Letters to Holly

Friday, December 8

Reason #7,412 Why Your Sister Rocks

She bought two small pizzas, wrapped them in foil, and sneaked them into Casino Royale last night. Her return from Africa has made her a bona fide smuggler. We saw the movie with Kathy who was desperate to get out of her newly-infested-with-baby house.. It was her first time and our second. They giggled like schoolgirls over Daniel Craig the whole time. The film holds up on second viewing, and its quality in direction shines.

I slept in the Sick Bed last night as I fear the Gooper children brought a bug to the rehearsals. I'm feeling weird in the head.

Picture of the Day
New pictures from the third Pirates movie are leaking online. This came from a Russian site. Apparently the gang heads toward China.

Thursday, December 7

Day Four: Talking It Through

This evening is a full Act Two run-through, and everyone in the act is supposed to be there. We are joined by the child actors for their brief appearance. The Gooper kids are to sing happy birthday to Big Daddy and follow that with a little crap ditty called Skinamrinka-Dinka-Dink. You've never heard a more interminable song made up of twenty words. The Mae actress (and I'll have to talk later about my concern about her) leads the kids through the songs, and she's serving two roles here. First, she's serving as a good kid handler for the show, and second, she's bonding with them so they'll like her when she's in character. I stay away for two reasons. First, Gooper hates his children, and second, I hate children. I call this Method Living.

And not 30 seconds after the kids regale us with this, Big Daddy starts goading Brick. Brick broke his foot the night before by jumping hurdles at his old high school. Daddy, in order to see if his son has any interest in women, asks if he were instead fucking a woman on that track. And he's throwing around the words "poontang" and "fuck." This is the actor who's already months ahead of us in his performance, and he's roaring on all cylinders. And the kids are sitting right next to him. And their eyes are getting big. Leslie the Director wisely excuses the kids for the night, and again one wonders if the parents prepared these kids at all for what they will hear for the next months. I say we get the kids acclimated to it. But then, I refer you to my earlier comments about children. Anyway, they leave.

We get into Act Two, and we occasionally stop to comment on the character or a particular lines. This isn't common in my theatre experience. We're all offering notions about why something occurs the way it does and when. We spend a long time, maybe 20 minutes, piecing together the web of deceit involving Daddy's diagnosis. Who knows the truth, how do they know, how did they keep Daddy and Mama out of the loop, how is the family doctor involved, and how did they plan to reveal the information? My thought is that Gooper is the lynchpin. He wants Daddy to be clearly diagnosed so the former can start planning for the estate. Daddy has no will. Gooper wants the land. Brick's likely to get it. Gooper has the motivation and apparently the weaselly guile to steal the estate, and it's clear from Act Two that Daddy hates him and only pretends to like him. Then again, is Daddy sincere about that or is he just full of bluster on his birthday joyful at the false diagnosis? We decide he really is giddy and renewed about his life because it sets up Brick's behavior during their long father-son chat. Brick knows Daddy's dying even as the latter rails on and on (and on and on) about living life and discarding social courtesy.

What these conversations resemble is the gaming sessions of my high-school days, when role-players sat around the room and crafted their characters aloud. Imagine getting a D&D campaign with a script. It feels just like that. We're extrapolating, projecting, and connecting dots between characters and the dialogue. I always thought RPGs could be a gateway to theatre for some folks, and this kind of interaction is the direct conduit for that transition.

For instance, during the Brick-Daddy throwdown, Gooper answers a phone offstage. We heard him in the audience. His words work as a Greek chorus for Brick's revelation that he abandoned his best friend as the latter drunkenly confessed, over the phone, that he loved Brick. Because Daddy forced this out of him, Brick lets fly that Daddy is actually dying of cancer. Right after this line, Gooper peels off a "high, shrill laugh" and tells his phonemate that everything is upside down. The actor playing the doctor wonders what's going on in that phone call and asks me directly. Well, there's nothing in the script that says, but I tell him I see it as Gooper talking to his lawyer bosses. He tells Mama in Act Three that she has to act quickly on the estate because he has to go back to Tennessee to prosecute a lawsuit. Now that may be a lie to pressure her into a snap decision, but then again this could be another example of Gooper living up to one more front of pressure. It doesn't matter so much what the phone call is about so long as Gooper presents to the audience a certain tone to contrast Brick's state of mind. This is where being an English major really helps an actor.

We do this kind of mental branching all night. What does Daddy know? Why does he say certain things to Brick? Why do Maggie and Mae hate each other? Things Williams doesn't tell us. Now I don't think we have to know these things to make a good show. The usual progression for actors is to know the character intimately and then let that understanding seep out during the lines. But there's the potential with this play, and not just with Gooper, to work the opposite way: Hit each line only as it works in that specific context and allow the audience to construct the character for you. This is how I'm piecing together my role for the first two acts. There's just so little he gets to say with any chance of investing emotion until Act Three. I'm so far stuck between two possible styles for Gooper:

A) The whiny, pathetic Frank Burns type, a guy who knows everyone hates him, suspects every overheard laugh is about him, and takes glee in plotting his Master Plan to show them all. He is paranoid.

B) The Kevin Spacey American Beauty template of quiet exasperation. This guy is so calloused by life's direction that he barely exudes the strength to gets his words out. He mumbles. He blinks slowly as he sighs his surrender to social expectations. He simmers inside until he blows his stack. He is bereft of joy.

Pessimism or nihilism. Somewhere there is my Gooper.

It's a good run-through. The Brick actor is starting to salt his words with nice inflections and pauses. He's feeling it. Big Daddy, however, is dealing with a new version of the play than what he's performed before, so he can't coast through. He has new dimensions to his character, and he's discovering nuances the part hasn't had before. I have yet to think these actors will be the weak link for the show. And if an actor can't find that among a crowd, it usually means he's the weak link, so I want to make sure I bring as much to the character as is appropriate.

And I wait for Act Three. Much like Gooper does, I suppose.

Side note: We still haven't seen the guy assigned to play Reverend Tooker. At some point, the director has to recast the role. I hope. I have to work with that guy onstage.

Previous entries:
Day One
Day Two
Day Three

Picture of the Day
This European superconductor magnet will be used next year for a supercollider experiment to recreate molecules a few milliseconds after the Big Bang. Or it will create a black hole and kill us all.


In the News
The Iraq Report has, of course, polarized the pundits. Does it represent a candy-coated plan for completely withdrawal or does it offer a means of salvaging Iraq into a stable democracy? The split is not along party lines. Washington is perceived as waiting to see what Bush will do with the report coming as it does from a group of people with little actual representative power but possessing a huge cache of respect in the political world. Co-Chairman James Baker (and close ally of Bush 41) is reported to have laid into Bush after the election to prepare him for what was to come in the report. Baker may have taken the reigns from Cheney, if one believes Bush has a puppet master. But Baker has certainly ascended since November's voting, and Cheney, Rice, and of course Rumsfeld have stayed out of sight and sound.

+ + +

The Pearl Harbor survivors who gather annually say this, their 65th anniversary assembly, will be their last rendezvous. They gathered every five years and don't expect to make it to their 70th. I'm gonna go into the bathroom and cry for a little while.

+ + +

The shuttle might launch tonight. If the weather holds out. If the rockets don't fall off. NASA wants to build a moonbase, but it's unlikely they'll get the necessary funds. And a batch of Mars pictures may suggest flowing water. Or they could suggest a rockslide.

Wednesday, December 6

Day Three: Reading Act Two

Because another theatre group is using the building for their Christmas Carol, we move a few blocks over to the Arts Council office to rehearse. I've had a week off while the Act One folks design their stage movements (this is called "blocking"). Gooper is only heard in Act One. He strides the stage in Act Two briefly, but again becomes one of the Greek chorus voices during the Brick/Big Daddy throwdown.

All three acts occur with not time passing during intermissions. Act One starts with Maggie telling Brick the family is walking into the room, and Act Two starts with them entering. In this act, Big Daddy hits the stage, owns it, proclaims his philosophies, confronts Brick about his drinking, and learns he is dying of cancer. Our Big Daddy actor is making his third run at the character and is already performing during this, our read through. We're seated at a small table, intimately arranged and going through Act Two like a radio production. The director reads stage directions aloud.

We still haven't seen the person cast as Reverend Tooker. He hasn't appeared at any rehearsals, and I assume it's because of lingering family illness. I hope he would have told someone if he planned on dropping the show. Speaking of dropping, Cory (Big Mama) shows us a calendar of actors from a recent area production of The Full Monty. She tells us that one actor quit the play in the last weekend because he thought his sister was treated shabbily by the theatre. She brought a small baby to the show and was told to sit in the far back so she could remove the kid if it made noise. She took offense and left. He took greater offense and quit. The theatre was in the right. I've tried to act over screaming kids in the audience. All you can do is wait for them to inhale so you can get your lines out.

The reading goes well. We eat some of the cookies Victoria brought, and after the read we discuss the act. The big question concerns the brothers: Just why does everyone hate Gooper? He was their first child, he's eight years older than Brick and should be a shoo-in for primogeniture. But he's a dick. Big Daddy says repeatedly he hates Gooper (and his wife and kids) and manages to admit he respects Brick even as he's yelling at him about his marriage and drinking. It could be anything really; Williams offers no hint as to why Gooper is bad, and I prefer it that way. He simply is. We know that he's closer to Mama but that even she prefers Brick and calls him "her son" to the exclusion of Gooper more than once. It does explain why Brick feels such weight; he's expected to make up for Gooper's churlishness.

The actress playing Mae suggests Gooper is a bit queer in every sense of the word, and she makes sure I understand she means the character not the actor. I laugh it off. I don't mind giving Gooper a degree of softness, and I even think it's needed to contrast with Brick. There is a direction that Gooper utters a high, shrill laugh offstage, and I've already thought of imitating that of Big Mama, to underscore his (relative) closeness with her and show that he takes after her while Brick takes after Big Daddy.

There's some talk about what the brothers would have done on the estate, all 28,000 acres of it. Leslie estimates that at 45 square miles. What could they have done? Act as overseers? That reminds me, Big Daddy has already dropped That En Word from the script and now refers to the fieldworkers as "field hands." We still don't know if we're gonna smoke onstage as the script demands. Gooper lights up a cigar early on, and it will kake for a great props. Cigarettes are the best friend to an actor. You can use them to dramatically adjust your breath for line delivery, and it gives you something to gesture with. I've smoked onstage before for Glass Menagerie, and aside from a brief period of smoking with my college girlfriend (she thought it was sexy), I don't smoke. But rehearsing it didn't give me an addiction, and I chucked my last pack when Menagerie ended.

But audiences lately have become downright bitchy about smoking onstage. Even dry ice will induce some folks to cough, and worse, exaggerate their coughs as a form of protest. Theatres nowadays will post warnings in the lobby about smoking, alongside notes about nudity or language. Do we use fake cigars? Do we just not light the ones we carry? This decision will not be made by me, but I can go either way. I've never smoked a cigar and don't know how much different it is from the Camels, Basics, and bongs (again, college; they did nothing for me) I've puffed before.

My concern now is practicing that laugh.

Previous entries:
Day One
Day Two

The NFL
Her Teams
New England (9-3), NY Jets (7-5), Oakland (2-10)
Philly (6-6), Detroit (2-10)

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

Carolina may need a new QB as Delhomme is throwing it unwisely and giving away points. They have to win this week's game with also-shaky New York to have a prayer of making the playoffs. But if they don't fix the QB, they shouldn't bother. New England remains the best out of our picks, but they are not even in the top three teams in their conference. That would be Indy, Baltimore, and Cincinnati.

Moving Picture of the Day
This is good. Liu Kang and Ric Flair have a whoo-off.

Monday, December 4

Christmas Rasslin'

A late pub dinner on Friday prepared us for a Saturday of movement. Your Sis called me Friday ngith as I left work to say the work shed was standing wide open and a window was busted. I told her to take pictures of it and send them to my cellphone before we call the police. Then I called her back to ask her if the house looked OK. It did, and she added details of the shed that made it clear that it has nod been broken into. The lock had rusted off the door, causing it to swing open, and it was a flower box below a window that broke. I picked up a new staple and hasp (the technical terms for the door lock components Saturday morning. We had a quick lunch and hit Asheville for shopping.

Asheville has a new used bookstore that is loaded with good title for about $1. I filled my arms with goodies and even picked up -- oh my stars and garters -- a PS2 game that recreates 60 Intellivision games. This was the system I grew up with, my first video game console. And it was $6. After that shock, we drove to Asheville Mall, which wasn't as bad as you might think for the first weekend in December. I found some items for my parents and one for my college buddy, Mark. Your Sis found a booth selling German roasted pecans, a discovering rivaling my Intellivision game. She was aglow over this. And she immediately scheming her schemy schemes for how to hook you up with it. She dropped me off in front of the Civi c Center for a rasslin show, and I met up with Kathy and Travis there.

The Civic Center's auditorium is a lovely warm venue for concerts. We saw Tom Waits there. But the arena below is a dilapidated relic. The rows aren't labeled. The seats aren't numbered. There's one concession stand. It was chaos. The show itself was pretty good as a number of the WWE Monday roster hit the ring. Kathy and Travis dug it a lot, and Travis demanded we get ringside seats next time. I think he wants to harass the bad guys personally.

On Sunday, we had more pub food; that place is becoming our favorite hangout despite our original love for Mexican. Groceries were bought, papers were graded. I fixed the shed door in a most manly manner. Yes, I'm an English major who reads comics and does plays, but power tools just make me all warm and deep-voiced. Your Sis is now making arrangements with Your Mom for the Christmas visit in a few weeks. A few weeks!

Picture of the Day
Rasslin and nachos. Mmmm-MM!


In The News
CBS reports that our U.S. ambassador to the U.N. has quit. John Bolton was packaged as a no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners hard-ass who was gonna clean up corruption in the agency. And now he's gone. He was never formally approved for the position as Bush gave him an appointment while Congress was in recess, and it was widely believed he had no chance of going back to the U.N. now that the Dems took over both Houses.