Reviews. Cymbeline. Directing.

When I'm criticized in a review, I take it very seriously, as I'm sure most performers do. Much like life in general, in performance, many of us compare our outtakes to everyone else's highlight reel - our worst against their best. There's an insecurity, even when we've spent an enormous amount of time and effort developing general skills and doing specific work on the particular piece at issue. Also, I always suspect everyone will read a review and take every word in it as gospel. I'm not sure why, since I don't do that. So, all of that being said, it's a great feeling to get a good review. But it's a strange, bittersweet feeling when you do a show and the review is very positive about your performance but not a good review of the show overall. My attitude on good reviews is not to give them much weight at all. I generally try to ignore them, because I want to minimize the gutting feeling of getting a bad one. Obviously, this came up because of a recent review: MUCH-ADO-ABOUT-NOTHING-Features-Strong-Leads-but-a-Few-Flaws

Speaking of challenges, I'm preparing to direct Cymbeline. I like to read as much as I can about a play while I'm working on it. Criticism, historical context, whatever seems relevant to the play at issue. With a play like Cymbeline, there isn't a lot out there. One thing that I find really intriguing is the significance of the location of Milford-Haven. It's significant for one reason that I think probably would have been known to Shakespeare - it's where Henry Tudor landed when he returned from the continent to challenge Richard III for the crown. The play seems very much *about* Britain - the word Britain appears numerous times in the text. I'm pretty sure this is no coincidence, but I just haven't quite connected all the dots yet.

But on to the challenges. Aside from the obvious (Jupiter appears, riding an eagle), I think I may struggle with getting enough men to even do the show. The theatre is in a small town outside of Austin. The team down there is really good, the space is really good. The distance will probably scare some people off, though. Which gives me another challenge - how to combine roles, gender swap characters in a non-confusing way, double parts, or cut the play to minimize the number of actors necessary.

Something I've been wanting to write about for a while is a reminder to myself before the Cymbeline auditions. Kind of a little manifesto for casting. My job as director is to put the best show on stage that I can. In order to do that, I need to get as much of a sense of what actors are capable of as possible. That means that I need to make them comfortable in the audition room. I need to give them a sense of what I'm looking for in various parts, rather than just expecting them to read my mind. I need to give them direction in the audition, to see how well they can adjust and change. And I also need to keep my mind open to different interpretations of characters. All of this, of course, is balanced against a REALLY short time with each person. But my job is to do those things as much as possible in the short time I get with each person. if I don't, I do a disservice to the show and to every person in it.

Poor Shadows of Elysium: 2014 "Season"

We don't really have "seasons" per se, because we're all pretty busy with many projects, so we do shows as a company on more of an ad hoc basis. With that said, We're thrilled to announce that we'll be presenting William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra at the Trinity Street Playhouse in April of 2014.

We're still working out a few details so we can't announce the venue yet, but sometime in late January or early February, I'm planning to direct John Lyly's Gallathea. I'm pretty excited about this show. It meets all of the requirements I was looking for in our next show: an early modern play, not by Shakespeare, that features several women in prominent roles. Since Lyly wrote for companies composed of boys, instead of adults, I guess he could have many more convincing ladies on stage than the adult troupes could. The play is in prose (for which Lyly was famous), which is another difference from the all-verse Richard II. The play also shows an early modern perspective on gender that I think modern audiences may find surprising.

By the way, I'm also playing Benedick in Much Ado, which opens in a few weeks. After that, I'll direct Cymbeline at the EmilyAnn. Then, I'll direct another show with an October/November run time. I can't say what it is yet - the company hasn't announced their season. I'll post it when I can.

The Deadly Theatre

I recently finished Peter Brook's The Empty Space. Mr. Brook is brilliant, and his insights are amazing. The text was written, I think, as a rant or thought experiment. As a practical text, I think it's not particularly useful. I couldn't help thinking that (as I was fist-pumping the air at some of the things he said), that many people who create what Brook refers to as "Deadly Theatre" would probably have the same reaction to the book, because their perception of their work is completely different.

A complaint I often have when I see a blockbuster action movie is that it looks like an excuse to string together a few action sequences. The fact that there is a much simpler solution to the problems set up in the film doesn't matter. Neither do story or character, for the most part. I've seen a lot of theatre that I think operates under a similar approach. People have schtick that they want to do as part of the play. Before long, the schtick devours the entire play. Somewhere along the line, what might have been funny once in rehearsal devours the entire show. The play ceases to be about the characters or the truth of the scene. It becomes about the gag. This reminds me of the scene from This Is Spinal Tap about the amps that go to eleven.  Marty DiBergi says, "Why don't you just make ten louder, and have THAT be the loudest?" I want to say to people, "Why don't you just make the PLAY funny? Make the situation written be the funny thing?"

I'm not one of those people that think Hamlet's advice to the players is a sacred acting treatise from Shakespeare to us. It's not intended that way. It's part of a play - it has context. Taking it out of context and holding it up as truth is risky. But that's a subject for another post. I don't mean to suggest that Hamlet's  advice doesn't contains some great stuff. It does. In a realistic theatre, holding the mirror up to nature is something to which we should all aspire. When making an acting choice, I think you should always ask yourself, "Is this true? Is what I'm doing motivated by the character, or am I doing this just because it'll get a laugh?" It has to come from inside the character, not from some meta-theatrical choice designed to provoke a reaction - unless you're approaching the text in a non-realistic way to begin with, which is something entirely different.

Taking this from a musical standpoint, when a student learns to play guitar, they will frequently learn a few licks - little phrases that commonly show up in blues. When the student starts to play a solo, they play these licks, and the licks sound good, because they're all in the right key. But they aren't music. They're building blocks, stuck together in sequence. You have to learn to stop playing licks and start playing melodies. Just my opinion, of course, but I feel like there are a lot of actors who just play licks.

Look for the truth, in the character, in the scene, and in the play. Keep in mind the BIG picture - the overall story you're telling. How does your character fit into that? You're a piece of a machine - one player on a team. Keep your focus on these things. That's my goal, and a piece of unsolicited advice.