Sparse Doings

Even after just two rehearsal nights, I already have an appreciation for my nights off. We ate at the local Mexican restaurant (while there are three, we only ever eat at one), and Your Sis went to bed. She was headed for a quick sleep but was distracted by a PBS special on warplanes, and we cuddled on the couch. Military porn brings a couple together, you know. After she was tucked away, I worked on new comic project that's so brilliant that I dare not mention it online.

Moving Picture of the Day
The brilliant "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker" campaign from Reebok. The shorter version remains my favorite Super Bowl ad ever.



In The News
For a long time, conservative talk-show hosts have blamed administration ineptitude on White House moles embarrassing them with leaked documents. While I'm never one to give them credence, the emergence of a memo defining Iraq's prime minister as useless just hours before Bush was to meet the man raises eyebrows. The planned extended summit became a curtailed conference, and Malakhi bailed on a planned event with Bush and the press yesterday. Did someone sabotage the meeting or does this underscore suspected bureaucratic incompetence in the executive branch? This couldn't have happened at a worse time. A bipartisan panel is about to announce its recommendations on Iraq, and, reportedly , they will say we need to leave. Also a clutch of Iraqi officials (including six cabinet ministers and 30 congressmen) boycotted the prime minister for talking to Bush. It sounds like both sides recognize the PM should be ditched, but he was elected. We made a huge deal about free elections in Iraq. How do we maintain that support for the process but not the result? My cynicism says we should watch for some type of scandal that will remove him from power.

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Speaking of cynicsm and jaw-dropping administration policies, check out this transcript of a press briefing as Tony Snow and adviser Dan Bartlett change identifications and become Senior Administration Officials to avoid connecting them to their comments on Iraq. If you go here, you can see more examples of the White House issuing transcripts without identifying the official liaison to the press.

Day Two: Act One

It's a smaller crowd today as we go through Act One. Except for short interruptions by Gooper's wife, mom and kids, this is all Brick and Maggie, and Maggie easily dominates. As I flip through the script, Act One runs from page 17 to 63, and I'd say 75% of the text is Maggie's lines. I think we have a good Maggie, someone who can (as Williams commands in his stage directions) hold the tension until the first intermission. Williams also says she has to talk in a sing style, always a little out of breath, and with the cadence of a liturgical preacher. This constraint of style seems daunting at first. Williams is known for psychological realism but character abstraction. This means movement and dialogue may seem nonlinear and even nonsensical, but the cumulative emotional wallop is supposed to ring true. And our reads prove that despite Brick virtually ending every sentence in Act One with "Maggie" and her tendency to sway so quickly from resolved to silky to frail to desperate. From what I've heard so far from our Maggie, she can pull it off.

So tonight it's her, Brick, Mae, Mama, Doc Baugh, and me. Baugh and Gooper do not appear onstage but act as a Greek chorus with their comments outside the mansion. While Brick and Maggie argue about securing Big Daddy's estate or having kids, everyone else is outside playing croquet and making parallel comments about competition and strategy. The actor playing another character, Reverend Tooker, has yet to appear as he has a family illness to contend with. Susan the stage manager reads his lines and that of the kids.

Before we start, Leslie the director offers his philosophy on direction. There is no finalized version of the production in his head, and we're free to work with him to create our characters. For the leads, well, they're pretty well defined. But the supporting actors have leeway, and he notes that kind of freedom can terrify volunteer actors. I've seen that before. Some folks, while they enjoy the rigors of performing, want to follow a strict definition provided by the director. Without it, they become anxious, and that makes for insecurity among the cast. How much can they allow for accidents and the chemistry and performer? Is that person gonna freeze up? Can they adapt onstage to mishaps? I have no idea if we have any such people in this cast, but everyone seems experienced enough for that to be a concern. They don't know me, however, so I need to prove quickly that I'm not a loose cannon (the original definition, not the '80s cop movie version).

I look forward to building Mae and Gooper with Lysa. She seems sharp and clever, and I think we'll be able to define these characters into something fun to play even if we avoid obvious comic relief. They have to be conniving and unctuous to contrast with the sex and power of Brick and Maggie. Ideally Gooper should be a short, fat guy. But I can bring a desperation to the role that underscores his need to prove himself against Brick's universal appeal. Leslie makes reference to "unschooling," a home-schooling theory of allowing the student to pursue his own studies of interest. That's what we'll do here with some discipline when necessary.

He notes that this is the third version of the script Williams created, and this debuted for a 1974 New York production starring Fred Gynne (Munsters, My Cousin Vinny) as Big Daddy. I would have paid big money to see that. Because times had changed since the original stagings, Williams could add harsh language, but he didn't change the details about Skipper and Brick's alleged homosexuality. He wanted it vague, but in my readings I think Brick is proven to be a heterosexual but sensitive man lost in social standards of machismo. He never fucked Skipper, and I don't think he would ever have considered it. But do we keep that rough language? We'll see.

We talk about the setting of the play, and Leslie thinks 1950. But some of us get confused in the references to pro football, television, and specific places. This is a needless concern for me. We all agree that Williams doesn't stick to physical realism. In Glass Menagerie, he commands that the events proceed in a dream-like fashion as the play resides totally in memory. This production should exploit the hazy establishment of place and time, to be as mercurial as Maggie's logic, Big Daddy's passion, and Brick's confidence. We're not sure what music to play before the curtain rises, and Victoria offers to Google some time-appropriate tunes. I'd go with Ray Charles, the early stuff.

During the read-through tonight, Gooper is mentioned more than he speaks, and I note the comments made by Maggie. Before you ever see Gooper, you hate him. Maggie denounces his horrible children and obvious movements to take the estate. It's a lot like my role in Glass Menagerie; the gentleman caller is built up for an hour before he walks onstage so you got to live up to that. Gooper's offstage lines here are pleads for Mae and Mama to come back outside, and I can deliver them in high and whiny Southern tones. That's my plan now, but of course as we mold the play, that may change.

I get a rehearsal schedule for the next two weeks and see I have, in that period) only three more dates to rehearse Acts One and Two. That gives me a lot of time at home to memorize the lines. That'll be easy. I also learn this is the third time our Big Daddy has played the part, and I confess to the assembled that I was terrified he was bringing that kind of resonance to a cold reading, a measure of how much he would eclipse whatever skill I may have. Thankfully, no, so the chasm between us isn't that broad. That curtails a measure of intimidation I have working with this group.

What I feel mostly is a rush of glee. I'm back in a theatre, and we're working as a group to put on a show. This is exhilarating.

Day One: The Read Through

Last night saw the beginning of the rehearsals for the play. The curtain opens on Jan. 19, giving us just under two months to be ready. While that will not be a problem for me, the principals will have to shoehorn in a shitload of monologues into their brains. Maggie and Big Daddy especially talk and talk and talk some more. I actually feel a little bad for the guy playing Brick; he has to spend the majority of stage time listening, which can be boring for an actor.

And just so we're all on the same page, here's what happens in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof:

Maggie and husband Brick are staying at his father's house for the latter's 65-year birthday party. Big Daddy owns land, lots of land, under sunny skies above, but doesn't know he's been diagnosed with cancer. Neither does his wife. In fact, they've been told the opposite; Big Daddy thinks he only has a spastic colon but otherwise is in prime health.

Brick's brother Gooper and his wife Mae are positioning themselves to get Daddy's estate. To that end, they have plopped out five children (with another on the way) and sucked up to Daddy and Mama. Brick and Maggie have no kids and many suspect he's gay. He won't even sleep in the same bed with Maggie and has started rinking heavily. The gossip is that Brick lost his will to live after the death of his best friend (and suspected lover) Skipper. In many ways, Brick is barely present. He just wants to drink himself into tranquility. This is why much of his time is spent listening to his wife and father ramble on about his decline.

Big Daddy confronts Brick about this and forces Brick to admit Skipper's death has diminished him, but Brick states Skipper's friendship was the only good thing he had in his life. He can't stand Maggie. And because Daddy wrenches info out of him, Brick drops the cancer bomb on him. Daddy goes apeshit. Mama has to be told of the cancer, and moments later Gooper and his wife swoop in to make their pitch for the estate. Mama is in hysterics. Daddy confronts his children, but Maggie has her ace card: She tells Daddy she's pregnant with Brick's child (a lie). Gooper and Mae are outraged. Daddy and Mama are giddy. Maggie then locks away the liquor and tells Brick he can only get to drinking again is he makes a baby with her and then they can get Daddy's estate. Brick surrenders to Maggie. Da end.

I was anxious all day to get started. My stomach was a mess, and I had a headache from my perpetual vibrations. I hadn't done a play since April 2004, and this is my first work with this group, a theatre whose work I've ever seen. I don't even know what the performance space looks like. I arrived a little early last night and met Victoria, the lady who escorted the applicants to the audition room. I also meet Linda, the costumer. She and Victoria cackle it up, and I hang back. We move to the audition room which is now our rehearsal space. We set up chairs and tables as other members of the cast arrive. I know no one, and short introductions are made.

I've seen some of these folks before. All the actresses in my last reading of Gooper were cast in the parts they read. The gal playing my wife, Mae, is a spitfire; she added some sass to Mae that could leads us to more comedic performances. And that's fine. The play will need some comic relief and this scheming, sniping couple can be it. Think the Thenardiers from Les Miserables. Or Frank and Hot Lips from the first seasons of MASH. In fact, the latter parallel is not far off at all. Just like those two bitching to Col. Blake about Hawkeye, we go running to Big Daddy to whine about Brick, the drinking golden child who doesn't have to play by the rules. All the while both couples want the boss figure to vanish so the whiny male can take over.

Turns out the calendars we picked up at auditions are for theatre availability, not cast times, and the director will arrive half an hour after us. Linda measures us for costumes. I may get a bowtie, and that's fine because I know how to tie one after Glass Menagerie.

The director arrives and we're introduced to each other and the crew. Some of the kids are there. The actress playing Big Mama has a son who will play one of Gooper's "no-neck monsters." I give a small wave. The actress playing Mae sits next to them to get acquainted. we move into the lobby to see the mock-up of the stage, and it looks great. Williams was very specific of his sets and stage directions (there's a page-long block of text describing Brick's emotional turmoil), and the stage looks very Williamsy.

We move back to the rehearsal room and begin the run-through. Susan the stage manager times us. Act One clocks in at 42 minutes, Act Two at 53, and Act Three at 35. Maggie, a gal from Wisconsin, has a genuinely sexy lilt to her Southern accent, and a clear stage voice. She's a good choice. Big Daddy is played by a man who performed the role before (where, I don't know), and he is delivering a top-notch acting job during our first read. Everyone strikes me as solid. Gooper has a few lines scattered about until Act Three, and then he makes his sales pitch and barks at Mae. One of the Gooper children is brought in to read her small part, and she promptly skedaddles afterward.

But Brick's actor has a pronounced New York accent. And while he's doing some fair Southern enunciations, that accent comes through when Brick's mad. Especially when Brick says "fucking." And hearing this sparks the petty brain voices that say "you could have read that bit better, you could have really hit that delivery." And this isn't fair to him or me. I'm happy with Gooper. It's a sterling asshole role, and this guy looks like a Brick should. He's tall, he's handsome, he has strong eyes. But we're gonna have to work on that accent.

I don't chat too much during our first night. I watch the other people and pick up their dynamics. I'm going to buddy up with the Mae actress, obviously, and eventually that will spill over to the rest of the cast. I don't believe one has to extend any acting method to mirror their character's relationships with that of his to the other actors. I believe a close company will be more comfortable on stage. If they trust you, they don't have to worry about you onstage. That's important. I learn the Brick guy did a play in Brevard with the actor playing Doc Baugh. He comments on the commute from Asheville, the same commute I have to work. He also mentions a Brevard theatre snafu that saw a performance scheduled on the same night as a wedding in the same rented rooms. That show had to move to a matinée, and now I'm very glad I didn't try to work with that company.

The read ends at 9:45ish, and we close up for the day. The director (his name's Leslie) tells us we'll start work on Act One tomorrow. Probably simple blocking and character progressions. Big Daddy is excused for Tuesday as he's not in that act. That actor asks about pronunciations for certain proper names like Louisiana. We need to be consistent. He also asks about the harsh language. Can we say fuck and nigger? Should we say the latter after the Michael Richards incident? What about "field hand" instead? Leslie says we'll decide later. Linda walks in and admits that she had a problem with the language during our reading and objects to "goddamn." She deems it against a commandment (which it isn't), and she notes people objected to it in a run of Menagerie ten years back. She's afraid of people leaving. She's afraid of losing their audience of respectable older patrons. Leslie notes that no one walked out during their mush more recent run of A Few Good Men. Linda pushes her point, and the actors are noticeable tensing. It's not that we don't think Linda shouldn't be concerned, but she's harping now. And it's not her call. Leslie says a decision will be made later, and that gives us a chance to withdraw.

I walk out with the Brick actor (I'll have names as soon as I learn them), and we congratulate each other on tonight's reading. I get home about 10:50, scarf a bag of popcorn, chat with Your Sister, and go to bed.

You can see pics of some of my earlier productions here.

Traveling Weekend

Your Sis and I work well on a lot of levels, but maybe the most convenient is that we travel so easily together. A six-hour car ride with her just flies by even if we're quiet. A fine time was had by all this Thanksgiving at Your Brother's house. He fried a turkey very well, and we ate dinner around 4 p.m. It was a huge spread, and I'm borrowing recipes to make the side dishes for my parents at Christmas. We spent that Thursday evening having drinks on the back porch and playing with Your Brother's thermal vision goggles. Brooke is assimilating everything she hears. I have no clue how bright 22-month-old girls are supposed to be, but she may wreck the curve. She understands directions and the gist of conversations, it seems. She strikes me as perceptive. Also, cute as hell.

We all ate at a local Mexican restaurant Friday night before returning to their house for an unscheduled foosball tournament. Your Sis and I played a bit before letting Your Brother in against the winner, and then Your Dad joined in and we split into teams. When Andrea came down the two of us played against them and were demolished right quick. I never played before, and it was fun. For ten minutes, we weren't in-laws or parents or spouses, but four young people playing a game, and it was spirited and loose. Maybe my best memory of the trip.

We left Saturday morning for home after having breakfast with Your Parents. We stopped by My Parents to take them out for dinner, and we talked about the upcoming play (rehearsals start tonight) and the new James Bond film, Casino Royale.

This is a good Bond film. Daniel Craig is asked to do things other Bonds were not, and he makes for a good new version of the character. It's as shocking a change from Brosnan's style as Moore's was from Connery's, but I wish Brosnan could have had his chance at the film. I think he could have done well. Craig's appeal is that he isn't a prettyboy, but that in no way diminishes his appeal. It adds grit, and the film maintains a new realism because of his work. An early parkour stunt sequence steals the film, but the low-key scenes of quiet tension (either sexual or combative) hold your attention just as well. This is the goods.

We got home about 10:30 and crashed hard into the bed. I spent most of Sunday helping Your Sis correct rough drafts of student papers while watching football.

The NFL
Her Teams
New England (8-3), NY Jets (6-5), Oakland (2-9)
Philly (5-6), Detroit (2-9)

My Teams
Miami (5-6), Pittsburgh (4-7)
Philly (5-6), Carolina (6-5)

Carolina couldn't beat a weak Washington team, Pittsburgh was killed by Baltimore, and the Patriots beat an energetic Chicago team in a game filled with turnovers.

Picture of the Day
Found on a Russian LiveJournal blog. No idea where it comes from.