"It is required you do awake your faith"
First week of tour is done (for Winter's Tale only folks...suck it Merry Wives and double cast people...no don't suck it...I love you all). Man oh man, all the new folk sure got a crash course in what this is all about this week. Wednesday we were in one of our favorite places...Hermosa. (That's Spanish for beautiful). I can tell you that the set build was not hermosa. It was muy, muy mal hermosa. (I don't speak Spanish, so I hope I didn't just offend anyone there). Although we love Hermosa Beach-- and we do, (The audiences we get there are so great! The park is beautiful! Because of performing SBTS in Hermosa, Dency came into our lives. And we love Dency. He is another person that I want to be when I grow up and he is on our board now and he hits the streets to raise money to make this happen. He's a great dude), we do not love the hill we have to walk down with huge set pieces. And being our first tour stop for WT, it was a shit-show of a set up. Every damn thing that could go wrong did. (We had legs on the wrong platforms, legs reversed in platforms that were correct, mislabeled platforms, missing connecting pieces...you name it). How do I know it was a rough set up? BJ was losing his mind. BJ! BJ never loses his cool. Never. He laughs at challenges...hell, they excite him. But the set up broke BJ...for a few minutes...on Wednesday. Damn you, Hermosa, damn you to hell! (I don't mean it, we still love you and it wasn't your fault, but breaking my BJ like that was no ok).
But we finally got the set together. (Greg had to sell raffle tickets all by himself because we were so far behind that everybody else was getting in costume). And then we had a show to do. (Side note: on tour the performances begin at 7 PM. So there is another adjustment. Not only do we need to be at the parks at 5 PM to set up--braving rush hour traffic--but the sun is still in the sky for the entirety of the first half of the play). We were in a new place (in Apollo's full light) and had been harried and frazzled by the worst set up since King John (but in fairness we built an entire castle onstage every night for that one...and it never got easier) with five hundred erudite audience members excited for this production. (I was happy to have the lovely and talented Mrs. Vest in the crowd. She's a great audience, brilliant actor, and also my touchstone for the stuff I am in. I can always gauge my objectivity in my own work with her reaction, and it seems to hold that this is special). I felt like we had a good show. Some of the others felt like they were lost. Annie loved it, and that's all that really mattered for me that night. She also really loved my dear Allie (who plays both my children in the show) who, as I mentioned last week is my favorite new person in SBTS! (I can only imagine how hard it would be to play a child of a different gender than my own. But she does it flawlessly)!
Friday I was working on things. (I will never stop trying to perfect this thing that can't be perfected). Leah and I had a conversation on Wednesday about "being in the moment." It's a magical place that actors find from time to time (and sometimes for long stretches of time) where we lose ourselves in the story and are just able to react, and the words we speak aren't lines, but natural responses to what was said. The most successful I have been in losing myself was on closing night of Macbeth last year. (And for my four loyal readers, I'm sure you remember that closing night often holds that magic for me). I still don't know why the last time I hear something I'm able to "hear it for the first time" the best. But this seems to be the pattern. (No matter how hard I try to imagine every time I do it being the last time). So, Friday, I decided to let go of carefully constructed arc and journey I have cultivated over this process. (I mean, I'm not some psycho who changes everything because I don't "feel" like doing things the same way, but I really wanted to experience the moment to moment existence without engaging my brain as much). It was a mixed bag. I went back to the basics. And the basics for me (in the process I learned from my mentor, Jack Stehlin) is action. What am I doing? With every line I speak, I am doing something. Not what I am attempting to do (Yoda says: "Do or do not, there is no try)." What am I actually doing? It started great. Gave me a great way in. My first three lines, I am convincing Polixenes to stay in Sicily. I felt alive in it. The top of the show made sense in a way it hadn't before. Great! But the rest of the first half of the play, I felt myself much angrier (and less in grief) than I think is required in this. And since I felt that, I was no longer in the moment. I was in my head. This is the struggle. The struggle is real.
The end of the play, for me, is no problem. The given circumstances and the beauty of the writing hit me all up in my feels (I imagine this is how young people speak). I don't really worry about the end of the play. I do (sometimes) worry about the requirement that Shakespeare gave me to cry at the end of the first half. So far it's been fine. Hell, listening to Paulina spit all my atrocities in my face in rapid succession and being just a little bit in the moment is enough to get me going. --But here's the thing about human actor beings: We can't help being humans (and worrying about very human things) before being actors...sometimes. I have this fear (so far unwarranted) that I won't be able to achieve the pathos at the end of the first half. Paulina has lines about how affected I am by what I have done. I have a job, and that job it to be moved by her speech. (And she's killing it!) And as I listen and take it in, there is this small part of my brain needling my feelings...saying "what if we don't feel like crying?)" So far, so good. Sure there are nights where I am a puddle, and other nights where a few tears stream down my cheeks, but I've been there. After the show on Friday, Leah said something that opened up the whole universe to me. She has a lot of time to think about things while being a statue, and she said: "This whole play is about Leontes regaining his faith." Holy hell. She's right. He breaks faith with literally everybody and deity and is punished for it. That really resonated for me. It's great to have a scene partner that pushes and inspires you. Not sure if she's getting the same joyous insights from me, but she can write about how inadequate I am on her own damn blog.
Saturday night was great! Weird things always happen in Rossmoor. Not sure why. It's a great little park (hotter than the surface of the sun, but you can't have everything) with wonderful people. But last year the mics kept cutting in and out, this year the lights and sound were problematic. A few years ago a set piece fell on the head of one of our actors who had to be taken to the hospital. Cy's disastrous understudy appearance happened there. Some kid pooped in the urinal one year. Strange things. But also great things. It's early in the tour and if you are working on things they sometimes fall into place. That happened last night. I was really free in the piece, even though I wasn't trying to let go and be in the moment. But I was really in it. For most of it. So, here's to not trying and just doing! As Jack and Yoda have instructed me.
But we finally got the set together. (Greg had to sell raffle tickets all by himself because we were so far behind that everybody else was getting in costume). And then we had a show to do. (Side note: on tour the performances begin at 7 PM. So there is another adjustment. Not only do we need to be at the parks at 5 PM to set up--braving rush hour traffic--but the sun is still in the sky for the entirety of the first half of the play). We were in a new place (in Apollo's full light) and had been harried and frazzled by the worst set up since King John (but in fairness we built an entire castle onstage every night for that one...and it never got easier) with five hundred erudite audience members excited for this production. (I was happy to have the lovely and talented Mrs. Vest in the crowd. She's a great audience, brilliant actor, and also my touchstone for the stuff I am in. I can always gauge my objectivity in my own work with her reaction, and it seems to hold that this is special). I felt like we had a good show. Some of the others felt like they were lost. Annie loved it, and that's all that really mattered for me that night. She also really loved my dear Allie (who plays both my children in the show) who, as I mentioned last week is my favorite new person in SBTS! (I can only imagine how hard it would be to play a child of a different gender than my own. But she does it flawlessly)!
Friday I was working on things. (I will never stop trying to perfect this thing that can't be perfected). Leah and I had a conversation on Wednesday about "being in the moment." It's a magical place that actors find from time to time (and sometimes for long stretches of time) where we lose ourselves in the story and are just able to react, and the words we speak aren't lines, but natural responses to what was said. The most successful I have been in losing myself was on closing night of Macbeth last year. (And for my four loyal readers, I'm sure you remember that closing night often holds that magic for me). I still don't know why the last time I hear something I'm able to "hear it for the first time" the best. But this seems to be the pattern. (No matter how hard I try to imagine every time I do it being the last time). So, Friday, I decided to let go of carefully constructed arc and journey I have cultivated over this process. (I mean, I'm not some psycho who changes everything because I don't "feel" like doing things the same way, but I really wanted to experience the moment to moment existence without engaging my brain as much). It was a mixed bag. I went back to the basics. And the basics for me (in the process I learned from my mentor, Jack Stehlin) is action. What am I doing? With every line I speak, I am doing something. Not what I am attempting to do (Yoda says: "Do or do not, there is no try)." What am I actually doing? It started great. Gave me a great way in. My first three lines, I am convincing Polixenes to stay in Sicily. I felt alive in it. The top of the show made sense in a way it hadn't before. Great! But the rest of the first half of the play, I felt myself much angrier (and less in grief) than I think is required in this. And since I felt that, I was no longer in the moment. I was in my head. This is the struggle. The struggle is real.
The end of the play, for me, is no problem. The given circumstances and the beauty of the writing hit me all up in my feels (I imagine this is how young people speak). I don't really worry about the end of the play. I do (sometimes) worry about the requirement that Shakespeare gave me to cry at the end of the first half. So far it's been fine. Hell, listening to Paulina spit all my atrocities in my face in rapid succession and being just a little bit in the moment is enough to get me going. --But here's the thing about human actor beings: We can't help being humans (and worrying about very human things) before being actors...sometimes. I have this fear (so far unwarranted) that I won't be able to achieve the pathos at the end of the first half. Paulina has lines about how affected I am by what I have done. I have a job, and that job it to be moved by her speech. (And she's killing it!) And as I listen and take it in, there is this small part of my brain needling my feelings...saying "what if we don't feel like crying?)" So far, so good. Sure there are nights where I am a puddle, and other nights where a few tears stream down my cheeks, but I've been there. After the show on Friday, Leah said something that opened up the whole universe to me. She has a lot of time to think about things while being a statue, and she said: "This whole play is about Leontes regaining his faith." Holy hell. She's right. He breaks faith with literally everybody and deity and is punished for it. That really resonated for me. It's great to have a scene partner that pushes and inspires you. Not sure if she's getting the same joyous insights from me, but she can write about how inadequate I am on her own damn blog.
Saturday night was great! Weird things always happen in Rossmoor. Not sure why. It's a great little park (hotter than the surface of the sun, but you can't have everything) with wonderful people. But last year the mics kept cutting in and out, this year the lights and sound were problematic. A few years ago a set piece fell on the head of one of our actors who had to be taken to the hospital. Cy's disastrous understudy appearance happened there. Some kid pooped in the urinal one year. Strange things. But also great things. It's early in the tour and if you are working on things they sometimes fall into place. That happened last night. I was really free in the piece, even though I wasn't trying to let go and be in the moment. But I was really in it. For most of it. So, here's to not trying and just doing! As Jack and Yoda have instructed me.
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