ALL THE WAY HOME

Acting is creating -- acting is a creative art.  Imagination is the actor’s Creative Capacity.  Creative imagination and capacity can work only with and from realities, from tangibles, from things.  Tangibles: things, sounds, a necktie, a train whistle, a whiskey bottle, a jar of ginger snaps, a scuff on the floor, a brown coat, a blue dress, a teapot, etc. . . . ad infinitum.  These are the tangibles with which imagination works, creates; these are the tangibles which start off associations, from associations, linked associations stem the subtext of our inner lives.  These and our choices -- and you need to think a lot about this if you want to be great actors!  What is character?  The sum total of the choices we have made.  To paint a picture or go to market square; to take a drink or go for a swim, to buy a Chalmers or an ice box for Sally; to go to the movies or read “War and Peace,” to visit great great Gran-maw -- think how that event determined Rufus’ life, not to mention Jay’s and everyone’s!  we are the sum total of our choices -- the people you create are the sum total of their choices.  The author -- a playwright -- cannot put these on paper;  he can only give you the words which are the results of choices and associations with the environment which has posed the alternatives.  To marry a Catholic or not -- To live in Knoxville or the Canal Zone -- To stay a mail clerk or go into law -- to be an undertaker (they get rich) or to pay the mortgage or take a little trip (Great Grandmaw’s) farm is not clear of debt -- did any of you make associations relating to that fact?)

Never again set out on the process of character creation without asking questions such as these, and without setting up the facts of environment which touch off the choices and which forever after are associated with that choice and the results of that choice.  Emotional, mental and physical patterns of expression and the words we say and the things we do are the results of this process of associations.  When I walked into rehearsals that Thursday morning the situation was alarming: you were saying words, doing things you had been directed to do, and playing at emotions which you thought belonged to these words and acts.  In short, you were headed straight for the boring performance of a Broadway flop -- and naturally you disliked the play.  (The people who dislike are following your procedure, believing the lines are the play).  The lines and the stage directions are keys to character, they provide a framework, they set up the situation -- But actually they are the skeleton which the actor, through the creative process, turns into a flesh and blood living human being with a past, present and future.  This author takes you back to the roots far up on the mountain, and puts five generations on stage -- a scene which was an empty things until your characters became people with emotions -- then you must have sensed how it gripped the audience, how it evoked realizations based on intangibles.  When there are associations happening onstage you can rely upon it: they happen in the audience and you need not fear boredom.  Remember:  I had you look at tables, chairs, things and forced you to make associations: to make you see and touch, stage articles as if they belonged to certain people, had been purchased or acquired under specific conditions, so that associations started. (It is dangerous to call these memories for we have too much sentiment connected with memories and we start playing emotions.)  Keep these associations true responses which evoke something, somebody, sometime, somewhere.  We played, too, the question/answer identification game which showed you how little you knew about these people and how much you need to know.  This metaphor game is a good one to use for note how it touches off your creative minds.  Use it with any play -- not just realism.  Try it on Hamlet!  You may be shocked to discover how little you know about people you think you know well.  In the end you gave performances of great beauty: not boring past tense performances, not harrowing “real life”, but evocative performances that were above the personal, performances with style and form that made the evening an experience in the theatre -- you achieved a psychic distance that is illumination of life in terms of art -- not life itself.

All of you reached a higher level of acting that you had achieved before.  For the first time I did not think of Suzie Houstle on stage, I thought only of Aunt Sadie.  Suzie was submerged in Sadie, yet Suzie the actress, steered the performance into straight, forceful communication.  The same can be said of Pamela, Bambi, Jim Mennen.  When I think of them today I think only of members of a family of generations of a family.  Note, all of you!  As the inner associations developed, as you really saw and responded to Paaw, grandmaw, etc. . . .  you did less and less in overt action.  The need to make points with gesticulation with emotional inflections, disappeared.  You simply were, you existed, you responded, you did not try to make something happen, it happened.  As a result all the scenes which might have been so harrowing were not harrowing for your being people through focus where it belonged -- not on the hideous accident and death, but on what was happening to the inner lives OF THESE PEOPLE -- of the changes, the adjustments they had to make and how they made them.  You let thoughts speak louder than words, and that is the secret of good acting.  (Jon: you have been asking about Chekhov.  All I have written is the answer.)

This same process tempered Phil’s work.  He was believable, he did not manipulate his character as usual, he did not force him to do, to feel, to communicate: he responded.  Marc, too, was freed from excess tensions, he still needs to guard against excess release of tensions in emotional moment, to dam them up, to localize tension in a foot pressing hard against the ground, but we understood Ralph through his work.  I believe his vulgarity was accepted by the audience which means they understood why he was vulgar and profane.  Sally was believable, too.  Why she was helpless was clear, why Ralph was jealous was clear, why he lashed out at her: their little unwritten drama was beautifully implied.  Catherine stays in the mind as Catharine, not as Mary.  She motivated beautifully Joel’s helplessness, frustration and love.  The union of agnostic and Catholic was present in all its implications without being preached or made explicit.  that was one of the distinguishing marks of the entire performance -- its meaning, its conflicts were ever present but were implicit -- not thrust explicitly at the audience.

Tom evoked genuine interest and concern for Jay.  At the coffee table each night some one would say:  “Does he die -- I hope not.”  Tom plays in response, always, makes associations which add up -- from the toy dog to the whiskey bottle was inevitable, what thoughts carried him there; the associations evoked by the whiskey bottle were implicit drama.  Later when we heard Mary talk about him and when Andrew and Joel talked, they were talking about a Jay we knew -- Tom had created him for us; he made valid Mary’s epitaph: “In his strength.”  Tom identifies with things, present or imagined: a train goes by and he is on it, a pipe is an extension of himself, Rufus is his son, Ralph his brother.  The relationships are implicit through his associations.

Shannon is on his way to doing the same kind of work of implicit inner action, of relationships.  He established a beautiful tie-up with the Rufus that grows up to be a writer.  Jim needs only to think a bit more of intensification for purposes of communication.

This was Marianne’s best work to date: warmer, more total than usual.  Responses, direct responses to people should be carried out still farther.  Marianne tends to turn them off just before they go into the following emotion or the expressive act -- moments with Hannah could have materialized farther for instance.  Next year: work on voice.

Hannah:  a truly superb creative performance.  For the first time: genuine outgoing directness; real eye to eye, mind to mind, body to body transfers.  What she was to people on stage she transferred to the audience.  Nothing could go off balance with Hannah about.  She did not carry out stage directions, she was Hannah doing what only Hannah could do: care for others, anticipating their needs, concerned for them and understanding all.  Understand how you achieved it and start in the right direction from the beginning next time.

And it would be a good idea to apply this to “Brigadoon.”  None of you have created the place, as yet, you have no relationship to it.  No doubt you know there is heather, but you have not smelled it -- and it must be particularly sweet after 100 years’ sleep.  And the mist -- none of you respond to it -- sea mist is different from any other -- and a mountain thunder storm -- and what about relations to each other: special friends -- or foes -- let me see implicit relationship as you look at each other.  Who is the town bum?  The business man?  the doctor?  The driver of hard bargains?  Etc. -- create -- from realities.  Is Galati’s wool 100% or shoddy?  The Scott’s drive shrewd bargains, they know their merchandise: some evidence of this would help your character bits that have not yet developed.  What do you think of the Anderson girl -- really?  Is Fiona as pretty as her sister?  What is your real opinion of the dancing?  Ask yourselves some questions that start your creative minds going if you want a performance above the trite Broadway level.

MY THREE ANGELS

Farce is situation which is possible but not probable.  If the audience has a chance to think they will realize the improbability and say “oh this is utterly ridiculous.  I can’t laugh at anything so improbable.”  and so the situation in farce must keep the audience smiling, chuckling or laughing.  Any second without a smile is a danger.  We did pretty well with this facet of farce until the last act when dead spots began to creep in, and the audience began to be vaguely uncomfortable.  Your comic attitude slipped.  Up to the last act you played with a fine sense of outrageous comedy.  You had it when you burst  into outrageously funny responses to Paul’s snake bite.  Fortunately this restored the act to its proper farce dimensions.  But before that: no “last will and testament” touches off solemn thoughts unless you add an outrageous flourish or something or unless these are outrageously funny, incongruous responses to it -- you skipped these.  then you played sequences too slowly.  It needed to sweep Parole into the death chamber before the audience could think of death.  Then Parole turned the audience thinking seriously on death for a second.  She said, “He’s dead” on a minor note of wonder, and minor notes, unless they are in direct incongruity with majors, are death to comedy.  Pam was thinking only “He’s dead.”  She should have been thinking an outrageous comic incongruity that tickled her own funny bone like “He’s dead -- how dare he -- I want to talk to him” or “He’s dead -- a devil like Henri can’t die” or “He’s dead -- I must be drunk, the cognac.”  Any thing that carries on into a comic sequence.  The angels were making comic reactions, but they could not quite counter that minor one-note “He’s dead.”  Every instant in farce -- and comedy in general -- there must be two levels, incongruous to each other.  Pam acts just the level of the spoken word instead of saying one thing and thinking an opposite, or saying one thing and doing an opposite, and consequently she gets caught in poses.  Chris has covered this element and played it beautifully.  Result: the best acting he has ever done.  He spoke, shouted destructive words and smiled with delight at his little secret, until he discovered the secret that he was only a vicious man and we cannot laugh at viciousness or cruelty or meanness.  When we added the smile, we knew he was riding for a fall -- a comic fall -- in a way we were “in” on a secret, something had been telegraphed to us, a signal of just comic deserts.  This is an important facet of comedy: you must acquire it.  Yvonne needs it.  The romantic sequences with Jules did not come off as comedy.  They were both playing the realities beautifully, but Yvonne needed the little secret joy in her “I wanted to kill” -- no one will ever know she was a murderer.  It’s a delightful secret.  If she had captured that secret joy the scene would have built in the sharing of secrets.  Then in the following scene a whole deluge of incongruities: her secret almost discovered, she has to pretend she is shocked -- she’s glad -- did she murder him subconsciously: delight, shock, until she is literally going round in circles.  Yvonne needs to let herself clown more -- on a refined scale, of course, but still clown.  The lack of clowning was most apparent in the last act.  Clowning is actually playing through with responses which meet up with the oppositions that trip you up.  Phil needs to add this to his directing techniques: action and reaction following lines.  In the first two acts you were responding fairly well -- not always enough -- but you usually did something following lines.  In Act III it was a line spoken and the speaker stopped and the listeners stopped and as a result the comedy stopped.  It should be:  line spoken -- go about your incongruous business.  On line spoken and others, react yes, no, yes.  But -- your little secret must take you right on about your secret business no matter what gets in the way.  You pause momentarily to speak and then you go on, leaving everyone to adjust.  (“Mr. Hulot’s Holiday” is a perfect example.)  In the 3rd act you tended to stop going about your secret business.  You came to superb heights in your clowning with your responses to Paul’s snake bite.  You played reactions to the hilt.  To lesser degrees this should have been going on throughout.  Bob clowned the chicken episode superbly.  Someone else might have put in gimmicks or gags.  Bob simply played the chicken and the secret and he clowned superbly in picking up the feathers -- again the little secret incongruous to the business.  Frank and Leigh should have followed through with more complete responses.  Frink has a beautiful sense of comedy and plays through usually.  The moments that did not come off were (1) He lost the little secret and stopped with nothing to carry him on (2) He finished his capper on a minor note -- a minor note with major positive business might sometimes work, but not a minor note alone.

In the first two acts the Angels were doing pretty well with building sequences to strong cappers.  The trial was beautifully played.  The chart-graph sequence was perfection.  Frank Galati was especially brilliant with cappers because he adeptly added the surprise element: he built and built and you expected him to go on and he changed pitch, or he changed tempo, or changed quality.  You all need to work on this facet of comedy:  surprise through sudden change of any sort.  It isn’t merely flattening a line, it is doing it with surprise that counts.  Galati’s work was excellent throughout: just enough characterization to be individual, not enough to get us too absorbed in character.  His concentration is comic, and he had secrets up to the last act.  Most of the time he sets up sequences.  You are all a little weak in anticipating the next sequence.  You played a sequence for what’s in it -- which is good -- but at the same time you should be setting up what’s to come.  On final dress rehearsal you did an exciting build up to Laird’s entrance, but you never quite hit it again.  That suspense of something’s about to happen, someone will come in, a young man.  This is the child’s make-believe attitude which everyone must have: magnified, intensified.  A good dramatist sets up the events which are to come.  Actors can kill the suspense by not anticipating, by not being carried pell-mell into the next.  Jon needs to let himself think ahead more.  It will give more electricity to his performance, another plus level of acting.  His Paul was excellent, but let yourself enjoy acting more, Jon.  Farce ought to surprise even the people in it.  Jon doesn’t let himself be surprised.  Work to get it right and then let it happen -- have fun.

Leigh is wonderfully spontaneous, radiant.  Continue trying to govern that spontaneity so that speech, in particular, is under control.  Sense the need to land important words, never let them get lost.  If laughter has drowned out a line, repeat it.  Farce is carefully constructed -- each bit must land for its particular or something else will not be set up.  Cut down your actual speed to theatrical pace which means everything is landed at exactly the right moment.  Kovara is a good clown.  “That girl’s as light as a feather” was perfect.  He lets moments happen; he seems to do things always at the spur of the moment; actually he has set up his role in the situation so he can take advantage of anything, just anything that happens, and that’s good comedy playing.  Sometimes he doesn’t quite land a sequence, and that’s usually because he has overdecorated vocally on the way to the capper.  Felix was well played.  In a role such as this which does not instigate events, but is played upon, go farther with reaction responses.  The night (dress rehearsal) that we had you playing those interrupting “but - but - but?” you were at your best.  This is the refined clowning of responses I recommended to Yvonne: the immediate response, plus the secret pleasure, plus several other responses in quick succession.  You were at your best in the chart sequence after the “I need more cardboard” when you were playing both delight and apprehension.  If you can’t clown responses, bits are apt to come off too self-consciously which was true in the opening sequences.  Laird did what was required of his brief moments with good style.

Remember, build sequences, telegraph ahead, continue to do something after lines, play reactions.   GOOD WORK -- ALL.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

On Saturday night you must have experienced the joy of playing to an audience raptly listening to every word you spoke, responding to every cadence, eagerly anticipating every new event, caught in the development of the tragedy.  In reading the play it may seem disjointed, loose in construction, difficult to comprehend.  When played as you played on Saturday, it is not only crystal clear, it is gripping closely-knit drama.  Perhaps you heard the slight murmur when Caesar first appeared: Shakespeare had foreshadowed that entrance, the audience unconsciously was alerted to his appearance.  They were prepared for Pompey, and once the forces were introduced, events were anticipated.  Even the briefest scenes, instead of interrupting action, built it, tied it up.  All this happened when lines were brilliantly spoken, when a rhythmic flow had been established.  And the miracle happened to you, too, for you were caught in the strong current and each of you gave your finest performances.  It was as if nothing could keep the drama from speeding to the tragic deaths.   Tragic, yet there was a wonderful theatrical lift -- a kind of exaltation and exultation that can happen only in a theatre: high solemnity, great artistic order and a tremendous lift of the spirit.  It seemed to me that the audience left in the same kind of unexplainable stimulation that I sensed among you after the performance: a desire to re-experience the intangible thing that had happened.  I dwell on this because it is important that you understand it in order that in your next Shakespearean performance you can begin where we left off, eliminating all the individual fumbling and experimenting and agonizing of our early stages.

Trust Shakespeare -- speak the lines with the rhythms, cadences, character, time, place and drama.  Speak the lines with directness, with rib support, with crisp articulation.  Watch the caesuras.  And that first stressed beat: thus you avoid garbled, unpointed lines, thus you get pace with clarity.  Marianne achieved this Saturday night and her performance was immeasurably heightened, and gained in tragic stature.  What’s more: note how that speaking of lines energizes you as an actor, how it stimulates you, how it releases your creative forces: how it inspires you.  You don’t need to act emotions, you experience them; you don’t need to act attitudes; they happen.  Result: all the false intoning, the over-stressing disappeared; you became the character, you are in the situation.  Marianne gave a fine performance Saturday.  She still very much needs body training, spinal flexibility.  Achievement of this physical suppleness might have aided her early scenes.  The capricious, willful, playful, changeable Cleopatra was never quite realized.  The rise to nobility and tragic destiny would have been heightened had we achieved more of the wanton Cleopatra.  Marianne needs still to permit herself to respond to myriads of stimuli, to respond afresh every night, to let things happen to her, to break through her well-rehearsed patterns; to play with, to respond to others.  This is not only Marianne’s problem: it is a general weakness in the company.  We have not yet achieved ensemble acting.  We tend to solo performances and very good ones, but few of you have achieved true playing-together.  Shakespeare revealed this lack.

One of the most tightly knit scenes, eventually, was the summit meeting when things started happened between Caesar, Antony and Lepidus.  More levels were touched off than in other scenes.  More still could have happened, but ensemble playing wasn’t present.  Without this sense of ensemble, of responsiveness to each other, there is a tendency to make speeches in Shakespeare.  Most of you fell into this at times.  It marred slightly Laird’s most excellent performance of Caesar: certain lines about Antony, for instance, tended to be “speeches.”  To avoid this, it is necessary to slip into them from strong motivations, from provocative response to a motivating force.  In all other respects Laird was the most complete Caesar, and the most believable Caesar I have ever seen.  He created a dominant force in the conflict; he had throughout a fine sense of the direct line of action; he was boy and he was ruler; a brilliant performance.

Although we displayed some speech-making tendencies, we avoided making speeches into “purple passages.”  “The barge she sat in” too often becomes such a passage.  Mike beautifully avoided such an error.  He spoke as a rough, realistic-minded soldier who could speak only in images, realistically about a subject which, in reality, could be described in no other way.  French and Gore, both playing with vitality and meaning. might have reacted more freely, and there might have been more progression in their attitudes from bawdy anticipation to confounded amazement: again a need for closer ensemble.  Mike’s Enobarbas was a fine truthful strong portrayal.  He too played a direct line of action; he spoke with exceptional clarity and force.  He can go farther with the wry humor, but it was there as a dry commentary on Antony and the whole situation.  Mike tends to get rooted in one spot; his feet get planted in one position and stay there.  Perhaps he should stand still, but he should look prepared to move; he should adjust physically with more ease than he does, but he gave us an Enobarbus to remember.

Pompey is to be remembered, too: amazingly total: in mind, body, speech he was Pompey.  Jon learned the art of speaking iambic pentameter with full meaning.  He added dimension to the play.  The Pompey thread is usually obscured.  Jon made him a force in the tragic texture of the play: strong, convincing, threatening, an excellent combination of the realistic attributes of the character with theatrical force.  He may not quite understand the combination of realistic motivations and presentational style, but he achieved it.

Leigh’s Octavia is her best work to date: controlled, believable, true.  Her realization moment was memorable.  She needs to add only the extra dimension of a heightened sense of purpose in the drama as a whole.  Yvonne has a sense of purpose in the drama as a whole. Yvonne has a sense of ensemble; she is totally involved in the drama always;  she is ready for action any second, aware of every nuance. ready to participate -- delightful in her light moments, moving in her death, and to just the right degrees: her death, lesser than Cleopatra’s, heightened Cleopatra’s.  On Saturday “Her crown’s awry” was a moment of real beauty.  Susan, as she knows, needs voice work before she can do much more as an actress.  She has not the quality or flexibility to play the values called for in verse drama.  In fact, she needs to work on total flexibility to permit herself to participate more completely.

Frank has an instinctive or intuitive sense of what is right in a role and he puts it into action without questioning how or what.  and so his Mardian was more than a decoration in Cleopatra’s boudoir.  He was a minor comment on a way of life.  The little episode in which he told Antony of Cleopatra’s death was beautifully detached in a minor key -- a strange note of tragic horror that heightened the waste of greatness in an inexplicable way.  Both Shakespeare and Galati were artist in this scene.

Frink’s Soothsayer was essentially right in mood.  Bob’s tones could have more edge to make the minor note more chilling.  Direct the tone to hit the hard palate behind the upper front teeth.  In general, Bob needs more hard palate tones to play against his own softer vocal quality.  Frank Chew’s Alexas afforded lively indolence in the Egyptian scene most effectively.  He plays in Yvonne’s lively vein, and responds to all stimuli.  Vowels can be sustained more: he almost eliminates them from his speech.  The pearl speech might have been more heightened if variety is an asset.  The same is true of Tavonatti; on Friday he achieved some of the messenger’s comic angles, Saturday they receded.  Vocally he is rigid and in the messenger tended toward monotones -- Keep tones front-directed and tossed up.  Marc has something of the same problem.  Marc has not yet achieved release from actor tension.  His personal keyed-up state dominates his character’s emotional state.  This sends both voice and emotion out of control.  Marc knows so well what he wants to do with a role, and he is always right, but he has not yet learned to objectify that knowledge.  You are so right in your inner motivation, Marc, and you respond to stimuli.  Trust yourself to function intuitively on that level.  Now add: Project the complete image of the character onto a screen on the fourth wall; see him, hear him in action, respond empathically to what he is doing, do what he does.  If you can do this, you will release your own emotions and physical tensions; you will objectify him and become him.  Just as if you watch someone and let your muscles, your whole body do what he does, you may find yourself thinking, feeling, responding as he does.  You become him.  Try it with Ralph.  Jon can perhaps profit by the same procedure.

Memmen made tremendous strides as an actor.  He still needs vocal and physical work of the kind we devised.  He must continue the exercises until they carry over completely.  But each sequence he played carried the action forward and projected forcefully in mood the change in Antony’s fortunes.  Shannon in the course of the production learned the difference between responding with purely personal realistic pity, and lifting that pity to the universal level.  He so most effectively.

That Tom can play Antony someday, there is no doubt.  He came close even at this point.  He had discovered Antony’s qualities, knew him well, but he had not yet assimilated traits to the point that Antony and Tim were one.  On Saturday night Tom was fully ready to develop the role; in fact, he developed, grew tremendously in the course of that one performance.  We needed more time to develop the facts of character, to put them into action: the weak Antony in his dotage, the still great Antony in his magnificence, the weak Antony fleeing after Cleopatra, the great Antony who could fully realize his folly.  Tom knew thee facets and they were not completely or totally assimilated into character.  When Tom began to let the lines carry him, Antony began to materialize and Shakespeare’s poetry was carrying him Saturday night when he came close to tragic stature.  Even though the role was incomplete, Tom’s performance had magnitude and power.  What he does is truthful as far as he had realized it at the time and is theatrical truth.  His work too needed the background of ensemble.  We left many moments unrealized.  There should have been more moments of understanding and friendship between Antony and Enobarbus which would have heightened the tragedy of desertion.  The Apollodorus moment, what took place in it, was not fully realized; so must there have been other moments when something was shared between them.  And so with Eros: the buckling of the sword moments were not fully realized, a transfer was not completed.  Such a transfer would have heightened the Eros death and Antony’s death.  So through lack of ensemble, there were moments lost throughout.  Proculieus was essentially excellent in basic traits and vocalization of those traits; but there should have been a moment of eye contact with Cleopatra, and another with Dolabella in which they fight out their feud for a few seconds and he yields.  In the remaining weeks, concentrate on ensemble.

In the end, “Antony and Cleopatra” goes down as a triumph in clarity which was illuminating, in beauty and in the achievement of the truth of Shakespeare without resorting to excesses of production and direction.  It was to our audience and to ourselves well worth the doing.

GIDEON

The checkered career of this production is witness to the fact that this company’s great need is a group and an individual sense of the integral forces of drama: an uncoordinated Monday night dress rehearsal, a promising Tuesday night more tightly knit dress rehearsal, a weak opening night with brilliant patches, but lack of continuity, a Thursday night of considerable power and steady build to the author’s statement about the reversal of relations between God and man; a pathetic, depressing, aimless Friday night, with a return to a certain magnitude on Saturday night.  A drama must unfold in its own good time, exactly as a symphony does.  The director and every actor must know where it is going and how it is to develop, and at the end every careful detail seems -- is -- part of an impressive whole.  This authority, springing from a sense of the integral whole, provides the underlying tension that builds and holds even through the relaxed moments of the drama.  The result of such coordination is always an absorbing experience.  Details are so clearly etched that the gathering together of all the strands in the closing moments is a culminating experience.  The last moments of our drama never did quite come.  Gideon supersedes his father; colorful Joash, the leader of the tribe in the opening scene, falls into a secondary or even tertiary position for even Jether joins Gideon now.  I sensed something of this awareness in Joash, but nothing of it in the rest of the family; they merely got off stage as best they could.  Why?  Because they were not an integral part of the drama from the beginning.  Marianne developed some sense of the instrument she played in the symphony, but it was never fully tuned up.  As for the others, couldn’t “extras” brought in at the last minute, given their lines, cues and costumes have contributed as much?  And so with the orgy maidens and captives: it seemed they were merely there for the final dance moment.  Who are they?  What instruments are they?  What integral part have they played in the suspense of the drama, in the final culmination of the culmination.  Minds -- actors’ minds -- were not functioning creatively.  To watch Kovara and Galati create roles and drama through the progress of rehearsals, Kovara -- only onstage a few moments -- assembled a total character in great detail.  If he had not been killed off, one could have imagined him living on in a drama of his own.  Galati brings something new to every rehearsal.  His assemblage of props and costume accessories is creative imagination productively used.  He goes through a solid process of addition, and then he eliminates to essentials.  Results:  a fully dimensional character that has a function in the drama, is integral to the drama, creates interest and therefore suspense essential to the culmination of the drama.

Laird, watching performances, observed that every moment of a play sets up a later moment.  Every actor should be aware of what he is setting up.  Wednesday night’s performance did not come off because too many people were purposeless extras and others played “moments” and “scenes” that set up nothing, that did not point with suspense to ultimate reversal and culmination.  There were delightful comic moments, but how did they tie up with God’s final speech?  Bob Frink does a good job of comedy that ties up.  Once he learned to land his lines, he did it consistently and built and sustained a role that made him inevitably the one to say:  “The girl, Gideon, she is yours.”  He built a fully dimensional character, realized his function in the drama and communicated it in theatrically effective terms.  French does a good job of landing the sense of lines, but might have gone farther with individualizing the man.  Chris created effectively the visionary, so repugnant to the Loard.  He lost for a time that frantic excitement of a new discovery before each line.  That moment of seeing a configuration and the madness of “what does it mean?” until he inevitably falls in fits.  Jon, too, a good job of creating a character and of landing lines.  He needs now to learn how to let this audience enjoy those lines, to relish them, grasp them.  Jon, like Barbara, always wants to rush on.  What is it?  Fear that the show will lag, stop, slow down while the audience enjoys the show?  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Audience laughter, audience response, is an integral part of the show.  The pace of a show seems slow when an audience is not permitted to enjoy it.  When they are laughing the tempo seems fast even though lines be stopped.  Sense what lines the audience will want to linger over in some way.  Relish them yourself while business of character goes on.  Share with the audience their enjoyment -- it may be expressed in laughter or in the thought that lingers.  You are not really an actor until you have achieved this.

The Orpah who danced was not the Orpah who spoke the lines, nor the Orpah who walked in with Gideon in the next scene.  Leigh’s difficulty came probably, from a failure to create a total character before speaking lines.  The result was that she had to concentrate on how to say them rather than having to say to say them from an animal urge, an animal instinct to save itself.  Perhaps we should have had her use sounds, not words, gutterals in a foreign speech, which carried the meaning of the spoken passage until the futility of trying to speak in sounds, not understood, had to be carried into dance.  Always work from the why, not the how.

Paddy Chayevsky lines in non-serious passages require the undercut statement and we were weak through in its use.  Frank Chew might have registered more forcefully if he had used it.  Instance:  “We will finish the prayers,” arrest, drop to a flat understatement, “we will take care of women and the animals.”

Techniques could have been sharper throughout.  Mennen’s Purah was well executed except that he needed a sharp freeze before springing to his feet, and another sharp freeze before sitting down.  There will be no time to drill you techiques before “Brigadoon.”  You will be in real trouble if you don’t master them beforehand.

Shethulah was at his best in rehearsals: vivid, vital, menacing and well projected.  Nick need to find means of re-motivating each time he comes on, so that the character does not become a stereotype: hear something new or do something different just before coming on or expect to see someone else on stage, or do something a little different.  If something new does not happen, the role goes dead, no matter how dramatic it is.

Overton could have stirred his creative imagination more.  He seemed concentrating more on how than on who and why.  Shannon: two roles to play reveals a need for greater vocal flexibility in otherwise excellent work.

Mike does excellent work from inside in character motivations.  More improvisations might have sharpened up his responses which were often too slow.  Perhaps Mike’s theatre sense needs re-sharpening.  Truth is life is theatrical truth only if it is heightened, intensified, sharpened.  A long pause may be “natural” in life.  On stage it can be sustained only after a tremendous climax.  Mike needs to sharpen his sense of how long a pause can be sustained.  Many of his lost interest.  Too, he thinks too long after someone speaks.  Instead think as he speaks and come in with the vocalized response immediately.  Too often Mike falls into a pattern common to many of you: to get swiftly to the end of a line you go on a monotone without inflecting words.  Some word in a line needs tossing up to point the idea.  When he improvises, Mike communicates brilliantly.  Other times his lines are stilted.  We needed more time and concentration on the technique of building sequences.  Too many, too often, were broken down into single line instead of overlapping and topping swiftly to the climax.  This, too, is theatrical, rather than “naturalistic.”  It is cumulative.  It carries the drama forward.  ACtors and directors should have this theatre sense: the forward surge of drama.  Mike tends to play outside the current of the drama instead of caught in the current.  Any character you create must be propelled on by the forces of conflict.  Building of sequences technically would have propelled Tom more easily into his gigantic outbursts.  He was a truly magnificent personification of the Lord.  HIs is an excellent balance of reality and of theatrical truth.  He believes in the character he creates.  His dramatic imagination casts his work in theatrical form.  He creates a strong image of the role he is creating.  His visualization of it is keen; that image directs his work and he seldom fumbles.  To be able to project such an image is like having a blueprint which keeps you from the fumbling that results from trail and error.  To do so gives a sense of power and control.

ETHAN FROME

Sometimes it is only a fine line that separates one form of drama from another; stepping across that line can change the nature of the drama and its effect upon the audience.  Pathos and tragedy are far different, yet it is so easy to slip from tragedy to pathos.  Mattie’s youth, her ill health, her inability to hold a job, her eagerness to help; these add up to pathos -- a pathetic case that touches our hearts; we like her, even love her, and feel sorry for her -- poor dear Mattie Silver.  Ethan’s poverty, his dream of college, his lonely childhood, his care for his poor mother; all this can add up to the touching drama, and poor Zeena: a spinster who married a man out of loneliness and then found she would lose him.  Another pathetic individual.  And in Ethan Frome can be a touching drama of three pathetic people whose helplessness moves us to tears.  Or it could be full drama throwing light on the manners and ways of living of people removed from us: remote New Englanders going crazy with loneliness, and talking a strange dialect: real people but remote; interesting because they are different from us.  Pathos is valid as drama; to be touched by the condition of individuals is a valid theatre experience; Blanche DuBois is pathetic (unless we identify her as the South) as are the people in “Summer and Smoke.”  But Edith Wharton’s novel is tragedy, and the play is tragic and must be so performed.  The characters in pathos are individuals, their troubles are personal, they go down as individuals and we weep for them as such.  The characters of tragedy are more dimensional, they are greater than individuals, they are humanity, and they cry out for all of us.  They are possessed by a will to live (Blanche is not; they fight to live, when Doom strikes they have the capacity to realize their Doom and they choose Death, and we do not weep for them.  We exalt in their victory, in the victory of human will.  Edith Wharton gives one more ironic twist: New England triumphs in the end.  Those last moments should fill us with terror, tragic terror for it so closely follows the tragic decision which just precedes it.

Friday night’s performance -- as the cast knows, slipped over into pathos: a moving drama of individuals, a gripping performance, but it does not stimulate us with a vision of man’s capacities, it did not speak for us all, and it did not terrify us with the power of outside forces, not stir us with man’s capacity to oppose those forces, fight them and choose.  All other performances came so close to tragic stature that the production stands out as achievement in which we can take great pride.  Wednesday’s performance had an electric quality that all tragedies must have.  Your own keyed up state transferred to the audience: they were stimulated as well as moved.  Always play tragedy with exhilaration: play against the tragedy even as you are deeper and deeper involved in the tragedy.  This is what conveys that will to live, that capacity to meet Fate (not to ignore it, nor go round it, nor evade it) but to meet it with the human will to endure.  Perhaps after Wednesday you became affected by the tragedy -- as actors, perhaps: you knew that you were doomed.  Remember tragic characters never know the end, they never feel self pity, they are not martyrs.  The end of the play overtook you too soon -- the suicide scene until Saturday night had a “given -up” quality instead of the opposition to giving up.  Saturday Mattie projected an intense will to live and an active choice rather than a drifting into a suicide.  This performance was probably the most tightly knit of all, although it did not have the exhilaration of Wednesday.  Frank, in his determination to achieve the fighting-against quality tightened his jaw too much and as a consequence his vocal quality was somewhat distorted: too tight, too warped, too cold.  I think, perhaps, Frank’s best total performance was Thursdays when he achieved the best balance between individual and universal qualities and between “feel” the part and projecting it.

Through all performances, all characterizations were excellent: total, completely dimensional, true, motivated and believable.  In Zeena, with further work, I think we could have thrown more focus on Zeena’s innate fear and loneliness.  Marianne has vibrancy, a theatre sense that keeps episodes moving; she makes transfers (in Antony and Cleopatra?  Not yet.)  she plays with consistency true to the drama, yet motivation is ever new and fresh: she lets the drama happen.  Barbara’s characterization of Mattie was essentially near perfection and she played with spontaneity and joy.  Barbara’s one handicap is vocal -- or is it the result of clinging uncertainties.  Bright tones and front direction of tones are imperative (I hear too many hollow tones in Antony and C).  This is a technical matter that can be achieved without too much difficulty.  Psychological or physiological, it can be conquered.  

Jothem, too, required good direct full tones bouncing off the back wall.  Shannon gave a perfect characterization in the Jotham vein: stoic, fatalistic: New England.  Jotham’s lines in their incongruity will touch off laughter: needed release, but the laughter must not turn us to laughter at Zeena.  There is a fine line here again.  Jotham must remain in the framework of tragedy.  Phil tended to individualize too much: the same thing can happen with the Porter in Macbeth -- if he is too funny, the tragedy is destroyed.  Grim humor is called for.  Nick did a fine forceful presentation of Dennis Eady, youth and vitality, kept in the tragic framework.  Nick gives a solid, authoritative performance:  decisive in its economy.  The Leigh-Marc interlude was a vital contrast to Ethan and well played.  I think perhaps all the people in this scene might have intensified their moments with a stronger realization of the memory framework of the play: they step out of the past to portray vividly a moment in the tragedy.

With more time, we would have achieved a tragic music behind the drama, above the drama, unifying it, flowing behind it, filling the auditorium.  In music drama actors are fortunate for the music of the orchestra is a larger subtext, an added dimension, more than words and action can say, the music says.  Behind all tragic drama there must be this rhythm, this pulse -- an abstract subtext larger than life and more meaningful.  We were close to it, some moments -- in the bedroom, in the supper scene, in the suicide, we almost heard it, but it did not flow beyond and link all scenes, like movements in a symphony merge, develop, flow into each other.  “Anthony and Cleopatra” must have this music.  Shakespeare’s poetry is an aid, but you have not yet heard the music of section, much less of the whole.  Become aware of this element of drama.

BACK TO METHUSELAH

BACK TO METHUSELAH

Shaw writes for actors who possess the talents and techniques of speaking lines brilliantly, and with minds as alert and witty as his own to motivate the scintillating debates he stages.  Whether he likes characters or not (he certainly does not like either Burge or Lubin) he endows them with the eloquence to express their viewpoints devastatingly, for his battle of ideas must be fought by experts on all sides.  The clearness of the skullduggery of his politicians must be matched by the wits of the passionate in heart.  Our second act became Shavian Thursday night when the brothers Barnabas began to exercise eloquence of their own: Shavian eloquence which is of the mind, of the heart, and of the tongue.  In Shaw you cannot play character alone, although he does create characters, and especially you cannot play emotions.  You must play Shaw!  Shaw pulling the strings, calling the plays, Shaw putting wit against wit to fight for the Shavian idea, in this case:  creative evolution can achieve reason which alone can save the world.  A good portion of the actor’s mind must be Shaw and his articulatory organs must be capable of Shavian eloquence and back of it all must be a passionate concern for humanity which raises debate to a battle for high stakes.

Our Wednesday performance was void of Shaw: it lacked wit, passion, eloquence.  Thursday the first act touched off sparks.  Mary began to play the ideas of Shaw expressed through the child Eve instead of merely playing the child; Marianne really landed the serpent concepts (why not, etc.) so they stuck in the mind throughout the play.  Chris got caught in the idea-action and stopped manufacturing his actor-self to express the idea Chris knows must be expressed.  This is still an element in acting Chris needs to guard against:  having made the analysis (which Chris does so well), having designed the role and the scene, just let it happen.  Shut out your analytic and directing self.  Shavian words must be touched off like sparks which fly when tinder is struck.  This sparks flying element is something you all need to strive for.  Even when you reached the stage of speaking lines with fluidity and with pointing you tended to miss the initial spark which touches off eloquence.  Chew is especially adept in this respect.  Marc’s receptive alert mind ignites and shoots sparks, and so does Galati’s.  Laird’s is quick enough but he sometimes lets it sleep a beat, and Barbara can be more lightening swift.  Mary’s work, so excellent in most respects, can be heightened by this quick mental flack which touches off the vocal response.  Scene 2 was a test of this capacity.  Mary grasped the depths of Eve, she touched the emotion’s power; Jon learned to deliver the Shavian lines with an impact.  He has the mind to grasp the ideas, and the voice to express them, the physical vitality that is electric and dominates the stage; Jon and Mary are both actors of ability, but they did not make sparks fly between them.  Emotions were dominant when in Shaw conflict of ideas must always dominate.  When ideas are flashing, long speeches are full of quick mental changes in opposition to ideas sensed in the listener.  Jon and Mary both tended to play with the steady flames, which are effective for a time, but sparks, quick, sharp, uneven are more Shavian.  There are more chuckles in scene 2 than we got and the scene needs those little releases of audience tension.  These chuckles come from unexpected sparks, unexpected undercuts, unexpected implications.  The audience must be kept alerted to exchange of ideas.  Jon was beginning to achieve this in many moments on Saturday night.  With his sharp mind he should be able to achieve it.  Emotion without mental activity is undramatic as well as un-funny.

The element of surprise is something you must all become more aware of.  Without surprise: no sparks, no comedy.  To touch off surprise, lines must end with an unexpected flick, an unexpected snap, like a sudden release of an elastic band, or like the flick at the very end of a whip.  You can achieve it by delivering the main portions of a line with a certain intensity, ending it with a sudden tossing away of the end, or a sudden drop in pitch.  (Barbara brought it off effectively sometimes and sometimes she was too obvious about it to cause surprise.)  Shavian lines should end with surprise of some sort.  Chew does well with the toss away.  Galati who builds lines beautifully through the middle needs more toss away suprises.  He did it best on Saturday.  “Damn bad friend” is a good example.  Frink needs to learn to do it.  Phrases tossed away would have aided both ancients.  Laird sometimes does it very skillfully, but he is not always consistent.  It will help Overton’s work, release his tensions.  His work is excellent; on Saturday it was particularly so, when he had achieved discipline over 3rd act lines.  Marc and Galati both need to add toss off opposites to the intensity and energy with which they play.  Both must constantly remind themselves of the laughter behind all irascible characters in comedy.  Confucius on Thursday night was unamusing because with no laughter behind the lines and the character, he was simply a sour man.  Saturday night was excellent because Phil added a smile.  That smile accompanying the well-aimed lines made a tops performance.

The last scene was always difficult perhaps because we did not sense the true nature of the conflict, the debate between mind and matter.  Richard and Yvonne kept Shaw present in themselves; both play with delightful brilliance, spontaneity and mental activity, bright voices -- they are actors.  Leigh plays with spontaneity but her voice proved inadequate to what she was trying to do.  The lower tones are excellent, but the high ones are merely high without support of lower overtones.  Work on scales, sung and spoken, keeping the lower overtones and vibrations supporting tones as you go up.  This fuller tone might have preserved more of the rationality of the scene and would have played against the emotionality.  In Chloe the mind must become more dominant.  A voice in better balance would have helped Leigh’s performance.  The other youths were well played.  I think we missed something by not following Shaw’s suggestions that our Grecian youths do a vigorous Elizabethan farandole and sarabande.  The mixture of classic and Elizabethan might have started incongruities to help the youths and maidens as to the nature of their reveling and their opposition to the ancients.

Bob and Pam both needed to smile behind and within their interpretation.  both needed to toss off lines. Wisdom includes a sense of humor or it is off balance.  They do not make jokes but neither do they condemn.  They are far more tolerant than the young.  Perhaps we should have thought of them as certain gentle old people, who are called “absent minded,” when actually their minds are concerned with things outside our lives -- or perhaps the the gentle “absent” mindedness of certain priests who are not occupied with worldly physical concerns.  True, these ancients have not attained pure intelligence, Lilith says they are headed in the right direction.  We made them too forbidding.  Both Pam and Bob need to develop more flexible vocal mechanisms.  Pam’s voice quality alienates: tight throat-tense jaw produces flat nasal tones.  Saturday night’s production was top Shavian drama: amusing, thought-provoking, entertaining.  The audience participated intently.

RHINOCEROS

French drama is drama of speech, of words, of composition of words and phrases, of expressive musical nuances, of dissonance, of cacophonies, of sounds in conflict that play against each other epitomizing ideas in conflict, of word sounds that speak love.  Even though a blackout occurred and the audience could not see the actors, or could only see shadows of actors, the sound of the dialogue, the language itself should keep them rooted in their seats responding, laughing, thinking stimulated by words, language, speech.  Action, gesture, facial expression only supplement and heighten this drama of words.  The language of wit, of the intellect, the language of form, of explicit meanings, of connotations aimed at the mind, not the senses.  Even clowning is aimed at the head through laughter.  Pantomime must have the same sharp clarity that the French language has: funny, ironic but with sharp, clean, clear aim.  Think of the word “brilliance” -- what does it mean?  Sharp, clear light, revealing sharp, clear outliines, vivid highlights.  This is what French drama must have: brilliance -- even when it is dramatizing the meaninglessness of speech today.

Focus.  Focus.  Focus.  It is the central element of style.  Without it: no style, no meaning.  The French are superb masters of drama that aims at the head, drama of ideas, of intellect, of controversy.  When you perform, direct French drama, shed your love of playing emotional involvements, discard your probings into psychological roots of character, and in heaven’s name, alter your concept of sincerity.  Three abstract lines arranged in meaningful pattern produce an impact as sincere as truthful, as sobs from the bottom of your souls -- perhaps even more because all that is extraneous has been stripped away and the single, penetrating idea is starkly before us.  Is a branch of a tree, stripped of leaves, of bark, not more meaningful in its nakedness than it is covered with leaves, dust, bugs?  Have you ever seen bare roots, dry, clean, stark?  Are they not more meaningful in their emphasis on sheer form, in their pure emphasis on essence of the function of roots, than all the twistings and clinging soil and bug bitten markings.  When it comes to the meaning, the stark reality of roots, are they not “sincere,” “truthful,” revelations?  And so with emotions, with responses, with character traits.  An emotion revealed in one single act which receives focus will say more and say it more truthfully than the whole realistic combination of muscle reactions which are life responses.  One slight turn of the body can say more of human despair than all the writhings and sobbings which we believe mean “feeling so deeply.”  Study statues: frozen despair, thought, etc.  “Hall of Man” statues: frozen character traits.  Yes, Bambi, and others, revise your concepts of sincerity and truth, for your realistic acting interfered with projection of Ionesco’s concept.  Yes, all style is rooted in realism -- just as the bare branch and bare roots are “real.”

Now: in acting, this requires first, the mental ability to penetrate to the essence of the author’s meaning; in this case: before we can meet man’s dilemma, find answers, we must face his complete emptiness expressed in cliches of thought, of words, of behavior.  You knew this with your heads.  I am not sure you had let the horror of this realization become a total experience, whether the thought had become a “depth” experience.  For Kovara, it had and this lent distinction to his work (not always thrown into sharp enough focus by production and direction elements).  It was behind Mary’s work, and this led to the most brilliant Ionesco of the production: the Friday night Daisy-Berenger dance episode which was brilliantly executed and heightened the frozen horror back of it all.  These were moments to remember.  These two performers here captured Ionesco style, to project Ionesco meaning in his theatrical terms of entertainment through vaudeville, through clowning, through pantomime, anything you will, and behind it is a dramatist’s concern about man’s dilemma.  We needed more such moments.  Richard and Marc caught it for a moment in II when Berenger started reading the report rhythmically and Marc picked it up.  For a moment: a meaningful vaudeville bit. We almost had it in the end of I in group response to the logician which fell into a quick, rhythmic response -- if only you had heightened the vocal pattern to match it!  Frink was on the verge many times of bringing it off, but was still a bit afraid of heightening and directorially sufficient focus was not put on him at such moments.

You no doubt see by now that this kind of performance requires the greatest vocal and physical skill of expression.  It requires voices and speech production skils of great flexibility and the ears of musicians with good sense of pitch.  You all tend still to play the same tone, the same note, the same intensity, the same pitch instead of playing opposites and variations.  The very sound of the drama, even though it were spoken in a foreign language, should leave meanings, implications, as music has meaning.  Each cadence, each phrase, each rest, trill, etc. touches off vibrations in the listener.  So this spoken drama should do.  It may be necessary to work for these effects technically, but the end result is essence of reality: in this case the reality of emptiness.  And physically you are inexpressive or only partially expressive with no sense, no true sense, of the body and its parts as an expressive instrument.  Richard has learned to use his body effectively, pleasantly, fluidly, expressively.  Galati has some sense of expressional movement.  When he develops it he may be a great comedian: all elements are there.  Frank began to see what was demanded.  As a basis for further work, remember the day we discovered oppositions in body positions, in postures and movement; remember the effect of “move -- freeze”  caught in an oppositional movement.  Work on it: everyone.  You may not need it in such heightened form as in this drama, but it will affect all of your acting, making it more vital, vibrant and meaningful.  Your body, your voice; these are your instruments.  Train them to be the best.  I remind you again: no pianist who is a great pianist will play on an inferior instrument.

I suggest that you study carefuly the pictures of the production.  They are extraordinarily good, and they are most revealing.  They are frozen action: they are heightened intensity achieved through strong focus.  They have what we should have achieved throughout.  They show how close we came to excellence.  The one of Daisy and Berenger speaks volumes: bodies say futility expressed in meaningless action, the eyes say horror and incapability of action.  Study these pictures.  In I full stage shot note: if we had turned Rick’s body just a bit more to right stage, keeping his beard and hands as they are, we would have thrown focus much stronger on Berenger, and thereby emphasized his attitude as a contrast to all the cliches of petty emotions.  The tilt of Suzie’s head could have emphasized more by line the focus on Berenger.  So throughout the play we needed this careful attention ot seemingly small detail and frozen moments that point meanings.  Ionesco does not lecture nor preach, but the theatrical impact can make you think if you want to.  It is to be regretted that we have no vocal record of the show to study, for it might have pointed up for you the moments that came closest to brilliance and the ones that failed or were inadequate.

Laird’s work was very fine throughout, yet we could not quite bring off the last act dialogue because we had not quite found the balance of tones we needed, the contrast and especially what we needed was to find the quality that would most forcefully express and comment on the banality and emptiness of cliches of speech and thought throughout.  This is the most difficult scene in the play and we needed more experimentation with devices that would have produced the dry as dust emptiness in the lawyer that we achieved in the logician, in the chief (which needed heightening in the Old Gentleman.)  Marc came closest to getting it in his ex-school teacher the last night when he worked less hard.  For Frink it crystallized when we tried the answering service device device.  We did not quite hit with Laird so that the audience suddenly through laughter woke to the horror of hearing their own banality.

The horror, theatrical and otherwise, needed intensifyng.  Galati has a wonderful sense of the value of words: he relishes them, tastes them, uses them.  This ssense was a wonderful reinforcement for his excellent physical clowning.  But the horror of the act needed to intensify and build and build.  Man turning into beast should have been more horrifying than we made it.  This needed careful moment by moment building through careful selection of detail, through maybe cinematic techniques, and a culmination in production elements.  We settled too easily for no production.  Because a technical problem is difficult to solve does not mean it must go unsolved.  Jumping over the ground row was no substitute for a wall demolished.  the end of that act must be theatrically shattering.  All “effects” should have been more carefully planned and executed.  The exit of Madame Boeuf did not come to its climax was visible giving Richard the skirt and so “all that was left of the woman was a skirt” did not come off.  Ends of acts generally needed more careful timing and implication.  The office scene went dead toward the end, needed production detail.  What should Berenger do after “capitulate” -- Jump into bed?  Rush on out?  Eat a carrot?  We stopped short of some frightening implications about one little man alone in a world of rhinoceroses.  What should the last scene of the play say?  Or do?  Or imply?

Instead of discussing each person’s work individually in this, I have tried to clarify an overall approach to Ionesco in the hope you would apply it specifically.  Because I have discussed flaws, means only that we still have much to learn;  but you are well on your way to achieving style.  The objective of this discussion is to sharpen your awareness of what is involved in style and encourage you to work toward it. 

LIFE WITH FATHER

This play is so well constructed that it is excellent for actors and directors to study for fundamentals of dramatic principles.  An actor may do a brilliant characterization, a director may produce brilliant business and stage pictures, all of which -- acting and directing -- maybe come to nothing unless there is an awareness and an adherence to structure and design.  Lindsay and Crouse created a tight structure: every laugh is carefully set up, every event is logically prepared for.  Because their characters and situations are real and believable the audience is unaware of the structure.  Actors and directors cannot afford to be unaware.  If they are unaware of design and structure the drama sprawls, meanders, has occasional high moments but plays with diminishing returns.  When structure is observed audience enjoyment mounts with each sequence for the audience feels it has foreseen what suddenly unexpectedly comes off.  They are delighted with their ability to add up -- the “funding” is sheer delight.  Characterization is important, feeling and responding are important, all the outer techniques are important, but remember than they can come to nothing without this sense of structure, of setting up, of preparing for discoveries.  You did a good job of this in performance; some stress and strain and anguish might have been eliminated if you had all been aware of structure earlier, for when that awareness is present, the drama begins to play itself.  You may have faith in your playwright, when you are capable of recognizing his form and when you recognize the importance of observing that form.  The actor is a creator of character -- yes, but never forget he is a communicator and brilliance of characterization is ineffective unless it is effectively communicated.

Characterization was excellent on the part of everyone throughout.  with more time a fuller pattern of people living together might have developed; little touches of family living: checking on the boys’ sex, tying up shoestrings, picking dry petals off a plant, etc. -- we were still too concerned with the main line of action to develop the accompanying incidentals, but nonetheless you created a believable Day family.  With regard to structure, Tom sets up the circumstance, follows through it and clinches it very successfully.  He does a good job of pointing up the initial step, if planting the necessary fact.  Having done that he follows through casually and is socked in the middle by the unexpected result.  He then plays the surprise, lets it accumulate and then collapses.  He plants lines and ideas excellently -- sometimes a little too forcefully.  He lands lines well -- sometimes too hard -- (keep a light snap in the end).  He is particularly good playing in response to whatever happens at the moment, and so there is always a freshness and unexpectedness in his performance.  With this resource he can’t go stale.  Sometimes he over stresses: if you have used a vocal device to point a word or idea, do not use a physical one too.  If you have used a physical means underscore vocally.  This is a safe rule to follow.  There will be exceptions to it, times when both are needed, but don’t make the exception the rule -- too many of you distract from your vocal pointing by physical excesses.  Galati’s work became much better as he did less and less, and in the end he gave a fine performance.  He has a fine sense of structure when he governs his excesses.  He has a fine sense of comedy when he disciplines voice and body.  He has a good grasp of character which he can communicate well when he observes the disciplines of coordinating lines and business.

Cora was delightfully played and played for delight.  Yvonne’s characterization made it clear why Mr. Day could not abide the woman, but her sheer vitality, sparkle and charm afforded a wonderful opposite to Day and to Vinnie.  Yvonne plays with brilliance, clarity, with a comic sense that reaches the balcony.  She responds in character to everything and to everyone, and she wears clothes with style.  Only one distraction: excessive emphasis with hand gesticulation.  You don’t need this extraneous emphasis, Yvonne.  Mary was a joy.  Leigh lets things happen to her and she responds “naturally” spontaneously and with a good sense of theatre -- what she does, what she feels is communicated with care and with telling effect.  Her senses are alert and responsive -- she was Mary.  The episodes with Chris were delightfully played, especially after they both just let them play.  Chris, for the most part, was Clarence Jr.  Occasionally, with Father, for instance, certain lines betrayed a studied quality -- a desire for a certain effect which did not quite come off.  It’s all right to play how a line should be spoken for its maximum effect providing that you can then forget that you planned it.  Acquire the habit of going to the end of a line, of ending it with a slight snap, but then to just let it happen.  Your mind and body are so lively and responsive you don’t have to manipulate them; now let your speech come forth equally free and trust your theatre know how to point lines.  There isn’t one single way to punch or plant a comedy line.  Sometimes you must experiment, but always there must be surprise: a surprise evokes it.  You know the means used to deliver a comedy line, now trust your knowledge and just respond to what is going on -- play everything with the care of the Mary sequence.

Pam started the play with good specific business and excellent comic concentration.  Margaret was a good contrast and opposite.  Mary’s characterizations always the authority of totality and opposite.  She plays through beautifully and carries scenes offstage.  Once in a while she doesn’t quite punch the end of a line before taking off.  If you have to speak while walking upstage be sure to give lines a good toss back over the shoulder.  Mary’s Margaret gave a nice note of stability and permanence to the household.  She created a fully dimensional character one remembers.  Bambi still needs to learn split second timing.  If she achieves it in “Rhinoceros” it should carry over to realism.  The reaction to “prettier” emotionally was right; the frozen arrest missed by a beat.  Nora’s click of a silver dish in response was accurate to the second and Marianne knows how to achieve focus by doing nothing.  Suzie’s maid needed more focus on her essential characterization.  Perhaps we needed to have her give father a sunny smile.

Barbara’s work is difficult to analyze since it is basically very fine.  The character she creates is believable and fully dimensional.  she has charm, vitality and magnetism on stage.  If she can bring down the house each night with landing each line yet responding realistically, she must have a sense of comedy and of comedy technique.  Then what stands in her way?  Partly, perhaps, the paradox of illusion and reality that all acting must be.  Barbara achieves the reality but doesn’t always magnify it to the proportions of the theatre.  Lines in addition to their realism must be pointed, must adhere to the structure of the drama by closing a sequence, by telegraphing a plot development.  In improvisations strict realism is adhered to in order to develop all facets of character.  This phase Barbara does beautifully.  Her conflicts start with full rehearsals when form must be given to the realism.  The opening scene always seemed difficult.  It came out best the night after we did the vaudeville stunts which were pure theatre.  On Friday night she came closest to achieving the balance between realism and theatre.  Tones were bright, lines were tossed up, the sense of comedy prevailed and Vinnie’s anxiety was no longer actress anxiety.  Barbara in working on a role needs to mix reality and theatre from the beginning: inner motivation with objective communication of the traits developed.  Like Chris, Barbara too needs to respond spontaneously on stage.  Create the character, then trust the character to respond.  Discover the patterns of response -- vocal and physical -- then trust those patterns to respond.  Almost never should one plan to say lines in a specific manner.  Such a procedure results in a studied performance, lacking the surprise which is drama.  Alternatives are present in every moment.  The choice between these alternatives has to be made on the spot, at the moment.  Barbara too often acts in the past tense: her choices were made in her private rehearsals.  They do not occur on stage in response to what someone has said or done or a tone of voice, or a look in the eye.  Never concentrate on how you are going to plan a scene:  let it happen, and happen to scale of the theatre.  You played the last act scenes beautifully.  Use them as your models.  The doctors were played with nice authority: all proportions exactly right.  A most successful and satisfying opening.

HENRY IV

It is difficult to strike exactly the right balance between theatricality and intellectual content.  The audience must be gripped by the sheer theatricality of Pirandello.  He aims to upset conventional theatre reactions; he wants to shock (somewhat as Shaw does), to startle, to horrify, to entertain through pure theatre.  He is not concerned with the actualities of life, but rather with the realities which, paradoxically, can best be revealed through theatrical illusion.  His purpose, however, is not entertainment only; the entertainment must carry realization of the tragedy of men i his mad world.  Drama of idea in a highly theatrical framework -- that Pirandello.

In review, it seems that the opening night performance most effectively achieved this brilliance: it was gripping, shocking, stimulating, provoking and disturbing in its implications.  It precipitated us into a mad world and jarred us with its intimation of causes. You all played with an immediacy of the moment.  It was high voltage drama you created -- shock upon shock: realities in a highly theatrical sense.  Perhaps Pirandello ideas could have been pointed more, I thought at the time.  In retrospect, however, they are more startling than in the later performances.  All performances were gripping, all were interesting, but Wednesday was the most brilliant in all respects.  After Wednesday you lost the (?) of those first realizations, first meetings until Saturday night, you were doing a "remembered" drama, slow and, except for the last act, untheatrical.  You were not releasing audience reactions, not providing relief from tension through laughter as you did on opening night and to some extent on every night but the last.  This release from tension is imperative.  I am not speaking of playing for laughter, but of keeping a snap in line, which can relieve excessive tension.  Lines were broken up too much, played too slowly and terminated, too often, without point.

Jim gave a consistently fine performance.  His doctor was exceptionally Pirandello: the essence of concern with psychiatry, rather than with the human dilemma, the irony of the mad attempting to cure the mad with no concern for human values, no understanding of the real dilemma, no real grasp of the facts which concern them so mightily.  Jim, in every way, from make-up to projection of character traits, vividly presented the greyness of age, the monotone of existence, the emptiness of life without human concern.  Jim's Doctor will stay in our minds as a Pirandello mask labeled psychiatrists -- mask and face have become one.

Belcredi was an excellent creation, too -- a Pirandello figure.  Perhaps there was still too much life in him, too much participation in life and Marshall sometimes over-emphasizes, but he kept the conflict of the drama motivated from the Belcredi angle, he kept is progressing to his death.

Katina did not match Marshall in decadence.  She created aristocracy, scorn, snobbishness, but never the dissoluteness that no mask of aristocracy can cover.  Katina will have to see some of these people, observe them closely, identify with them.  Yes: their spines are erect, but other muscles have sagged, shoulders have sagged a little.  Yest, they walk in straight lines but their very well-shod feet are set down, controlled a little too consciously, too steadily; their too well-kept hands are limp, bracelets and rings weigh them down, they grip things loosely, let go too easily.  "Marchioness" is the label for this decay: when Belcredi and the Marchioness look at each other, it is like looking in a mirror -- they see themselves, are repelled, want to smash the mirror, but have not the vitality to do so.  When Henry looks at them he sees the horror of decay.  Katina knew all this but she did not let her body create it.  And so, too often, she seemed a bystander in the action rather than a central motivation.  Again, I wonder whether Katina truly seems the image of the role she is creating.  Study people and their behavior, Katina, in life, in books, on the stage.  Your mechanics have improved although you do not always relate to others on stage and to objects, but chiefly you need depth in perception.

Both Vance and Claris admirably portrayed these two young beings with no purpose beyond the moment.  Both Claris and Vance act with fine incisiveness, with energy, with economy.

The counselors worked well as a group, established yough, indifference, acting and reality. We made a mistake, I think, in not making or keeping them continental.  They got more American each night.  Guard against our colloquialisms:  "It sure is," etc.  Perhaps it was the Striglos influence.  He did a good job of creating the new coming, he played well the essentials, landed his lines, responded to the situation -- good acting except for looking down too much.  But his speech is too mid-West American in quality and in colloquial phrasing.  Learn a stage diction that will pass anywhere in the world as good speech, but will not tie you to a particular locale.  You can always go back to the provincial as part of characterization.  For all plays in translation, use standard stage speech.

Dennis' work was brilliant, in every sense: acting, interpretation, grasp -- brilliant.  He has an imagination which responds quickly to every suggestion and it works in a straight line to a specific goal; it is free yet disciplined.  It is creative, yet it follows the playwright.  He is fortunate, too, in that he has a playwright's mind.  He has a sense of words, their connotations, so his lines have intensified meaning.  And he has a voice which is flexible and interesting and moving.  His rational tones can be more edged, more stripped of emotional nuances, but his voice and diction are important assets.  Dennis has the ability to conceive a character in his mind and instantly this character becomes a complete physical entity.  It does not stay in his head; it moves, talks, becomes an organic whole.  This is the way an actor must function: ideas must instantaneously become action.  Too many of you think too much of what to do.  Be receptive to impressions from life, books, etc.; store them up, trust your imagination to tap these resources and train your bodies and your voices to respond immediately.  Dennis has done this: his acting has brilliance.  During the run of the play he fell into the habit of breaking up lines too much, playing them too weightily.  If we only had time, we should have a quick Friday rehearsal to eliminate bad timing.  But HENRY was always compelling performance because Dennis' thought processes were compelling even when theatrical timing was off.  Remember your first night and recreate this joy of acting in all that you do.
pset conventional theatre reactions; he wants to shock (somewhat as Shaw does), to startle, to horrify, to entertain through pure theatre.  He is not concerned with the actualities of life, but rather with the realities which, paradoxically, can best be revealed through theatrical illusion.  His purpose, however, is not entertainment only; the entertainment must carry realization of the tragedy of men i his mad world.  Drama of idea in a highly theatrical framework -- that Pirandello.

In review, it seems that the opening night performance most effectively achieved this brilliance: it was gripping, shocking, stimulating, provoking and disturbing in its implications.  It precipitated us into a mad world and jarred us with its intimation of causes. You all played with an immediacy of the moment.  It was high voltage drama you created -- shock upon shock: realities in a highly theatrical sense.  Perhaps Pirandello ideas could have been pointed more, I thought at the time.  In retrospect, however, they are more startling than in the later performances.  All performances were gripping, all were interesting, but Wednesday was the most brilliant in all respects.  After Wednesday you lost the (?) of those first realizations, first meetings until Saturday night, you were doing a "remembered" drama, slow and, except for the last act, untheatrical.  You were not releasing audience reactions, not providing relief from tension through laughter as you did on opening night and to some extent on every night but the last.  This release from tension is imperative.  I am not speaking of playing for laughter, but of keeping a snap in line, which can relieve excessive tension.  Lines were broken up too much, played too slowly and terminated, too often, without point.

Jim gave a consistently fine performance.  His doctor was exceptionally Pirandello: the essence of concern with psychiatry, rather than with the human dilemma, the irony of the mad attempting to cure the mad with no concern for human values, no understanding of the real dilemma, no real grasp of the facts which concern them so mightily.  Jim, in every way, from make-up to projection of character traits, vividly presented the greyness of age, the monotone of existence, the emptiness of life without human concern.  Jim's Doctor will stay in our minds as a Pirandello mask labeled psychiatrists -- mask and face have become one.

Belcredi was an excellent creation, too -- a Pirandello figure.  Perhaps there was still too much life in him, too much participation in life and Marshall sometimes over-emphasizes, but he kept the conflict of the drama motivated from the Belcredi angle, he kept is progressing to his death.

Katina did not match Marshall in decadence.  She created aristocracy, scorn, snobbishness, but never the dissoluteness that no mask of aristocracy can cover.  Katina will have to see some of these people, observe them closely, identify with them.  Yes: their spines are erect, but other muscles have sagged, shoulders have sagged a little.  Yest, they walk in straight lines but their very well-shod feet are set down, controlled a little too consciously, too steadily; their too well-kept hands are limp, bracelets and rings weigh them down, they grip things loosely, let go too easily.  "Marchioness" is the label for this decay: when Belcredi and the Marchioness look at each other, it is like looking in a mirror -- they see themselves, are repelled, want to smash the mirror, but have not the vitality to do so.  When Henry looks at them he sees the horror of decay.  Katina knew all this but she did not let her body create it.  And so, too often, she seemed a bystander in the action rather than a central motivation.  Again, I wonder whether Katina truly seems the image of the role she is creating.  Study people and their behavior, Katina, in life, in books, on the stage.  Your mechanics have improved although you do not always relate to others on stage and to objects, but chiefly you need depth in perception.

Both Vance and Claris admirably portrayed these two young beings with no purpose beyond the moment.  Both Claris and Vance act with fine incisiveness, with energy, with economy.

The counselors worked well as a group, established yough, indifference, acting and reality. We made a mistake, I think, in not making or keeping them continental.  They got more American each night.  Guard against our colloquialisms:  "It sure is," etc.  Perhaps it was the Striglos influence.  He did a good job of creating the new coming, he played well the essentials, landed his lines, responded to the situation -- good acting except for looking down too much.  But his speech is too mid-West American in quality and in colloquial phrasing.  Learn a stage diction that will pass anywhere in the world as good speech, but will not tie you to a particular locale.  You can always go back to the provincial as part of characterization.  For all plays in translation, use standard stage speech.

Dennis' work was brilliant, in every sense: acting, interpretation, grasp -- brilliant.  He has an imagination which responds quickly to every suggestion and it works in a straight line to a specific goal; it is free yet disciplined.  It is creative, yet it follows the playwright.  He is fortunate, too, in that he has a playwright's mind.  He has a sense of words, their connotations, so his lines have intensified meaning.  And he has a voice which is flexible and interesting and moving.  His rational tones can be more edged, more stripped of emotional nuances, but his voice and diction are important assets.  Dennis has the ability to conceive a character in his mind and instantly this character becomes a complete physical entity.  It does not stay in his head; it moves, talks, becomes an organic whole.  This is the way an actor must function: ideas must instantaneously become action.  Too many of you think too much of what to do.  Be receptive to impressions from life, books, etc.; store them up, trust your imagination to tap these resources and train your bodies and your voices to respond immediately.  Dennis has done this: his acting has brilliance.  During the run of the play he fell into the habit of breaking up lines too much, playing them too weightily.  If we only had time, we should have a quick Friday rehearsal to eliminate bad timing.  But HENRY was always compelling performance because Dennis' thought processes were compelling even when theatrical timing was off.  Remember your first night and recreate this joy of acting in all that you do.