Fun and French, in a Cold Read

I spent the past two nights getting together with large groups of actors and reading aloud a couple plays. It was an informal gathering put together to explore these scripts as possible candidates for production. We were all assigned multiple parts, had some drinks and snacks, sat in a circle and dug in.

The first night’s play included numerous dialects, some singing and some foreign language. (This was a cold read for most of us, so there was some foreign language faking going on.) Last night’s was much tamer in that regard.

The fun of it, of course, was the discovery and the challenge. Other than the title and the authors’ names, I wasn’t familiar with either script, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Cold readings can be difficult – having to make quick choices, on the spot, about intention, attitude, relationships, character, all only based on what’s in front of you at the moment, not knowing where anything’s going.

Some times that’s a good thing. Some times you choose incorrectly.

After the readings we discussed it all – what we liked, what we didn’t, how produce-able it might be, what kind of audience it might garner, whether it’s right for this company and their audience, etc….. Lots and lots of opinions were thrown out, but there was also much agreement, and good discussion within the group. The conversation was cordial, professional and productive. There were no egos, no arguments and nothing personal.

(I’m not surprised by any of that behavior, I’m only reminded that I see it so little elsewhere.)

I learned a couple things through this exercise.

I learned I can’t always think on my feet well enough to sound clear and smart at the same time in group discussions. (I feel I usually can, but these couple night’s challenged that notion.) Life might move too fast for me, and I like to consider and explore materials when reading them. Or perhaps my mind moves too quickly, jumping to ideas, and I inadvertently skim things I shouldn’t. Or maybe I’m not as bright as I think. No…that’s not it.

Also, I learned, or re-learned, that I have a pretty solid skill of doing some accents, and many I can just toss out, on the fly, without thinking about them. While this includes a few British, Irish, Italian, Russian, Chicago, New York, ranges of Southern US and perhaps a few others, it does not include French. I don’t know why, but I can’t just jump into a French accent unless I’m improvising dialogue. On night one I had to read a character with a “slight French accent” and I started trying one, but as soon as I heard it fluctuate to some Eastern European (probably to a country that no longer exists) I gave up. I couldn’t read and accent at the same time.

But mostly I learned that this kind of thing should happen more often. At any given time I probably know several dozen actors who could be available on a Tuesday night to get together to read a script. Even if people aren’t right for the part, it doesn’t matter. Hearing a script out loud is how scripts are supposed to be heard. Hearing actors put some life (even incomplete, or slightly off-the-mark-in-a-cold-reading life) into the playwright’s words is illuminating. And getting together to practice, discuss and enjoy the process isn’t so bad either.

Every time an opportunity like this comes up I wonder why it doesn’t happen more often. Perhaps it’s time it does.

The Good and The Bad in Acting

Yesterday was my first day off from a rehearsal or performance in 16 straight days. It’s certainly not the longest stint I’ve ever done, and the recent rehearsals could have been more grueling, but last night felt like a good break. A rest I really needed. I’ve another night off before returning to the final few performances of my current show.

As I’ve written here, and talked about with people, this show didn’t have the typical rehearsal process because it was rather short for a full length play. When we opened, I was bit nervous and apprehensive about its cohesiveness, and so I described it as being put together with spit and old tape. Initially our houses were dismally small, and then one night the ultimate in audience disappointment happened – no one showed up. I’ve heard of that happening, but I had been fortunate to never be a part of it. It was an awful feeling. The fact that I was feeling exhausted in the middle of this marathon, only added to the experience and made me rather crabby.

But we persevered.

The following night we had a small crowd and after that an even larger group, which pumped the energy up in a whole new way. It felt like a real show, and we were thrilled.

What I was noticing though, throughout, was a slight inconsistency in my work. (I saw it others too, to some extent, but I’ll mind my own business and really I don’t think theirs was noticeable.) Occasionally I would discover new  thoughts and realizations (this is good) and find I would say something completely differently or say the line completely wrong (this is bad) even if with the same intention.

This past Sunday’s matinee, during the second act, was particularly bad for me. I was all over the place, using wrong words, rewriting lines and completely unable to stay focused and concentrated on the work. It was more like a rehearsal, and a bad one at that.

The more it happened……

the more I noticed it…..

so the more it happened….

the more I wondered who else noticed it….

And just like that, my mind was all over the place.

I felt awful about it. And I felt worse when I noticed during curtain call that a very good friend was in the audience – someone with whom I’ve worked a lot and have known for years and totally knows me as an actor and I’m sure…noticed. Turns out two other good friends were there too.

Why did this happen? What’s wrong with me? I was starting to really wonder if I’m losing my skills (seems rather unlikely) or have some kind of health issue I’m not aware of, or what.

I wasn’t having this problem in the show I did earlier this year (in fact quite the opposite,) nor in the other work that I’ve been rehearsing, nor in any of the other small projects I’ve worked on recently.

I could only surmise that it’s the spit and old tape.

Part of the acting process involves discovering, developing and defining the minutia of every aspect of a character and his goals and objectives. This is all done in the rehearsal process (or primarily) and it gets ingrained, and those objectives and points-of-view become inherent and embodied, and as an actor you don’t have to think about them in the same way when you get to performing.

None of this is to say that there still isn’t development and growth and learning, etc. There is. It’s just different.

I think I’ve concluded that I didn’t complete all that process and I’ve tried to make the leap to a point where I don’t have to think about those things in that way. I think we rushed it, or I did. It’s not even perhaps that we needed more time, it’s that we needed to have used…or I needed to have used the rehearsal time differently.

After that awful performance (awful is my word – my friend said he noticed there were a few moments where “something didn’t seem quite right“) …but after that show is when I realized all this. It wasn’t really a lack of knowledge of the words, or confidence, but it wasn’t ingrained. It wasn’t in my bones. I couldn’t just trust that I knew what was going on. And it makes me think that overall, not just on this one evening, my performance is probably not coming off as being of the quality to which I strive. I just may suck in this show.

At the following day’s performance I chose to work differently, with a different kind of concentration and focus, and it made a world of difference. I got through it much more effectively.

Of course, this doesn’t mean I still don’t suck.

Speed Dial

Last week I started rehearsals for a play, a full length play. It opens a week from tomorrow.

Typically a rehearsal schedule is three or four weeks of rehearsal followed by a week of tech and dress rehearsals, followed by a preview or two or a dozen, depending. This rather condensed process is more akin to summer stock, but without the shorts, t-shirts, drinking and communal living. Compared to stock, we also have shorter rehearsals, if only because everyone’s also working their day job. So, perhaps nothing like stock other than make choices and keep moving. (This schedule also makes these long days and weeks a complete blur, as they whiz past. I’ve felt like I’m in a daze for the past 48 hours.)

I think it’s going to come together just fine, and parts of it I expect will be rather good. There’s a lot I’m not sure of. None of that matters, of course, as I’m just an actor, and I can’t worry about what others are or aren’t doing, or how the production elements are or are not coming together. I can only concentrate on my own work and collaboration with my castmates.

Of course, I’m hoping that the fact that I haven’t yet had a costume fitting, and dress rehearsal is five days away, won’t make me wish I’d done some crash diet.

The show was blocked and shaped very quickly, and we began working scenes. Suddenly we’re off book, despite a few rough patches. It’s a ridiculous amount to have consumed in this short time. A couple of the other actors and I were talking last week about the challenge of getting off book, as we usually find it best to memorize while doing. The words and actions get melded, it’s a physical memorization. But this time the words had to be put first, and the process is clunkier. It has certainly given my line learning abilities a work out.

The saving grace about that, and a number of other elements, is that it’s a mystery play, Dial M for Murder. It’s all plot. There aren’t layers and layers of character and relationships and depth to the thing. It’s not without its nuances or its opportunity or need for fine detailing in the underlying specifics, but the words do much of that work and there’s a lot of Q an A.

As long as you’re the one doing the A you only need to listen to the Q.

At this point I think I’m going to wish we’d had another week for polish, but we don’t. We’re all determined to use the week we have left to its most efficient.

I’ll make a note to return here next Thursday before the final dress (or is it preview?) and see if my thoughts on this foggy morning were off base.