Jim's Richard III Blog

Segue

2009-05-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

Well here I am, transitioning from BRT to Cal Shakes and seem on some level to be resisting the transition; I don't think its a resistance born out of negativity though, but rather it springs from that sense of impending departure, that sure and certain knowledge that very soon I will be leaving the cast of Lieutenant of Inishmore at BRT -- leaving behind a wonderful experience and group of people. I truly don't want to leave the show and it saddens me that I must.

I'm not usually a sentimental actor when it comes to a show ending--perhaps some of this is due to my early rep experience; when a show was over you went on to the next one, many times with the same group of actors, so these feelings about Inishmore are a rare event to this crusty old salt. I thank the whole bunch of goobs -- crew, cast and director -- for making me laugh more than I have in ages, put this memory in my pocket and move on.

So. Romeo and Juliet. Here I am. Again.
This is my 7th R & J, and I've played damn near everyone in the play by now.

My first was in College, New Mexico State University, in Las Cruces. I got cast as Mercutio. I'd done 2 Shakespeares at most and had really no idea what I was saying -- I did know a good deal of it was rude and I remember being very clear on those particular passages, to the dismay of our rather proper director. I think all the dead people got up and danced at the end.

My next production was in El Paso, Texas at the Chamizal Memorial Theatre, newly built to cement cultural ties between the US and Mexico. I'll attribute the demise of my teen homophobia entirely to this show as the entire male cast, with the exception of myself, was gay. They were totally nice to me when they could have been cruel and only once did I get my eyes widened by walking into the restroom and seeing more than one individual in the shower.

The show was performed on a football shaped stage, raked at an angle of about 30 degrees. This is just about the angle that, were you aboard a ship in a raging ocean, the deck would tilt to just before you slid off it into the sea.......very difficult to work on. We had to use rosin to get a good grip.

The director hated me. After my death at the hands of Romeo he had me lie on my back upstage. For the rest of the play. Yep. I became a set piece. Every one acted around me. I got so good at regulating my breathing I'd go into a sort of trance and would actually fall asleep. I tried to listen, I tried to stay awake, but every night would get a boot in the ribs when my fellow actors would kick me to wake me for the curtain call. I don't think I ever snored.

The next was in Sacramento, as Tybalt. Don't remember much about that one.........

In 1982 I was cast as Mercutio at Oregon Shakespeare Festival; I remember we had to audition for the role (sometimes the roles are offered flat out) and had to duke it out with some of the big boys at the Festival to get the part. Kyle MacLachlan played Romeo (this was before he went to Hollywood) and was quite good. We had a terrific rapier dagger fight that wasat least 3 minutes long and was exhausting to perform, but oh my I was in great shape!

The next three productions have been at Cal Shakes, once as The Prince, once as Montague, and in the current production, Juliet's father, Daddy Capulet; L. Peter Callender has played Capulet in the 2 previous productions--he was magnificent in the role, and I can't seem to get his voice out of my head................

Help me.

OF BLACK CATS AND OLD FRIENDS

2009-05-08T06:47:00.000-07:00

The Universe seems to have been prodding me in certain directions this year and now, through the devious workings of Dame Fortune, I find myself once more working with Berkeley Rep. It's been a few years since I've done a show here and it's always a huge pleasure to return. To top it off I get to portray Donny in Lieutenant of Inishmore, BRT's latest offering--a mad, hysterical, bloody good Irish play, and a feast for any Actor.

To prepare for the role I've become thoroughly disreputable looking.

I've allowed all the hair on my body to grow unchecked; I've put away the razor, the scissors, my tweezers, the battery-powered rotary nose hair trimmer bought by my wife (who now bleats at me from time to time mocking my goatish appearance) and now resemble someone you'd find on a late-night Sunday BART train.

The rehearsal process of Lieutenant of Inishmore has been glorious fun for me; I'm not often cast in this character type and I don't often do roles that are purely or mostly comic in nature but I fell into it with an amazing ease and have laughed more in this short span than I have in years. Les Waters, our Director, would shake his head in delighted wonder and say "It's so stupid! And I laugh every time!"

And it's all the more fun for it's excellent special effects -- guns, blood, exploding cats, various bladders which ooze, squirt and burst, and devices which blast various formulas and viscosity's of blood either away from you or at you. We have Blood Mortars.....I've never done a show with a blood mortar.....

The term "Blood Mortar" was a little daunting to those of us who were to experience it's effects, but we were blessedly introduced to those effects early on in the process; our 3 Irish thugs all got life casts of their faces (which is an experience vaguely akin to being buried alive) before rehearsals started and Steve Tolin, our special effects man and super-hero, made frequent appearances explaining the way the bleeding bodies came apart, where blood packs would be and demonstrating the Gore Cannon on himself.

Steve would stand in front of a 15' wall that had plastic sheeting affixed to a height of about 9' with himself duct-taped into a clear plastic skirt which covered his lower half but left torso and head exposed, and press a red button. The first time the mortar didn't fire. The second time there was a moose-like honk from the mortar and Steve was, in a microsecond, blasted in the face with a spray of blood which went a good 11' up the wall. It's tricky onstage--one person fires a gun and the other tries to trigger the cannon at exactly the same instant--ideally, the firing guns cover the "PHAARnnnk!" from the device.

I must add a note of praise for our most excellent crew here--we could not do this show without their focus and expertise; they stand backstage before the scene 8-9 shift for a full minute with their eyes closed before rushing on in the blackout to strew blood, body parts and dismembering implements liberally across the stage as the actors are splashing themselves with stage blood in the dark--terrifying the first time I saw it, even with the lights up. But it's a testament to their skill that no one's been hurt and all elements are magically there every night. This same group then cleans up the 12 some gallons of blood, brains, body parts and sodden clothing every night after the show requiring an additional hour of cleanup and laundry. Many, many thanks to them.

In the course of rehearsals and performance we have become one of those blessed events--a finely tuned, supportive cast and crew made up of fun, funny and talented people who all care for each other and work their uttermost to make the show succeed, making it all the harder for me to leave......

Shortly after we opened Inishmore I started rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet at California Shakespeare Theatre but Inishmore has received such good press that its now extending--into my tech week for R & J, knocking me out of the extension week. My fellow actors are very professional about it--they'll go into rehearsals with the understudy who seems a fine man. Patrick. I hear he's terrific and to top it off, he's really Irish. The very least I can say is Thank you Les, Karen, and goodbye you bunch of Goobs; the most I could say would take far too long to write. I love yez and I'll miss yez. To Patrick I raise my glass and shout "Fill yer boots, Man!" I wish you joy in the role and people.

For the curious, Bella, our show cat who plays Wee Thomas, has an understudy as well and she happens to belong to me, or rather, I to her; my plump, round and black as a cannonball Princess sits with me as I compose this blog/goodbye/note of thanks, her head stuffed deeply into my armpit, purring happily. She knows that I have "Bella sessions" and that I play string with other cats than herself yet has endured my consorting with other female black cats (and the practising of my lines by means of cooing into her ear in an Irish accent) with a certain studied disdain; she, I think, is not sorry I'll be leaving the show. And though she makes only the rare appearance -- usually in our neighbour's potted plants -- she's let me know in that certain way that felines will, that were SHE ever to go on for the other black kitty...................she would be bloody breathtaking.

The Scrooge Chronicles

2008-11-17T14:22:00.000-08:00

The last time I blogged anything was opening night of Uncle Vanya at Cal Shakes. I've done Rock N Roll at ACT since then, and am now a week into rehearsals for A Christmas Carol (also at ACT) reprising the role of Scrooge. Three months of not writing....Why? I don't know exactly.

Both Vanya and R N R were great experiences with wonderful casts--I didn't like the character I'd created in Vanya (like everyone in that fictional household I found ways of coping with him) but enjoyed the hell out of the truly despicable party functionary I found in Rock N Roll. Bad guys are fun! After we closed Rock N Roll at ACT the show went on to Boston for a run at the Huntington Theatre but left behind 3 cast members -- Nick Pelczar, Natalie Hegg (both students at the Conservatory) and myself, all 3 of us now rehearsing Christmas Carol. At the closing night celebration in Fred's Lounge at ACT I felt as if I were standing on a dock somewhere waving my hankie at a ship sailing off over a darkening ocean. Bon Voyage, y'all. They've opened now, and are doing well. I send them a rude card from time to time.

And now I have a whole new batch of young goobers to break in as Scrooge, little ones and students, and it brings with it a new set of joys and makes my Carol "family" just a little larger. Some of the young ones are back, some kids entirely new to the experience and I've twice found kids who were in the show previous years wistfully waiting outside the building. Quite touching. And again I've at least 30 new names to memorize and I'm dreadful at names, truly pathetic--I have to study.

But even though I have to get in shape for the role--go into training for it really, it definitely has payoffs; yesterday we had our first run-through and I went full out, no holding back, full performance energy and found myself totally pooped, and drenched at plays end. We took a break before our note session and I toweled off, got back into street clothes and plopped into a corner to rest.

As I sat there one of the little girls in the cast--a tomboy-ish one who ties her long hair back--came racing up to me, stuffed a tiny piece of paper into my hand, and said "You need to read this!" and ran off giggling. I unclasped my hand and found there a fortune from the interior of a fortune cookie; it read:

"Don't worry about the Stock Market. Invest in family."

Shorthand

2008-08-09T13:30:00.000-07:00

Opening Night day. Awoke at 8:01 with help from the cat. Must have coffee. Must buy cards. Must re-read Rock N Roll. Will start rehearsals on Monday. No days off for a month. Looks like a good day weather-wise. Not taking any bets Theatre-wise. No beard trauma last night.

Cross your fingers.

Merde!

A Bad Hair Day

2008-08-08T14:32:00.000-07:00

OK. Something is weird in my Universe.

The past 3 nights I've gone to bed very tired and very late. This morning I awoke, moaned quietly, rolled over, looked at the clock and saw its little beady LED eyes blinking exactly the same time as it has the previous two mornings.

7:49 AM

I've also had some, shall we say alarmingly vivid, erotic dreams and while I am not opposed to erotic dreaming in any fashion, these seem rather Chekhovian in nature......actually life in general seems to bear a faint tint of Chekhov for me these days; a sort of double vision, everything seems quite serious and somehow farcical at the same time. I won't go into the details of my dream eroticism but suffice it to say, it's fairly ridiculous..............

We finished the tech process Tuesday evening, had our first two previews Wednesday and Thursday and will have our 3rd tonight. The first show was largely uneventful with laughs in unexpected places and last night we had a full house with a lovely audience..............BUT........my beard came off.

Yep, right at the beginning of my big scene in the 3rd act--the one that has the speech that still gives me that "deer in the headlights" kind of feeling. I'm the deer. The deer with the beard. A magnificent Patriarchal full beard built for me (I couldn't grow one like this without a good head start) and glued on with the old standby Spirit Gum, applied and aligned by yours truly.

Now I thought that sucker was on--I even gave a cursory inspection--seemed fine, but no sooner had I gotten 5 lines out of my mouth than I got a sudden and distinct sensation of non- adhesion. This was not a good thing--I had a major speech coming up and an argument with Vanya (the inestimable Dan Hyatt) and the last thing I wanted was the audience to be staring at my beard and taking bets on when my little furry would at last topple from my face instead of listening to what was being said.

So I changed my blocking, or rather wound up keeping my right bearded side facing the audience as much as possible, and when I absolutely had to face stage right would do so while scratching my temple and holding my beard pressed in place with my palm to mask it.

Clever, no? A little sleight of beard.

I was met on my brief exit by Howard Swain with spirit gum in had, tacked the damn thing down again, blotted the glue and walked back on.

Ta-Da!

Coming up: Will Jim wake at 7:49 again? Stay tuned.

The Rakes Progress

2008-08-05T17:15:00.000-07:00

It's been warm out at the Bruns during our last 4 days of Tech; our first evening was chilly, the next two sublime, and we finished out the week on Sunday with another brisk evening.

We've actually been able to do some work on scenes between the cracks of working on lighting and sound cues but didn't run the show till last night. Oddly my performance was better in the full sun with no costumes, sound or lights.......I hate it when that happens.

I find myself stumbling on internal adjustments; at the top of Chekhov's act 2 the Professor and his wife are revealed onstage asleep in their chairs--his gout has been troubling him, the pain keeping him from sleep and as a consequence he's kept the entire household awake tending to him.

But we have no curtain, hence no reveal; this means that I have to limp onstage through many bustling people who are shifting scenery and moving furniture, plop myself down, read a bit, fall asleep and then get startled awake and at present I've barely time to get to my chair and let my head drop before I suddenly jolt awake; the actress playing my wife has a full costume change (she's in the final scene in act 1) and barely makes it on in time.

This feels odd--we both go from a brief burst of energetic motion to a moment of stasis and I at least have not made my peace with the moment--it feels as if the audience is supposed to witness that silence and non activity for some time -- this is not criticism mind you, but more in the nature of dealing with the peculiarities of this particular set; I'm sure we'll find a happy medium.

The raked stage has added a few challenges but as proved fairly easy to deal with--the cast had a session with a physical therapist who gave us a full range of stretches and provided exercise balls and foam rollers to help counteract whatever adverse affects we might be feeling from the rake and we've put them to good use; I've had to do much work on my ankle (the one I sprained in Richard III last year) and am using my brace.

Tech Week List

2008-08-01T21:12:00.000-07:00

-Shaving cream & razor
-Makeup & brushes
-Soap
-Contact lenses and solution
-Toothbrush and toothpaste
-Goopydoo hair gel
-Sunblock x50
-Sunglasses
-Ratty white shirt
-Dad's old cowboy hat
-Shorts
-Thermal socks
-Long underwear
-Shakespeare Santa Cruz sweatshirt
-Parka
-Ankle brace and exercise bands
-A decent book
-Reading glasses
-Bottle of Scotch (post show use only)
-Frozen taquitos
-Triscits and spinach dip

BBbppprrrrptt!

2008-07-31T11:29:00.000-07:00

So here I am, ostensibly blogging for Cal Shakes, I'm 3 weeks into the rehearsal process of Uncle Vanya, and have not blogged one single letter of the process................

Why is that? Well, hard to explain.

Excuse # 1. I fear Chekhov. Yes, I've a bad case of Chekhovphobia; I can't always sense on reading his plays just how they function--it's only in rehearsal, that I begin to see the dynamics of what the author may have intended. So, happily here is a cure for my phobia--I just have to do it. It does, however, lead to some hesitancy on my part on blogging the process. Apologies. And many thanks to Timothy Near, our director, who has helped immensely with my therapy.

Excuse # 2. The role of Professor Serebryakov is a great role, a pivotal one, but he's got one line in act 1, a big scene in act 2 with his wife (others come in later at which point he leaves), a big scene in act 3, and a small scene in 4. As a consequence I've been called in to rehearse for a few hours here, a few there and have only a faint overview of the show as a whole and little interaction with the other actors on stage.

It's odd when this happens--you're cast in a role in which you have little to do, or one in which you interact only with a few people in the production and as a result feel almost that you're in another play. Which is arguably as it should be with this character--he does feel apart, out of his element and alienated.

Excuse # 3. I hate my character. Not the role mind you, but the the man that Chekhov has limned so acutely. He's spoiled, arrogant, selfish, and conceited; he looks down on all the others and has no tolerance or understanding of their lives and the challenges they face. I've known real people like this and I didn't like them either.

Thankfully though, I once played a character which I found to be thoroughly disagreeable and on expressing my feelings to another actor was told "Well then, you'll probably never be any good at it, will you?", so I have a prior lesson to go by on that excuse, and while I'll probably never ever love this man, I will find a way to tolerate him, at the least.

Excuse # 4. This is a rough one--Many times actors are required to perform in roles that are out of their experiential realm. We have to find ways of accessing those same feelings, perhaps finding experiences in our own lives which engender parallel emotions. I'm playing an older man than myself, one who has health problems and who fears death and stultification. This has caused me to explore some of my own fears so I can perform the role and it's put me in a bit of a dark spot. Apologies again. I'm better now.

Doing Chekhov seems to have affected my dream life as well; one of my more notable dream sequences had me afflicted with a bout of uncontrollable flatulence--and not just occasional mind you, but a muted continuous "Bbbbrrrrrpppppppttt" which varied in pitch up and down the musical scale and which followed me wherever I went, sometimes stressed in tempo with my footsteps.

It would occasionally cease when I came to rest to pour myself a cup of coffee, say, and would be accompanied by a long Chekhovian pause by cast and crew who breathlessly awaited to see if Jim's farting spell had finally abated. I knew they were waiting. They knew I knew, but were feigning nonchalance. The air would still and silence reign as I slowly stirred in my sugar and half half, silently, fervently praying for no resumption of intestinal volcanism. And breaths would expel in unison, life unpause and begin anew--albeit with some grumbling on the part of the others ("When is he going to stop?") -- as I strolled away pooting helplessly, apologetically.

I don't think I want to know what that one means.

Coming up: Hysterical Chekhov stories!

Breaking It Down

2008-05-17T08:32:00.000-07:00

We had a note session the day after our first-half run--Carey was not displeased, I think and I think she's spot on; the show has a good solid footing and the choices being made aren't passive ones. One of her notes to me was to make Richardetto more serious in his guise as the Doctor, and though I didn't say anything at the time it felt wrong, even though she's absolutely correct in her perception that something vocally has to be different with him and that that difference is currently lacking.

Why did it feel so wrong to me?

Break it down, Jim.

Richardetto has no previous scene before we see him in disguise, no scene in which we see him before his world was turned upside down by an unfaithful wife; and no mention of their relationship, none of children, zippo. So perhaps the question to ask is not who is this man, but who was he? Let's get in the Way Back Machine......

At the time this play was written (early 1600's) the sciences were just beginning to evolve in Europe--Chemistry emerged gradually from Alchemy; Astronomy, Biology, Anatomy and Medicine were beginning to form into more exact sciences largely through experimentation by wealthy/titled men many of whom began their explorations as hobbies. Gradually these various intellectuals formed organizations such as the Royal Academy in England--experimentation began, observations were made, notes taken, papers written and the Sciences were born. In a nutshell.

These are my givens: A noble, learned man married to a lusty, passionate woman, who is perhaps not having the passion returned to the same degree; she may have loved him but has allowed herself to be lured away from her husband with false promises of love and marriage--a couple who've been married for sometime (I can't tell how long) and who seem to be childless. The man is a sober, well respected member of the community--and I think it buys me more, gives me more fuel if he did love her though he may not have known quite how to tell her and it likely had some aspect of ownership to it. Women were pretty much chattel and most marriages were arranged at this time -- it was business and love was a bonus. I think theirs is a 400 year old dysfunctional relationship. This is my starting point--Richardetto Ground Zero.

It suits my purposes as far as "character logic" goes to imagine him an emotionally distant man and to imagine him one of those early scientists--he pulls off pretending he's a doctor and does it well enough to garner a reputation for himself and be engaged by at least two men of status during the course of the play. And he seems to know about poison.............

Next, I looked at the language in my first two scenes; In the first, before the audience knows I'm in disguise the sounds are very different from the second; in the first scene (as Doctor) round, open vowels abound and there's a more relaxed feel to his language--in the second when I'm alone with my niece and it's revealed who I really am and what my purpose is the language is sibilant to the point of being nearly reptilian. His first line "Thou seest, my lovely niece, these strange mishaps--how all my fortune's turn to my disgrace, wherein I am but as a looker-on whiles others act my shame and I am silent." feels practically spat out, hissed.

This is why Carey's note felt wrong I think--the man is dead serious already (he's faked his own death to come back and watch, come back for revenge), so the vocal part of his disguise feels as if it should be more of a polar opposite; heartier, more relaxed, warmer--let's say he's got a good bedside manner. Carey sounded very open to it today when I sounded her out about it and laid out my logic--now I just have to do it well....

But at least I'm making choices; I had a minor stroke of inspiration in act 5; when Susan Gibney was reading her dying speech after being poisoned (Am I giving everything away? Plenty of surprises left, folks) her final two words are "O--O!" Then she croaks. And I thought to myself "Now, why in the hell would I just stand here and gasp along with everyone else at the party?" This was a woman I'd loved, bedded, been intimate with-- she's a source of deep pain--she's property stolen, a source of public shame, and violent, conflicting emotion. I couldn't just stand there, could I? And then I remembered--

"Hey, I'm a Doctor.................."

I had a professional reason to go to her -- a public rationale for doing it. Perfectly in keeping.

And now when she reaches the end of her life's final speech I cross to her, and lift her head; she looks straight into my eyes and for the tinniest second sees the loyal husband she thought dead.

"O--O!"

Thinking Out Loud

2008-05-14T06:40:00.000-07:00

And now back to the Present.

I've wallowed in the mudpits of memory long enough and should for the sake of decorum at least blog something about my current rehearsal process. The scene? Second week of Tis Pity She's A Whore rehearsals at ACT.

We finished roughing out the first half of the show yesterday and after reaching the intermission break ran the entire first act--a crawl through if you will-- though the show, even with most of us still with script in hand, moves like a bullet.

This is when you get the first taste of what the finished production is going to be; a wavery outline of the beast, a sense of the chemistry at work between the actors and the arc of the piece as a whole. Going by what I saw yesterday I think this one's going to rock.

Carey has put together a fantastic cast, all with great instincts, all smart actors, and all hungry to make true choices--don't miss this one. And I'd forgotten what a great play it is!

As for myself, I'm struggling with Ricardetto and am going slowly--a little too slowly for Ms. P at times I think, but this is not a role that I instinctually hook into. Who is this man?

He's of very high status--the husband of Hippolita (also noble) who has come to the knowledge that his wife is having an affair with a young nobleman (Soranzo); urged on by his wife, he's taken a journey to Ligourne to get his niece and and while on the trip has died.

But he's not really dead.

He comes back, with niece in tow disguised as a Doctor of Medicine and sets up practice in Parma with no other purpose it seems than: "Now would I see with what an impudence she gives scope to her loose adultery and how the common voice allows hereof."

He's been watching her. Creepy. And he doesn't seem to have a definite plan of action until Grimaldi comes to him for a love potion so he can woo Annabella successfully; he tells Grimaldi he has no chance to win her love until a bar is first removed between them and that bar is? You guessed it--Soranzo. He's jumped on this chance in the moment and found a tool to remove someone who's publicly cuckolded him and tells Grimaldi he will provide a poison to eliminate his rival and Grimaldi agrees.

The man is burning inside; his first speech is full of sibilance, ess's and cee's and zee's abound--he may as well be hissing his words through his teeth--and yet while still on fire, he at least outwardly cares for his niece to see her married off to someone she loves. He seems to have many motives at once, many masks, and I'm as yet uncertain which he's wearing.

A toughie, this one.

Chinese Peanuts

2008-05-12T08:19:00.000-07:00

On one of my Mondays off during the rehearsal period of M. Butterfly, I'd wandered the streets of Portland, done some exploring, tried to find projects to keep my sanity while out of town, treated myself to a nice meal at a decent restaurant, caught a film and eventually, late in the evening, I headed back to my grungy hotel room.

I stepped out of the 4th floor elevator only to have my nostrils greeted with a bouquet of delicious aromas which I realized were emanating from the room of Man Wong and even though I was still fairly full from my previous meal, the scent drew me towards the door and through said door I heard voices raised in animated conversation. I knocked. The door opened.

"Djim!" Man Wong greeted me "Come een, come een!"
"Wow, what are you cooking Man?" I asked entering the room "It smells terriffic!"
"Chicken!" he replied "My espessiu chicken! I'm cook een Chinese restaurant een New York! Come eat, come eat!"
"No really I couldn't Man, thanks--I ate a pretty big meal not too long ago and I'm still pretty full." I protested even while being marched politely toward the table where sat Luyong Wang with a bottle of sake in front of him.

But my protests grew more feeble the more my nose sampled and soon a full plate was placed in front of me, a cup of sake to one side and I, to my own amazement, cleared the entire plate of food in very short order--his chicken was indeed very special--and finally, well nigh paralyzed from the meal, I sat back, paid my deep compliments to the chef and we all began to chat and sip sake.

Now they had a good head start on me in the sake department but made sure I caught up with them and soon we were all slurring our words on a fairly equal basis as we began to talk about the show. Luyoung was playing the female lead with whom a French diplomat falls in love and has a lasting affair even after discovering she's in reality a man; he was quite astonishing in his portrayal and as for Man Wong he not only took part in all the Opera sequences, but was Luyoung's understudy as well and had memorized all of his blocking and lines. He didn't quite understand all of them as yet though..... After a fair amount of talk and imbibing of sake Man leaned forward, raised one index finger and said blearily: "Djim? I hab a question for you."

"Sure Man, what is it?" I responded.

"Why inna pray do dey caw a man's vageena a peanut?"

"What?" I asked, confused--I got the first part of his question but my alcohol infused brain wasn't translating the rest quite as well and thought I'd misheard him.
"Why do they what, Man?"

"Why, eena pray do dey caw a man's vageena a peanut?"

I looked questioningly at Luyoung just as Luyoung, equally puzzled, turned to me--and then comprehension dawned on us both at exactly the same instant, our eyes widened, and we quickly turned away from each other before we howled with laughter and offended Man or hurt his feelings. There was a pause as we regained our composure. I took a deep breath...........

"Ahhhmm--Man I think maybe you misheard the line--in the play they call it a penis."
"Yah, a peanut! Why they caw a man's vageena a peanut?"

It was getting harder and harder to keep a straight face.

"No, the word is pronounced peeee-niss, Man." I said feebly.
"Peee-niiaahh-t?" he queried. By this time I could barely talk and Luyoung, even though he too was struggling, began to assist me in his cultured tones.
"Peeeee-niiiss, peee-niiis, Man." he coached helpfully.
"Peeeeeeeee-naaaaaahhhhhh-t." He almost had it but that "T" was killing me. I tried again.
"No T, Man, no T--and you're saying UH like in "up" -- it's isssss like in the word "if"."

"Peee--nifff?" he asked looking very confused.

"No,no,no--say it with me slowly--peeee." And he and Luyong both very solemnly (though Luyoung had a definite gleam in his eyes) repeated "PEEeeeeeeeeeee".
"Now, NIIIiiiiihhhh." I said slowly, and both in unison responded with a long drawn out "NIIiiiiiihhhh."
"Now, ssssssssss." And the duo returned my "Ssssss".
"Now put it all together slowly; peee--niihhh--sss." and both dutifully repeated "Pee-niihh-sss."
"Good. Put the stress on pee, now and run all those sounds together."

My final lasting impression of the evening, and one I will always treasure, is of three sodden friends full of food and sake sitting at the table chanting in unison in our different accents, but chanting successfully --

"Penis! Penis Penis!"

Teach Me Stuff

2008-05-11T01:30:00.000-07:00

As long as I'm on the topic I'll tell some more stories about that production of M. Butterfly and the lovely people in it; it gave me a window into another culture--it's people, theatre and language and I have many memories of it.

We were about 2 1/2 weeks into rehearsal by this time and I'd not only become friends with the Chinese cast members, but was giving all of them English lessons of some kind--Luyoung mostly just with inflections of words and how they informed the sense of what was said in English and I helped Man out with his grammar. Ding was another matter; he was the eldest, about 48, and spoke next to no English--the two others coached him and taught him some words but it was difficult for him to form sentences or even words sometimes.

I realized how much I'd taken language and the ability to use it for granted and found myself wondering how terribly helpless it must have made someone like Ding feel and when Man asked me on his behalf if I would help him speak English I agreed. And somewhat reluctantly I confess--I couldn't diagram a sentence if you asked me to, but I was equipped to at least help him with conversational English.

So we made a trade--the would allow me to do warm-ups with them every morning and then I would teach them later in the day.

Now these guys had been in training since they were about 8 years old.......
We'd start the day with stretches, they would practice some of their dance moves--some of which I learned (and all I have forgotten) but there would reach a point in the warm-up that I'd just have to sit back and watch as Man would practice his back flips--doing 15 or so in the same spot and then move across the room still flipping. I still have a photo of him with a perfectly composed expression on his face, arms crossed -- which in itself is not unusual other than the fact that he's almost 4 feet in the air with both legs out in a complete split. Even though they went easy on me I could hardly walk the next day.

Oddly though, Ding never participated in these sessions, and one day I jokingly asked him as he watched us with arms folded, "Ding aren't you going to warm up?" He smiled, thought a bit and carefully said, "Don' haff to." and he was right--he didn't--he would go on cold and be perfect every night in those intricate Opera sequences. Amazing.

Ding was my toughest pupil, not because he was a bad student but because I had to teach him how to make some of the sounds themselves--the Chinese language is created very much in the middle of the mouth while English is much more forward and some of the sounds we use simply don't exist in Chinese--Ding had a hard time with the letter "T" and "Th" sounds were very difficult; he initially would thrust his entire tongue out of his mouth and I would have to carefully illustrate where tongue placement was for certain sounds.

But we progressed to the point that we could actually talk--very simply at first, but we talked. I'd begin by asking him what he did that day, and Man Wong would be on hand if there was something he didn't understand. He'd reply and I'd correct his syntax or word, have him say it again and keep talking.

After awhile they started calling me "Teacher" and even though I protested would address me very formally by that name. They were quite firm about it, insisted on it in fact, and so I found myself reluctantly but graciously accepting the title. Teachu Djim.

!@$##!^^#!

2008-05-09T10:20:00.000-07:00

O.M.G. Hilda! How could I have forgotten?

I promised Hilda this story last year, and I actually don't know if she's reading this any longer, but I'm telling it anyway, dammit.

So.....

Once upon a time I was doing a production of M. Butterfly in Portland, Oregon and our cast featured 3 incredible performers from mainland China; they had all trained in or were part of The Pei king Opera and had jumped ship in the United States. The eldest, Ding Mei Kwei, was married to a Superstar of Chinese Opera, Qi Shu Fang, and spoke almost no English, the next was Luyoung Wang who played one of the leading roles, spoke excellent English and taught at an American University--he had problems with inflection sometimes and asked me to coach him on his lines, and finally Man Wong his understudy, who spoke English well enough to get by, but his grammar was often off, and he was deeply conscious of his deficit as far as contemporary phrases go.

One day Man, who was an elfin young man with a lovely sunny personality, approached me on break in rehearsal and said (and forgive the attempt at recreating his dialect)

"Djim? I want you teach me durty word."

"What?" I said, thinking I'd misunderstood him.
"I want you teach me durty word."
"Uh, well, OK Man, ummm....why?"
"Wew, een New Yok I dribe a cab, and peepo yewl durty thing at me sometime and I only speek Chinese, so I want to learn dirty word to yewl back at dem."

Now this was not only hysterical but charming as well, and while I was more than equipped to teach him some phrases, I also didn't want to be responsible for him getting shot. I had visions of him careening around New York screaming curse words out of the window of his cab and rummaged around in the attic of my mind to find something suitably harmless that would allow him some relief and allow me to live with myself.

"OK Man, here's one--You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny!"

Man took out his script, a pen, and very studiously wrote into it: You Ukly And You Mama Dress You Funny. "OK, wha ewse?" he asked attentively............

He wanted more, and I realized to my dismay that when cornered like this I could think of nothing other than variations on the B, C and F words and for some reason I just couldn't bring myself to teach him those--it just didn't fit with his disposition. "Your Mother wears combat Boots!" I blurted out, and again the writing in the script --You Mama Wear Comba Boot. And just to round out his Lexicon of contemporary American phrases I tossed in Far OUT, Cool and Bitchin'--all slang from my boyhood, and all copied studiously into his script.

The next day Man walked up to Phil, our director, and yelled out "Hey Fiw! Faaar BACK!" Thankfully, he did not inform the director that he was ugly and his mother dressed him funny.

And I confess that sadly, I picked up very little Chinese in return and have no real defense for myself--the only phrase I can remember to date is (and I'm spelling phonetically here) "Fong Pi"

Who farted?

Revenge

2008-05-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

The first day of rehearsal and the bastards have already stabbed me in the back.

I had a 9:45 fitting (woof) for my costume on Monday which turned out to be very brief--it's a period costume and resembles a big puffy sleeved sack. With a cap. And tights. Tights. Haven't worn them in a while.

I then plowed back thru the crowd to ACT's main office and rehearsal hall where the Equity cast meeting was already going on--this is when the Equity actors vote on the span of day, with either an 8 hr. rehearsal and a minimum 1 hr. break, or a straight 6 hr. with a 20 minute break in the middle. All "management" types, (the Director and others) and non Equity actors must leave the room, the ballots are cast and then the Equity Deputy is elected.

Now being the Deputy for a show is an honor but can be a curse as well depending on the organization you're working for, the cast temperament, and your working conditions. They deal with a variety of issues, safety ranking high on the list.

So while walking back to the offices after my fitting I was thinking "Gee, I haven't volunteered to be Deputy in awhile--I should do that." only to walk into the rehearsal room where the Equity session was in progress and get handed a packet of deputy materials.......

They'd elected me in absentia. Bastards.

And of course the evil Jack Willis was at the heart of it. Jack, Black Jack had nominated me, Judd Williford most likely seconded, and the rest filled in with heartfelt glee.

It's clear that we're dealing with professional actors--seasoned veterans who know how to toss a potato, and though I take the title of Deputy Jim on with equanimity, calm and poise I have to say that in the spirit of the play,

I'll be Revenged.

'Tis Pity

2008-05-05T07:37:00.000-07:00

Today's the first day of rehearsals for 'Tis Pity She's A Whore at ACT, so I thought I'd get the first thoughts about it in now as life may get in the way of blogging later.

It's a cheery little piece, A Jacobean Revenge Tragedy written by John Ford which was published in 1633 and first performed I find, by Queen Henriatta's Men sometimes called the Queen Majesty's Comedians, or other variations of that name. (Thank you Wikipedia.) It's a twisted Romeo and Juliet (published in 1597) about a brother and sister who fall in love, have a child and watch the world go to hell; it has some beautiful language and wonderful scenes and will be directed by the talented La Perloff herself.

It'll be the second time I've done the show--the first time was Ashland in 1981, and it was a bit of an accident that I got in the cast at all.

I'd been cast in Two Gentlemen of Verona on the outdoor stage which conflicted with Tis Pity playing inside in the Angus Bowmer. The show featured Joe Vincent and Barry Kraft in the two leads whilst I filled out the roles of "Presenter" and "Forest Creature"........... Now if you look in the text you'll see neither of those roles are actually listed in the cast--that's because the Director made them up.

Yes......This was one of those Productions. One of those concept shows, one in which the director had all the characters represent something and stand for those qualities in an abstract way--Sir Eglamor was Chivalry for instance, the maid was Loyalty, the blah was this and the did-de-blah was that. Oh, what a stinker. The capper was when an old friend of mine, James Avery (he played the Uncle on Fresh Prince of Bel Aire--a fine actor) who is easily 6'4 and weighed around 300 lbs., got cast in the roles of the Innkeeper and The Road. Look in the cast list again. Not there is it? Now, Avery was not happy about this casting and I can't say that I blame him--not a lot of acting choices to be made as The Road. But being a pro he did his damn job like it or not.

How does one act a road, I'll just bet you're asking. And mere acting challenges aside, how does the audience know you're supposed to be a road?

You give him a cape, silly.

You give him a big ass cape, with a road and trees and bushes and coaches and people and houses and horses and dogs painted on it and you have him walk ever so slowly across the stage with it, but Oh Martha, being a cape it lies flat so you need people to hold it sideways, and being a Road Cape and necessarily large, say 30 plus feet, you need several people to hold it sideways. The final effect?

A Large Grumpy Black Man with a huge painted drapery thingy affixed to his neck and threatening to strangle him entering from stage right whilst several nameless others struggled to unfurl the whatever it was that was dragging behind him as he walked slowly from stage right to stage left throwing occasional glares toward the audience and Director. I couldn't watch his entrance, or if I did I had to cover my mouth so I didn't snark or make odd noises thru my nose.

I was luckier. My succor came in the form of Jerry Turner, the Artistic Director of Ashland, who approached me after our first preview and growled out something akin to "How'd you like to get out of this piece of crap?"

I don't remember if I actually kissed his shoes, but I do have a distinct memory of falling to my knees........

One of the cast members of Tis Pity (his show) had dropped out due to another offer in New York and Jerry decided to let me have a go at it. The role was Soranzo, Annabella's suitor, and later jealous husband and I had precious little time to learn it and about 5 onstage rehearsals, but I damn well did. Anything to get out of being a Forest Creature.

But there were repercussions; the cast of Two Gents didn't speak to me for about 2 weeks, and I inherited one of the smelliest costumes I've ever had the displeasure to wear--wardrobe was unable to dispel it. But it could've been worse.

I could've been a Road.

Hamlet's Cat's Soliloquy

2008-05-01T10:38:00.000-07:00

I found this tucked away in some odd corner of my computer.
And though I didn't write it, this is my cats favorite piece of literature:

To go outside, and there perchance to stay
Or to remain within: that is the question:
Whether 'tis better for a cat to suffer
The cuffs and buffets of inclement weather
That Nature rains on those who roam abroad,
Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet,
And so by dozing melt the solid hours
That clog the clock's bright gears with sullen time
And stall the dinner bell. To sit, to stare
Outdoors, and by a stare to seem to state
A wish to venture forth without delay,
Then when the portal's opened up, to stand
As if transfixed by doubt. To prowl; to sleep;
To choose not knowing when we may once more
Our re-admittance gain: aye, there's the hairball;
For if a paw were shaped to turn a knob,
Or work a lock or slip a window-catch,
And going out and coming in were made
As simple as the breaking of a bowl,
What cat would bear the household's petty plagues,
The cook's well-practiced kicks, the butler's broom,
The infant's careless pokes, the tickled ears,
The trampled tail, and all the daily shocks
That fur is heir to, when, of his own free will,
He might his exodus or entrance make
With a mere mitten? Who would spaniels fear,
Or strays trespassing from a neighbor's yard,
But that the dread of our unheeded cries
And scratches at a barricaded door
No claw can open up, dispels our nerve
And makes us rather bear our humans' faults
Than run away to unguessed miseries?
Thus caution doth make house cats of us all;
And thus the bristling hair of resolution
Is softened up with the pale brush of thought,
And since our choices hinge on weighty things,
We pause upon the threshold of decision.

-Shakespaw

War Music

2008-04-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

Well, I got a week down and launched into the first part of a workshop for a show to be done at ACT next year, War Music, based on Christopher Logue's epic poem of the epic poem, the Illiad. It's an adaptation, a retelling of this story which is vibrant, hysterically funny, and brings a modern voice to the story, a modern ear; it's not put in a different time or country but is the Trojan War (with many cuts judiciously done by the adaptor and director, Lillian Groag) in it's entire.

It's simply stunning. Mr. Logue has done an amazing, almost impossible thing--he's told the tale faithfully, without stinting, without losing a single image that Homer's original contained, and the words! Ah!

And so many of them......the reading, which was not staged in any way ran about 3 hrs and 20 minutes, and Lillian is now faced with the monumental task of pruning it still further without losing any of it's richness, and with figuring out the focus for the piece--who's story is it? Achilles, who begins and ends the piece but is largely absent from the middle of it, or the War in it's entirety? And if it's not Achilles, how do you go about focusing it, to bring the lens of today to it? Not an easy task, but one I know she's up to.

From my scant knowledge of it Logue apparently began it in the late 1950's and finally had it published (this from the inside of Lillian's own book) in 2000. I think it's amazing piece and when it is finally pared down will be incredibly Theatrical, deeply human and funny. Read it for yourself--you'll have to special order it, most likely.

It'll be worth it--see it next year at ACT.

The Flip Side

2008-04-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

So how did my opening night go, you ask? It's hard to say actually, as my memories of the evening are mostly a blur but a Director friend I hadn't known was coming met me after the show and the first words chortled gleefully from his lips were, "Jim, you have balls of steel." Whatever that signifies. I'm also sometimes told I have a magnetic personality. Now I'll have to be more careful when I tie my shoes......

Earlier in the day I put Opening gifts together, wrote a few cards, read, and went to eat. I usually eat Japanese as it's not too heavy, a little ritual that helps get me in the groove and focus for an Opening Night.

But I didn't feel more focused after I ate, and I went to the Theatre thinking "Oh, boy is this going to be one of THOSE nights? One of those nights on which nothing goes quite as smoothly as it should, filled with hiccups and glitches? Quite frankly none of us knew just what to expect--we'd never had more than a few people, no Preview, never a full live house, our Opening was our first Preview.

This means you have to get it right the first time. It means you have to listen intently to the crowd--to read the tenor of the audience right away, see if they're ready to play and how much, ride the laughs that will hopefully come, be ready for any bobble and be ready to cover it. You can't relax into it, you can't be sloppy.

The curtains parted, the Hypno Screen came down, the intro rolled, the thunder pealed, the spirits shrieked and I hit the deck running.

And they loved it. Really. The audience was mostly kids, mostly 11-ish, but a smattering of older and younger who howled and hooted and occasionally yelled out something indecipherable. There had been no preshow recording as is usual; that old "Please remember to turn off all cell phones, and remember no pictures or video recording." speech and within minutes of the curtain a woman in the front row began taking flash pictures at point blank range.

But the show went well though the 2nd act did bog down a bit due to one actor. You guessed it: Mr. X--he did the expected and immediately went to his default acting setting and played the electrician role as Blanche DuBois. Ah, well.

The second night went not so smoothly, with some technical glitches right off the bat--they didn't open the main curtains while I was backing up and I tried to open them without looking but got myself wrapped in the drape instead which rattled me a bit and it took a bit to get my footing again, but I was ultimately able to play the moments and crowd a bit better as I now had some kind of template for possible reactions. According to others I kicked ass.

I found this posted comment on my blog today:

Anonymous said...
Saw the play last night. Brought both children with us. What can I say? I was everything we love all rolled up into one package. I must say though - the theater itself was certainly part of the performance. Thank you for the words here and a most memorable evening - one that my children will have a lifetime.
Cheers.

You're welcome.

ZVSP Opening Night

2008-04-11T14:59:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh. At long last it is upon us! At long last we will see if my really cheesy fake moustache and soul patch will stay on for 90 minutes of sheer hilarity, see if it actually will be 90 minutes of sheer hilarity, see if farting reigns supreme, see if Mr. X gets his lines right, see if I get my lines right.

We got in our first run thru's with no stops for technical or actor glitches last night--did 2 runs with a 20 minute break in between giving the crew time to reset the stage and props and giving the actors a rest--the crew didn't get a break as is often the case, and with the insanity of the week having reached high tide they are now pretty sure of what they are doing but tired and crabby. Can't say as I blame them.

The intensity of the crabby factor varies from person to person according to their dispositions, but the tired factor seems pretty Universal--a viscous bug hit the cast and nailed me early in the week but I had the sense to the Doctor right away as I knew it was bad; Keta, our female lead, caught it a day or so later and has a raw throat, a cough and is belting out her songs nonetheless though I know it's costing her.

But we got through it--twice. Yaaaay. Wahoo. I've still no idea what an audience will think though we did have a few invited guests last night--we go into the audience on several occasions and some were smiling, some weren't. Not a clue as to what the ratio of smiling/non smiling was.

Rider has thrown about everything into the mix he can--we now have a hearse parked out front and a 12' tall red devil in the lobby; he'd ordered wind up bats at one time to try flying into the audience to terrify them; most wouldn't fly at all and the ones that did posed a danger of blinding audience members as they weren't soft bats. The backstage and dressing room areas are now filled with the effluvia of horror--yesterday I saw a dummy called "Donna the Dead" (Get it? Dawn Of....oh, never mind) with a sticker pricing her at $200.00.

We have an entire table of unholy accessories backstage and it's littered with buggy eyeballs, fake rotten teeth (Rider had wanted Sam to try these but they discovered that you couldn't have fake rotten teeth and a lateral lisp--Sam's salivary glands nearly exploded they were so confused, and the lisp was ultimately deemed the more desirable of the two. Thank you God.), horns, whistles, pom-poms, fat suits (oh! big disaster last night--the zipper on the back of the gorilla suit broke), large fuzzy spiders, wigs, beards, nasty fingernails, and fart machines. A veritable panoply of weird odds and ends which is constantly in the way and being pawed through by X to further grace his characters.

I put together some small gift baskets together for cast and crew excluding as much sugary stuff as I could--it's going to be crazy enough without the sugar factor--and am signing off now to fill out the rest of my cards.

Wish us Luck, and as the French would say:

MERDE!

How Do You Get an Actor to Complain?

2008-04-09T13:25:00.000-07:00

Give him a job.

An ancient joke but pretty accurate, at least in my case. It seems to me I'm always grousing about something and I don't know if it's because I'm turning into the curmudgeon I've always been destined to be or I'm just too damn picky for my own good. If I were to grouse about ZVSP what would it be about? Hmmm--so many choices.............

It's mostly organizational, I think--it's a truly chaotic process here and we burn time on a daily basis--45 minutes will go by before we actually do something in rehearsal. The tech has been a minor nightmare--I found out last night that the sound and lighting crews didn't have headsets so they couldn't hear our stage manager call the light and sound cues. This explains the 5 to 10 second of dead air after some of my lines. I can't go on until many of these cues are called as my lines refer to them, but we managed to tighten up several of these last night.

The costumes get piled in a heap in a spare room downstairs and every day you have to sort through the clothes and it's weird that no matter how carefully I stash or store them I still can't find them the next day. I've supplied my own pants, shirt, and socks since the Costumer managed to find only one article of clothing that fit me, though she's had about 5 weeks to find them, buy them, or steal them off a corpse. She's Hungarian and she brings her 80-ish year old Mother with her all the time who looks mystified by the entire process; the first time I came near her mother she shouted at me "I don't speak no English!" I replied in milder tones that I don't spoke no Hungarian. We're buddies now, I think--we smile at each other a lot, anyway.

The props? I have to check them myself I find--which any actor who is in a prop heavy role should do, but sometimes I can't find them to check them. And the desperation factor in getting this show up and over with is making itself evident--I'm supposed to use a "Hypnodial" which for our purposes is defined as one of those swirly vortex patterns that lulls one into a trance state, and got for the prop a short stick with a string on one end and a paint can lid with a hastily sketched out hypnodial on it screwed onto the other end, the entire unweildly apparatus meant to be worn around my neck. I think I'm going to have to make my own.

We found yesterday that they're cutting the musical number at the top of Act 2 as it "just wasn't working"--a bit late in the game to realize this I think as we've worked on this song and dance for 4 weeks. We're replacing the entire number with a short sketch that begins with Garganta blowing farts on his hand to amuse the other Monsters in my collection....then Keta will sing a song. Originally the top of Act 2 was to be a dream sequence of Neetroys starting with "5th Avenue" a great old tune (a Shirley Temple hit at one time) after which I would wake him, he would strip off the enormous pair of red womens panties that he'd been sleeping in and then we would look for the kids that the Graveyard Devil had made off with.

It's true that the dream sequence was not set up well, but we all liked the song and I think it has just a bit more class than hand-farting, but I confess, I am not sorry to see those red panties go.

Our Cast of Characters

2008-04-07T16:28:00.000-07:00

Here's our cast, most pulled from the area, some actors some not but a good bunch of people.

Rob-Plays Garganta, the most horrifying beast of darkest Borneo. He is of course one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet, and wears that suit without complaint. Rob works at the local paper and seems a pretty damn fine actor--kind of a shame that he's playing a gorilla, but he's a pro about it. I thank the fates that he's not a method actor. That could be weird.

Jody-Our all around man; he not only works on the set painting, and building but also plays Mr. Hillbilly, a cop, an exterminator, and stagehand. Jody somehow finds the time to have a job at the video store and looks really tired a lot of the time.

Sara-The token Brit; Tall blond and tanned she's a former model who now rides horses in competition, and has turned her seemingly inexhaustible energies to this show, but she really wants to race cars professionally. She plays one of the Doo-wop girls and Madame Draculana, famous vampire and drinker of warm human blood.

Donna-Riders 60-ish stepmother, magnificently white haired and trim, she was invited along for the ride after his wife dropped out. Initially kind of tentative amongst the rest of the Doo-wop girls who are younger and have a wee bit more movement training, she's now shaking her thang with gusto and having fun.

Brandon-Does double duty as Hankenstein and the Graveyard Devil. A graphic designer, I think--he's almost 7' tall and is just the nicest guy you'll ever meet. He's fascinated by the process of putting a play together and things we find ordinary are to him new and wonderful. Quite sweet. I've volunteered to be fight captain and have coached him and the children how to abduct and be abducted with safety--his GD costume is huge and clumsy and he has to come off the stage, grab two of the kids we have planted in the audience, carry them one under each arm, back up the stairs and offstage. He has yet to receive his other costume................

Dania-One of the Producers, Rider's assistant, and one of the Doo-Wop girls. Actually a Journalist by trade this job fell into her lap during a lull and she wears so many hats it's hard to count them. Always pleasant and funny she's been a great help to us all.

Ardriane-About 7 or so years old, she had a tendency to holler "It's ARDRIANE!" at me when I mispronounced her name--until I asked her if she knew what MY name was.......the next day I was greeted quite pointedly as JIM. She's smart and sweet.

Errol-Rider's son about 8 years old; Errol is our stooge boy--I get to hypnotize him and he does the Sacred Voodoo Death Dance of the Living Dead shaking his butt liberally at the audience which has got to be a lot of fun for just about any kid. He's a sharpie. I also find he loves old Mexican Monster movies.

Lydia-Our former Assistant Stage Manager now made Stage Manager, since our former SM had her child last week and is out of the show for good. Lydia took over a bit late in the game but has been instrumental helping the process attain some sort of order and plan. She's a pretty damn good singer and dancer in her own right and has all the dances down better than most of us. She's still playing catch up on all the script changes, trying to keep pace with the scenery that's been cut and just generally trying to stay on top of this thing. She's a Godsend.

Mr. X-I will not give this persons name, but I suppose anyone who reads this and knows him can figure it out quickly enough. He's been a major pain in the ass from day one, selfish, aggressive, a constant victim in life and has only recently altered his behavior due most probably to a discussion with the director which might have run something like this: "Listen here X, I've about had it with you, so now here's the deal."

If you don't shut up I will fire you.
If you come late again I will fire you.
If you don't learn your lines correctly I will fire you.
If you yell at the other actors again I will fire you.
If you don't stop giving other actors advice I will fire you.
If you don't stop ad libbing during others lines I will fire you.
If you don't stop asking pointless questions while we're working I will fire you.
If you don't stop using others props for your scenes I will fire you.
If you keep playing your character as a Southern Queen I will fire you.
If you don't take a bath and brush your teeth the other actors will strangle you.
And I will let them.

It must have taken something at least that strongly worded and specific for this character as he's barely said a word the last two days. A huge relief--every rehearsal we dealt with the "Mr. X Factor"; we'll see if it lasts and if he doesn't wind up doing what he damn well wants to do in performance.

Rudy-Plays Teddy Corn and is in civilian life well known for his Rockabilly music; we heard a sample of it last week and he's damn good! Rudy is about 74 and was in a car accident last year, rear-ended by a semi truck, and is still suffering from nerve damage due to whiplash. His hands are swollen and he hasn't been able to play his guitar for a year which kills him, but he's incredibly cheerful and the only times I know he's hurting is when he'll step off a curb and I'll hear a sharp intake of breath. I've taught him some stretching and warm up exercises for his forearms, wrists and hands and I see him assiduously practicing these throughout rehearsal. I've done a little massage work on him myself and Rider has generously been taking him to his own chiropractor for body work and the swelling has reduced some. I give Rudy a ride to the motel most nights after rehearsal and have discovered something about him.

Rudy is in love with my car. As we were approaching it one night he stopped, leaned back, took a long, slow look and said: "Damn Jim, that's a purty car!" as if he'd just seen it, just realized what a gorgeous automobile it was. My car is a Hyundai. A very pretty blue Hyundai mind you, but a Hyundai nonetheless. But in Rudy's eyes it's every bit as good as a Mercedes and now he rarely fails to remark on it. And it's curious that now, when I drive him to the motel, I feel I'm driving a vehicle much more luxurious--I feel richer somehow.

Week III, ZVSP

2008-04-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

This weeks' not been much different than the last--the same strange, the same incremental climb of performances; we did have one hitch however--Sam discovered that after 5 days of doing the new version of his character, Neetroy, after discovering the lateral lisp and Rider's seeming enjoyment of what he was doing with the character, that Rider pretty much hated everything he was doing and was frustrated with Sam's progress. This was news to all of us as we thought he'd liked it and it had the ultimate effect of causing Sam deep distress.

I decided to step in. Normally you don't do this for another actor--the role is his and his battles his own to fight, but these are not normal circumstances. The next morning at rehearsal I talked to Rider, said basically that Sam and I were a part of a "comedy duo"-- a straight man, funny man team and what affected Sam affected me. I tried to get a read on what his interpretation of Neetroy was and it sounded like it boiled down to his feeling that Sam was being too cute and that he visualized the character more along the lines of Rick Morranis in Ghostbusters; I asked if rather than a run through of the play with no specific point in mind that we instead do a work thru with Sam giving it another shot based on our collective interpretation of what Rider wanted and he agreed. I talked to Sam, told him what I'd done and what Rider had said and what we'd be doing with that days rehearsal. I think he was grateful I'd interceded on his behalf and we did the show with his new tack on Neetroy, the rest of us discovering how his adjustments affected our own dynamics. Rider seemed well pleased at days end and I think the problem is solved once and for all.

Pegging the Oddometer

2008-03-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

Wow. Another peculiar week--this project just seems to draw oddities to it like little fluttering moths of strangeiosity -- a Weird Magnet, if you will. And understand, it's nothing massive all at once but every day there's something--some small but strange occurrence that is out of the realm of the ordinary rehearsal day you'd have at say, Cal Shakes, ACT or Berkeley Rep and it adds up to a big ol' pile of weird.

The week started off sluggishly--we'd had a 3 day break and what we'd done the previous week felt very distant and unconnected--they gave us new scripts on Tues. and we didn't have time to transfer all the blocking and notes we'd written down, so it was a clunky, stumbling rehearsal all around.

Sam Meisner has been struggling to give Rider (our Director) what he wanted and Rider has been unable to define what it was he was looking for well enough for Sam to give it to him, which is a hellish place for any actor to be; the poor sods that this happens to often turn out to be the directors whipping boy, eternally unable to please and forever getting notes, line readings and forever insecure in their performance. Wednesday was a dance session, then a work-through with a "character conference" for Sam at the end. Rider had a blowup at me--not abusive, but angry which of course pissed me off too--there was a brief glaring session, the rehearsal went on and apologies were exchanged on both sides at days end.

After that rather brutal day we all met up at our hotel, and vented; Me about the blow up, Keta about a musical issue and Sam about his character conference with Rider--I'd tried to coach him a bit as to what to say --"I need more specific notes or I can't give you what you want" kind of thing, but it hadn't helped and Sam came back more disheartened than before, still not knowing what Rider wanted. We talked awhile, commiserated, drank root beer, laughed a bit and went to bed.

We came in the next day and really attacked it, really tried to see just where it wasn't working and why--Sam came in with a lateral lisp for his character and the occasional sound blurted out in a Daffy-Duckish,Tourette's like fashion, which he was throwing out in sheer desperation and which was actually quite hysterical, though we did get sprayed a few times before he'd gotten it under control--Keta finding a little glasses wiping shtick. We had quite a good days work, Rider seeming very pleased with the progress and with Sam's new found character. Ahh, the lateral lisp--a lifesaver! The only minor odd notes sounded were the costumer coming in and running the sewing machine during the rehearsal--I finally asked if another place to run power tools could be found..........

The next day we were on the Stage! Very early in the process to be doing this, but we were grateful to get to know the theatre well in advance, and ran the show repositioning and adjusting the blocking we'd set to the new space, and seeing the set units in place for the first time--very tight backstage it will be indeed.

We'd just run the seance sequence and were on a short break, sitting onstage in our chairs and chatting when I noticed a young man wander onto the stage--we sometimes have problems with outsiders just wandering in and gawking, so I cocked an eye questioningly at the Stage Manager and back to the young man and she said "Oh! Let me introduce you to Michael--he's part of our running crew for the show--Michael these are our lead actors." Since I was facing Michael I introduced myself first, and the following dialogue ensued:

Me: "Hi, Michael, I'm Jim"
Michael: "Nice to meet you Jim."
Keta: "And I'm Keta."
Michael: "Hi, Keta."
Sam: "Hi, my names Sam."
Michael: "Hi Chssam, I'm Michael." ...................

Chssam.........? Our Sam, dear sweet Sam, the Sam that Michael had just greeted, had frozen in his chair, and looking back on that glacial moment I find it impossible to describe the look on his face. Rapid startled glances were exchanged amongst us --- had we heard correctly? "Soooo---Michael, are you from the area?" I ask struggling to maintain my composure and trying to ascertain if my hearing was going or just my mind. "Oh yeshhh!" he replied brightly, "But I work all over the plache--Shanta Crooch, Shan Franchiscko, Shan Joschay, you name it!"

Oh Dear God Please No.

The term Irony doesn't begin to cover this moment. By the time I'd finished talking with Michael, Sam was slumped over and staring dully into his open palms, a stricken look on his face, I felt mildly hysterical-- as if I might break into wild, mad laughter at any moment, while Keta chewed on her lower lip, wearing an undefinable expression as we watched the young man stroll up the theatre aisles and out the lobby doors.

What are the odds on that one? What are the odds of getting probably the only stagehand within at least a 1,000 mile radius who had a lateral lisp to be in the show you're in, playing a character who has a lateral lisp--a lateral lisp I might add, that has just rescued your character and redeemed you, a lisp which was the veritable floating piece of timber onto which you'd scrambled in your attempt to find something character specific and comedic in a sea of acting choices?

Truly Phenomenal. And hysterical. And deeply weird--you just couldn't make this stuff up.

Golden State Theatre Photos

2008-03-23T11:14:00.000-07:00

This is the exterior view of the Golden State Theatre; the top part of that central portion is molded tin starting just above those top center figures and filigree's--a shell which add to the height and grandeur. All the windows had some kind of embellishments over them as well and on both top corners are square panels with an eagle head design--the one visible has been removed. This was an old Vaudeville house and was on the circuit of houses that various acts would tour to; an actor/performer could develop an act and tour this circuit for years. The original dressing rooms still exist, little cramped cubby holes lined with slatted wood panels, a sink and mirrors.

This is the upper lobby and has been pretty much completely restored with the exception of some of the ceiling murals--the entire interior was repainted grey and this upper balcony level partitioned off into two other theatres. The damage from the installation and removal of those partitions is still visible in the main auditorium and has not quite been mended. Not visible in this shot are 4 hideous, beautifully carved wooden chairs, and the equally ornate embellishments along the top of the wall at right.

The top section of the Grand Lobby entrance, looking from the upper balcony lobby toward the street outside. I don't know the name of the Spaniard in the mural who stands so heroically in the bow of the dingy. I think it's a dingy. Could be a skiff. And he could be Portuguese.

A wall panel outside the mens' restroom the anteroom of which is paneled in mirrors, but otherwise pretty functional. And yes, I have looked into the ladies' loo as well. Sans ladies, of course. It's much prettier. There are niches in the walls of the building every so often that have a small ornate Egyptian/art deco-ish plaque in the upper portion of the niche with a capped pipe coming out of the wall below them. Couldn't figure out what they were. Then I saw firehoses wrapped around a few of them. Ah.

The main theater chandeliers, which hang at the rear of the auditorium under the balcony--there are also 3 very large circular recessed lighting niches in front of these toward the front of the balcony. I couldn't find any shots of the side walls of the auditorium and am endeavoring to get some photos of my own taken.

The stage itself--not quite as wide as ACT's, I think, with little wing space for scenery and sets, but a well functioning fly system enabling us to lower backdrops and scenic elements down. The acoustics are amazing--you can speak in a normal voice and be heard in the back row of the balcony--the slightly curved ceiling may be responsible, and I'll see if I can get some pictures of the ceiling of this room--quite beautiful. The mighty Wurlitzer organ is in a niche front center stage and I believe has a lift to raise and lower it into position. The forestage you see here has been squared out into a more complete platform--those side niches filled in--and we'll have stairs left and right so we can go into the audience. Grand, isn't it?

Reading Between the lines

2008-03-19T09:27:00.000-07:00

Alright. I confess. I am Vain--or at least vain and curious enough to read the comments people have posted on the stuff I've written-- I checked in yesterday and found 1 comment on the ZVSP first week posting. This is what I read:

Câmera Digital said... Hello. This post is likeable, and your blog is very interesting, congratulations :-). I will add in my blogroll =). If possible gives a last there on my blog, it is about the Câmera Digital, I hope you enjoy. The address is http://camera-fotografica-digital.blogspot.com. A hug.

Thank you, Camera Digital, oh thank you for keeping life real, and silly, and helping the days tension rush out in a huge whoop of laughter.................ooo, ho, ho, oho, oh man I needed that. Hah. What a weird day.

It started with an only mildly torturous dance session, doing 3 of the numbers followed by a short break, and then moving on to meeting some new actors and then working them in; the first actor introduced to us is Rudy. Rudy is at least 65 years old and is small, burly chested, wears Spanish made lizard skin cowboy boots, has a Texas accent, and a voice like he gargles with gravel. He's a sweetheart. He just got off a plane, it's his first day, and he's relatively new to the material, but it's pretty clear that Rudy is not an actor. Hm. Interesting. What is Rudy?

Things aren't really what they appear here. It feels as if the fabric of reality is warping. Part of it is born of the collision, or fusion rather, of two different worlds. Film--Rider McDowells world, and Theatre--Sam Meisner's and mine. And they're almost the same, but worlds apart as to how we approach the work and the final effect on me is much like the film Lost in Translation.

Rider at one point said "Cut! OK! Good guys--now lets try........." Some part of me flinched. Cut? That's simply not a word that's used in theatre, or at any rehearsal I've ever been a part of; it's always "Good! OK let's stop here for a second.........." or "Hold here please" or something similar. When he started saying "Action!" to start the scenes it felt blatantly filmic, wrong, but then something clicked--Rider is of Hollywood, and the world of film is steeped in the waters and worship of personality. He's using his language in rehearsal, and he's made a compromise with the cast--he's filled the 3 leading roles with professional Stage actor/singers, and then rounded out the rest of the cast in a decidedly more "personality driven" (for lack of a better term) vein. He's from Monterey, so he's pulling from the community to fill other roles. It's hard to describe this event or some of the people without sounding catty, disparaging or snotty even to myself--I'll attempt to chronicle this in a positive light, but in an honest one as well.

We met Rider's wife and find that she is the lady who invented Airborne, the cold defense tablets--she's to play one of the doo-wop girls and their son will play the "stooge boy"--he gets to pick his nose onstage. They're both very nice people. We meet as well our Mr. Hillbilly to be--he's almost 7' tall and has reddish hair dreadlocked past his shoulders, also a lovely guy, and one other who's so odd I cannot describe well or kindly so I just won't. You fill in the blank.

A few days ago I was reading the weekly Monterey paper and on the last page, top right corner, I spotted an ad which read" WANNA RUN AROUND IN A GORILLA COSTUME?" .............yep, you guessed it, they were searching for someone to play Garganta. And they did--he's a nice guy and sounds a good actor. And he's the one in the gorilla costume.................

It's just the weirdest thing either Sam or I have ever done--we compared notes.

Rudy gave me his card as I drove him to the motel--this is what met my eyes when I finally got around to reading it:

Star Day & Sun Records Rock-a-Billy Legend

-----Original Elvis Presley Opening Act------

Rudy "Tutti" Grayzell

*Legendary Recording Artist
*Rock-a-billy Hall of Fame Inductee
*Available: Concerts, Conventions, Lounges
*Solo or Full Back-Up Band
*Original Elvis Presley Opening Act
*TV & Stage Personality

Zombie Voodoo first week

2008-03-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

So here I am in Monterey, in my tiny motel room 4 days in to Zombie Voodoo Scream Party, and getting acquainted with a loaned computer. I have a Mac. The loaner is a Compac Presario. It hates me. The feeling is mutual. We are both out of date, crusty and quirky, and apt to shut down on each other when the wrong buttons are pushed.

It's been an unusual experience thus far; last Monday the cast met at the Golden State Theater in downtown Monterey, where we will be rehearsing and will ultimately perform ZVSP. For this first week only the 3 leads are called; I'll be playing Cosgrove--former Archaeologist turned hideous yet suave, David Niven-ish ghoul; Keta Bill a talented chanteuse from San Francisco will play my beautiful, brilliant assistant Dr. Dierdre, the unrequited love of my ghoulish self--Keta is also our Musical Director and arranger. Rounding out our trio is Sam Meisner, a lovely talented guy who was the Schoolteacher Medvedenko in The Seagull I did at Cal Shakes, and now playing my other less attractive but far more idiotic assistant, Neetroy. We are the Hired Guns. The pro's from Dover. The Magnificent Three.

The theatre is beautiful. Built in 1926, it had fallen into disrepair and was boarded up until about 4 years ago when it was bought up by a man who does sound in LA and who has had it lovingly restored. And it's huge--1,000 seats, a lofty ceiling, a full sized stage with a mighty Wurlitzer organ (we're not going to use it live for the show, but may record it) and a lobby that looks like the inside of......oh, how would you describe it? A Traditional Colonial Rococo Spanish Castle, Las Vegas style? The Devil's Moorish Whorehouse with American Southwest Greek revival Art Deco elements? The Alamo gone to Italy? It's got a little of everything going on for it; the stuccoed walls inside theatre support another wall, a facade of an ornate Mission style edifice with windows out of which light shines, and which rises to near ceiling height, its fancy crenelated top sweeping forward on both walls to join over the proscenium in a veritable orgy of little windows and crenelations. It's like sitting inside your room looking at the outside of a building that's inside your room. Check out the history of the place on the website www.goldenstatetheatre.com--it's both beautiful and wonderfully hideous, and has the best acoustics I've heard in ages. I'll post pics soon.

Our rehearsals have been on the 3rd floor of this building in a room restored, but populated mostly by lighting instruments, scenic flats, and the occasional amputated limb, Graveyard Devil and gorilla costumes. We've a very competent stage manager who is about 8 1/2 weeks pregnant and who appears preceded by the sound of heavy footfalls and puffing as she works her way up the stairs, both hands cupped under her belly. I have the urge to buy her a winch. About 1/4 of the room has been designated our rehearsal space as the set is being constructed in the other 3/4 of the room while we're rehearsing. Thankfully no power tools are involved, but a lot of backdrops get painted our first week. I rapidly get the impression that this room pretty much contains the entire somewhat oddball operation.

And it is strange. At least it's not the way Sam and I are used to working which is not a bad thing, we just have to get accustomed to it, adapt. We are employed under a Tier 3 Guest Artist contract, essentially functioning as our own Equity Deputies and sometimes have to inform them of Union rules they are unaware of (break times, span of day, etc.), but they cheerily call the Union office in SF and get the info if we don't have it. They are adapting as well. Keta is a musician, she works in different venues under different rules and so her security blankets are different than Sam's and mine, but all of us have common issues which we share and we're treating her as an honorary Equity member--we all need to be on the same page I think, Union or not.

Our first day we read the script through, which didn't take much time--we're largely pre-memorized as requested, though there are so many tech elements in the show that we find we need the sound and lighting cues read to us as you would a line cue. "Kabloowie! Thunder!" or "Lightning bolt strikes Cosgrove!" (And yes, this is one of the stage directions....tech week should prove interesting.) After the read thru we break, come back to sing the nine songs and to get the new words; Rider McDowell our director and author has rewritten 2 of them with words to suit. I sing my solo, Sam sings his, and Keta absolutely blows our socks off with hers--she used to sing with Zazu Pitts and has Janis Joplin pipes--a terrific singer. I have to follow her?

The next two days consist of character conferences, getting all the words in the songs divided up between us, roughing them out and then buffing them up. I get a little slicker, find the correct voice to sing in, and manage to sound passable opposite Ms. Bill. Then the choreographer comes in, roughs out our dances and drills us a bit--he's letting me do my own spastic thing to some degree, so I'm not as tense in the dance sessions as I usually am when learning choreography. Thursday and Friday we roughed out the show. This Tuesday we start plugging the others in.

Coming Up: The Others.

BZZZZZ!!

2008-03-04T12:33:00.000-08:00

I was working in my den yesterday morning and heard a peculiar sound. A "Clunk" from somewhere in the house; I walked into the living room. Nothing. The bedroom. Nothing. Kitchen, no, but looking thru the doorway into the dining nook I saw my cellphone lying on the floor near the table and thinking my cat the culprit I hollered "Kitty, I told you not to get up here!" in the general direction of where I thought the princess might be skulking, picked up the phone and saw "You have 6 new voice mails!" streaming across the screen. I'd had it set on vibrate and the poor thing had almost committed cellular sepuku--BZZZZZZ'd itself off the table into near oblivion.

I checked out the voice mails. Zombie Voodoo Scream Party is ON.

They'd actually offered me the lead a few weeks back, but being superstitious (aren't most actors, in some way?) didn't want to mention it till I knew for sure as years ago, while young and green, I'd turned down 3 definite offers on the "solid promise" of employment elsewhere (I won't say where--yet) and wound up unemployed for 5 months. A lesson I had to learn I suppose.

Here's the chronological order of events:

1. I audition. I'm fabulous.
2. Two days later I'm offered the role by the director/writer, Rider McDowell, who left a message on my phone that I'm keeping till the end of my days. "Who IS this guy, we asked?", "You were Great!" etc.--I told you about my comedic self unbound......
3. I receive a contract, and realize it is not an Actor's Equity sanctioned contract and cannot work under it.
4. I go online, check out the various agreements Equity has listed and find a workshop contract that looks as if it might apply, call the local Equity office and talk to Joel. Joel is wonderfully helpful, has never seen this particular agreement but agrees to assist me even though Monterrey is not in his jurisdiction, it's in the Southern California Equity jurisdiction. (Huh? Now that makes no sense to me, but there you have it.)
5. Joel calls Rider and the Southern California office.
6. I'm contacted by some wise and knowledgeable friends who inform me I need to ask for more money.......

Now it's getting sticky. I don't have a theatrical agent--I find all my own work, as do most of the actors in the Bay Area, and there's usually no negotiation involved--you either take the offer or you don't. But now I need someone who can play hardball for me, because I do want more money, but don't want to scare them off.

7. I call my Commercial Agent, JE Talent in SF, and ask Deedee (yes, that's her name and if you make fun of it I'll kick your butt--she's a rock star) "I know you guys don't usually handle theatrical contracts, but do you think....?"
8. Deedee and JE agree to it and now I'm out of the middle of the negotiation process. Whew.
9. Joel gets back to me and informs me that the workshop contract I found isn't applicable but the Guest Artist contract is and can be modified to fit the situation. I inform Deedee and give her Joel's number.

There is a lull in the action while everyone talks to everyone else. I'm beginning to chew my nails.

10. Deedee calls me and tells me Rider is willing to work with this agreement, I tell Deedee that I'm asking for more money. She says how much, I say gee I don't know what do you think I should ask for, she says we need some negotiating power here, Jim. No kidding, Deedee.........

I mean, how much AM I worth? I try to use a formula to help. I'm playing the lead, I'm signing and possibly dancing (oh Dear God), I'm considered one of the top actors in the area and I'm up for two awards, one for Best Actor and one for Best Supporting Actor. Does that help? A dubious pause from the other end of the line. "We'll see what we can do." she says and says goodbye. I've a vague feeling I've let her down.

11. I get an email from Ryder telling me he's sending a new script plus the music. I guess he's still on.
12. I read the new script. I've now got 2 solos, a duet, and will sing parts of others--5 total.

I notice I'm losing more hair than usual and my dreams have become exceptionally weird.

13. Another email from Ryder asking if I can do the splits or partial splits. I laugh, then I cry. I write him back saying yes, I can do the splits. Once. Then you take me to the hospital.
14. Deedee calls back and says "Rider's a kind of shoot from the hip kind of guy--he wants to know how much you want. Ah, Jeez. Here we go again, how much am I worth? I take a deep breath and blurt "$200.00 more a week!" Deedee smiles over the phone. "Good!" she chirps, "We'll get back to you." and says goodbye.

15. I have a very long weekend. I get drunk. I clean the house. I plant things.

16. Monday morning. "BZZZZZZZ!"

The Blind Leading

2008-02-29T12:22:00.000-08:00

This has nothing to do with Theatre, but is just one of those things you see that sticks in your head, and you find yourself rewinding like a film.

So. Yesterday evening I took a stroll up the street to go to the corner store and to exercise my gimpy foot that was bothering me a bit. It was dark out, and being gimpy I took my time crossing the streets, walking carefully to avoid tripping on the sidewalk. I got to the corner of San Pablo and Solano, and saw kitty corner from me, an entire herd of blind people, or if that's not PC I'll say sight impaired.

And they looked more like a flock, actually--somewhat birdlike --very close to each other and keeping in contact, 12 or more of them all with canes in hand, all canes at the exact same angle and leaning forward peering intensely at the pedestrian crossing signal across from them while I looked at the one across from me. ".......Unusual." I thought, and waited for the signal.

I crossed the street as carefully and as quickly as I could, went into the store, got my stuff and exited into--that same herd of blind people; they'd decided apparently that they'd cross to the corner store first, then cross to the other side. One of the group who apparently had some sort of vision remaining (I'll call him The Boss) said "I can just make out the signal light from here--Everybody go when I give the word!"

I realized I had two choices:

1. Follow behind them and possibly get run over by a vehicle because I didn't have a cane and was therefore fair game, gimpy or not, or:
2. Get ahead of them and try to stay out of their way.

I chose the latter. The signal changed, Boss yelled "It's changed! Everybody go! I moved ahead of them and began to cross, gimping at a rate I deemed reasonable to stay ahead of a passle of people with canes until I realized they were going faster than I'd anticipated and that the entire group was on my heels. I began to hustle, pursued by the sound of feet and the "Twak-ata, twak-ata, twak-ata, twak-ata, twak-ata, twak-ata, twak-ata, twak-ata!!" from the 12 or more cane wielders--an ominous, thunderous sound--and realized as well that I was currently more in danger of being run over by pedestrians than by cars. Meanwhile, The Boss was yelling encouraging admonitions in the background; "Go Louie, go!", "To the left, to the left!" and "Stay on course everybody!" like a Marine D.I.

The foot is fine today, but this is the film I'm rewinding: My eyes desperately fixed on that street corner, gimping like a bat out of hell, the sound of clacking behind me as if I were being pursued by an enormous crab driven on by a Marine Sargent. It was like The Sand of Iwo Jima, or D-Day, and made me laugh like hell once I was out of their way--not at them, but at the absurdity of the entire scenario. Makes me wonder what the people in their cars saw and thought--I mean, that's just not something you see every day.

And it made me realize how brave that group of people were--I only gimp once in awhile.

Z.V.S.P.

2008-02-25T10:51:00.000-08:00

One of the little absurdities that occasionally happen in this business recently got tossed my way; I received a call from the casting director at Berkeley Rep, who also does casting for other projects not connected with BRT, asking me if I would be interested in auditioning for a show being done down in Monterrey; it was a large role in a 4 week workshop and included housing and a serious offer money-wise, and it was to be possibly targeted for off Broadway. The name of the piece?

Zombie Voodoo Scream Party.

No you aren't developing cataracts or retinal thingies. Zombie. Voodoo. Scream. Party. -- hereafter to be known as ZVSP. Did I audition, you ask? You bet your ass I did. How could I NOT? How could you not audition for something with a name like that?

I was given my "sides"--the dialogue that they wanted me to read--but not given a full script. The characters name was Cosgrove -- a self-described former Archaeologist who had been working in Egypt many years ago where he was cursed by demons who stole his soul (causing amnesia), then forced him into a ghouls body, instilling in him a deep hatred of all monsters and demons and a seething desire for capture and revenge. In a nutshell.

He appeared to be the Master of Ceremonies for the evenings entertainment, which included exhibiting such monsters and spooks as Madame Draculina, Babyhead, The Hitchhiker and a host of Ghoulish others, all in cages of unusual strength and protected by "de-naturizer" units-- utterly safe --unless of course there was a power failure and said cages failed in their function. I somehow got the feeling that those suckers were going to have problems.

I was also requested that I have at least one song prepared. A rock and roll song.........................
Now, I am not a singer but I do know a lot of Rock and Roll, AND I do (if I do say so myself) a wicked Tom Waites impression. So I went through some of my faves and picked a few. Mustang Sally (the Commitments version) being at the top of my list, and Just a Gigolo (I thought the refrain "cause I ain't got no-body" might get a laugh, and did.) for my top two oddball choices.

I had a lot of fun at home being silly, finding a "voice" for the character, making goofy choices, laughing at myself, and alarming my neighbors and their dogs. Now for those of you who've never worked with me I'll tell you that I'm an admitted Comedy Slut, a shameless hussy proud of his cheap tricks and lifestyle. But though slut in spirit I faced long ago the actors reality that I actually look more like a King, a Cop, a Doctor, a Marine, a Businessman, or a Nazi. There being precious little comedic opportunities in roles of that nature, I long ago wistfully relegated myself to the position of straight man in any comedy duo, locked my slut up and threw away the key.

But ZVSP called to me with a Siren Song............... There must have been a "power failure" since every sluttish part of me seemed to burst from its cage in unison and I pretty much pegged the needle on the Overthetopometer. I had a great time, they seemed to thoroughly enjoy the audition. We'll see what happens.

King Lear, Prospero, Hamlet, Henry V--these are all shows that most actors will get a chance to do at sometime in their lives; What are the odds for a ZVSP?

Once in a lifetime.

Christmas Pasts

2007-12-29T10:09:00.000-08:00

We said goodbye to our production of ACT'S Christmas Carol 2007 last Sunday, with much relief among the elder members of the cast and with much regret and not a few tears by the younger. I put my script in my bag, packed my makeup, toothbrush and paste, my opening night cards, took down my "Bah, Humbug!" sign which hung above my dressing space (an opening night gift from my first production in Dallas, directed by Jon Moscone), scanned the room one more time, lugged my stuff to Fred's--the lower lounge at ACT--and walked into a mob of parents, children, Graduate students, and assorted ACT alumni happily stuffing cake into their gobs and watching the spoof the young company put on for the delectation of all.

It was a fine experience for me this year if grueling but it's a good feeling to know that you helped make it fun to do every night for the grownups as well as the kids--that you can make even a fable like Carol into a genuine creative experience where the actors feel empowered to make choices and one that genuinely seems to touch people. I had one person tell me she hated Christmas time and didn't want to come to the show but was pulled in regardless and another dear friend whose Mother was visiting and found himself in the midst of Mama Trauma--both thanked me for helping them to remember the spirit. That's a rare gift to be able to give.

It's difficult to do this show every year; I walk out of rehearsals or the show itself and see the homeless on the streets and feel I have to give something or find myself an utter hypocrite. I manage an uneasy truce between my conscience and my common sense--give what I can and remember I need commuter fare.

I remember a Christmas Season about 20 years ago when my wife and I, relatively new to the area, went shopping in San Francisco. We'd gotten all or most of our gifts and, pretty worn out, were standing on a corner on Market St. My wife Cass became a bit depressed by all of the homelessness in the midst of all the bounty (she has a generous heart, among other attributes) and began to cry quietly. I gave her a long hug and told her I loved her, said some mildly soothing words--the type of things we say to each other to ease our consciences, that help us look the other way and feel less shame.

And then a voice that sounded like rocks on a washboard and a good 20 decibels too loud scraped out nearby. "Hey, you folks OK?" I looked over my shoulder and saw that the voice issued from a small, tattered, nondescript man, standing there with a concerned look on his face. "Yeah, we're fine thanks! Thanks a lot." I said, hoping to politely dispose of him and get back to soothing.

"You shouldn't be ashamed of being homeless you know, it can happen to any one." he said seriously. "Aha!.....I'm...uh, I'm not ashamed, I mean, uh,.....I'm not, we that is, are not homeless--thanks, thank you!" I mumbled, still clasping my wife. He didn't take the hint. "Are you short of money? Is that it?" he asked. "No! Really! Thanks--my wife's just had a hard day." He nodded somberly "Yeh, I know, it's tough! he graveled at us, "Look I don't have much but....."

And with that he reached into his back pocket, dragged out a battered wallet and plucked from it's barren interior an equally battered dollar bill. "It's my last dollar, but it's yours, you folks take it, OK?" pressed the bill into my hand, turned, and simply walked away. At this my wife burst into tears again and I, weeping wife in one hand and bill in other, watched his figure recede and vanish in the holiday herd never to be seen again. True story. And it kind of didn't matter that he was possibly mildly inebriated, functionally insane or both--a bum gave me his last dollar. I hope I never forget that.

And so, many pictures with many children later, having stuffed my own gob with cake and swilled all the ginger ale I was able I picked up my bags, my theatrical detritus, wound my way to the BART station and encountered a young actress who tendered a final lovely compliment, and the experience was complete.

Thanks to all, and have a fine New Year.

Worming Out of It

2007-12-20T13:01:00.000-08:00

We're on the last few performances of Christmas Carol and I've thus far managed to avoid the vast, teeming throngs of admirer's outside the ACT stagedoor after each show; I've had "Hey! It's Scrooge!" flung at me and scuttled away in the opposite direction, though I have been cornered by the occasional child with parent in tow and had a program thrust my way to sign, with gap-toothed smile.

It's not that I don't like adoration in it's many weird and misdirected forms, I'm just tired. This show kicks my butt, and after rinsing off my sweaty, weary self it's hard to rise to the occasion as far as polite conversation goes, and to stress my tired voice even more.

So I pull down my hat with the "Humbug" pin on it, don my hoodie, my coat, wrap my long red scarf around my throat to keep it warm, slide down the street to the BART station trying to dodge the remaining theatre-goers who huddle at the bottom of the escalator, flee to the far end of the station they don't cluster, and plop down to read till a train comes and whisks me home.

Last week after one evening show I performed my usual end-run around the clustered ones and on heading to the other end, saw a man point my way. I'd been spotted. Drat. The book came out and covered my face, the hat came down and hid the rest.

After awhile, peering through the gap between book and hat, I noticed a small pair of gold shoes presented exactly where I would notice them, and panning up, saw the bottom of a gold dress and green plaid coat inhabited by a red-headed little girl with blue almond eyes regarding me solemnly and quietly.................

I lower my book. "Hello." I say. There is a pause.
"I just have one question." she says very seriously.
"And what would that one question be?" I respond. Another pause while the question is properly framed.

"Were the worms real?"

She is of course referring to the worms that Jack Willis, who plays Jacob Marley, has stuffed into his mouth and slowly spews out to the sound of many "EEEeww's!!" from the audience as he rises out of Scrooge's bed and which continue to fall from his chest throughout our scene together...........I work for 2 hours and she asks about the worms......sigh.

I clutch the remains of my tattered ego to myself and say "No, actually, the worms are rubber, but they look very real." She sighs. "Mom was right." We regard each other for awhile......

Attempting to elevate the conversation above that of a staring contest I say "Those are very pretty shoes you're wearing." She nods in agreement. "And that looks like a lovely ensemble to go to the theatre in--you have very good taste." And in reply, still very solemnly and keeping her eyes on me the entire time, she undoes the log-like buttons of her coat and pulls it open to reveal her entire outfit--gold shoes, gold dress, and black velvet top--in all it's theatre-going glory. I give a small gasp of appreciation.

"Why that's a beautiful outfit!" I say wonderingly, and as she re-buttons I am rewarded by a small smile that informs me that she approves of me, that I at least, can truly appreciate her devastating sense of fashion. I am regally regarded by blue eyes before she departs with her father and whisks home, leaving me to smile and read by myself, alone on the platform.

Inner Scrooge Monologue

2007-12-08T10:24:00.000-08:00

........we've opened.......yay....... what am I going to do with all this candy? Ah! give it to the homeless.......my GOD, those children are loud.... I hear the boys through the concrete wall of my dressing room......now Amara informs me that the girls have disco parties in their dressing room. They dance around and scream.......an inhuman sound.......I thought disco was dead.......I really wish it was.

........can't even get into the greenroom at intermission--it's a swarming mass of little goobers all fired up on adrenaline......as soon as I appear in the doorway a chorus of "HEY IT'S JIM!!" or "YO! It's J. Dog!!" assaults me.......I get randomly high-fived and tackled from time to time. Little flying bodies suddenly hurtle out of doors to hug me and run away.....I hate it when they do that.....

....Scrooge also needs a car.....Scrooge can finally for the first time in his life get a new, or almost new, car....Scrooge has no time to LOOK for cars..........

now my wife is claiming I'm channeling my inner curmudgeon........Bah....

Carol Quickie

2007-12-02T08:49:00.001-08:00

We've moved into the gorgeous Geary Theatre now and had our first intro to the crew and had the talk about safety in the workplace, behavior, eating in costume, smoking, and all the details that all the kids need to know and get used to.

I watched the cast from time to time, and saw one of the boys begin to tune out -- saw him sigh, his gaze drift from the speaker, look left and then to the right in a manner which became more desperately bored with each turn of the head. And then he looked up and saw the flying corpse suspended from the ceiling.................

He turned slightly in his theatre seat holding onto the armrests, and as he looked up transfixed, a slow, innocently gleeful, absolutely delighted grin spread across his face, and it was a grin that captured all of childhood -- the quintessence of boyish joy--in an instant. Fabulous.

That was worth the whole day.

Christmas Mucus

2007-11-27T22:07:00.000-08:00

I just got an invitation to go see the opening night of ACT's production of A Christmas Carol which I found a bit funny as I'm playing Scrooge in same said production, but what really made me snicker was that it was described as ".....a sparkling, mucis infused celebration of goodwill....." which instantly brought to my mind a visual of dancing, smiling people merrily spewing nasal fluid. But I'm twisted. The sweet soul who sent out that mass email has no doubt been teased unmercifully but retains enough of a sense of humor to laugh at it still.

And truth be told we really are all pretty mucus infused right now. The first half of the whammy to hit us was the stomach crud which caused copious projection, which I have thankfully dodged (And here insert the sound of knocking on wood, if you would.) and the next seems to be the "faucet nose" bug--rolls of toilet paper lay strewn about the rehearsal hall and actors are lathering themselves liberally with antiseptic hand wash. I want to coat my entire body with it--every time I touch one of the kids I disinfect.........hey, I got really sick last year.

It's a good group of kids this year--we've some returns of little ones from last year and all the grad students are new; this will be one of their final flights before they go out and try to make it in the acting world. But they're there and focused and they could easily phone this in if they wanted.

I'd like to note the passing from this world of two people, if you'll indulge me. The first: Gene Angel, the architect of the Berkeley Rep thrust stage and other fine spaces. Gene, you designed one of theatres I've loved the best and worked on the longest. Thank you for that gift.

And Justin Brennan Leath, one of last year's grad students who played Fred in last years Xmas Carol. I knew only briefly; a fine actor a beautiful voice. We're poorer for your absence.

Holidaze

2007-11-19T07:43:00.000-08:00

We closed Mousetrap at Walnut Creek (Center Rep) last Saturday, so now I'm only doing one show at a time and enjoying the few evenings I have at home before we go into the tech process and a grueling performance schedule.

Yaaay! I get to enjoy some of the small pleasures of life for a bit.

My sweet little Halloween cat--my little ebony pumpkin--the Princess Stinkatina, delights at our newfound time together and is currently on my lap with her head deeply buried in the murky, musky depths of my armpit emitting little musical trills into my robe as I attempt to type without smothering her. Perhaps I'll shower this morning. Or wash my robe.

I'm trying to play catch up with life as usual--doing the things that this schedule hasn't allowed me to attend to; balancing checkbooks, washing clothes, a wee bit of housework--my desk looks as if it belongs to an insane accountant........

And then I've got my homework.

Foolishly, I thought this would stop when I got out of school. Right now I'm trying to catch up on all the plays I'll either be reading for or doing, so before I have my talk with Jonathan Moscone I have to read Uncle Vanya (Chekhov), An Ideal Husband (Oscar Wilde), Pericles (Shakespeare) -- 12th Night I've done and seen about 3 times--Don't need to read that one yet, and the Steinbeck Project script that Cal Shakes is developing .

Jon has discussions with all the Associate Artists every year and sounds us out on what shows and roles we're interested in; sometimes he'll make a flat offer on a show he's directing and wants to use us in, sometimes we'll get a "Yes, I think that would be a good role for you. I'll tell the director, Heinrick Spanky, that you're interested in it, but since he doesn't know your work you'll have to audition for him ..........but you'll like Mr. Spanky, Jim!"

Whether or not Mr. Spanky and I enjoy each others company remains to be seen, but the casting discussion should happen soon and we'll sound each other out and make possible offers and tender possible yes's or no's. And I'll have to figure out what curve-ball I'll be throwing Jon this year; in last year's discussion about King Lear casting I told Jon I'd like to play the Fool just to watch the look on his face. Priceless. Perhaps I'll ask for one of the female leads. Now if Jon can only refrain from putting his head in my armpit.......actually it's the sitting in my lap that really kills me--he's a big fella.

There's also Tranced to read up on--I'll be doing that at San Jose Rep after Xmas Carol closes, Tis Pity She's a Whore (yes, that's the title! Would I make that up?-- a fantastic play, beautiful language, all about incest--a kind of twisted Romeo and Juliet if you will) at ACT next year. Now I have to see where the holes are in my schedule and try to fill the gaps.......

Oh! And The Creature is out on podcast now! http://www.blackboxtheatre.com/creature.html

Check it out--it's like an old time radio broadcast; this year we got some sound into the background which really helped. I be the Creature.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Xmas Carol Diary

2007-11-11T11:02:00.000-08:00

So, Christmas Carol.............

Random flashes of memory snapshots this very busy week:

Rehearsing the "Dancing Fruit" sequence which this year is comprised entirely of young ladies ranging in ages from 6-12.

Having them all, when I snarl "Time to Eat? -- It's time to boil these appalling vegetables till they cry mercy!" look at me in a horrified fashion and then scream in my face. As loudly as they could.

Remember the sensation of my eardrums bleeding and thinking that either my glasses had shattered or my heart had stopped. Possibly both.

Watching Tiny T. when told his Auntie Martha was not coming, and his tragic Marlon Brando-esque response, straight out to the audience. Very funny and true.

Seeing the kids all move up in the show, role-wise. Our last years TT hasn't completely made her piece with the change in status--we were buddies and I've got to make sure she doesn't feel left out.

I've not been part of the Carol Tradition before, not been in it more than one time in a row. My wife has done the Xmas Revels at the Scottish Rites temple in Oakland and the Carol out at Walnut Creek for many years and knows what it's like to watch her "carol family" grow up and marry and have kids.

It's kind of cool.

Been Gone So Long........

2007-11-08T07:43:00.000-08:00

Yeah, it's been awhile--

And I'm not officially employed by Cal Shakes so don't tell! I'll write covertly, in the dark of night in the wee hours.

That's about when I'm getting home these days. I've just started rehearsals for Christmas Carol at American Conservatory Theatre playing Scrooge, and in the evenings I'm performing in Mousetrap at Center Rep in Walnut Creek in a small role, but one that is filled with passion, pathos, and pipe-smoking, so my day starts officially at 10:00 and finishes at about 11:30 at night.

Not a lot of time to be writing blogs.

It's good to be back at ACT and a bit easier now that we have a template of sorts (and I remembered most of my lines!) for the show, but I'd forgotten the sore feet from standing all day--he never leaves the stage. My dogs are tired.

But it's good to be back and to see some of the kids again, most of whom have been "upgraded"--our Tiny Tim last year, a diminutive nutcase called Amara has been promoted to the role of Fan, Scrooges sister. I'm not sure she'd rather still be playing Tim. The new Tim looks dangerous.

It's that grin on his impish little face that worries me. And his teeth look sharp.

It's the little ones that that are dangerous.

Cal Shakes Bloodbath

2007-10-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

Here are several Halloweenish images compiled by our bloody-minded Alexae Visel, head of wardrobe and Clot Artiste. At right her blank canvas is prepped and ready. I've wiped most of the "safe" blood from the eye gouging scene away from the eye area (although my contact lenses were tinted pinkish by the end of the run from the occasional leak), and put on my extra grotty shirt to help complete the full pitiful effect.

Next the clots are carefully and artfully added in on the cheeks--this is a different formula blood, thicker and not recommended for ingestion, but does dissolve in water. The "clotline" starts where the bottom of the bloody bandage will eventually rest, getting that nice eye-ooze effect.

Here we see the full extent of Alexae's skill at the "dribble effect". Note the neck. Beautiful work! She did get it in my chest hair though.....
Ouch.

And here is the the finished work with bloody bandage added. Masterful. Do not try this at home..........

Now, that bandage? It was easy to see out of when it was daylight--the same principle of being in a lit room and trying to look through the window into the darkness outside applied at night however...........

This is approximately what I was able to see.....
In the daytime.

Happy Halloween! And yes, The Creature, an adaptation of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein will return again this year, in a live reading at The Magic Theatre and will be podcast again, with myself reprising the role of the Creature.

Boo! Spooky!

And In The End, The Love You Take

2007-10-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

We close King Lear today. I've stories to relate and haven't the time to write them all now, but if Cal Shakes keeps this link open, I'll attempt to answer questions and tell those stories at a later date. Deal?

We had our last evening show last night on a clear, cold night with coyotes punctuating Lear's mad scenes. It seeming the perfect night for him somehow, I watched for the Great Owl that haunts the Theatre grounds, but never saw him.

We are all bone-weary from the strain on our voices and bodies that the cold and heat placed on us all. I am frankly very glad to lay the production to rest and would venture to guess that ALL of us feel much the same from spotlight operator to leading actor--we're just all dinged up.

And many of us are in rehearsals in the day now and/or working part to full time; I started rehearsals for Mousetrap at Center Rep in Walnut Creek as soon as we opened, Delia Macdougal had a thoroughly viscous cold and then went into rehearsals for Sex at Aurora Theatre playing the lead, Andy Murray is rehearsing a show at BRT, and Anthony Fusco working at ACT in Rainmaker.

I'd like to extend my gratitude to the entire cast and crew; a truly heroic group of performers and technicians whose focus, dedication and spirit along with their tremendous amount of skill and talent kept this production afloat. Thank you all, and thank you for keeping me afloat.

Have a great closing show,

deepest Regards,
Jim Carpenter

Naughty Boy

2007-09-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've been naughty. I confess. I got a note from someone in Administration asking me to post some more entries........ahem.

I have been busy with Lear--my only excuse.

We opened last Saturday and it went well enough for an opening night; I didn't feel particularly inspired but I had a decent enough performance--we were all very tired. I managed to fall off the stage at one point........

I have a blindfold on which is rigged to afford me limited visibility (very limited) but find myself closing my eyes nonetheless, (otherwise I'm looking at and not listening to what's happening and being said) and so, during the Edgar Oswald fight in which the only register I have as to what's happening are pants, grunts, shuffling feet, the movement of fabric and occasional scream of anguish, I screw my eyes tightly shut and scramble for the stairs which lead from the stage to the audience and listen to the struggle.

Opening night I crawled to the edge, put my hand out to descend to the first step, felt nothing under my hand and continued to slide entirely off the side of the stage. I did manage to catch myself on both hands, but removed 2 inch portions of skin from either pectoral.

At least my nipples were spared. That's something.

Ouch.

The Red Man

2007-09-15T10:49:00.000-07:00

Thursday I went shopping at Target covered in blood.

It's remarkable how everyone steers clear of you when you're bloody--especially when you've got a shopping cart and are blithely rolling down the aisle selecting cat food, Q-tips, and various and sundry snacks for the up coming tech week. I had washed up and mopped most of the goo from my face and beard I thought, but when I got to Target the automatic sliding doors showed a brief glimpse of a man who looked as if he'd been hit in the head with a brick. Or run over by a car. Some event that involved catastrophe. I had a nice little drool of blood oozing from my right ear, my pants were liberally covered with it, and my face and hands had a distinct reddish sheen to them. I lurched into the store--I was tired. I needed that cat food.

Mothers pulled their children closer to them or whisked them hastily away, young ladies walked around the corner and paled when they saw me--the cashier was distinctly wary of me and very polite, and the security guards hands edged closer to the pepper spray. The pharmacist edged her nose over the lip of her counter and asked me in a shaky voice if I'd found everything I needed, and ducked back down when I gave her a cheery "Yes, thanks!" It was grand fun actually; try it sometime--cover yourself liberally with blood and then go to Walmart to buy garbage bags, a chainsaw and a wood chipper and be really nice and cheery.

We'd had our first "blood rehearsal" for Lear.

I've never done this show before, seen maybe one or two productions of it and am really not familiar with it -- some Shakespeare's plays I've done times; Romeo and Juliet.........Oh God save me, I don't know if I could bear another production of it despite it's strength and beauty. But two new Shakespeare's in one season?--that hasn't happened in a long time.

We are blessed with a director (Lisa Peterson) who's incredibly acute, fun to work with and has a true, clear eye for theatre and a cast of smart, smart actors.

One of the curses of working working with people this talented? I feel incredibly inadequate, feel the choices I am making are standard, dull, and not active. I'm not being a whiner mind you, but I feel like I'm generalizing and am somehow at a loss when I do try to be more specific. It seems as if I've been getting help for things I don't generally need help with, but Lisa has been a joy to work with, patient and very generous with me.

I did not "drop into" this role the way I do some; when I did Glengarry Glen Ross at ACT I walked into the room at the audition and nailed it, I had such a firm take on the character that I kind of walked into it. But this one--Glouchester? Who is this man? He's as much a function as he is a man, I think--that is he seems to live and exist solely for Lear, his King. We hear him talk of his bastard son Edmund with more fondness for the night he was conceived than of Edmund himself--in fact refers to him as an embarrassment he's gotten used to--and of his legitimate son Edgar says is "no dearer in my account". Not an argument for a warm and cuddly father-son relationship.

Lear is Glouchester's magnetic north--he seems an intimate, perhaps a confidante of Lears, plays some sort of function at court and has a high social status. He's an Earl (ranking just below a Duke) he has land and an Estate so he's fairly wealthy. Still doesn't tell me who HE is, what his personality is specifically--he's not an old doddering fool, he swims in the shark infested waters of an extremely competitive court and yet he is naive in a way that is almost unlikely and gets taken in very easily.

He has much taken from him as well-- finds himself in situations in which he is powerless to act and dependent on others. Perhaps it's one of the reasons I've done so much flailing about in the role. Hmm. At any rate, now we're in the Bruns doing re-staging during the day and lights sound and costumes at night till about 12:30 at night.

It is a stunning play.

My New Daughter

2007-08-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

I have a daughter now, semi-adopted if you will.

My Niece, Courtney Foley, has been acting in Hollywood since age six and now at age 18 is standing on the threshold of Womanhood and on the verge of a new plateau in her old/young career.

We got a call from her about a month and a half ago saying she wanted to come up and visit, maybe see some of my shows if she could and visit my wife's shop--we of course said yes. I think because we're so busy and because she and her brother Jeremy (also an actor, and in the recent film titled Blink) had hours just as odd was a major factor in contributing to our unfamiliarity with each other.

So Courtney came up and we started talking, catching up, finding out about each other; I don't quite know what I expected but what I did find or sense in her was a young actress hungry to know more. She's smart and intuitive enough to know that there's more to the craft of Acting than what she's learned to date but she's not had instructors that have given her the detail work and feedback that she's craving. And she's in a tidal pool casting-wise; she's petite, looks very youthful, has curly, curly hair, so she's been stuck playing young girls anywhere from 12-16 years old and is hungry for meatier and more mature roles.

We dragged her hither and yon, my wife and I-- she saw my wife's costume shop, saw the Cal Shakes stage and facility while they were breaking down the set for Man and Superman and got shown around ACT by yours truly. I introduced her to Meryl Shaw, the casting director there who mentioned a 2 week Actors Boot Camp taking place in a few weeks.

As soon a Courtney got back home, she called up and said "Um. Uncle Jim? I just applied for the Actors Boot Camp at ACT and I've called my teachers and asked for recommendations and called my doctor for the medical forms and I'm choosing my audition pieces and I've got to come up there so they can interview me and I wondered if you could put me up and if I got accepted if I could stay with you guys awhile.....?

The parent within me sprung to life.

She stayed with us for two weeks and was a thorough delight--we had many long talks about life, acting, parents, movies, and I was recruited to listen to her monologues and give her some feedback. She had only one monologue when she came up here and now has the better part of 4 under her belt which we culled from combing my script library and searching online.

They'd required her to have one Shakespeare, one modern, one piece for a standard British accent, and a dramatic piece. The Shakespeare was the toughest for her, but she tackled it like a Rugby player, doggedly going over the structure of the speech, the verse and stresses with me; one night I cried mercy after 3 hours of drill with her and passing by her room later after she'd gone to bed I heard her going over the speech in the dark, murmuring into her pillow "Then I confess, I love your son. Be not offended for it hurts not him....." It was quite touching.

But she is now done, having performed her pieces for about 40 or so people (her largest live audience to date) and passed with flying colors--I tried to attend, but was needed for Lear that day so my wife went in my stead. She left today with her Dad, anxious to get back to her pet bird and her boyfriend--in that order. I'm very proud of her.

No word from Ding, yet. I'll get in some Opera stories sometime, Jacqueline.

Started King Lear Tuesday with the Equity meeting, meet and greet and table work.

A Note To Ding

2007-08-14T11:08:00.000-07:00

Sir-

I did a play in Portland Oregon in 1992 called M. Butterfly and had the pleasure of performing the role of Marc. We had 3 amazing performers from China in the cast as well: Louyoung Wang, Man Wong, and Ding Mei Kui.

I was writing about this experience recently and wanted to make sure I spelled their names correctly but could not find my old show program, so I did a search on the internet; I found Louyoung but was unable to locate Man Wong.

I found your name as well, listed as producing director of the Qi Shu Fang Company. It seemed a shame to just look up the name and not say hello to one of the performers whose skill, grace and kindness I remember so well. If this is not the same Ding Mei Kui of my memory I offer my apologies for the intrusion, but if it is I'd like to send greetings to you and to your wonderful wife and family from a friend of past times.

Best Regards,

Jim Carpenter

Searching for Butterflys

2007-08-13T12:28:00.000-07:00

I gave up looking for my old M. Butterfly program; whether lost in transit or consigned to the dusty shelves of what passes for my Theatre archive I don't know, so I concentrated on the Google search instead.

I found Luoyong Wang fairly easily; I managed to locate a bio page from a production of Miss Saigon; I took a wild shot in the dark on the spelling of Ding Mei Kuei and lo and behold--I found him. At least I think I found him; I think he's the Producing Director of the Qi Shu Fang Opera Company in New York and his wife (whose name is Qi Shufang) still the star. I think it's his wife but it's hard to tell under the traditional Chinese mask of pink foundation and eye makeup and besides the last time I saw her in costume I think she was blue.........

I have an email address, I've copied it, it sits on the desktop of my computer with the address on it and nothing typed into the letter field. I find myself strangely hesitant to write anything, oddly scared to send it and don't quite understand why I feel such strong emotion wash me when I examine this blank note with Ding's name on it. I did not expect this.

When I was 8 or 9 years old I wrote to a young boy in Korea--I don't remember how this correspondence began but we wrote each other many times and I remember one day getting a note from him which included a very well drawn pencil sketch of an American Indian chief with the full headdress of Eagle feathers, remember quite distinctly my admiration of it and a vague jealousy. I think I stopped writing shortly after that and on the odd occasion that I do remember I also regret that I never continued, regret as well losing touch with these very special persons from M. Butterfly, my only excuse being a busy life and a continents distance from each other.

And I don't quite understand why, that though I have this regret at losing contact, I have as well a fear of reopening it. Perhaps it's a fear of change -- will they still be the same? Am I still the same?

The Google search for Man Wong was not fruitful, or maybe overly so: do you have any idea how many Man Wongs there are? He is legion.

I shall have to ask Ding as to his whereabouts.

Peking Opera, part I

2007-08-12T14:59:00.000-07:00

There's been a request from curious Hilda (aka Jacqueline) to tell my Chinese Opera tales which rank among my favorite memories; and let me apologize to the Asian community at large right now should anything I relate push any "cultural buttons" -- nothing in these tales is an attempt to mock, they are told with love; this was a time in which I worked with some phenomenal performers, fine, generous people, and became just the tinniest bit more knowledgeable about a country and it's Cultural and Theatrical traditions than before.

Now, most of my acquaintances have heard all my stories by now and their eyes roll Heavenward when I begin a sentence with "Once I was doing a show........" Age and numerous repetitions contribute to my forgetting just to whom I've told them. Now I've new victims. Heh, heh.

So. Once I was doing a show.......

It was for the then Ashland in Portland program that Oregon Shakes had developed in the early '90s and was performed at the beautiful Portland Center Stage Theater. I'd been hired to play a role in M. Butterfly, a play which paralleled the Opera Madam Butterfly, but based on the true story of a French diplomat who went to China and fell in love with a beautiful Chinese woman, whom he later found was a beautiful Chinese man.

They'd hired some very fine performers, among them four performers from mainland China; Louyong Wang, played the Chinese woman, had been in country for awhile, taught at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee and spoke English fluently. A handsome guy you'd never think could look like a woman. You'd be wrong--he was dead sexy.

The others (and I've been pawing through my old programs to make sure I got their names spelled correctly, but I can't find the damn thing. I'm Googling madly away as I write this) spoke English in varying degrees: Man Wong, an irrepressible, elfin-like young man spoke it well enough to be understood but would get lost at times, and Mei Kwei Ding, a taciturn older man not at all; we used eyes and gestures to communicate, or had one of the others interpret. All three had background in Chinese Opera, and Ding's wife I was later to learn, was a Superstar in China.

The first week of rehearsal with an unknown cast is always a bit tentative; you check out just what kind of people you're working with -- their skill levels, their temperaments etc. but you launch into the show itself wholeheartedly; first there's the reading at the table--asking questions, getting background material from the dramaturge, the history of the play, authors thoughts etc. , and then get up and start blocking out the movement patterns.

This is the formative week when we sketch in the play -- it's moments, dynamics, and arcs, both thematic and character--the skeleton of the production, if you will.

And here I lay the bare bones of my story.

Hey Ya'll Josh Got A Job!

2007-08-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

Grasshopper.

My heart is full. I swell with joy. You have made me a happy Sensei.

I've said my first professional was job was marginally Philadelphia Story but the first professional show I auditioned for and got cast in was also a Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor at Ashland, which was done after Philadelphia Story. I was one of the "buckbasket" carriers, Robert I believe his name was. Or John. We were pretty interchangeable.

For those of you not in the know, a buckbasket is essentially a hamper and as Falstaff had to hide in it, a necessarily large hamper--it was carried with 2 stout poles, one per side. The poles were passed through two large rings on each side. Robert and John (one of us was a baker and covered with flour and the other worked in the coal cellar and was covered with soot--funny, eh? Except I was the one covered in soot--it took 1/2 hr to get that stuff off) were called in to remove the basket that Falstaff was hiding in and remove it from the stage before the jealous Mr. Ford entered and discovered the lecherous fat man at home with his wife.

Our bit was this: We came in, received our instructions, walked to the baskets sides and picked up the poles slinging them over our shoulders and proceeded to stroll merrily away as though we were just carrying clothes. The audience's anticipation of what we would encounter poundage-wise was the trigger and it paid off -- the ropes went from slack to taut in an instant and we then did a huge pratfall as Falstaff's enormous weight hit us. For the uninitiated, a pratfall is defined as: "A backwards fall onto the buttocks, especially one executed deliberately for comic effect." We got quite good at it and with practice were able to loft our heels far into the air. It worked. We had maybe 2 lines and got the best laugh in the show.

So Josh, we both started out as 3rd geek on the left--an honorable position for one's first job, and a necessary one. Somebody's got to carry the spear after all! And Yale Rep, my friend, is a damn good first credit.

Richard II, eh? A beautiful, complex, and demanding play; I did Richard in the mid-90's at Cal Shakes; I'd been offered the role a year in advance by the then Artistic Director at Cal Shakes Michael Addison and read it often, memorized much of it (I'm not prone to pre-memorization and am loath to make decisions before I truly know what I'm saying and what other actors are doing--the rehearsal process informs so much choice-wise) and was able to make some good inroads on that problem play and character. I was blessed with a gifted supporting cast with Cal Shakes's own Associate Artists L. Peter Callendar and Dominique Lozano chief among them. We also had a wonderful director, Penny Metropulos, many years at Ashland who had a keen eye for the moments when she saw I was censoring myself, my choices.

"What were you thinking just then?!" she'd say to me when she saw the little pause I do when struck by a possibility during rehearsal. "No, it was nothing." I'd say, to which she'd reply "Do it. Just do it." And damned if it didn't work--sometimes we had to tweak it or polish it, but it worked. It was a little uncanny at times--we had a private note session after our last preview to which Penny brought a large legal pad filled with about 3-4 pages of extensive notes. We sat down at a bench in the upper grove and she said "So what did you think of the show last night?" I started at scene one and went through the entire play. When I was finished Penny flipped through the pages and saw she'd checked off every note. She closed the pad and said, "Well, I guess that's all I have to say to you." That's never happened to me before or since.

It was a bit scary at times; Dominique claimed I was channeling the man and indeed I found a physicality vastly different from my own but eerily familiar somehow, like slipping on another's long forgotten skin. I remember a totally calm and poised opening night, remember a surety, a total openness and a feeling that I was about to literally fly, but I don't remember the performance itself; when I came back to myself it was over.

I remember a closing night walking down the stairs very quietly and calmly after the show with L. Peter Callendar. Peter was passionate about the production and he and I had excellent chemistry between us and truly enjoyed working with each other. Now Peter is a strong man, but he started to cry very softly at first, his tears finally causing the dam of my own eyelids to break. I remember the two of us descending the stairs both weeping profusely by the time we got to the bottom, remember Peter asking if I would be Godfather to his son-to-be Brandon Marcus Callendar, causing me to start crying even more. It was a beautiful night, a treasured memory, and the spectacle of two sobbing middle-aged men probably a ridiculous sight, but I would not trade it for the World.

Listen to that play, Josh. Beautiful stuff.

Congratulations Grasshopper. Now you are a man.

Let's Dance!

2007-07-27T16:12:00.000-07:00

I went to the Westwave Dance Festival last Saturday; my wife had designed the costumes for one of the pieces called Carefully Assembled Normality and really wanted me to see it, so we proceeded to Theatre Artaud in San Francisco, an old cannery now converted.

I'm pretty new to seeing dance, in fact saw little at all of it till she started designing and building costumes for various companies around the Bay; it's rare that I get to support her work--I'm always onstage. And Dance--well, once you've been traumatized by ballerinas you'll understand. So pretty, and so cruel...............

I watched the show and liked it well enough, but I'm not well versed enough in the language and world of Dance to be a discerning judge. Some I liked some I didn't. My wife had mentioned one of the new dancers to me, spoke very highly of him and I knew immediately who he was--an electric performer, powerful and precise--and the piece that simply knocked me on my ass was him dancing solo to a recorded poem by Marc Bamuthi Joseph. It was glorious, beautiful. The spoken word and dance. We came out of our chairs at the end.

Dancers are an amazing group--many start their training at a very early age, 10 years old and earlier and endure years of brutal training. Dancers have the ugliest feet you've ever seen--and they would, they dance while they're hurt, they dance till their feet bleed, and then they dance more. Michelle Morain, one of the company members at BRT in the '80's started as a dancer. She broke both her knees in a skiing accident, and after they healed tried to go back to it. The other dancers asked "Why is she here? She can't dance anymore!" Shelly said it was one of the most painful things anyone had ever said to her, but it was true--she couldn't. She changed careers and instead became a fine actress.

And it's so different from acting! Not only in the discipline but in the lifespan, as well--as long as I have something propping me up I can continue acting till I'm 100. But dancers? They're over the hill at age 30 plus--they can't keep up, or they get injured or their bodies just can't do it anymore; some stay in the field, some change careers entirely. There is a program called LEAP which helps transition dancers out of the career when they can no longer perform. One young man in the company is training to be an Emergency Medical Technician, another an Architect. Others go on to Choreography, teaching, and related careers; I once struck up a conversation with a charming French lady at The Pacific Northwest Ballet in Portland and eventually asked her what she did there. She replied, "Well my husband and I were the principal dancers here for some time, but now I make the warm-up suits for the dancers."

I looked at her, in her eyes--and no--no pain, no regrets. She would've done it all again in a heartbeat. Astonishing.

Dancers are tough, no doubt about it. I did a production of Lysistrata in College and the director decided to use some of the players on the football team to be the muscle men. They didn't have lines (thankfully) but were to stroll in oiled up, wearing next to nothing and flexing for all they were worth. Now, we were required to warm up before every rehearsal and were led by a dancer, a tiny woman, who was very thorough, very demanding. The first time these guys came in (they were very nice. actually) they laughed at the idea of doing warm ups led by a dancer -- I think they pissed her off. Big mistake. Never, never piss off a dancer. By the time we finished the warm up I could hardly stand, and the next day the football players came in groaning, so sore they could hardly walk. She just smiled. And after that?

They always called her Ma'am.

Earthquake Stories

2007-07-23T10:46:00.000-07:00

Hilda you rascal!

Earthquakes? My goodness girl what will you ask next?

No, please never feel shallow--that'll just make me feel I've been being pompous! Hmm. Have I been in any quakes onstage? You know I probably have, but none that I consciously remember; your body goes into this weird hyperdrive when you're onstage, a kind of emergency situation reaction. You get hyper-acute, your body "forgets" things, runny noses will dry up in the wings, aches and bruises will not be remembered till you're backstage again, or an injury that's just happened in your last scene will just be noticed and you'll have no idea when you did it.

I was doing Henry IV at Ashland and the actor playing the Scottish warlord, The Douglas, came backstage into the quick change room after his broadsword fight, sat down next to me and said, "Damn! Am I sweating a lot?" I looked over at him and the entire left side of his face from hairline to collar bone was a mask of blood -- he'd been hit by a broadsword stroke thrown at the wrong side of the head. He went back on, finished his other fights, and then went to the emergency room. Eight stitches later and he was back raising a glass of single malt.

I seem to remember hearing about a report years ago on stress and the actor and it being determined that an actors body goes through roughly the same amount of stress as a jet test pilot. And I think that was every night. But I often get my facts wrong. There was another about the level of testosterone in actors as opposed to football players, though that's probably just a male actor fantasy -- but how many football players would go back into the game after getting hit in the head with a sword, I ask you?

There's always something to overcome, some are just bigger obstacles than others--I did a show in Balboa Park for the Old Globe Theatre in their outdoor space and one night some guy decided to scale one of the buildings in the park and for the next 45 minutes the actors had to contend with the swat helicopters and bullhorns. Screaming their lines at each other. Finally one of the actors made some reference to the event that brought the house down. Sometimes you can pretend it's not there and you'll pretend right along with us and sometimes you just have to acknowledge it.

I did a production of Major Barbara at Berkeley Rep. and on one of the matinées, 20 minutes from the end of the show, the lights went out. Poof. A full house, packed to the rafters and no lights--what did we do? We kept talking. In the dark................Still no lights. Hmmmm. Finally one of the Ushers threw open all the entrance doors that led to the lobby, opened all the curtains, and a dim glow fell on us; next we noticed that little clusters of people were forming in those entrances, and suddenly the beams of about 10 flashlights, were added to the mix and spotlit all the performers, still talking away. The audience loved it.

I once went to a production of A Doll's House at Shakespeare Santa Cruz and in one of the two woman scenes the same thing happened--boom, no lights. The audience was extra-tense as it contained the entire cast of Macbeth which was playing outside. It was our only chance to see the show, and mid-scene, the lights vanished. It went totally quiet onstage, and in house. Here's what followed: Blackout:.............. pause .................. "Nora?" .............. pause............... "Yes?"............... pause................ "Did you forget to pay the electric bill again?"....... there was a small snicker in the dark and the audience exploded. They blamed the blackout on us, the cast of that mythically unlucky play.

My only real earthquake story was on the same day everyone else's earthquake story -- in 1989. We were doing our very last run thru for Reckless at BRT and would go into tech rehearsals the next day. I was just getting ready to enter the scene--was leaning against a doorway ready to hurl myself into the room and I felt swaying. Now, I tell you this next not to elicit sympathy, but to provide context for my reaction, OK? -- I have epilepsy, have had it since I was 13 and can have grand mal seizures unless I take my medication religiously. One of my biggest fears is having a seizure onstage--I've had them pre-show in the dressing room, and years ago one during rehearsal, but never during a performance.

So my first thought when I felt shaking was, "Oh, damn I'm going down. What am I going to hit my head on?" until the actress behind me said "Oh my, we're having an earthquake!" I was so relieved that it was only an earthquake that my knees quite left me, until I realized just how big a quake it was and managed to release my hold on the door frame and help get everyone out.

It was such a powerful shaker that it broke the shaft of the onstage turntable that made up most of the stage floor, and the tech was delayed for two days.

Acting, Schmacting

2007-07-22T10:36:00.000-07:00

Back to you, Josh-

So, how do you learn to act? Now THAT my friend is a tough question; I think it takes a long time to truly learn how--the lessons learned accumulate, and we find how to make our characters more believable, more complex, but I think we all begin with imitation--actors, singers, dancers, writers, painters -- all of us I think begin by copying others styles till we find our own voice, our own unique style. I managed to learn through trial and error, by working with and watching fine directors and actors -- at ACT, Ashland, The Old Globe, the Berkeley Rep company--learned from beautiful, tragic, vital and funny productions and portrayals.

My theory on becoming a good actor? Know how to use words. Pay attention to the way the author has written them, punctuated them, what echoes you hear and what undercurrents you sense. How did the author hear it? How did they want it spoken? Take nothing as fact, no statement a character makes as true--decide for yourself. Look for the clues--every character is a puzzle to be solved--think of it that way and you'll ask questions. Questions are vital.

Theatre actors at least are storytellers; we don't use images to tell these stories, we convey it in word, gesture, and intention. Learn to tell stories--hell, learn to tell jokes. And stories are all around us--we ignore them on a daily basis (I do as well) because we're too busy for them or they're too painful to hear -- listen to them. Learn how inflection and pitch can inform a line, change the meaning of a word. Learn to be supple with language and the spectrum of how it's used--from Shakespeare to Mamet.

And language changes, is changing; the English we speak today is descended from Shakespeare's own, but many of those words no longer carry the same meaning, they imply vastly different things. The same is true of today-- I recently said near someone considerably younger than myself that I was going to go "Hook up with a friend" -- The younger someone's head snapped around and gazed at me aghast. "What?!" I said to them. "Do you know what that means?" they asked in a low, level voice. "Well, I think so." I said "Uh..............What does it mean to YOU?" "Dude! Hooking up means having sex with someone!" was the reply...........when I was a kid hooking up just meant you were going to go see someone. Evolution at work.

Learn body language as well. Watch people, watch your world. Build a library of physicality, discover how your body works and how to use it. Dance. Sing. Listen to people. Really listen. Try to hear both sides of any argument. Learn to tell the difference between what is said and what is actually meant. Learn peoples' masks, learn your own, know yourself; your demons, your angels. Be honest with yourself, but not modest to a fault. Take pride in your work, but don't be arrogant. Know your limitations and try to exceed them regardless. Take risks, push the envelope, grow. Listen. Listen.

What else--there's so much! Learn the difference between theatricality and indulgence -- they are a hairs breadth apart. Seek truth in your work. Let your performance be new to you every night; one of the most difficult things to learn, I think. No matter how good you were you can never do last night's show again --that was last night. This is Tonight--play that, go with what is happening NOW. Learn from your failures as well as your successes and learn to forgive yourself when you do (and you will!) make mistakes; don't beat yourself up--move on.

The last few things it takes to be a good actor? Grace, Respect, Compassion. For others, for your craft, and for others in your craft. Be patient with others--they have to be patient with you; and be kind -- it costs nothing.

Josh, I hope this helped answer your questions, or at least some of them, and I wish you the best in your career to come. There is one thing I will ask of you -- and this is the only fee I will charge for your questions -- is that you return kindnesses given to you in the course of your career to others--lend someone else a hand, OK?

And as for me?

I'm going to go MEET someone.

Gettysburg Address

2007-07-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

An instructor in school once asked me to read the the Gettysburg Address to the rest of the class and I, groaning, went to the front accompanied by the hoots and snickers of the rest of the group. To drown out the remarks I focused totally on the words that we'd all heard many times; little understood and by now rote. I found myself going "into" them; hearing them truly for the first time in my life and suddenly the class grew still and quiet and we were all hearing them. Then my voice broke and it all went to Hell; but for just that long we were all touched more deeply than we expected to be--it took us all by surprise. Maybe THAT was truly when I found I wanted to be an actor.

So I decided to revisit the document, since I'd not read it since that time. It's good, check it out. Read it slowly, hear the words.

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Wow. It still gets me.

They All Want To Play Hamlet

2007-07-20T12:35:00.000-07:00

This is from the pen of Carl Sandburg; I hope I'm not breaking any copyright rules by posting this, but I'm sure the estate of Mr. Sandburg understands that this poem is possibly one of the most succinct arrangement of words regarding acting to date. And anyway I got it from another website. So there.

Truly Martha, Josh, Hilda, and AnonySmiths it does call to us--a sirens song to be sure--and we come back to it over and over drawn by those "wise, keen, beautiful words". They are the essence of our craft, the bricks from which we build our stories, the essence of the song itself. Remember the first time you truly "heard", the words someone had written and had them touch you on some deep level without your quite knowing why?

The lure of the big roles and the big words, the frustration of not being able to get them quite right, the possibility of never getting anything right or never even understanding, perhaps, the authors words and intent. And also the joy of the work itself, and knowledge of our own foolishness and fixation. These are the echoes that Mr. Sandburg's poem make resonate within me.

Hey, will you keep me posted if I'm using too many Italics? Thanks.

I talk of being frustrated at times, and I think most actors do get frustrated sometime during every production, and yes I suppose that feeling can build up, but I've gotta say Martha, that just one good experience, just one really fine show with a good cast, director, concept and staging will have us coming back to drink from the well for the next 10 years. Addict or Artist -- you make the call.

THEY ALL WANT TO PLAY HAMLET

They all want to play Hamlet.
They have not exactly seen their fathers killed
Nor their mothers in a frame-up to kill,
Nor an Ophelia dying with a dust gagging the heart,
Not exactly the spinning circles of singing golden spiders,
Not exactly this have they got at nor the meaning of flowers - Oh flowers,
flowers slung by a dancing girl - in the saddest play the
inkfish Shakespeare, ever wrote;
Yet they all want to play Hamlet because it is sad like all actors are sad
and to stand by an open grave with a joker's skull in the hand and
then to say over slow and say over slow wise, keen, beautiful words
masking a heart that's breaking, breaking,
This is something that calls and calls to their blood,
They are acting when they talk about and they know it is acting to be
particular about it and yet; They all want to play Hamlet.

Carl Sandburg

To Martha (aka Bruce)

2007-07-19T15:43:00.000-07:00

Hey Bruce-

Sorry it's taken me so long to get around to answering your questions. I've been answering some pretty complicated ones (not that yours weren't) of late.

Answer the first: Yes, it is beautiful in them thar hills, but we really aren't encouraged to go beyond the fence that EBMUD has set up in the far corner of the Theatre grounds, so don't give up, there's still a chance you could be humiliated in front of the entire audience. But hey, that's happened to me many times--it'll give you a tiny taste of the actors life! But just to be safe, if you do go up there, go with someone else, OK? And I won't tell. Promise.

#2. As to whether acting has given me memories of pleasure as well as pain? Acting is a joy, Bruce. It's the air I breathe, the life I love, and only in my darkest hours do I ever consider any other unrelated occupation. I didn't get into this for the money (I would have been a fool) I got into it because I was driven to it, I had no choice, it consumed me. Still does; I'm guilty of caring too much at times--a negative virtue. I'll post a favorite poem later, OK? But I had no dreams of fame--I just wanted to be a working actor, and I suspect if you'd told me at age 17 that I'd become a well known actor in the San Francisco Bay Area, I'd have laughed delightedly in your face and said something shallow. It's still a wonder to me.

But it's a tough craft; it gets personal, we all bear scars. My father was an Army Colonel who, when he saw I had my sights set on acting, tried to dissuade me from the profession by telling me one day that I was a lousy actor (I probably was), but a few years later he saw me play Petruchio in The Taming of The Shrew and after the show he rushed up to me and took my hand glowing with pride--after that he was with me all the way. My favorite review of all time.

We're used to adversity, we're used to proving ourselves on an almost daily basis, used to being criticized--often by people who have little to no background in Theatre. And those words can hurt--there's a standing rule in most Theatres that no reviews of shows are permitted backstage and custom for one actor not to mention a bad review to another; if an individual actor chooses to read reviews privately and inflict possible physic damage on themselves and their performances that's their choice. You have to learn to distance yourself at times.

#3. Backstage Life? It's different every show, a different dynamic with every group of actors. Most of us do some kind of warm up--stretching, breathing, focusing exercises. Me? I sing--in a kind of mellow bellow. It helps me focus and place my voice and puts me in my range. What do I sing? "Scotch and Soda", "Oh, Shenandoah", "Birmingham Jail", and every so often toss in a Tom Waits tune, my only impression. Richard III was a great group of actors--smart, disciplined, and respectful of others needs. Remind me to tell you my Peking Opera stories sometime...................Still there Hilda?

Other actors backstage habits can be maddening at times; I played Timon in Timon of Athens years ago and after an exhausting first act had to haul down to the dressing shed (yes, shed), slather myself from head to toe with muddy makeup, put on rags, and have maybe 5 minutes to myself. One day I heard heartbreaking sobs coming from outside the door and alarmed, asked what was going on. I was told, "Oh, it's blah-blah; she's getting into character."..............I responded (and I'll give you the fictional reply as what I said really isn't printable), "Can't she do that somewhere ELSE?" and was told "No, this is her spot."

We all have own process, own way of getting where we need to be at the top of the show and you have to at least try to respect that, though you don't always succeed. Many years ago I did a show with a really nice young guy who started coming up to me pre-show and saying things like "Uncle Luther, where did we bury that puppy? What was his name? Scruffy? Fluffy? Smoochie? Poochie?--that died when I was a kid?" or "Remember when I was seven and we had pizza on the porch? I laughed so hard!".......the first time he did this I thought he'd slipped a gear till I realized he was getting into character. The only problem was that he was totally ignoring my process (such as it is) of getting into character. I put up with it until I got so annoyed I told him to go act with himself. And damned if he didn't.

What a weird business. Yep, I've gotta tell ya Martha,

I love this job!

The Dock of The Bay

2007-07-10T11:21:00.000-07:00

Please forgive me--I'm being incredibly long winded I know, but I keep thinking about more aspects of acting and related topics, and of more things to mention to you, Josh. And I don't mean to patronize--much of this I'm sure you know already -- but I'm also writing this for audiences who see our work at Cal Shakes but know little of the Theatre World. Are you sorry you asked yet?

You asked how does one become a James Carpenter in the Bay Area and I guess my answer is that you don't -- you become a Josh; become the best and most unique Josh in the world and bring to your craft all that Josh has experienced, thought of, considered, or conceived. My path to this place was unique; yours will be as well.

And you have my thanks for your praise, Grasshopper, but Truth be told, I am in reality a well known nobody. I am a Regional Theatre Actor -- I've not been on Broadway, not been to L.A. (we just don't get along); I'm one of the warriors in the trenches, if you will. A well recognized and appreciated soldier, but a soldier nonetheless. I've traded off living in New York, the acknowledged heart of Theatre in this country, for living in the area that I love and I'm willing to live with the trade.

It's true that there is sometimes a perception that if you're not from New York you're not a good actor and I've known actors to take P.O. Boxes in NY to help prove their legitimacy. There was a long standing joke (and may still be one) that if you were from this area you had to go work somewhere else before you'd get hired at one of the major Theatres here. Many fine actors have left this area because they felt their talents weren't recognized or appreciated and gone on to more lucrative pastures in New York and Los Angeles. I just got lucky and got a ticket into the circle otherwise I'd be telling that same joke. I got in on the ground floor in a hot Repertory company with a new facility and new Artistic Director and managed to prove that I had some talent and worth. Luck is a lot of the business, and you have to help it happen.

The Bay Area is a hard one for a young actor to break into I think, but the Artistic and Casting Directors in the Bay Area seem to really feel a commitment to using "local talent" and try to cast seasons using at least (and correct me if I've got my figures wrong, Meryl), 60% local actors; but local talent won't bring in the audiences who aren't regular Theatre-goers the way a Film or Television actor will-- if you want to sell a season and gain prestige for yourself and your organization this is a sure way to do it. It's proven true time and time again and theatres country-wide are fighting for survival in difficult financial times.

I think many feel there's both a blessing and a curse to being a resident actor in that not only are you better known by the major Theatres bay-wide, but taken for granted the more often you're seen--people get tired of you, of your "bag of tricks" and they want to see something new, fresher or edgier (perhaps better), actors. Get used to proving your worth--you'll audition for thousands of jobs during your career. And we are commodities; if a director can't find "it"--the right actor for the role--they'll go shopping in LA and New York. Local actors have less leeway perhaps -- we have to tend our garden of theatre opportunities here. You can't be a diva, can't be consistently difficult to work with or you just won't get hired.

There are also written as well as unwritten rules, Josh, and maybe I should allow you to discover those on your own-- it can be more painful but ultimately more useful; I will, however, include the actors basic set of Written Rules, the Ten Commandments of Show Business, to help guide you on your journey.

The Ten Commandments of Show Business

1. Take the money.
2. Eat when you can.
3. Nothing is in the bag, so keep your day job (trust in Allah, but
tie up the camel!)
4. Never turn your back on a producer.
5. Never screw the stage manager.
6. Leave yourself alone and work to be better.
7. Never share a vast idea with a half vast person.
8. Never forget what they’ve done to you, but never show them
you remember.
9. Never underestimate the bad taste of the artistically pretentious.
10. Fame is what others give you, success is what you give
yourself.

You want to know what I think is the best way to work a lot?
Be a good actor on stage and off.

Coming Up: Random Thoughts on Acting!

Tomato Theatre

2007-07-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

I've told this story before I think..........but not in this year's blog.

I'll tell you what my first play was before I tell you what my first professional production was, OK? And I'm not counting playing Bob Crachit in fourth grade, or the role of The Tomato which I assayed later in that year, in which I forgot all the elegant lines about what my benefits were and what vitamins I contained..............I have sworn I will never play a Tomato again, and refuse to let my agent send me out on Tomato auditions. This frustrates him.

After that brutal experience I took a 6 year hiatus from acting which lasted till I was 17 and a Junior in high school and got a role in the school play, Father Goose, playing the strange, wacky, sex-crazed 17 year old. Type cast first thing off the bat. Thankfully the only thing I can remember of my performance is that first, fateful opening night........

The first time I appeared was from stage left with jacket on; I was to run in, cross to the other actor at stage right and deliver my line to him, peel my jacket off as I went, and toss it back over my shoulder without looking, in the general direction of the coat tree standing near the door I'd just entered. I did so. I got about 1/2 of my line out before the audience came unglued. Howling. I was facing right; my friend who was facing me was looking stage left over my shoulder with his eyes wide.........?????????...........The audience wouldn't stop laughing.

Pulled by an irresistible tug of curiosity, I turned slowly around, the audience's anticipation of my eventual reaction making the laughter increase the farther I turned. My eyes fell on the coat tree and there, on one of the hooks, hung my jacket. By the collar. My jaw dropped. The audience laughed more. But I didn't ignore this and continue with the scene --- I walked to the coat tree, turned up the edge of the jacket and saw I'd unwittingly performed a minor miracle; the jacket had landed so that the loop on the inside of the garment's neck had slid neatly over the hook. My jaw dropped again. I showed the audience. They screamed.........I'd by now abandoned all pretense of being in character and looked straight out at the kids I'd incited to near riot, and who were by now red in the face and pounding the tables, and just laughed right back at them. And even though I knew I was being an utter fool, I didn't care; it was elating--thrilling somehow.

THAT was the moment I knew I wanted to be an actor.

I was throughly chewed out by the rest of the cast for breaking character, had to make profuse apologies all around, and was never able to hit the coat tree again after that night.

What was my first professional production?.........I guess it would've nominally been Philadelphia Story at Ashland; I replaced another actor who'd been playing Mack the night watchman and who had been cast in another play there which conflicted with P.S.; I had 4 lines and was supposed to enter whistling, see someone get punched and help the puncher to drag the insensate punchee out. I was in place backstage almost 20 minutes ahead of time (just a wee bit early) and by the time my entrance came I'd wiped my sweating hands on my thighs so many times my trousers were damp. The whistle never happened. I put my lips together and blew in a pre-boil, tea kettle-ish fashion but was able to emit only a faintly musical exhale through pursed lips.............the entire cast was waiting in the wings as we dragged the body off and welcomed me into their production with applause.

Theatre people are the best.

How I Started

2007-06-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

Back to you Grasshopper...

I will start your next lesson by saying that I stand corrected by my wife. She DID strip. But not completely. She even had a name: Cherry La Bomb, emblazoned in red letters across her bottom......oh yeeeaah. I remember now. Heh, heh.

So Josh. You asked: 1. How did I get to where I am? 2. How did I start out? 3. Drama school or no? 4. What was my first professional production? 5. And how did I end up in the Bay?

Wow. I hate self examination. These questions cover a lot of ground--almost 40 years when I fell into the profession of acting at age 17 in High School. A brief sketch of my life follows:

I was going to be a Veterinarian, got into a play in High School, got hooked on Theatre, got a very small Drama scholarship to New Mexico State University, was a horrible student, did many plays and had too much fun, got kicked out on both academic and disciplinary probation, got married, worked at various odd jobs to pay the rent and help put Ms. La Bomb through school, left Las Cruces, moved to Albuquerque, realized that I wasn't going to get the experience I needed in New Mexico, moved to Sacramento while my wife got her Masters Degree in Costume (what else would a stripper get a degree in?) , stepped into the professional arena by auditioning at Ashland Oregon, by some minor miracle got hired, did 3 seasons there, was offered an internship at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, did 2 seasons there, joined the union, came up to San Francisco to audition for an Arts program which was independently judged by 3 Bay Area professionals one of whom was Joy Carlin (the then interim Artistic Director of the Berkeley Repertory Theatre) who hired me at BRT to play a punk rocker (I got an extra gig in a film from that) , spent 14 years there as an Associate Artist in that fine Resident Company of actors, and now some years and theatres later I am here yet. I love this area, the climate, the cultures, and the open minds. It is my home. My theater family lives here.

So no, Josh, I didn't go to a Drama school. It probably would've been a good thing for me, but being the young, newly freed dolt that I was the results would likely have been the same--I would've just gotten kicked out of a more prestigious school. I did try to discipline myself in some fashion--I worked where I felt I was learning and where I felt myself grow, and I got some good breaks--I managed to work with people who saw something in me they felt worth nurturing and who helped to shape and teach me. Learning to recognize these people when they come into your life will be part of your education.

These days though, the world of Theatre is less forgiving and a good Theatre School is a must but I encourage you to finish your education regardless of where you're going to school. Remember Grasshopper, you must first learn the rules in order to break them properly.

These are the answers to questions # 2, 3 and 5.

Now on to one and four.

Feline Dreams

2007-06-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

Another dream the night before last.

My old black cat came to visit me. Brutus; 17 pounds of pure love who followed me around faithfully, slept wrapped around my head at night, and who in his prime resembled a small panther himself. Huge heart, claws, and a huge coward. Sometimes. Hearing an odd noise outside one day I walked out to find him gripping another cat, hugging it almost with both thick forearms, teeth to it's throat with his hind claws pressing against it's belly and moaning very quietly into the others jugular, which I interpreted as "Please don't make me kill you, I just want you to go away, alright?" When I said "Brutus?" he released him. The cat never came back.

In my dream I turned on my side in bed and Roo was sitting next to me looking solemnly down at me purring in that low rumble of his. His face was bloody. He wasn't hurt though. What did this mean? Anything?

After waking yesterday from my Noble Brutus's visit I noticed that my foot which had been oddly troubling me for a few days, was swollen and sore ........ ????????????? ................ what the .....? Today I went to an Urgent Care Clinic and had it Xrayed and examined. Sprained. In two places.

The only time, the ONLY time I could've possibly damaged it was last week when I tripped on the stage...............You notice I said on the stage, not onstage? That's because I tripped ON the stage.

How does one do this you ask? How does one trip on a totally flat surface with no swellings, bumps, humps, hills, warts, bubbles, pimples, knobs, nodules, or projections of any size or kind? Ahhhhhhhh.........it takes special skill, a certain amount of ingenuity and low animal cunning. This is how Grasshopper: One trips on the EDGE of the flat surface....... Clever, no?

Last week I was getting ready for my Bishop of Ely entrance from the upstage left center (my left not yours, silly!) stairs which lead from the backstage area 12 or so feet below the back of the stage surface. In both left and right hand I had handfuls of the two robes I was wearing hitched up high so I didn't step on those floor length garments and go face first into the risers; I got my left foot onto the stage and as I was stepping up with my right, my toes caught the edge and I stumbled forward taking a huge step to get my foot under my forward moving body, came down hard on my right foot and kept on going (I had an entrance some seconds away) to my position behind a portion of the scenery to wait for my Cue-light. I didn't think a thing of it, didn't report it as an accident because I didn't think I'd hurt myself. Oh hell. I'm feeling inordinately clumsy.

So I'm wearing an air cast now, icing my foot and admiring my new cane; reading the stickers on it. Do me a favor? Put on your best Monster Truck Rally voice--the ones you hear advertised on the radio and telly. Ready? Now say this: "And Here Comes Carpenter, using his brand new All Aluminum McKesson Performance Cane built by Sunmark!! A regular cane but oh this baby's got some features!! Oh, Yeeeehhh!!!! Look at those adjustable buttons!!! Whaaaat a hand grip!! And that tip is outta siiiiiight!!!!"

Thank you. I feel better now knowing some of you probably actually did this.

My current black kitty, The Queen Of All She Surveys, She Who Must Be Obeyed, my little plump one, my Little Pumpkin of Love sits with me as I ice my damn ankle. We've always had at lest one black cat since about 1979--it's become a Tradition. She is the latest addition to a string of great cats and may be my favorite ever. A one of a kind. She and Brutus were great friends; we actually got her out of the back of a Richmond Police squad car--she looked very arresting..............

Can I have a rim shot please!?!

Swimming with Panthers

2007-06-26T09:12:00.001-07:00

I had a dream last night of swimming with a black panther. Or rather helping him to swim by wrapping my arms around his chest and supporting him through the water....an impression of musky wet fur, straining muscles, and a basso profundo purr trail me around my apartment as I make morning coffee.

My small fat black cat sticks her head in my armpit as I write. I am her man. After I dress she will sit in the middle of our living room impatiently staring at me. Eventually, driven by her implacable gaze, I will go outside with her, play stick with her, water the plants, and let her chase the water as I move from plant to plant. She likes to chase water, fascinated perhaps by its elusiveness, the uncatchability of it, and fearlessly becomes wetter and wetter till her face is beaded with tiny drops of water. Wet and purring.

Welcome to unemployment.

I've had some really good questions, some from Martha (aka Bruce) and some from Josh -- an aspiring young actor -- and since I haven't called anyone by their correct names yet I may continue the Tradition. Maybe I'll call him Grasshopper.....

(Insert breathy flute music here)

I will begin by correcting Josh to tell him that the skunk was no scene partner, son. He was not professional; he left me to cover for him -- simply walked offstage. I will never work with him again. He is dead to me.

To answer all your well posed questions (I especially liked the part about how captivating I was, Josh. Thank you.) in one posting would be a very lengthy entry, so I'll put them into several postings. It may be awhile before we are all enlightened, and I'm going to mix fear and doubt into the difficulties Josh will have to surmount by first saying -- if you're thinking of becoming an actor, Josh, don't.

Just don't. It is an incredibly difficult profession to break into; even more so than it was when I started acting, I think. Less funding and more ego. You have to learn to hustle, develop a very thick hide, and to know that you'll most likely be unemployed alot and will need to have a second job on the side to support your theatre habit. I think the statistics on acting when I started were something like 1% OF 1% of all Union (Actors Equity Association--the Theatre actors union) make a living wage. That was 30 plus years ago. Repeat those figures to yourself. Now adjust for inflation.

You probably already know these statistics and if you really want to do this I doubt you'll be deterred any more than I when I announced to my father-- a Colonel in the Army -- that I wanted to be an actor and had his ice blue incredulous eyes bore into me.

The above being said, I can't think of any other profession off the top of my head in which I am fit to, or would rather be in, Josh, and I wish you the greatest success and joy in it if you continue. At it's best it is glorious; exhilarating, illuminating, a force for change and a source of laughter and hope. And you'll meet lots of girls.

Hey, that's how I met my wife--she was a stripper (a very modest one mind you--she didn't disrobe, she teased) in a very bad local melodrama that we did at the El Patio bar that Billy the Kid drank at in Old Mesilla, New Mexico. We kissed under the rain spout. Romantic, no? Though it may have been raining at the time................

This is where I started.

Coming up: How Did I Get To Where I Am?

Our Last Show

2007-06-23T22:40:00.000-07:00

This is it--one more show till we close this fine production, and one more paycheck before a 2 month stint of unemployment. Time to say goodbye, tighten our belts and to hope that my film agent calls me for an audition, and to hope that I book the gig.

Some of us will go on to or back to school, some are in the next production and have had their contracts extended to cover that period, some will go on to teaching jobs, some to temp jobs, some of us have nothing in the immediate future.

This is not to say I'm without work--I've booked a rather insane schedule for myself later in the year; doing Gloucester (pronounced GLOSS-ter) in King Lear later in the season at Cal Shakes, then when it opens I'll begin rehearsals for Mousetrap at Center Rep in Walnut Creek (Timmy Near, the Artistic Director of San Jose Rep will be directing with an All Star Bay Area cast) and when that opens I'll start rehearsals for A Christmas Carol at American Conservatory Theatre reprising the role of Scrooge. So I'll be rehearsing during the day and performing at night which is extremely fatiguing -- I'll have to take good care of myself.

Also "The Creature" will return! -- a live reading of an adaptation of Frankenstein, and later podcast in 5 or so segments--I'll jam it into my schedule in late October. I've some prospects in 2008 which are promising but I've not signed any contracts, so I won't talk of them--one of my few superstitions. I don't want to jinx it.

I will say my goodbyes here; they are sadly insufficient and do not express well my admiration and care for the cast, crew and Reg Rogers excellent performance. I know I will work with many of you again and take joy in that; some I may not work with again but I will meet someone who knows you and we'll talk of you. The world of Theatre is a small one.

I'll continue to blog and babble to the ether, answer questions asked (I've a passle of them from a young man which cover a lot of territory) and blog for King Lear as well.

Thanks for coming to the show, for supporting the Arts, and for being curious

Regards to all

James Carpenter

Curiousity Killed the Skunk

2007-06-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, Hilda.

You make my heart glad. Thank you for confirming that people actually are reading this; I mean, I know you, Martha (aka Bruce) and a few people (who might be just one person) who go by the moniker of Anonymous read this regularly, but actors are used to aural (say that carefully, please) stimuli and confirmation of appreciation such as boo's, cheers, hisses, or applause. And the occasional solid object.

I'm going to say here that this is not a deeply funny story--I mean you won't be clutching your sides or leaping out of your chairs like that funny little man in the Chronicle theatre reviews--you may just smile a little and go on to someone else's blog, OK? Ready? Here we go.

I was playing Richard II in the play titled the same at Cal Shakes about 1994-ish; if you don't know the show, it's about an impulsive, ineffectual king who is deposed by Henry Bolingbroke (who later crowns himself Henry IV and whose son, Prince Hal becomes Henry V) is imprisoned and later killed--the sin of Regicide, which haunts both Hal and Henry.

I was costumed in a white robe, had a wig and beard and looked uncannily like Jesus Christ himself; my entrance from stage left was slow -- pained but dignified -- almost sacrificial, one might say. I regularly heard murmurs from the audience on my entrance, whispered remarks like "Why, he looks uncannily like Jesus Christ himself!" or "Doesn't he look almost sacrificial, Honey?" -- "Yes! And so dignified--slow too!" on my appearance. There was also the occasional "Why is he wearing a dress?" or "Gee, I wish I had sandals like that."............

One night the sounds from the audience were particularly audible; I'd had a very good show thus far that night, in the zone, sharp and focused and was feeling good. I said as much to myself. "Damn, I'm good!" I said to myself. Only later did I find that a skunk had followed in my wake from offstage left, changed his mind (stage fright?) about participating in the scene with the oddly clad yet dignified and sacrificial personage ahead of him and gone into the audience. Hence the gasps.

But it didn't stop there--he apparently then worked his way through the crowd and helped himself to the choice tidbits in everyone's picnic baskets; there were no protests -- they all leaned back in their seats as far as they could, said "Nice skunk, niiiice skunk, oh what a pretty little skunk you are--go on, take as much as you want!" and other kind declarations of generosity.

I'd been acting my pants off up there and I don't think a single person heard the scene. It kind of brought me down a notch or two...........not many actors can claim having been upstaged by a skunk.

But to allay any fears and contrary to the murderous title of this piece, the skunk lived, though obesity may have claimed him in the end. The little stinker.

Burnam Wood

2007-06-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

Have I told you about the time a skunk followed me onstage?

There's a variety of wildlife out here. Critters I have seen: skunks, raccoons, coyotes, cows, turkeys (well, I haven't seen them but I can hear them and believe me if there's anyone who knows a turkey when he hears one it's an actor), hawks, snakes, lizards, deer, bluejays, owls and now there appears to be a nesting pair of extremely large crows hereabouts. They and they hawks don't get along well.

I feel like I'm turning into Ranger Jim. Last week we had 4 plus hours between the 11:00 matinee (shudder) and the evening show and 3 of us, myself, Elvie Yost, and Caroline Gelber all decided to go on a ridgewalk. Or rather it was decided for me.

I've done numerous seasons at the Shakes but never once have I walked up to the top of the surrounding hills and looked around--I've gone up the trail a bit at night and laid back on a blanket and watched the Perseid meteor shower, but just far enough that the lights of the Bruns were out of sight and the sky was clear for stargazing; never to the top. I have to confess I felt a bit awkward escorting these charming two, a bit like an old gink who didn't know their music, their idols, their slang--and so, as we walked, I started talking about the shrubbery...........

I know a fair amount about trees. I'm not a vast repository of tree lore from Ye Olde Tymes, but I know a fair amount. For example: Do you know what buttressing is? And no, this isn't an off-color joke. Buttressing is the point at which the bottom of the tree flares out at the base as it meets the ground--very old trees often have widely flared bases, and it is one of the qualities that Bonsai masters strive to emulate; it gives the tree a sense being out of time almost, otherworldly, roots and trunk gnarled from ages of gripping the earth.

I'm not quite sure how my fervor for tress developed; Someone gave me a Bonsai tree, I think, and I started reading up on them and now I've at least 5 books on Bonsai trees, another 3 on tree identification and am a freak enough about them to pull over the car when I see a really beautiful tree and admire it.

We tentatively identified a few kinds of oaks, redwoods and pines, I collected a cone and we toiled our way up the hill (very steep in spots) till my calves began to ache and and even Caroline (who's a Dancer, tiny, and who delighted in bounding up the hill ahead of Elvy and me to grin cruelly back at us; the lovely Ms. Yost and myself would glare balefully and trudge on) began to slow, the awkwardness among us passed and we merely climbed and breathed and witnessed what was around us; and soon we reached the top, looked down at the Theatre, walked over to the other side of the hills and had a grand view of San Pablo Bay from the Richmond bridge on our left to the Carquinez Straights and Sacramento River on our right. Beautiful. A flawless day, if windy at the top.

We ate cheese and bread, some chocolate, some fruit. We watched hawks hover in place on the updrafts. We talked little, there was no need. We witnessed small miracles--bugs that looked like sticks and suchlike.

Later, richer and quieter--tireder--we wound our way back down to the theatre, an easier journey than the first part, though Caroline was convinced she'd found the route to China at last, and took Elvy and me on a detour rather than a shortcut; I'm sure the trail would've led back to the theatre, eventually....

My dressing space is now littered with pinecones, various types of seed (which I intend to plant and see if anything grows), leaves, assorted natural detritus and makeup--artifice and nature side by side.

Both Elvy and Caroline go to College when they're done here--I wish them the very best.

Thank you for a lovely day, ladies.

The next time you visit the Theatre grounds look at the trees; look at the lines of the limbs, how they've grown and matured, and the way their roots meet the earth.

Things I've Been Hurt With

2007-06-13T19:47:00.000-07:00

I've been hurt with a lot of odd things when I think about it. Onstage? Lemme think, here; Broadswords, court swords, daggers, icepicks, shields, door frames, nooses, other actors........I'm think I'm leaving something out.

The off stage grouping is more mundane and includes, BB guns, hatchets, baseball bats, and cactus.....How does one hurt oneself with a cactus, you ask? You sit on it! I've also sat on daggers. How does one sit on a dagger, you ask? Unintentionally! Things I've ALMOST been hurt by include baby elephants and tigers.

It's SO easy to get hurt onstage......What's that Timmy? Would Uncle Jim tell you his dagger story? Sure kid, but only because I like you, see? I was doing a fight from Romeo and Juliet for the Ashland school tours, see? Sword fighting at 8:30 in the morning. I mean, what was I thinking!? I died at the end of the fight by getting "run through" with the sword; I'd drop the sword in my right hand, then drop the dagger (which was a cut off and blunted epee blade about pencil width) and fall on to my right knee, and expire dramatically.

This particular show I did all of the above correctly, but when the dagger fell it apparently hit point first and bounced upright, hilt on floor point in air as I was falling to my knee......Another one of those moments that's hard to describe. It felt like...what? A cattle prod? Something cold and electric and very sudden. My fight partner said my eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. We were in a gymnasium filled with about 800 teenagers and I was run through with my back to them, so everyone saw the whole event and when I reached down and pulled out the point (which had gone very, very deep indeed into the back of your Uncle Jim's upper thigh) They. Went. NUTS. They screamed, they hollered, they laughed, they begged for more; they wanted my blood......Shades of Rome. And yes I finished the performance (a very long hour that was), went to the doctor, and got a tetanus shot.

And that, mister, is the story of How Your Uncle Sat on His Dagger. You go to sleep now, OK kid?

G'Night.

Re: Cold and Light

2007-06-13T07:35:00.000-07:00

Carrie K asked these:

I've got a Richard III costuming question for you- are you all freezing at the end of the night?

A: It depends on the night and the costume--I could've gone on wearing only my crown last night. It's always a guess as to what it's going to be like out there; I've developed a keen weather eye, and can often be found atop the men's trailer moist finger raised to the blustering wind and crying things like "It looks like a Nor' Easter Captain!"

Seriously? It can be glorious, it can be nasty. I try not to let costumers put me in skimpy outfits after wearing a kilt in a production of Henry IV we did in '95 -ish; I didn't have to paint myself blue at all, I was blue, and freezing, and holding onto my 6' broadsword hoping my fingers wouldn't stick to it. But it works the other way as well--I was clad in one production in a blue leather suit and during one week we had a matinée that was 104 degrees.......my chair stuck to my butt when I tried to stand up. EEwww.
Sorry. Too much information.

Q: Grateful for the gambling metaphor that inspired the Las Vegas style strip lights?

A: Grateful? I'm not quite sure what you're asking, but it sounds as if you didn't like them -- and that's OK. No. would be my uncertain response--I don't like strip lights or any kind of lighting that shines directly into my eyes, BUT -- if it wasn't there? No one would see me. Direct or angled front lighting I find the easiest to work with, but footlights and neon are quite popular now. I'm not fond of neon either. Makes you look like a zombie. NIGHT OF THE LIVING RICHARD. CAL SHAKES ZOMBIES FROM THE GRAVE. OK, I just made myself snort. It's fun--try it yourself! THE AUDIENCE FROM BEYOND THE TOMB. Lord, I'm a silly man.

You get used to working with the lights, get used to "finding your light" so that your face is lit and not your feet, know where the darker spots onstage are. Lighting designers are essentially painting with lights, and that can be tricky--when is it calling attention to itself, when is it supporting rather that detracting from the scene?

It's all pretty tricky.

And Some More Answers

2007-06-12T08:28:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of questions from Anonymous Jacqueline--her concept of anonymity is odd, but I like it.
Q: "In your last posting you mentioned missing an entrance. What goes through an onstage actor's mind when another actor or offstage colleague forgets a line or misses a cue? Is it like blind panic and your heart freezing as you think "what am I going to do? how are we going to fix this?" or is it actually not so difficult to compensate for or recover from? Is it easier to fix when the language of the play is contemporary, as opposed to Shakespearean? Or do such goofs not even happen all that often?

A: Dear Hilda (I can call you anything--you're anonymous, remember?) -- I just knew one of you was going to ask about that entrance, thanks for taking the bait.............I now relate said incident: I was just beginning acting, playing Etienne the butler in A Flea In Her Ear (who had many entrances) and one night one of the actors brought in a whole stack of comic books. Good ones. The Green Lantern. Batman. I picked one up and began reading and soon became aware of a female presence at my side. I looked up to see the actress playing the female lead in the show staring down at me. I smiled fondly back at her and she hissed (in a hideously quiet snarl that evoked echoes of the film The Exorcist), "GET YOUR ASS ON STAGE!".....the comics went flying, I flew the length of the crossover tunnel backstage, ran through the door, tripped over the doorplate, stumbled downstage, realized I didn't have the letter I was supposed to have, ran back out, got the letter, tripped again on my re entrance, windmilled my way down to the actor to whom it was to be delivered, and gave it to him panting. And yes, that entire sequence consisted of nothing but sheer blind panic. It was awhile before anyone talked to me again......

There are few things any actor dreads more than dropping a line or "going up" as it's known. "Taking a walk on the Moon" is another. My most memorable at Cal Shakes? I was playing Holofernes in Loves Labors Lost with Dan Hiatt (yes, the Dan of Hair Fame) as my scene partner, Nathaniel the Curate. Both are pseudo intellectuals and my character tended to go off in Latin..............Now, I don't speak Latin. Oh, sure I know a few words, know a few things about it, but actually speak it? Nah.

My character had one particular passage in that tongue which had been exceptionally difficult to learn. I drilled it forever and finally felt I had mastered it till Opening flipping Night when after I'd gotten 2 lines out of my mouth, I dried up. Totally. Completely. Couldn't remember my own name. It's difficult to describe what goes on in my head at times like those but I suppose you could liken it to a dog trying to catch its own tail.....your brain runs around in circles frantically grasping at the tail of the conversation you've just had and your "panic motor" just keeps running at higher and higher speeds....... I grunted (in character of course) for awhile before leaning in to Dan and whispering in a tiny, tiny strangled munchkin voice.... ......"help"........... Now, I'd just passed Dan a really hot potato ("Help you out? IN LATIN?") and to his credit and my undying gratitude he managed to croak back just one word of Latin from my final line in the speech which enabled my mind to catch its tail, finish the speech and get off stage as fast as I could. And nobody ever knew a thing had gone wrong.

Sometimes you can fool'em.

Most of the time you can dig yourself out of it--substitute a word you've blanked on (though the results can be hysterical depending on the word you've substituted -- "Go villan! Fetch a sturgeon!" [instead of surgeon] was one memorable word burger I've had related to me.) and sometimes you only dig yourself deeper and wind up muttering gibberish, until one of your kind fellows puts you out of your misery by saying " In sooth m'lord, methinks he's lost his wit!" and leads you off babbling.

There are also the occasions when you'll drop a line and then have to figure out a way to work it back in because it contains vital information--that's fun too. But if you let it rattle you it can ride you the whole performance--we have to shake it off and move on.

It's funny, but I've not witnessed many major blanks in others while doing Shakespeare, though on one memorable occasion during my second year at Ashland, Oregon, Barry Kraft playing Hotspur in Henry IV pt. 1 (and a phenomenal Shakespeare scholar and actor) went up in one of the tent scenes--I was a guard in the background and watched Barry first forget his lines and then proceed to invent the rest of the text. In iambic pentameter. 10 syllables to the line, 5 beats a line, every other syllable stressed. And the amazing thing was that he didn't stop after he'd said the gist of what his line was supposed to be--he kept going. He didn't just finish his speech, he did the equivalent of a double back flip at the end of it.

Now that was amazing.

Thanks for the questions, guys. Yes, I do enjoy writing this blog. It makes me laugh, and I'm glad it does you too.

Questions, questions!

2007-06-11T18:09:00.000-07:00

Aha--

There is other life in the Universe! I've some questions, and some very good ones. Martha aka Bruce (whom I may continue to call Martha--you can call me Gloria if you want), had these:

Q: Many theaters have some sort of audience involvement such as post-play discussions with some of the actors. Do actors find these things interesting or if they are viewed less fondly?

A: Speaking for myself I enjoy the post show talks (though I don't attend every one of them) and love the chance to see who I've been performing for the past few hours. It's always interesting to hear your views and many people come up with analogies or angles we hadn't thought of that often spark something in us. The only time I don't enjoy them is when people take them as a chance to criticize the actors, get on a soapbox, or to show everyone how smart they are--we did a talkback for Importance of Being Earnest at Berkeley Rep years ago and one individual took it upon himself to remark on the accent of one of our actresses, saying he'd been to England and never heard the word pronounced that way.....I responded by asking if he was a dialect coach, a native of England, or had any knowledge of accents whatsoever, and when he replied no to all three questions I said "Then you really don't know what you're talking about, do you?"...........a silence ensued. He didn't ask any more questions.

I've never been that harsh before or since (it wasn't really an appropriate or gracious response) but I thought he was being snotty and mean. There was no point to it, it didn't further the discussion and it made me angry. We do get some standard questions: How do you remember all those lines, what do you really do for a living (ouch), how much money do you make (big ouch), are you married (run away, now) , etc. It can get weird --people sometimes expect you to be the same person offstage as you were onstage, and when you're not they're vaguely disappointed, but the long and the short of it is that, yes, we want to know how it made you feel, what it made you think, what it left you with; I guess this is my way of helping to change the world--I'd be a lousy politician.

"I can definitely see that actors don't enjoy the various distracting things that some audience members do but I didn't realize how acutely actors sense the actions of the audience."

Oh, we hear everything. We just learn to pretend you're not there (some nights you're not, some nights we're not very there either) -- swat vaguely at the air, and move on. I'm not sure I should arm you with these weapons of my mass destruction, but I will......There are some sounds that people make unconsciously (sometimes not so UN) that drive me bonkers. A long bored "HHhhmmm" gets nicely under my skin, but I think the worst is that little "Tsk" sound that people make; I don't know quite why. There. Now you can come to one of my shows, "Tsk" merrily away, and watch the veins pop out in my forehead.

Q: "I remember seeing a play where some in the audience were so worked up that they were saying things out loud - I can imagine that must've been really distracting. Are there times where an an audience's reaction really help to bring out the best in an actor?"

A: You know it's funny--if the audience is saying things out loud because of the play, because they're excited and into the performance it doesn't upset me. I did a production of True West at San Jose Stage years back and one of our audiences was from a prison work farm--the women were separated from the men and all were quite polite. For a work farm. But when we got into the part of the play when one brother is trying to con the other brother out of his car, they started calling out things like "He's workin' ya brother!" or "No, man! Don't do it!"and they weren't raising hell they were totally into the show, (and we had a good one that night so perhaps they did "fuel" us to some extent)--they recognized some common part of life that they'd gone thru, that they'd witnessed. It was great. I loved it--I don't know if they took anything lasting home with them or if we changed them in any small way but we reached them.

Q: Have any roles made you reassess a long-held view?

A: Short answer, yes: though I don't know if I've ever actually reversed my position on an issue. Long answer; I think we're changed by everything we do--more often I've been made more aware of issues, certain developments in the world. Notable ones: The Normal Heart at Berkeley Rep.--we did it during the onset of the AIDS epidemic, and the actors in the show met many fine men with the condition, learned how they dealt with it, learned the myths about the disease and the realities. We got to know people who were no longer alive by the end of the run, we watched the numbers of the dead painted above the exit doors at the Rep mount every week. Mad Forest and People's Temple also at BRT, were among these, and yes, they did change me. They got personal.

These shows all cost us a lot in a psychic sense--they're harder to walk away from--PT was horribly draining and some nights I just didn't want to do it. It's exhausting to go to those dark places, and hard to shake them off when you do. My wife was really glad that one closed. I mean, I didn't try to make her drink cool-aide or start talking like Jim Jones, but some nights that darkness was a silent partner when I came home--some residue my own pain and the characters.

But it's part of our job. We deal with it.

Thanks Bruce.

Goodbye Party, Hello Tennessee!

2007-06-06T17:56:00.000-07:00

So Birthday Party closed. They all do. Well, maybe not Cats, but MOST shows close eventually.

You get inured to it--you may not like it but you take it as a fact of life, trust to the Gods that you'll see the good folk again and the bad ones nevermore and go on to the next gig. Or unemployment--also known as "resting". Some shows are harder to shake off than others and if you don't have a gig right away you can go into a slump.

Me? I was very sad to part company with that show and those people but glad I had another job--we closed on a Sunday Matinee, I had a nice dinner with my wife, and then hopped on a plane the next day and flew to Knoxville, Tennessee to do a production of A Flea In Her Ear at the University of Tenn. @ Knoxville. Why? Well, a few reasons follow:

1. I had no other job offers in that time slot.
2. I wanted to open a new door opportunity-wise.
3. Flea was one of the very first shows I did in College--I played the jealous butler, Etienne.
It was also the show that I missed my very first entrance in.........that's another story.
4. I never bin to Tennessee befo'

The last and most vain reason was that the director Cal Maclean remembered my performance in Importance of Being Earnest 15 years ago at Berkeley Rep. and that was the reason he offered me the role of Chandebise/Posche, the lead in the show. That's a long memory.

You notice I said I was playing Chandebise/Posche? Yes, that's 2 roles--one is the Director of the Paris Life Insurance Co. and the other is a doorman in a very garish Bordello, and yes Timmy, a Bordello is a place where the naughty ladies hang out. And the naughty lads, come to think of it--The Frisky Puss Hotel....

Flea is the French Farce to end all French Farces and has dopplegangers, revolving beds, aforementioned naughty people, hookers and hookahs, jealous butlers, French maids, nephews with speech impediments, retired French Legionaries, old guys popping up out of beds, lost suspenders, garters, and pissed off Spaniards.

They'd originally scheduled 2 1/2 weeks of rehearsal before Cal realized he was insane, and added a week to the rehearsal process--there's so much business, so many timing issues, that with the one extra week we barely made it.

It was exhausting process-- Very physically demanding and very hard on my butt--I got kicked by the manager of the Frisky Puss at least 15 times (not all at once, thank God) and he didn't always, well, hit his mark shall we say? To be fair, I was a moving target most of the time. They finally got me something called--no lie--an Azz Pad. For skateboarders. Say it like Arnold. AAHZZ PAAD.

I crammed lines during the day and was on my feet most of the rehearsal day, learning lots of biz and blocking, and running during a good deal of it. They'd joked about having oxygen tanks backstage....I was half hoping they would, as I had multiple quick changes, some of which had to take place in about 10 seconds AND my next entrance on the opposite side of the stage--I didn't think I'd ever get through the thing until I realized............I wasn't breathing. I was talking, I was running but I wasn't breathing or rather I wasn't breathing in the right places and as a consequence was running out of gas the way a runner or a singer might.

Then came the ultimate sacrifice to my craft; cutting my hair, which by this time was down to my shoulders and which I was becoming inordinately fond of............ of course I'd trimmed none of my other hairs, so when my ears were again visible I was slightly aghast at the plethora of fur that abounded there. Tufts. I could've done cornrows............Nobody told me when I was a boy that I would turn into a Hobbit. I think I screamed--- a shrill girly scream which lasted till my razor had done it's work and they were nude again.

So to sum it up, Delilah: I did the show, had a grand time, met some old friends and gained many new, acquired many dings and nicks along the way (you know, sometimes you just forget to wear the ol' AZZ PAD) and saw the tiniest portion of Tenneessee, but it was bloody beautiful, blooming, and bliss to a tree freak like myself--I wanted to turn everything into a Bonsai--said goodbye with some promise of coming back, closed the show on a Sunday, flew out on Monday and started rehearsals for Richard III on Tuesday with my short hair, and my pink shell-like ears.

And now I'm home. Performing in Richard and looking for work to fill in after it closes and King Lear starts. Anybody need coaching? Acting lessons? Seriously.

Coming Up: Things I've Been Hurt With!

I'm running out of subjects here, folks! Questions?

Later in the Evening

2007-06-02T22:32:00.000-07:00

We're coming into the home stretch, I'm done with my scenes; we're blessed with crisp air, our words fly out. A good show.

And I'm strangely sad.

Opening Night

2007-06-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

Here we go--

The Greenroom is stuffed with flowers candy and cards, the opening lines have just been spoken, I've got my crown and gown on, done my warm-ups, and now wait for my first scene, listen to the show, the audience, and try not to get edgy .................

It's crisp, cold, and we're ready. I try to treat it like any other night--sometimes I succeed, sometimes not. Focus, breathe and jump.

You are all wonderful.

Come and see this production!

Answer to Anonymous

2007-06-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

I got two questions from one of the members of the "Anonymous" family--like the Smiths and Jones' a very large tribe. Here goes:

"Does a production evolve with time or is it pretty much fixed after the previews?" and "I really enjoyed the Birthday Party especially since it was at the Aurora with it's intimate space - "intimate" sounds odd to me but I can't come up with a better word to describe the connection I feel when I experience a play there. Does the close proximity to the audience affect actors' performances?"

Yes, Martha (I'm taking a stab at your name here) the shows do evolve--hopefully--to greater or lesser degrees. ALL directors build a framework for the production and your performance but they vary in their exactitude. Some directors build very structured productions; they will sketch in every color, every movement, head turn and line reading and others will give you your blocking (movement patterns) help shape your performance and the show and then step back and leave you to your work.

Mark Rucker, the director of Richard III (love him to pieces) is one of the latter--he very much trusts his actors and allowed us to thrash around a bit, let us find our own way through what our instincts and intellects told us about our characters and then nudged us one way or the other. Mark has done a beautiful job with this show--see it.

We have to stay within the framework that has been built for the show and stay true to that directors vision regardless of whether or not we like it or agree with it--that's part of our job and part of being a true professional. And it'd be chaos if we didn't--picture a stage full of actors thinking "I've alway hated that line, I think I'll say HIS line!" or suddenly hiding under tables or taking off their pants whenever the odd whim struck them. It has been know to happen. I once had a fellow actor decide that he needed to slap me.....twice. It didn't happen a third time.

I think you will seldom see the same show on opening night as you will on closing--all the lines blocking and structure will still be in place, but there will be a myriad of minute discoveries-- inflections, intentions and changes of attack on the language or scene that will make it richer, and more textured. Speaking for myself, it's evolve or die--if I can't explore, even the tiniest bit, within what we've built it gets boring--it's more like playing a recording than a live performance. But you have to use common sense when exploring--does this new choice fit within the framework?

As for the intimacy issue--I don't know if he proximity of the audience at the Aurora affects my performance but it certainly makes me focus more; y'all can be distracting! Many audience members don't realize just how keen an actors radar is--we take it all in, we hear every muttered comment, wince every time someone unwraps a cough drop, can sense when an audience is bored, too hot, too cold, or when they can't hear you and we have to filter all this out and speak our speeches trippingly off our tongues.

I don't remember any incidents at the new Aurora space, but at their old one I've had audience members put their feet on the back of a chair I happened to be sitting in, seen them get so into a scene that they leaned forward over the back of a couch to listen to the two actors sitting on it and look from one to the other as we spoke (alarming), and one night one fellow decided he didn't have enough leg room, so he put the empty chair in front of him on the set in front of the door that we were to enter through causing me to nearly break the door down to get on stage.

That one might have affected my performance..........

Keep asking questions.

Rogues Gallery

2007-06-01T23:45:00.000-07:00

A few of the warriors of Richard III: at right, fellow blogger
Max Moore getting into makeup and character; Max is a lovely man. He also reads his lines as Bill Cosby for us, which has caused high hilarity on more than one occasion. I hope to continue his acquaintance!

Our 2 "Princes" in awar of cards.
Elvy Yost at L. and Caroline Gelber, beautiful, sweet and talented young ladies. Elvy is waiting to see if she's been accepted to an acting program
but I don't want to jinx it, so I won't say where but cross your fingers for her--Caroline (at right) is sharp as a whip, funny and charming.

At right the most excellent Reg Rogers in a rare moment
of rest. His performance is a must-see!

and last but not least "The Evil Dan" Hiatt

a good friend and one of the finest of many fine Bay Area actors--Dan and I have shared the same make up space for many years now. He's a magnificent man, funny, smart and as you can see--he has perfect hair.............

Ye Gods!

2007-05-31T11:33:00.001-07:00

What a night last night!

Our first Preview performance and the weather was at it's worst--only one other time I can remember as bad--when the wind was blowing so hard it picked up two huge area rugs that had been sewn together and flung them the entire length of the stage. Last night wasn't as windy although we had some actors who had curtains blown over their heads which wouldn't have been so bad had the bottoms of the curtains been weighted down with chains.......why? To keep them in place during windy nights, you silly! Almost lost a few cast members to chain strangulation.

I can't believe the audiences! They stay. They stay when I'd have packed my bags and had my picnic on my porch--these people are hardcore theatre goers. And you do it for them--you do it for these crazy suckers who steadfastly refuse to leave no matter how nasty it is. If they can we can. I'm just grateful we don't live in Hurricane Alley--visions of a class 5 tornado bearing down on a theatre full of people like these haunt my dreams...........

And the amazing, the astounding thing was that as soon as we finished the show, as soon as the last line was spoken and the last bow taken the wind stopped. Utterly, completely calm.

And Dan Hiatt stepped out to give his curtain speech........................Not a whisper of wind.
I hate Dan. He has perfect hair.
And he can control the weather.

M.I.A

2007-05-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday-

Not called at all during the day--we'd gotten just past my "strawberry scene" late Saturday, and Sunday they worked thru the rest of the show. I was called at 7:30--the call sheet said we'd start with act 3 scene 5 (the scene just after my last scene in the show) and I wasn't exactly sure what I'd be doing, but came anyway just so everyone would remember who I was...............I had to remind Andrew Hurteau--again. "It's JIM, Andrew. Remember? JIM!"

Waited till our dear stage manager Les Reinheart (hope I spelled that right, Les--if not you should run me through the Equity spanking machine. Please Les?) was taking a breath and walked up and asked what I'd be doing tonight. She thought a moment. A blank look passed across her face, then her brow furrowed, then morphed into a look of distress.......I thought for a second she was going to cry, so I just grabbed her and gave her a big squeeze. Les is really tired. She's a wonderful stage manager and on top of just about everything, but every once in a while something slips through the cracks. She apologized, I told her I needed to get out of the house anyway and went into the mens dressing room to get my bag just as everyone was getting into their costumes........

"Where you goin' Jim?" this in a rather dangerous tone by Mr. Hurteau
"Uhhhhh......I'm.....ah..... I'm, I'm not called; heh, heh! Guess Les made a bit of a mistake!"

Suddenly the room got quiet. Dan Hiatt paused with his pants at half mast. I realized I was in the far corner of a men's dressing room filled with hostile actors and the exit was a full rooms length away. This called for desperate measures. I tore open the bag of the Salt and Pepper Kettle Chips I had stashed away and yelled "Here! Take the chips! Take'em!" and ran, pelting up the hill to the sound of snarling, feeding actors.........

That was a close one.

Went home and watched the tube with my wife.

Friday eve. Tech

2007-05-25T23:36:00.000-07:00

Wow................
It's really cold outside. I'm wearing thermals.
It's 11:30 at night.
I haven't been on stage yet.
I'm trying to stay awake without coffee.
My success is made evident at right........................
as is Andrew Hurteau's below. And if he's mean to me at all I'm going to put in the picture of him picking his nose.

On second thought, no. He'd kick my butt. He's small but he's mean--he put the hurt in Hurteau. And he fights dirty. Got home about 1:30, in bed by 2:00 and couldn't sleep.............. Photo credits by Alexae Visel, head of wardrobe, also technical adviser of modern devices that I'm too brain damaged to use.........expect more photos.

Coming up: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Reality Check

2007-05-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

And here I interject some realtime rehearsal tidbits.

Things've been going swimmingly on my front at least--with MUCH effort I've finally gotten used to the idea of not working very hard and am spending my days by the pool with my wine spritzers, musing on the nature of the Universe and wondering how things are going in rehearsal-land. I walk in now with a relaxed, mellow glow about me. Sweaty actors who've been locked in the inferno of the rehearsal hall for hours grunt at me as I enter at 3:00-ish in the afternoon. Nobody talks to me much anymore. T. Eddie Webster flipped me off as I was leaving yesterday--he still had the other half of the play to do. Dan Hiatt's gentle smiles are a little frayed. "Hey Dan; nice hair today!" I sense a simmering resentment..................I stay away from the weapons table and speak in calm soothing tones.

But I've actually SEEN some of the show now and you know what? It looks terrific. Really. You should see it; Reg is fantastic as Richard--he limps, he struts, he connives with deadly glee. And he enjoys it. So will the audience--hate him and love him at once. Come see, OK?

J. Moscone commented that the King scene I have is much like singing an aria--with no warmup; it's true and it's one of the things that make that speech so difficult--I've just a short scene and then all the personal connections come home to roost. But the speech does feel more connected now; I made an interesting discovery yesterday--when I really personalized my memory of Clarence (my sentenced, pardoned, and slain brother) by thinking specifically of Max Moore, the actor who's playing his role, I actually felt something. Wow. Just think! The more specific it is the better it is.......
I'll have to try that more often.

Often the adjustments you make to cause a piece of text work and come alive for you are minuscule--others will notice a different stress on a word perhaps, a different attack on a line and think "Hmm. Interesting." but for the actor making that adjustment it'll be a major event, a mind blowing revelation and a key to your character. Go figure.

When I pictured Max coming over to my side and saving my life on the field of battle and supporting my Kingship, of Max wrapping me in his own clothes when we both lay freezing on the battlefield all those little emotional connections pieced together and the speech landed the way it should. The Devil is in the details. Max is wonderful as well, by the way--I love his scene and I'm not just saying that because he's a fellow blogger, very funny and could slander me within an inch of my life if he so chose.

We had first tech on Thursday--beautiful and hot at the Bruns; I love coming back to this space every year--it's always a bit different and I love seeing how it's evolved.

Coming up: Bruns Stage Stories

W.I.L.M.H.G.S.L.A.S. , Part II

2007-05-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

Stanley. Stanley in The Birthday party! A great hair role! When I did McCann at Ashland I'd grown an enormous handlebar mustache that I was very proud of, but the hair potential for Stanley is fantastic. Break out the Dippity Do, Martha!

Stanley is a slob, a shut in, a paranoid individual who's having an affair with the landlady and despises himself for it, doesn't bathe and doesn't contribute -- I begin to let myself go a little bit; I shave less and less, I bathe when I begin to smell myself or when my cat begins to make love to my shoes. I stop taking out the trash. I find odd mannerisms and body language I can use in the show and slowly I achieve that slightly frayed and decayed look of someone on the fringes--one of those guys you see on the street and first ask yourself "Should I really do this?" before you ask him directions to the theatre. Yeah, THAT guy. The one you're not quite SURE has taken his meds. My neighbors cease talking to me................security guards drift closer in stores, everyone asks to see some form of ID. Even my wife.

We had a bang-up cast that included Julian Lopez Morillas (one of my dearest friends and hence to be known as J-Lo) as Goldberg, Michael Ray Wisley as McCann, Phoebe Moyer as Meg, Chris Ayles as Petey and Emily Jordan as Lulu and to top it all Tom Ross as Director. Even better it was at the Aurora, a wonderfully intimate space--even better for Pinter.

I love this play--it has a musicality of language that is deeply strange, deeply unsettling, and hysterically funny. We launched into it with abandon and trepidation all at the same time; we weren't alway sure we were doing what Pinter had intended--some of the notes and stage directions were Pinter's and some were from other productions, but ultimately the choices we made had to be our own. We all constructed backstories for ourselves--who were these men? Who is Stanley? Why are they after him? What did he do? The script doesn't tell you any of this exactly -- it's all implied and both actor and audience must hash it out. The audience talkbacks were interesting to say the least--some guessed EXACTLY what our constructed history was and some had completely different scenarios. I trusted to my hair. My hair would serve as my divining rod, my hairball of truth. This show would be a swan song-- my hair aria.

It's a neat moment for me in rehearsal when after working on bits and pieces of a show it ceases to become this amorphous blob and suddenly snaps into being and I "see" the play --it takes that extra step towards life and what it will finally become. The first time Julian and Michael nailed the extremely difficult interrogation sequence--got all the lines right with no air between them tight and clean, I, pinned between the two of them, felt an almost palpable arc, that climbed into a riveting, ominous and savage song. Weird--like being between two poles of a battery. It made the hair on my arm stand on end. Really.

Ultimately it was a great chance to work with some wonderfully talented people, to revisit a show I've always loved and perform a role I'd not normally be cast in. Thanks to all who made it possible, and thank you my dear J-lo for being such a fine man. Love ya.

Coming Up: Jim Goes to Tennessee!

Why I Let My Hair Grow So Long And Skanky

2007-05-17T08:36:00.000-07:00

In my continuing saga of What Jim Has Been Doing The Last Year Since He Doesn't Have Much To Talk About Rehearsal-wise................

Ah. Hair. Hair And The Actor. Hair and ME. A small confession:
I have never liked my hair. It doesn't DO anything. It's very fine and totally straight and hence the only "styles" I've ever been able to achieve are akin to the look of a wheat field flattened to the right, left or straight back. Oh, to have hair like Dan Hiatt-- Oh! To wear a graying top of magnificently tumbled yet somehow perfectly styled locks. Dan doesn't worry about his hair.
And Dan is Cruel. Dan knows I covet his hair--he'll wait till I've spent 15 minutes on mine then he'll just look in the mirror, smile mildly, drags a few fingers through it and whap! Perfect. I hate Dan.

So. Because I hate my hair so much I have to make it just right when I get into makeup--bad hair can ruin my entire show. Some of this exactitude can be explained perhaps by my growing up in a Military family; my father was a full Colonel and was always well groomed and trimmed and on trying to impart those same values to me I was found wanting. I discovered that "forgetting" to comb my hair was a rebellion I could escape without repercussions--an illusion my father dispelled by giving me a buzz cut--as I happened to have hiccups at the time the finished product had a sort of punk look to it. Yet more hair shame. By my next series of rebellions I was into College, hooked on Theater, out of the 1960's, going into the 70's and just let it grow Daddy-O! Finally my hair and I were free, free, free and just itching (ewww) to express ourselves!

Now at this stage in my life (19 years old-ish) I decide it's time for a new look--I've gotten all my clothes from the PX on the Military base, and wear plaid flair bottom pants, short sleeve shirts, have big thick black rimmed glasses and am just the spittin' image of: A. Big. Dork.

I dump the plaid flairs and go for jeans, tee shirts and cool hippie-like stuff. I let my hair get down to my shoulders. I coax the feeble growth on my face into something resembling a patchy Van Dyke beard, keep the big thick, black rimmed glasses and the resultant image is: A. Big. Hippie. Dork. I will enclose a wedding picture at a later date as proof if the wife allows it And you may feel free to guffaw just don't rub it in, OK?

Eventually, I give way to hair despair. It just looks better shorter. I cut it short, move to the West Coast, eventually become a professional actor and discover to my horror: My hair is no longer my own. It is the theatre's hair. Now there are "hair clauses" on the riders to my contract--they can chop it, dye it, curl it, twist it, braid it and gel it as they wish....now once again I'm bound and the rebel in me longs to burst forth! I wait for opportunities to grow my hair really long and escape the "straight man, a possible cop, could be a King, maybe a Nazi" niche I've felt my casting slide toward............I find opportunities here and there--you always need it longer in the summers for the Shakespeare season, and it got really long in Mad Forest at Berkeley Repertory Theatre but then stays mostly boringly short until I close Masterbuilder at the Aurora Theatre and the unusual happens--I do a whole year of shows and don't have to cut my hair. Heh, heh, heh. Rebellion......

It was a lean year after Masterbuilder, role-wise; two understudy contracts at ACT, and a series of small (but fun) roles at Cal Shakes. And though Christmas Carol bookended the year well, I was now not only really hairy, but really hungry for some actor food--for one of those roles that you can root around in--just get inside that sucker and stomp around, and bend the rules a bit. And at this juncture in my life I'm offered the role of Stanley Webber in Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party to be done at The Aurora Theatre.

Coming up: Part II or, What A Swell Party It Was..................

Week 2 In a Nutshell, or Blah, blah, blah, blah

2007-05-11T08:23:00.000-07:00

Wednesday no call, Thursday no call, Friday called at 3:00--they didn't get to me and sent me home. Saturday--yes! I'm plugged into the "strawberry scene". Went home after. Sunday was called for act 2 sc. 1 to be Kingly, rant, croak, and go home. I think they're all beginning to pity me. They watch me come in with an eager, feverish look to me, clasping to my bosom all who come close and asking how long we'll be working on the scene, then witness me leave an hour later, done for the day. Poor sad bastard.

My scene as the King is gradually getting there for me but it's trickier than I realized at first. Here's the backstory; we have an old dying Monarch who is desperately trying to keep the peace between the factions at court, end the infighting and die with his debts to God settled--think Dallas with crowns and diadems and you've got the situation; a group of powerful, wealthy, motivated individuals all jockeying for the best positions and for the most power. All fairly unscrupulous and constantly maneuvering and conniving to come out on top. AND--all related.

Now add to this rich dysfunctional stew the juicy little tidbit that the King has married below his position and given titles and estates to his new wifes relatives and you've a Royal Court filled with dissatisfied Nobles, and one fit to be served to Richard if he throws scruples to the wind and acts rapidly; and of course he does, and commits another murder, in a sense, by bearing the news to the King that Clarence, brother to them both, has been killed before the Kings Pardon could reach his executioners--and this pardon given by the same King who demanded his death; himself. At which point Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby rushes in, and begs the Kings Pardon for a servant of his who's killed a man.

Now, this is truly hideous timing on the Earls part. But the King forgets him momentarily and goes into a seeming reverie or series of memories about his brother Clarence--his loyalty, his defense of King Edward in battle and of his saving his life. A welter of memories strike this man--and I get an almost physical sense of him struggling against a Tsunami of associations, and of his sudden awareness of the irony of being asked to pardon a murderer when his brother, who'd killed no man, done no wrong has been killed. A huge load of guilt lands on this man but out of it comes something else--a stripping away of his hopes for Heaven, a keen, keen sense of his own mortality and a cold new view of the world he lives in and is soon to pass from.

We tried it standing and moving--finding these specific memories physically, and it worked but felt contrived; the thankfully few times I've experienced a major tragedy or when disastrous news has been imparted to me I haven't jumped to my feet but have felt that news in my body--like an invisible blow to the heart, gut and knees. I sat down. I asked to stay seated and the adjustment served to allow me to "see" each of those memories more specifically, and to focus the speech in such a way that when the King brings those memories back to the members of court and asks "Who sued to me for him?" (his brother Clarence) he's transitioned from blaming not only himself but all the other Lords of court for not reminding him in his anger of his love for his brother. I get this incredible sense from the text that the mans perspective suddenly skews around 180 degrees and he ceases to see them as human, but more a pack of hyenas fighting over a bone-- ravenous creatures all. "You all have been beholden to him in his life, yet none of you would once plead for his life." is his final realization. This is the knife to the heart and he's shortly lead off to die.

It's hard to find that specific moment truthfully--it's one of those times when as you run through life God suddenly nails one of your feet to the linoleum and after you've spun about several times-----suddenly you're somewhere else.

Now I try to fine tune it.

Feelin' Guilty

2007-05-08T18:51:00.000-07:00

Wednesday Rehearsal: Not called for rehearsal on Weds.................

I'm feeling like I should be contributing something. This is kind of like a paid vacation. Mind you, I'm not griping about it I'm just not used to it. I HAVE been doing things though--I was just doing something, before I came back to California mere days ago.

So in a vain effort to justify my existence I've decided to write about what I WAS doing starting from where I last blogged--at the end of Cal Shakes final show last season--a sort of "Where Did This Year Go?" retrospective..................and I will, I'm sure, be doing something soon. Don't go away.

I had a bit of time off after As You Like It closed and then launched into A Christmas Carol at ACT as Scrooge--we kind of took it apart and put it back together again, added some new text cut some old, tweaked it and teased it until Domineque Lozono (last year's director and a fellow CST Associate Artist), Carey Perloff, myself and all others felt it land a bit cleaner and sharper. I was pleased with the way it came out--there's always the danger when remounting a piece of forgetting that you may have different actors and thinking "Well, let's just get it up and plug it all back in (not that we did) and we'll have a show." Danger Will Robinson!! One actor is seldom happy with another's choice--since they weren't there when it was made they have nothing to tie it to, and it won't feel like something organic but something imposed. I did a remount of Winters Tale once and was having real problems trying to recreate another actor's choices and make them work truthfully--at one point turning to the director and saying as much. They replied "I don't understand WHAT your problem is Carpenter--the last actor who played this role......" and stopped when I spun around and raised my eyebrow. Really high. The director eventually got so frustrated with us all that she blew up and called rehearsal for the day.

I think the Conservatory students saw that I was taking the role seriously and engaged beautifully in the show--they asked questions, made choices and took risks. Below is a picture taken during the rehearsal process. That's me on the bottom. In case you were wondering. And even though I closely resemble the Orangutan doctor in the original Planet of the Apes movie--I'm actually being the bottom end of a totem pole. I think. That or I was really cranky and they were making fun of me behind my back--equally possible. The little goon in the middle was our Tiny Tim--loved her to pieces--and the larger goon on top was our irrepressible Turkey Boy.

You can't really tell in this shot but I grew some deeply strange sideburns which came to a point on the tip of my chin. My neighbors think I'm really weird........nobody bothered me on BART though.

The show went well though I wound up coming down with walking pneumonia and getting sicker than hell -- we decided to plug Anthony Fusco, fellow Associate Artist at CST and my understudy for Carol, into the role for 5 performances--Anthony was a thorough and utter pro, had all the lines, the blocking everything. Thank you Anthony, you saved my life! It's the first time I've ever had an understudy go on for me after opening a show (I was replaced in a preview once) and it was hard to admit to myself that I just couldn't do it, but I came back and finished out the run and had better shows than I'd ever had. They've asked me back to play Scrooge in 2007 and I've agreed.

And my wife Cass and I had a beautiful, uncomplicated, uncommercial Christmas-- A simple Christmas; I hope you had a good one too.

Coming Up: Why I let my hair grow so long and skanky!

Tuesday Rehearsal

2007-05-08T14:30:00.000-07:00

Wasn't called for rehearsal Tuesday.

oops.........

2007-05-07T15:34:00.000-07:00

Well I've pulled another "Carpenter'. I was so concerned about getting my blog up and running I forgot my other duties..................

I got my first posting out and, swollen with my eventual success on the computer front, left the house with my wife, humming merrily to myself. We decided to visit the dirt store--American Soil Products more specifically, which has specialty soil for gardens etc. and a huge stock of many different kinds of rock.

I really like rocks. I went thru a minor minerology craze when I was younger and was fascinated with gems, crystals, geodes, fossils and the like and still appreciate them today so we spent a nice chunk of time there wandering about the piles of stone on the lovely, hot day that yesterday was--we found a couple of unusual flagstones we wanted to use for one small spot in our patio, got our designer dirt and headed to an Asian market to get some of that dragon eye tea that I've become inexplicably fond of. We found a spot to park, got 1/2 across the lot---and I froze--I hadn't called the Hotline to see if I was called for rehearsal...........

Panic mode. I ripped my wife's cell out of her hands and called the hotline --"The Call for Sunday the 6th is as follows: Mrs. Brindre and Frnendersec are called at gobbledey o'clock, Ms. Anklfldt and Mr. Vltzptutskin called at wvtzto'clock and MR.CARPENTERISCALLEDAT2:30..........................".

O.M.G. ...............the current time was roughly 3:10.

I called the stage manager, Les Reinheart (I'm so sorry Les) and asked if I should come in. She said no.

This is so not cool. This has been dunned into my skull from college on--you NEVER come late. I was late for a rehearsal in Ashland once and the director made me apologize to every person in the room and from that point on I've been pretty anal about being on time. So here goes:

Mark I'm sorry for missing rehearsal, Reg I'm sorry for missing rehearsal, Fonta I'm sorry for missing rehearsal, Laura I'm sorry for missing rehearsal, Amy I'm so sorry for missing rehearsal, Catherine I'm sorry for missing rehearsal, Blake I'm REALLY sorry for missing rehearsal, Dan you have my deepest regrets and eternal sorrow for my missing rehearsal, Lorri I don't think you were even there but I'm sorry anyway, Andrew bite me, Susanna I suck, Max OK already. I'm sorry--oy!, Sharon I'm sorry spank me, Brad.....yeah I guess I'm sorry, Liam, Eddie et tu?--, Raife yeah you too, Thomas I'm sorry would you like my role?, Kevin I don't even know you yet but I'm sorry anyway, Elvy--she's non-Equity, do I have to apologize to her TOO? I'm sorry my dear. To those I've omitted to mention I send a general "I am a bad, bad actor and I apologize."

And I really mean that.

Took Monday off.

Blogged On!

2007-05-06T13:45:00.001-07:00

Yaaay!!!

I finally figured out the routine--tried to sign in on my old Blogger Account, and found I had to have a GOOGLE account first now that things had been IMPROVED and the newer, faster, sleeker, sexier version was ready!....................It's taken me 2 hours, and I haven't linked to the Calshakes website yet so I may be typing this for absolutely no reason. BUT!! I now have a Google account!! Yaaay!! And another password!! Yaaay!!

Do I sound bitter? Perhaps I am. A cranky old, bitter, electronically inept, blogging impaired old poop. Which is actually a good mindframe for me for Richard III--good segue, eh?

So this is our first week--and not much has happened for me thus far. I'm playing King Edward the IV, the ageing and ailing current King of England who has one scene (a good one, mind you--I'm not griping) and then he dies.....Yep. Just up and croaks. Then I appear as the Bishop of Ely ( pronounced EE--LEE ) in a brief and brilliant bit of comic relief with strawberries,
and then he's gone. I don't think he dies, he just fades away. That's it for me in Richard III. Sound a bit light, loadwise? Well, I have to confess when I heard the casting I thought--for a moment mind--"That's ALL I'm doing? Do I suck or something? When did I piss off Mark Rucker (our director) and will someone tell me what I did?" and then I thought "Jim, you have been working your BUTT off in some very large, strenuous, and physically demanding shows lately and you could use a break. Take it easy, son--and remember Mark wouldn't USE you if he didn't like your work." All of which is true.

Mark directed a production of MacBeth that Susanah Schulman, Reg Rogers (who's playing Richard) and myself were in at Shakespeare Santa Cruz in 1992. I played himself, Susanah was one of the witches, and Reg played Ross (and perhaps some others as well); it was a very primitive production look-wise and I thought Mark did a fine job with it--Susanah painted herself blue (seriously) pretty much from head to toe every night and then put on a very gross padded overgarment which made her look as if she was expecting a child. The resultant look for the witches was of a naked, blue, pregnant THING. Creepy and funny. You always knew when a witch had been in the shower ahead of you......blue from nozzle to drain. They'd also copied Celtic tattoos and had them cut out of thin rubber so that we could ink them and use various combinations for each character. Reg was shaven bald at the time and had a huge Celtic Cross tattooed on the back of his head, and I had snakes coiling up my arms. Cool, huh? We also had chainmail doublets in the show which they MADE and which worked as was made evident to me when I misstepped in a fight and took a broadsword aross the belly. And they gave me leather pants. Not so cool. Very hot.

I remember roaring alot in that production--sometimes roaring can be good. Sometimes not. I was given a photo after the last performance and didn't recognize the person in it. I remember looking quizzically at the photo and thinking "Why is he giving this to me? I don't even know who that guy i.........." and then I recognized myself in this weird rush. I mean, when do you NOT recognize yourself? Never--you always know who you are. But this was a totally berserk portrait--me in a full beard with hair to my shoulders, done up in leather and chainmail, a sword flung out in my hand, and a weird, wild, mad gleam in my eye. And roaring. It's one of my favorite photos to date.

Saturday we had rehearsal for the Act 2 King Edward scene and it went very well--I think Mark was excited by some of the ideas I had, and if we've not polished them yet they are at least there in place to expand on.

And I will expand upon this later......

It's good to be back!

Ta for now,
Jim Carpenter