show. And if there are, I have no idea how experienced they will be.

I've never considered myself a part of the 'deaf' community, though I have a 64% loss in both ears. I forget how many decibels of loss it is, but a loss greater than 90 decibels is considered 'deaf', and I believe I'm fairly close to that mark. I'll look up my loss later in the process to satisfy my own curiosity.

Anyways, auditions for For Every Man, Woman, and Child are tonight and tomorrow. I'll be attending both auditions even though actors are really only expected to attend one. Depending on how it goes I'll either post an entry tonight with details on how it went or I'll combine both auditions into a single post and put up an entry tomorrow night.