I think in a weird way, as actors, we spend the entire rehearsal process trying to get everything right and then the entire run of the show cataloging all of the things that went wrong. We mark the time and remember the performances by whatever sort of catastrophe happened on any given night. Perhaps because they help us identify one performance from the next, perhaps out of some sort of disappointment that for all of our rehearsal work it still didn't turn out right, or perhaps because sometimes its just plain funny when things happen in the middle of a show.
I think I've mentioned here before that I'm in a production of Hamlet at the moment. We are only four performances in, but already, there was Opening Night, The Show Wherein Hamlet Died With His Hand On My Boob, The Show Wherein The Sword Hit Me In The Head And Landed In My Hand, and The Show With Sound Issues Wherein I Had Only Once Scene In Which I Did Not Mess Up A Line. I've also managed to get make-up on the costumes of at least two of my cast mates, I got my foot stepped on, the main exit door keeps sticking for people which makes furious exits kind of comical, and the skull was tossed and dropped one night which made people chuckle.
The thing that strikes me is that the audience seldom notices this stuff. I had seven friends in the audience the night the sword hit me in the head and landed in my hand, and not one of them noticed. Which I guess is a good thing because I'm dead at that point and shouldn't be pulling focus so if they are staring at the sword in a dead lady's hand instead of the rest of the action in front of them, we're all doing something wrong. But it is that kind of stuff that I kind of like talking about after a show. I like the silly backstage stories about how I got a SEVERE case of the giggles last night before scene 2.2 and was afraid I wouldn't be able to look Guildenstern in the eye on stage. Or the little dance that Rosencrantz does every night before 3.1. Or the moment of panic that happened at the top of the show when every single sound cue from the entire show started playing all at the same time and we're all in the bathroom trying to figure out how to start the show without the one sound cue that is supposed to be there. And if we're lucky, the audience will never know about these little things. But they are, to me, what makes live theater so much fun. They are what bring us together as cast mates. No, we're not facing dangerous crises like, say, soldiers in the Middle East are, but we run into obstacles all of the time that we have to figure out how to get past. And we do. And the audience applauds. And we get to feel good knowing that we conquered the giggles or the tech problems or the missed entrances or the people stomping around upstairs or the people in the second row chatting away through the whole performance and put up a good show anyway.
Though I'll admit, last night did not feel like a good show for me. I messed with my routine. My routine is never the same for two different shows, but within the framework of one show, I do get a little set in what I do. What can I say? I'm a creature of habit. But last night, I walked to the theater instead of taking the bus because it was gorgeous outside and I hate the bus. I did my warm-ups downstairs instead of upstairs. And I honestly felt a little not-ready when the stage manager called places instead of telling us we would be holding five minutes for the house. And then the weird sound cue at the top of the show...I just felt off of my game. Which means tonight, I'll go back to my regular routine and hopefully, all will be well. And I'll be totally ready to be stepped on or kicked or hit with a sword or for my flashlight to not work or my prop to be in the wrong place or to fall out of my chair or something.
I love live theater.
14 July 2011
09 June 2011
Ah, the Roles We Play
It's funny how much responsibility we give to actors, given that they are supposed to just show up somewhere and do their job. Yes, as actors we have to be prepared to do that job, but ultimately, we have to report to someone else and fulfill that person's vision. That person is called the director. Or the producer. Or both. Thing is, I can do all of the homework in the world, I can show up with a million ideas, but if the director doesn't like any of them, I have to chuck them and go with what is best for this specific production. As actors, we have to be okay with that. As an actor, I am.
What I am not okay with is when my fellow actors in a production start telling me I've made the wrong choices. Beyond the fact that the first thing that they teach you in acting class is to not direct your fellow actors, as my scene partner, you are looking at the scene from a completely different direction than I am. Your character wants different things than mine. Your character has different experiences than mine. Your character's brain works differently than mine. This is why you were cast as that person and I was cast as this one. By the director. Or producer. Or both. Which is why when one of my fellow actors says something to me like, "I think you should do this," or "Wouldn't it be a better choice to try this?" what I hear is, "I don't want to have to work any harder to get what I want, so you need to change what you're doing."
Now, I understand that in every day life and every day relationships, people may say things like that to one another. "Honey, I think you should take out the garbage because I did last time." "You shouldn't drink so much." "Wouldn't it make more sense to put your pants on before you put your shoes on?" Okay, fine. Some of those are helpful suggestions. But depending on who these things are being said to, they can be offensive, belittling or condescending. If I'm changing my pants and the legs are wide enough that my shoes fit through them, it's actually a waste of time to take my shoes off and have to put them back on again. You don't know me. You don't know my pants. So just back off! Is how one could take that.
Same thing with acting. You've been focusing on your character; I've been focusing on mine. I know you want one thing to happen by the end of this scene, but I probably want something else. If we were both in agreement through the whole scene, it wouldn't be dramatic and nobody would write a play about it. If you don't give me what I want, I'm not necessarily going to give you what you want (depending on the script). If you're not getting what you want, you can change your tactics to try to get it. Or you can tell me I should just cave, which is, to me, the lazier choice. If the director thinks I should give in more, let the director walk me through that so it feels like I'm getting there on my own. I'll take it a lot better, it will feel more organic, it will feel mine as opposed to feeling forced. I know I can be the quiet type, but that doesn't mean I'm not considering things and thinking about things and processing what happens in each moment. It is your job as my scene partner to effect me and be affected by me. It is my job as your scene partner to effect you and be affected by you. If you are not affecting me in the way you want to be, I don't think it is fair that I should have to change my reaction without you changing your tactics. So please don't ask me to. Leave that part to the director. It is his vision we're putting up here, and if he doesn't like it, he'll say something. You don't need to.
End rant.
What I am not okay with is when my fellow actors in a production start telling me I've made the wrong choices. Beyond the fact that the first thing that they teach you in acting class is to not direct your fellow actors, as my scene partner, you are looking at the scene from a completely different direction than I am. Your character wants different things than mine. Your character has different experiences than mine. Your character's brain works differently than mine. This is why you were cast as that person and I was cast as this one. By the director. Or producer. Or both. Which is why when one of my fellow actors says something to me like, "I think you should do this," or "Wouldn't it be a better choice to try this?" what I hear is, "I don't want to have to work any harder to get what I want, so you need to change what you're doing."
Now, I understand that in every day life and every day relationships, people may say things like that to one another. "Honey, I think you should take out the garbage because I did last time." "You shouldn't drink so much." "Wouldn't it make more sense to put your pants on before you put your shoes on?" Okay, fine. Some of those are helpful suggestions. But depending on who these things are being said to, they can be offensive, belittling or condescending. If I'm changing my pants and the legs are wide enough that my shoes fit through them, it's actually a waste of time to take my shoes off and have to put them back on again. You don't know me. You don't know my pants. So just back off! Is how one could take that.
Same thing with acting. You've been focusing on your character; I've been focusing on mine. I know you want one thing to happen by the end of this scene, but I probably want something else. If we were both in agreement through the whole scene, it wouldn't be dramatic and nobody would write a play about it. If you don't give me what I want, I'm not necessarily going to give you what you want (depending on the script). If you're not getting what you want, you can change your tactics to try to get it. Or you can tell me I should just cave, which is, to me, the lazier choice. If the director thinks I should give in more, let the director walk me through that so it feels like I'm getting there on my own. I'll take it a lot better, it will feel more organic, it will feel mine as opposed to feeling forced. I know I can be the quiet type, but that doesn't mean I'm not considering things and thinking about things and processing what happens in each moment. It is your job as my scene partner to effect me and be affected by me. It is my job as your scene partner to effect you and be affected by you. If you are not affecting me in the way you want to be, I don't think it is fair that I should have to change my reaction without you changing your tactics. So please don't ask me to. Leave that part to the director. It is his vision we're putting up here, and if he doesn't like it, he'll say something. You don't need to.
End rant.
05 April 2011
Can play...
Being an actor is weird. It's just weird. It forces you to think way too much about the stupidest little things about yourself.
I know you've all heard the stories about some 30-year old being cast as a high-schooler in something like the original "Beverly Hills, 90210." Stuff like that happens because while one might think, "They need a bunch of high school kids, so they should cast high school kids," sometimes the high school age kids who come in to audition can't act their way out of a paper bag or just aren't pretty enough to fit the aesthetic of the piece. So they look at slightly older actors who have the experience and maturity to handle the scripts, but who also still look young and pretty.
In Hollywood, young and pretty is essential. Or at the very least, it makes you marketable as an actor.
This sort of thing manifests in what actors/directors/agents refer to as an "age range." As in, you may be 36, but you could pass for anything from 23-45, largely depending on wardrobe, hair and make up.
I, however, find myself in a rather odd position. Physically, I am young and pretty. No, I don't have the lollipop figure that is so prized in Hollywood these days, but I have nice skin and giant eyes that don't have crow's feet or huge bags under them and healthy hair and all of that. My age range would probably be mid-twenties to mid-thirties. At least that's what I think I look like. I know a lot of people are shocked to find out I passed thirty already. A while ago.
But in the last three or four classes I have taken, my teachers have selected pieces for me to work on where my characters are in their forties or fifties. The play I'm currently in, my character is fifty-five. And last night, I was asked to read for Gertrude in "Hamlet," who I have always pictured as someone in her forties or fifties.
I don't look forty or fifty.
I'm not afraid to look forty or fifty. There is a part of me that is kind of anxious to get wrinkles and have my hair turn silver because I think I will make a gorgeous little old lady. But I'm not there yet. And I know why I'm being asked to read/perform these parts - I am a mature person who comes across as the sort who "has it together," and most 20-something type characters aren't very "put together." Directors are trying to match me with characters who fit me mentally and spiritually. And those characters are twenty years older than I actually am.
In a way, I guess I should be flattered that they think I can handle those kinds of roles. But there is a weird sort of mourning period that an actor goes through when she realizes her chance to play Ophelia or Juliet has passed and she will only ever be considered Gertrude or Lady Capulet. Granted, Lady Mac is awesome. And the character I'm playing now is awesome. And there are a lot of great roles for more mature women out there that I can look forward to playing for the rest of my life. But in a way, it makes me a little bit sad - I have the rest of my life to play Gertrude; if I'm ever going to be Ophelia, it has to be now.
And I have to wonder if it's worth it to take care of my skin and hair and all of that, to try to maintain a youthful appearance, if it's only going to confuse directors. I think a lot of them get my headshot and think, "She's cute, she could be our [insert romantic lead here]," but then when I walk in with confidence and whatever they think, "Oh, no, she's actually closer to the fading starlet, but she doesn't look old enough for it, so do we want to use her or go with someone more age appropriate?" Or something. I don't know. I've not talked to any of these directors about it, but I'm guessing it's confusing to get an actor who looks one way and performs another. So maybe I should just let myself go so I start to look older than I am, or maybe I should start acting more insecure so I can get the younger roles while I still look young enough to play them.
Or maybe I should just shut my big fat mouth and be grateful that I'm being considered for roles at all. Especially the challenging ones.
I know you've all heard the stories about some 30-year old being cast as a high-schooler in something like the original "Beverly Hills, 90210." Stuff like that happens because while one might think, "They need a bunch of high school kids, so they should cast high school kids," sometimes the high school age kids who come in to audition can't act their way out of a paper bag or just aren't pretty enough to fit the aesthetic of the piece. So they look at slightly older actors who have the experience and maturity to handle the scripts, but who also still look young and pretty.
In Hollywood, young and pretty is essential. Or at the very least, it makes you marketable as an actor.
This sort of thing manifests in what actors/directors/agents refer to as an "age range." As in, you may be 36, but you could pass for anything from 23-45, largely depending on wardrobe, hair and make up.
I, however, find myself in a rather odd position. Physically, I am young and pretty. No, I don't have the lollipop figure that is so prized in Hollywood these days, but I have nice skin and giant eyes that don't have crow's feet or huge bags under them and healthy hair and all of that. My age range would probably be mid-twenties to mid-thirties. At least that's what I think I look like. I know a lot of people are shocked to find out I passed thirty already. A while ago.
But in the last three or four classes I have taken, my teachers have selected pieces for me to work on where my characters are in their forties or fifties. The play I'm currently in, my character is fifty-five. And last night, I was asked to read for Gertrude in "Hamlet," who I have always pictured as someone in her forties or fifties.
I don't look forty or fifty.
I'm not afraid to look forty or fifty. There is a part of me that is kind of anxious to get wrinkles and have my hair turn silver because I think I will make a gorgeous little old lady. But I'm not there yet. And I know why I'm being asked to read/perform these parts - I am a mature person who comes across as the sort who "has it together," and most 20-something type characters aren't very "put together." Directors are trying to match me with characters who fit me mentally and spiritually. And those characters are twenty years older than I actually am.
In a way, I guess I should be flattered that they think I can handle those kinds of roles. But there is a weird sort of mourning period that an actor goes through when she realizes her chance to play Ophelia or Juliet has passed and she will only ever be considered Gertrude or Lady Capulet. Granted, Lady Mac is awesome. And the character I'm playing now is awesome. And there are a lot of great roles for more mature women out there that I can look forward to playing for the rest of my life. But in a way, it makes me a little bit sad - I have the rest of my life to play Gertrude; if I'm ever going to be Ophelia, it has to be now.
And I have to wonder if it's worth it to take care of my skin and hair and all of that, to try to maintain a youthful appearance, if it's only going to confuse directors. I think a lot of them get my headshot and think, "She's cute, she could be our [insert romantic lead here]," but then when I walk in with confidence and whatever they think, "Oh, no, she's actually closer to the fading starlet, but she doesn't look old enough for it, so do we want to use her or go with someone more age appropriate?" Or something. I don't know. I've not talked to any of these directors about it, but I'm guessing it's confusing to get an actor who looks one way and performs another. So maybe I should just let myself go so I start to look older than I am, or maybe I should start acting more insecure so I can get the younger roles while I still look young enough to play them.
Or maybe I should just shut my big fat mouth and be grateful that I'm being considered for roles at all. Especially the challenging ones.
04 February 2011
Monologues
Okay, here's my thing about monologues. Monologues are the worst possible way to audition someone. They just are. Yet everyone continues to use them because they are the easiest for the auditors. Let me back up.
For those of you who don't know, a monologue is a piece of dialogue that just one character says. You've got one guy talking for an extended period of time with nobody else interrupting him, that's a monologue. You've got one dude by himself on stage "talking things out," that's a monologue (or sometimes a soliloquy). There are (in my mind) two basic types of monologues - storytelling monologues and active monologues.
A storytelling monologue usually starts with something like, "When I was four years old, I remember my daddy comin' in from the fields one day with a look on his face that I had never before seen in my life..." and continues on to tell the audience about this horrible day wherein the speaker learned that her mother died in a tragic tractor incident because daddy had been drinkin' too much again. It's a story. Which is what a lot of monologues are - stories. Think about a normal conversation. When you are speaking for a long time without anybody else interrupting, you're usually telling a story of some sort, yes? That's what these monologues are - they are an opportunity for the playwright to impart some important bits of information to us, the audience, about the character. And that's fine. Most acting teachers and coaches will tell you to stay away from these monologues for the purposes of an audition, though, because let's face it, they're boring. Unless you are going to re-inact finding your mother mutilated in the field and then flail your fists against the air as if it were your father's chest as you pounded on him in grief, they're boring. And nobody actually tells a story that way, so you really just end up looking silly acting out something that happened when you were three.
There are also active monologues wherein you are trying to get the other person in the scene with you to do something. Or, in the case of Hamlet's famous soliloquy, you are trying to figure out a puzzle that is driving you nuts. These are the monologues you should use for auditions (except maybe not Hamlet's soliloquy because it's been done a million times over and they do recommend you try to do something a smidge original, but let's face it, there are only so many Shakespeare monologues, right? He's not writing anything new at the moment). These monologues have actions and objectives and all of those lovely things that actors ask themselves (and their directors) about during the preparation. What do I want? What I am trying to achieve? How am I trying to get that with these words? And since you are often trying to get something from another party in these monologues, you have something to focus on, which is good.
Except when you use these monologues in an audition, there is nobody else on the stage with you. They usually tell you not to use the auditors as your point of focus either because auditors don't like being yelled at, sworn at, or (believe it or not) seduced in the middle of audition. So all of this time that you have been preparing yelling at your husband for not treating you the way you should be treated, you get there and there is no husband. You don't get to experience him walking away in the middle of your speech and having to use the next words to get his attention again. You don't get the feeling of him pushing you away from him to motivate screaming the next line at him. And if you do decide to scream the next line in the audition setting, you have a 50/50 chance of coming off as brilliant or as a complete psycho who has no business on stage.
So you walk into the audition room, with your pieces memorized and worked on with your coach or your teacher and you do them the way you prepared them for this particular audition. Which is not the way they would ever actually be performed if you were doing them in a show because when you take this paragraph out of context, it needs a little tweaking to hold up as a real piece. And of course, in the real show, you'd have the reactions of your fellow actors to work off of and the appropriate costume, but you have to go into the audition knowing that they're not holding that against you because they just want to see you and what you can do. Except it's not really you because if it was you, you'd be wearing your favorite jeans and flip flops (which are NOT real shoes, I don't care how many bows and flowers and sparkly things you put on them) and your hair would be in a messy ponytail because you didn't have time to shower after going to the gym and you would never be saying these words anyway. So what the auditor is NOT seeing is you. They're not seeing how you work. They're not seeing how you perform. They're not even necessarily seeing what you would do with this character because it's highly likely that any impulses you once had about this person have been coached right out of you in order to make the piece "audition ready." They are seeing you walk into a room, spout some words, and leave, all the while trying to be exactly what they are looking for.
You know what? You will never be exactly what they are looking for. Never. Or maybe once out of every ten thousand auditions you go to will you fit the bill exactly as you walk in with your obscure Russian monologue that nobody has ever heard of before. And you will not be what they are looking for because while you may nail that obscure Russian monologue, they are not doing that obscure Russian play. They are doing some contemporary clowning piece and really want to know if you can move and speak. You walked into the room without falling down - hooray! You have a voice that carries - hooray! If you pass those hurdles, you might make it to callbacks if they happen to be looking for a white female of average height and weight with shoulder-length hair. This is why they give you sides to read at a callback - so they can see if you really are what they are looking for. What do you do with this specific character? What are your impulses in this particular setting when you have not had the life coached out of you yet? How do you work extemporaneously with people you've never met before?
I don't mean to rip on coaches or theaters that use monologues for auditions. Coaches are very helpful and can point out things you may have missed to take your performance to the next level. But I think it is important to note that no coach will make you "audition proof." No matter what it is they tell you to do, another coach or another director or another auditor will always want you to do something else. There is no perfect way to perform a monologue - there is always room for interpretation. And somebody is always going to want to see a different interpretation.
And theaters have a lot to think about when they are putting a show together. I have been to callbacks where they are just then deciding what sides people should read - there is a lot to take care of to prep for auditions. So yes, it is easy to ask people to come in with a monologue, and you can at least weed out who fell down when they walked in and who didn't. But I think it is far more useful to the theater, and helpful to the actor, to do auditions with sides. The actor gets to show what kind of work they put in to preparing a character - specifically the character you would like to see them play. And the director gets to see if the actor really is right for the gruff cowboy, or if he'd be better suited for the kindly saloon owner one step earlier in the process. It just eliminates the time used in evaluating monologues that you'll never ask to see again and that have little to nothing to do with the play at hand. Gets the ball rolling sooner, so to speak.
There are, of course, auditions for which assigning someone a specific character doesn't really work. Season generals, for example, when they might be looking to cast four or five shows at a time. There, they want to see your versatility as an actor so they might ask you to do pieces. Which means shorter pieces. With the thought processes sped up so you get them both in under two minutes. Taking them even farther away from an actual performance setting performance. I can see why monologues are kind of useful here, but still, they suck and there is going to be one auditor who loves you and one who thinks you should just go home. That's just the way it is.
I could just be grumpy today, and if that is the case, I apologize. Or maybe I just suck at doing monologues. I tend to get called back and/or cast more often when my auditions include reading from sides than doing monologues, so maybe I'm just prejudiced and if that is the case, I apologize. But I would like to find someone who thinks they are the greatest thing since sliced bread and have a chat with that person to find out why. Because very seldom is the theater about just one person. So why do we all have to work so hard to be just one person in order to get onto the team that is making this film/play/acrobatic stunt show happen?
I'm done venting. For now. Sorry.
For those of you who don't know, a monologue is a piece of dialogue that just one character says. You've got one guy talking for an extended period of time with nobody else interrupting him, that's a monologue. You've got one dude by himself on stage "talking things out," that's a monologue (or sometimes a soliloquy). There are (in my mind) two basic types of monologues - storytelling monologues and active monologues.
A storytelling monologue usually starts with something like, "When I was four years old, I remember my daddy comin' in from the fields one day with a look on his face that I had never before seen in my life..." and continues on to tell the audience about this horrible day wherein the speaker learned that her mother died in a tragic tractor incident because daddy had been drinkin' too much again. It's a story. Which is what a lot of monologues are - stories. Think about a normal conversation. When you are speaking for a long time without anybody else interrupting, you're usually telling a story of some sort, yes? That's what these monologues are - they are an opportunity for the playwright to impart some important bits of information to us, the audience, about the character. And that's fine. Most acting teachers and coaches will tell you to stay away from these monologues for the purposes of an audition, though, because let's face it, they're boring. Unless you are going to re-inact finding your mother mutilated in the field and then flail your fists against the air as if it were your father's chest as you pounded on him in grief, they're boring. And nobody actually tells a story that way, so you really just end up looking silly acting out something that happened when you were three.
There are also active monologues wherein you are trying to get the other person in the scene with you to do something. Or, in the case of Hamlet's famous soliloquy, you are trying to figure out a puzzle that is driving you nuts. These are the monologues you should use for auditions (except maybe not Hamlet's soliloquy because it's been done a million times over and they do recommend you try to do something a smidge original, but let's face it, there are only so many Shakespeare monologues, right? He's not writing anything new at the moment). These monologues have actions and objectives and all of those lovely things that actors ask themselves (and their directors) about during the preparation. What do I want? What I am trying to achieve? How am I trying to get that with these words? And since you are often trying to get something from another party in these monologues, you have something to focus on, which is good.
Except when you use these monologues in an audition, there is nobody else on the stage with you. They usually tell you not to use the auditors as your point of focus either because auditors don't like being yelled at, sworn at, or (believe it or not) seduced in the middle of audition. So all of this time that you have been preparing yelling at your husband for not treating you the way you should be treated, you get there and there is no husband. You don't get to experience him walking away in the middle of your speech and having to use the next words to get his attention again. You don't get the feeling of him pushing you away from him to motivate screaming the next line at him. And if you do decide to scream the next line in the audition setting, you have a 50/50 chance of coming off as brilliant or as a complete psycho who has no business on stage.
So you walk into the audition room, with your pieces memorized and worked on with your coach or your teacher and you do them the way you prepared them for this particular audition. Which is not the way they would ever actually be performed if you were doing them in a show because when you take this paragraph out of context, it needs a little tweaking to hold up as a real piece. And of course, in the real show, you'd have the reactions of your fellow actors to work off of and the appropriate costume, but you have to go into the audition knowing that they're not holding that against you because they just want to see you and what you can do. Except it's not really you because if it was you, you'd be wearing your favorite jeans and flip flops (which are NOT real shoes, I don't care how many bows and flowers and sparkly things you put on them) and your hair would be in a messy ponytail because you didn't have time to shower after going to the gym and you would never be saying these words anyway. So what the auditor is NOT seeing is you. They're not seeing how you work. They're not seeing how you perform. They're not even necessarily seeing what you would do with this character because it's highly likely that any impulses you once had about this person have been coached right out of you in order to make the piece "audition ready." They are seeing you walk into a room, spout some words, and leave, all the while trying to be exactly what they are looking for.
You know what? You will never be exactly what they are looking for. Never. Or maybe once out of every ten thousand auditions you go to will you fit the bill exactly as you walk in with your obscure Russian monologue that nobody has ever heard of before. And you will not be what they are looking for because while you may nail that obscure Russian monologue, they are not doing that obscure Russian play. They are doing some contemporary clowning piece and really want to know if you can move and speak. You walked into the room without falling down - hooray! You have a voice that carries - hooray! If you pass those hurdles, you might make it to callbacks if they happen to be looking for a white female of average height and weight with shoulder-length hair. This is why they give you sides to read at a callback - so they can see if you really are what they are looking for. What do you do with this specific character? What are your impulses in this particular setting when you have not had the life coached out of you yet? How do you work extemporaneously with people you've never met before?
I don't mean to rip on coaches or theaters that use monologues for auditions. Coaches are very helpful and can point out things you may have missed to take your performance to the next level. But I think it is important to note that no coach will make you "audition proof." No matter what it is they tell you to do, another coach or another director or another auditor will always want you to do something else. There is no perfect way to perform a monologue - there is always room for interpretation. And somebody is always going to want to see a different interpretation.
And theaters have a lot to think about when they are putting a show together. I have been to callbacks where they are just then deciding what sides people should read - there is a lot to take care of to prep for auditions. So yes, it is easy to ask people to come in with a monologue, and you can at least weed out who fell down when they walked in and who didn't. But I think it is far more useful to the theater, and helpful to the actor, to do auditions with sides. The actor gets to show what kind of work they put in to preparing a character - specifically the character you would like to see them play. And the director gets to see if the actor really is right for the gruff cowboy, or if he'd be better suited for the kindly saloon owner one step earlier in the process. It just eliminates the time used in evaluating monologues that you'll never ask to see again and that have little to nothing to do with the play at hand. Gets the ball rolling sooner, so to speak.
There are, of course, auditions for which assigning someone a specific character doesn't really work. Season generals, for example, when they might be looking to cast four or five shows at a time. There, they want to see your versatility as an actor so they might ask you to do pieces. Which means shorter pieces. With the thought processes sped up so you get them both in under two minutes. Taking them even farther away from an actual performance setting performance. I can see why monologues are kind of useful here, but still, they suck and there is going to be one auditor who loves you and one who thinks you should just go home. That's just the way it is.
I could just be grumpy today, and if that is the case, I apologize. Or maybe I just suck at doing monologues. I tend to get called back and/or cast more often when my auditions include reading from sides than doing monologues, so maybe I'm just prejudiced and if that is the case, I apologize. But I would like to find someone who thinks they are the greatest thing since sliced bread and have a chat with that person to find out why. Because very seldom is the theater about just one person. So why do we all have to work so hard to be just one person in order to get onto the team that is making this film/play/acrobatic stunt show happen?
I'm done venting. For now. Sorry.
26 January 2011
Stage Kisses
I kissed my teacher last night.
I proceeded to spend the rest of the evening freaking out about it.
My very first stage kiss was actually in an audition. I was called back for "Angels in America: Part 1" in college, and the scene I was reading was between Harper and her husband and has something in it about a "buddy kiss," and there is supposed to be a little..."buddy kiss." The kind of kiss a Mormon couple shares when the husband is gay and the wife is a drug addict. And I was reading with a man who is at least ten years older than me, who I had never worked with before (or hardly even met), but I had to go in for the "buddy kiss" and it was fine. Nerve wracking in a way, but fine, because at that point in my life, I really didn't have that much experience with kissing in general and here I was, new to my acting career, kissing a veteran actor who I'd just met, being called back for the female lead in a mainstage show at the end of my first year at college. There was a lot of pressure. But I think I did okay.
My second stage kiss was in a class in college - my second year of college. I was originally paired with a scene partner who decided he didn't need to come to class or rehearse with me outside of class, so I was re-partnered with a guy in the class who I actually had quite a crush on at the time. The scene was from "A Hatful of Rain," and I played a woman who is pregnant with her husband's child, but in love with my husband's brother. He played my husband's brother, who was also in love with me. At one point in the scene, he is supposed to go in for a kiss and I push him away with a sort of, "Kiss your brother's wife with that mouth?" kind of thing, and then he goes in for a real kiss a couple of lines later which actually lands. Well, in my first rehearsal with this new scene partner, we were sitting across the table from one another just reading the script. When it came time for his first move, he kind of leaned across the table like he was going to go for the kiss, which surprised me - I didn't know we were doing that in the read through. So a couple of lines later, when the kiss was supposed to happen, I decided I would be the polite actor and meet him halfway because it was kind of a big table and it just seemed like the nice thing to do. Silly me. We both went up for the kiss and ended up smashing faces. I think I split his lip in the collision. Not exactly the kind of stage kiss you want to have, especially not when it is a first impression of sorts on a new scene partner on whom you have a crush.
I have done many more stage kisses since then. And a fair amount of normal kissing, too. And for the most part, people tell me I'm good at it - men and women, because I have kissed both men and women. But I have to say, stage kisses are a strange sort.
With normal kisses, it's generally safe to say that both parties like each other, at least a little bit. First kisses can be a little scary, but you usually know that this is okay. Or the first one can be tentative to feel out where the other person is, with the more passionate kisses following later, once you both know you're on the same page. Yes, things like the taste of your breath and the softness of your lips factor in a bit, but there is some leeway there. If you really dig someone, you may kiss them even though they just had a cigarette and you don't smoke. Or, if this is someone you've been with for a long time, they know that your lips get chapped in the winter, so it's no big deal.
With stage kisses, this is something you have to do for the sake of the scene, regardless of how you feel about the other person or how the other person feels about you. You could loathe one another, but the script says you're madly in love, so you have to kiss. And you know that they don't want to any more than you do, but you suck it up and try to make it look good for the audience. Or maybe you really do like your scene partner, but your scene partner is married or involved with someone else. You want to put on a good show for the audience (and so it will affect your partner), but you don't want to be perceived as pushing it so far as to be inappropriate. Or perhaps your partner isn't attracted to people of your gender. There's that old adage from men doing sex scenes who say to their partners, "I'm sorry if I get turned on, and I'm sorry if I don't get turned on." In some ways, there's just no way to win in these situations. You just have to hope that your breath doesn't stink, that you don't split anyone's lip open, and that you can both just get through it with minimal damage.
And it's that much weirder when the stage kiss happens with your teacher.
So, to set the scene from last night's class, we were up on our feet doing our monologues. My piece is essentially about how much I want to screw over my sister. I'm tired of being overlooked (middle-child syndrome), my husband is dead, I killed the guy who killed my husband, I gouged a man's eyes out, and I now have my sites set on the dashing (and conniving) bastard son of the guy who's eyes I poked out. My sister wants him too, even though she already has a husband. So in my monologue, I'm talking to my sister's messenger/cabana boy, trying to get him to let me read this letter my sister wrote to the hot bastard son. And I'm supposed to give the messenger/cabana boy a token of some sort to give to the hot bastard son so when my sister sees it, she'll know I'm boinking him, too. "If you do find him, pray you give him this/And when your Mistress hears thus much from you/I pray desire her call her wisdom to her." Meaning, "When you see the bastard, give him this. And when my sister hears about it, hold on to your hats, boys, 'cuz she's gonna blow." So anyway.
In class last night, the teachers were coaching us through the monologues. In some cases, when a monologue is directed to someone specific, they will jump in and play the part of that someone specific so that we can have someone to focus on and get reactions out of and play with and whatnot. So the male teacher jumped in to play the messenger/cabana boy. He folded up a piece of paper (which was supposed to be the letter from my sister to the bastard that I want to read) and shoved it down the front of his pants. So I molested him. There is the line, "I'll love thee much," basically saying, "I'll screw your brains out if you let me read that letter," so it wasn't totally uncalled for. And when he shoved me off, I flew into a rage against him and my sister. By the line, "If you do find him, pray you give him this," I was angry and sexy and powerful and threatening, so the "this" was a kiss. I stormed over and kissed my teacher, so that he, as the messenger/cabana boy would have to either then go deliver my message by kissing the bastard, or he would have to tell my sister that I kissed the bastard (through him) or whatever. It put him in the lovely awkward position of having to deliver a message that he really doesn't have a good way to deliver. It was not a romantic kiss. It was a kiss of power and control and belittlement. And then I get to shove him off and tell him he should go kill the dude whose eyes I gouged out.
I have to admit, it was great. It felt great - the whole monologue felt great. It is a piece that kind of depends on the reactions of the man I'm talking to, and my teacher gave me a lot to work with which was fabulous. He's so fun! And in retrospect, I'm proud of myself for taking that chance. It has been a while since I got to do this. I'm understudying a show at the moment, so while I am going to rehearsals three times a week, I don't get to work while I'm there. I get to watch other people work. It is interesting to watch other people work and see their process, but it does tend to make me self-conscious about my process. Especially when I see how I would do things differently, but they were cast and I was not, that kind of thing. Anyway. It felt great to be back on my feet, moving about, taking chances, following impulses, going "balls out," so to speak. And the whole class really responded to it. The teachers said I did great work. It was a good class and I needed that.
But as soon as my monologue ended, I was mortified that I had kissed my teacher. Mortified. He is a professional actor. He has been on Broadway and various television shows and movies and he has the phone number of an author I really like in his cell phone. He has been to the Tonys. And here's me, still learning this craft, and I just go up and plant one on him in class? What the fuck gives me the right to invade his personal space like that?
The fact that I was in class gives me the right.
But still. I started freaking out about all of the stupid things, too - were my lips too tense? Should I have put on lip balm first? Did I have too much lip balm on? I wasn't as worried about my breath because it was a closed-mouth kiss, but still. All of those silly things you worry about when you kiss someone out of the blue were compounded by the fact that this is my teacher. I don't know that a director would ever block the scene so that Regan kisses Oswald there - I don't know if anyone would find that an appropriate action. But it was an impulse I had in the moment in the scene and he was there so I followed it and holy crap I kissed my teacher. In what context is that appropriate?
In the context that this was class and he was functioning as my scene partner in an attempt to get me to push my boundaries.
But he's my teacher. On whom I have an Artist Crush. I told my classmates during the break that I was mortified at what I had done and they were very supportive. And some teasing happened. They started trying to figure out ways they could work a kiss with the teacher into their pieces because let's face it, everyone who meets this man develops a crush on him of some sort. One guy was like, "Kissed the teacher: check!" Like a life goal had been accomplished. So I felt a little better about it. But still. I don't think I offended him or pissed him off or anything, but if I did, I apologize. I think we all know that it was the context of the scene and this power trip my character was on and really, I just want to someday be able to do a scene like this. But I grabbed his butt, too. Something about my performance last night had to be inappropriate on some level, and for that, I apologize.
Just between you and me, though, given the opportunity, I'd do the whole thing all over again.
I proceeded to spend the rest of the evening freaking out about it.
My very first stage kiss was actually in an audition. I was called back for "Angels in America: Part 1" in college, and the scene I was reading was between Harper and her husband and has something in it about a "buddy kiss," and there is supposed to be a little..."buddy kiss." The kind of kiss a Mormon couple shares when the husband is gay and the wife is a drug addict. And I was reading with a man who is at least ten years older than me, who I had never worked with before (or hardly even met), but I had to go in for the "buddy kiss" and it was fine. Nerve wracking in a way, but fine, because at that point in my life, I really didn't have that much experience with kissing in general and here I was, new to my acting career, kissing a veteran actor who I'd just met, being called back for the female lead in a mainstage show at the end of my first year at college. There was a lot of pressure. But I think I did okay.
My second stage kiss was in a class in college - my second year of college. I was originally paired with a scene partner who decided he didn't need to come to class or rehearse with me outside of class, so I was re-partnered with a guy in the class who I actually had quite a crush on at the time. The scene was from "A Hatful of Rain," and I played a woman who is pregnant with her husband's child, but in love with my husband's brother. He played my husband's brother, who was also in love with me. At one point in the scene, he is supposed to go in for a kiss and I push him away with a sort of, "Kiss your brother's wife with that mouth?" kind of thing, and then he goes in for a real kiss a couple of lines later which actually lands. Well, in my first rehearsal with this new scene partner, we were sitting across the table from one another just reading the script. When it came time for his first move, he kind of leaned across the table like he was going to go for the kiss, which surprised me - I didn't know we were doing that in the read through. So a couple of lines later, when the kiss was supposed to happen, I decided I would be the polite actor and meet him halfway because it was kind of a big table and it just seemed like the nice thing to do. Silly me. We both went up for the kiss and ended up smashing faces. I think I split his lip in the collision. Not exactly the kind of stage kiss you want to have, especially not when it is a first impression of sorts on a new scene partner on whom you have a crush.
I have done many more stage kisses since then. And a fair amount of normal kissing, too. And for the most part, people tell me I'm good at it - men and women, because I have kissed both men and women. But I have to say, stage kisses are a strange sort.
With normal kisses, it's generally safe to say that both parties like each other, at least a little bit. First kisses can be a little scary, but you usually know that this is okay. Or the first one can be tentative to feel out where the other person is, with the more passionate kisses following later, once you both know you're on the same page. Yes, things like the taste of your breath and the softness of your lips factor in a bit, but there is some leeway there. If you really dig someone, you may kiss them even though they just had a cigarette and you don't smoke. Or, if this is someone you've been with for a long time, they know that your lips get chapped in the winter, so it's no big deal.
With stage kisses, this is something you have to do for the sake of the scene, regardless of how you feel about the other person or how the other person feels about you. You could loathe one another, but the script says you're madly in love, so you have to kiss. And you know that they don't want to any more than you do, but you suck it up and try to make it look good for the audience. Or maybe you really do like your scene partner, but your scene partner is married or involved with someone else. You want to put on a good show for the audience (and so it will affect your partner), but you don't want to be perceived as pushing it so far as to be inappropriate. Or perhaps your partner isn't attracted to people of your gender. There's that old adage from men doing sex scenes who say to their partners, "I'm sorry if I get turned on, and I'm sorry if I don't get turned on." In some ways, there's just no way to win in these situations. You just have to hope that your breath doesn't stink, that you don't split anyone's lip open, and that you can both just get through it with minimal damage.
And it's that much weirder when the stage kiss happens with your teacher.
So, to set the scene from last night's class, we were up on our feet doing our monologues. My piece is essentially about how much I want to screw over my sister. I'm tired of being overlooked (middle-child syndrome), my husband is dead, I killed the guy who killed my husband, I gouged a man's eyes out, and I now have my sites set on the dashing (and conniving) bastard son of the guy who's eyes I poked out. My sister wants him too, even though she already has a husband. So in my monologue, I'm talking to my sister's messenger/cabana boy, trying to get him to let me read this letter my sister wrote to the hot bastard son. And I'm supposed to give the messenger/cabana boy a token of some sort to give to the hot bastard son so when my sister sees it, she'll know I'm boinking him, too. "If you do find him, pray you give him this/And when your Mistress hears thus much from you/I pray desire her call her wisdom to her." Meaning, "When you see the bastard, give him this. And when my sister hears about it, hold on to your hats, boys, 'cuz she's gonna blow." So anyway.
In class last night, the teachers were coaching us through the monologues. In some cases, when a monologue is directed to someone specific, they will jump in and play the part of that someone specific so that we can have someone to focus on and get reactions out of and play with and whatnot. So the male teacher jumped in to play the messenger/cabana boy. He folded up a piece of paper (which was supposed to be the letter from my sister to the bastard that I want to read) and shoved it down the front of his pants. So I molested him. There is the line, "I'll love thee much," basically saying, "I'll screw your brains out if you let me read that letter," so it wasn't totally uncalled for. And when he shoved me off, I flew into a rage against him and my sister. By the line, "If you do find him, pray you give him this," I was angry and sexy and powerful and threatening, so the "this" was a kiss. I stormed over and kissed my teacher, so that he, as the messenger/cabana boy would have to either then go deliver my message by kissing the bastard, or he would have to tell my sister that I kissed the bastard (through him) or whatever. It put him in the lovely awkward position of having to deliver a message that he really doesn't have a good way to deliver. It was not a romantic kiss. It was a kiss of power and control and belittlement. And then I get to shove him off and tell him he should go kill the dude whose eyes I gouged out.
I have to admit, it was great. It felt great - the whole monologue felt great. It is a piece that kind of depends on the reactions of the man I'm talking to, and my teacher gave me a lot to work with which was fabulous. He's so fun! And in retrospect, I'm proud of myself for taking that chance. It has been a while since I got to do this. I'm understudying a show at the moment, so while I am going to rehearsals three times a week, I don't get to work while I'm there. I get to watch other people work. It is interesting to watch other people work and see their process, but it does tend to make me self-conscious about my process. Especially when I see how I would do things differently, but they were cast and I was not, that kind of thing. Anyway. It felt great to be back on my feet, moving about, taking chances, following impulses, going "balls out," so to speak. And the whole class really responded to it. The teachers said I did great work. It was a good class and I needed that.
But as soon as my monologue ended, I was mortified that I had kissed my teacher. Mortified. He is a professional actor. He has been on Broadway and various television shows and movies and he has the phone number of an author I really like in his cell phone. He has been to the Tonys. And here's me, still learning this craft, and I just go up and plant one on him in class? What the fuck gives me the right to invade his personal space like that?
The fact that I was in class gives me the right.
But still. I started freaking out about all of the stupid things, too - were my lips too tense? Should I have put on lip balm first? Did I have too much lip balm on? I wasn't as worried about my breath because it was a closed-mouth kiss, but still. All of those silly things you worry about when you kiss someone out of the blue were compounded by the fact that this is my teacher. I don't know that a director would ever block the scene so that Regan kisses Oswald there - I don't know if anyone would find that an appropriate action. But it was an impulse I had in the moment in the scene and he was there so I followed it and holy crap I kissed my teacher. In what context is that appropriate?
In the context that this was class and he was functioning as my scene partner in an attempt to get me to push my boundaries.
But he's my teacher. On whom I have an Artist Crush. I told my classmates during the break that I was mortified at what I had done and they were very supportive. And some teasing happened. They started trying to figure out ways they could work a kiss with the teacher into their pieces because let's face it, everyone who meets this man develops a crush on him of some sort. One guy was like, "Kissed the teacher: check!" Like a life goal had been accomplished. So I felt a little better about it. But still. I don't think I offended him or pissed him off or anything, but if I did, I apologize. I think we all know that it was the context of the scene and this power trip my character was on and really, I just want to someday be able to do a scene like this. But I grabbed his butt, too. Something about my performance last night had to be inappropriate on some level, and for that, I apologize.
Just between you and me, though, given the opportunity, I'd do the whole thing all over again.
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