Day Twelve: Memory

Big Daddy, Brick, and Maggie are there early to take promo pictures for the local press. They are in costume. Brick has a SWANK purple robe and his cast. Big Daddy has a white suit, and Maggie has a thin violet dress. We start right around seven and run through the play. I have spent a few hours memorizing and running my lines. Tonight, I look at the script very little as I wait offstage for my cue lines.

It's nerve-wracking because the lines haven't truly taken root in my brain, and I don't quite trust they'll be ripe when the time comes. And as I'm saying the lines, they feel weird. But as soon as they are out in the air, I know that I have them. In fact, my only memory snafu happens in Act Two, when I change "we gave them that thing for a third anniversary present" into "we gave them that thing three years ago for an anniversary present." No one notices. It's not important; the next line has nothing to do with what Gooper says. I learn my lines based on who speaks last, not what they say. That way I can get my line right even if they mess up.

After a quick break in the middle of Act Two, we finish the play eight minutes faster than we did Wednesday. As that time will shrink even more once we abandon the scripts. I have just one more rehearsal next week before we convene in the new year. I'll memorize Act Three lines in the next few days to try those out. This is the chore of acting. There's no mnemonic device to get around sitting and learning.

I think I did OK for acting. I'm still not vocally hitting all my lines as I'd like. But sometimes, my breath flow will make a line's cadence change in a way that I think works better. I note in the script how to vocalize that line the same way by either underline words to peak with or drawing lines curving up or down to suggest how I'll push them out of my mouth. We perform.

Looking at the calendar, I note that we open the curtain in less than a month: January 19.

Previous entries:
Day One: Reading It Through
Day Two: Act Two
Day Three: Reading Act Two
Day Four: Talking It Through
Day Five: Blocking Act Two
Day Six: Act Two Redux
Day Seven: Reading Act Three
Day Eight: The Da Gooper Code
Day Nine: The Laying On of Hands
Day Ten: Pictures and Pages
Day Eleven: Onstage

Picture Link of the Day
Here's what it looks like inside a small comics convention. This is a page for the Greenville show where I picked up my recent anthology goodies.

Day Eleven: Onstage

We arrive to discover we are now working on the stage. It's my first time seeing the space, and it's right nice. The decor is yellow, and it seats about 450 in a wide arc. The stage has a good width and depth, and it has a flat wall backing. I help move our practice chairs and bed upstairs, and after a while we get to work.

The director and stage managers sit at tables on the edge of the stage watching us move through the play. And we are doing the whole play tonight. Gooper's fairly inactive for the first chunk of play, and I have plenty of time to try to memorize my lines.

There's two ways to do this that work for me, and they work in conjunction. First, I memorize all my lines as a long list of script. I'll learn each line and add it to the list and then recite the list. If I screw up a line (and I check the script occasionally), I have to start over and recite the list from the beginning. This is my brain's way of using slight negative reinforcement.

The second method to memorize is the cue lines, the dialogue that leads into my lines. And I can't do this in an arbitrary way. I can't just know the lines; I have to know where in the play they are and what the actors are doing. So, yeah, I have to learn the flow of the play -- how each scene plays out and why Gooper talks when he does. Again, I have the much easier part among the principals: Daddy, mama, Brick, Maggie, Mae and Gooper. That leaves only the doctor, the reverend, and the kids. Oh, and the servants. Those parts we have yet to cast, but then again, they don't appear onstage at all. Anyone can do them. If I were a director, I would raffle off the roles as a fund-raiser. (Want a stupendously easy part in a play? Just read these five lines out of the book when cued. Must speak loud, must not be late. All money raised goes to Krispy Kreme and a case of Sprite.)

I can't just read the script and memorize it. Well, I can, but the job is made much easier if I have stage movement to help cue me. But I only have two more rehearsal days before we are to return to work off-book. So I can't just rely on movement memorization. I will have to sit by myself with the script and train my brain. Mae confides to me that she can manage Act One but hasn't tried to memorize Act Three yet. If forced at gunpoint, I can do Act One and Two offbook right now (quick check ... yeah, I can do that), but Three is Gooper's biggest scene, and I'll say I have about 40% of that set to memory.

When I'm not mentally screaming at my stupid sieve of a brain, I look at the backstage area and the prop room. There's a jukebox devoid of records, a row of 1950s salon hairdryers (has to be for Steel Magnolias), a couple of thrones, a styrofoam barbell, and a couple of suits of armor. And I'm a contented geek. I love being in a theatre, and while I'm not backstage, I walk the aisles to see the stage and seats and check out the large production posters in the lobby.

I sing onstage for the first time in years. Gooper and Mae lead the kids in singing Happy Birthday. Susan the stage manger tells me later that I have a great singing voice, but I don't have to work a big range with that song. But it does give me a little encouragement to at least consider trying out for a musical later. Probably chorus, though.

The stage does make for a slightly larger working area but not so drastic that we have to move too awfully quick to get from here to there. The rehearsal runs almost three full hours, but that includes some stopping. Once we get the scripts out of our hands, the play will speed up tremendously, I'm sure.

Previous entries:
Day One: Reading It Through
Day Two: Act Two
Day Three: Reading Act Two
Day Four: Talking It Through
Day Five: Blocking Act Two
Day Six: Act Two Redux
Day Seven: Reading Act Three
Day Eight: The Da Gooper Code
Day Nine: The Laying On of Hands
Day Ten: Pictures and Pages

Pictures of the Day

This is the director and managers watching Maggie in Act One.

Day Ten: Pictures and Pages

We arrive early for promotional pictures and program headshots. The theatre office manager takes the pictures which is a much nicer arrangement than that of my last theatre. There, we had to make appointments with a third party and pay $100 a sitting. If you partnered up with someone, you could split the cost, but still.

I'm the first to arrive, and I poke my head into the costume room to say to Linda. She asks me try on two suits for Gooper. Both brownish, but one much too large. There's a screen in the corner to change behind, and while I make conversational noise to ensure everyone knows I'm there, Maggie walks in on me. She was hoping to try on her dress, and I'm covered up enough to avoid embarrassment. Although, once you do theatre, you lose that fear. You have to.

Sometimes you change clothes in the wings of the stage, and expediency trumps humility. Also, this is a bonus. The very best thing about high-school drama was seeing a popular cheerleader girl change clothes backstage. This was a fact I cheerfully unloaded on the bullies who called me gay. If I was gay, I told them, I wouldn't have watched THE WHOLE THING. I think I saw places her boyfriend didn't. And he didn't enjoy that information. But I outran him.

The photo session, happily, is free and quick. I will shave and wear contacts for the role and will look very different from my headshot, which I like. I only have my headshot taken, and the manager photographer tells me she saw my program bio (resplendent in ego) and noticed I was from Spartanburg, as is she. Turns out we went to the same high school four years apart. I'm the older. We traded notes on students and classes and such. It's fun talk, and I chat while she takes the pictures of almost everyone else. It's the most animated conversation I've had among this group. Because she has to run off and let us rehearse we agree to continue the old-home chat later.

Big Daddy is back, and we read the last half of Act Three before blocking it. Big Mama is not here as she drove her mom to the Charlotte airport. She arrives halfway through tonight's rehearsal. Victoria has acted and moved in her stead, and Mama gets her notes from her. She's a little coughy tonight and refrains from hitting the higher notes of the script. I am given a briefcase to maneuver during the act, and it makes for tricky juggling with the script and the pencil.

Big Daddy's performance includes a death stare that makes Gooper's nervousness very easy to portray. I'm also anxious about this take of Gooper with him. I will be the third Gooper actor he's worked with, and I don't know how they worked the role opposite him. Between him and the briefcase, I don't do a very good Gooper tonight. I just don't get into that groove.

The rehearsal flies by, and we leave with new schedules, and notices that we are to be off book by January 2 and possibly start working onstage Wednesday night. I look forward to that. I have two weeks to learn my lines, and I have no excuse not to manage that. I have movement to mark my lines now, and I have the least amount of lines of the six principal parts.

Picture of the Day
Here's an example of a script page as it now exists. You can see where I marked the script's direction for Gooper and wrote my notes. The ones in brackets are new stage directions, and the non-bracketed notes are character developments. You never write in ink because everything can change. We're jettison some directions in favor of our own movements. For instance, Gooper and Mae are now opposite Big Daddy instead of sharing a stage side with him. That physical comedy of them trying to escape isn't so important that we follow the script. It goes away. Instead of Gooper saying "'scuse me" to Daddy, he now says it to Mae as he walks back to the couch to get the open briefcase and estate paperwork. But I say it low and nervous so the moment still has a laugh (hopefully).

My handwriting is not normally this bad, but I'm writing as I'm walking and talking.


Previous entries:
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight
Day Nine

Day Nine: The Laying On Of Hands

The Sunday rehearsal was canceled, and the Monday picture day was pushed back to Tuesday, so last night became the unofficial Sunday of the theatre week. I spent the weekend contemplating the director's suggestion that Gooper be played as a slick lawyer making a sales pitch and not a frantic brat pleading for the estate. I was not a few pages within the script when I realized that this was my chance to play Brick. All the things I had hoped to bring to that character -- a drawling charm, subtle intelligence, fuming temper -- can be used for this Gooper scene. So why not just act it as if I was playing Brick? And that was that. The act does work differently, and even more so once we got to blocking last night.

When we arrive, Brick is trying on his new fake cast. He shaved for it, and Victoria made the mold last night. She repeatedly makes fun of his skinny legs, and eventually he answers back that they got him through at least one marathon. The cast is made in such a way that he has to bear his weight on his toe, not the heel. His ankle is extended in the cast, and yes, I imagine that will make him hobble credibly.

The problem with Act Three is that it starts with a flood of entrances within five lines, and they all come in through the same door. Big Daddy is walking offstage in his fury, leaving Brick alone. Maggie walks in. Mae walks in. Two kids walk in. Gooper walks in (and walks right out to escort the children out of the play). The Doctor walks in. The Reverend walks in. It's a parade. Because Gooper is searching for mama, he gets two entrances. As soon as he walks out, he circles behind the set and enters on the other side of the stage. And he stays on this new side of the stage for as long as we have blocked this act. Big Daddy's been absent the last few days, so we get within 10 pages of the ending and star over. Tonight, we have everyone back and should be able to block the rest of the scene and thus complete the play blocking. Until we get on the actual stage, of course, and then we make adjustments.

The blocking allows for the flavor of the play to emerge. Gooper stands apart from everyone initially except a few people. He stands, crosses into center to corner and Mama and start his pitch, and then crosses back out to the edge of the stage when denied. This makes him appear to gear up for the right moment and then fume when it doesn't occur. The mae actress and I start to improv some shared looks and nods while we insult Brick and Maggie. Gooper doesn't want to use Mae's strategy of simply insulting those two, and it rattles his preparation to talk up mama. He also has to make small talk with the Reverend and the doctor. The Reverend is purely a comic relief character, but the doctor is the one Gooper has corralled into delivering the bad news. The doc quickly leaves and Gooper feigns indignation at his bad manners. Then he goes for the pitch, and this is where I was surprised.

Gooper moves toward Mama, softly selling the choices available to them and steering her to planning for Daddy's death. He eventually sits down and presents his paperwork for transfer of ownership, softens his tone, and starts the slick pitch. Mama is stunned by his suggestion and timing. And while Gooper says the magic word in his offer -- "plan" -- I found myself putting an arm on Mama's shoulder to punctuate the exact moment Gooper has planned for. And that was nothing I intended. But it felt like solid storytelling. This also gives mama something to flinch away from and begin her outrage at everybody. Gooper cracks his own deal by going that extra step, and I like that he crossed the line that started his failure here. I like that Gooper miscalculated.

As we go through the blocking, we follow stage directions unless they call for us to move inorganically. For instance, Mae and Gooper are told to swat and pick at each other in the background, but our movements have us at opposite sides of Mama most of the time. We can't reach each other. But we can grimace and gesture. Sometimes the director likes our decisions. Sometimes not. And as we establish a movement with him, the stage managers take notes for everyone so they can tell us what we may forget later. We run through this at the speed of dirt on the first try. We deliver a line, move, write our notes, and repeat this step. We don't try for acting too much.

But on the other run-throughs, we know where we're going, and we're starting to give character eye contact and expressions. Big Mama has the highest emotional height to hit in this scene, and she's trying to find where to raise and lower her intensity. when I can, I give her a little bit to work off of when saying her lines. A grimace, a stare, just something she can focus on for a second. And this seems to be what the cast has decided individually at the same time. Mae does it for Gooper. Maggie does it for Mae. Brick does it for Gooper. We're gelling (not gellin', like a felon or Magellan or our eyes are wellin'), and man alive this does seem to be a nice little production we're slapping together. I should say, and I will, that there has to yet to emerge the Jerk or Constant Wiseass or Diva. It's early. That may happen. But so far, we're professionals, and that's refreshing.

This of course is no guarantee that the final product will be any damn good.

Previous entries:
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight

Picture of the Apocalypse
They're updating the art style of Archie Comics. The original art, which served to be immediately recognizable ( a good thing for comics in a competitive market), will now be replaced by a generic and flat look.


While the attention to detail in the clothes and hair are nice, they suggest the publishers are aiming for a young female audience. Archie used to be an all-audiences comic. Well, as long as the readers were white, I suppose. Also, the humor used to be broad; the art style allowed for comic exaggeration. This more realistic style doesn't provide that, and I wonder to what degree Archie now becomes a ho-hum romance comic instead of an ensemble high-school farce. Feels like an end of an era.

Beer Pocket

We had dinner with Kathy and Travis at the pub Friday night. It's the first time we'd gotten together in a while. On Saturday, Your Sis finished wrapping presents while I got in my PS2 time. Oh, how I missed it so. I addressed the majority of the Christmas cards (sent out this morning). That night we went to a local Christmas party and ate platefuls of finger food while I kept my Bass Ales handy inside my jacket. The new local grocery store includes a walk-in beer cooler that features kegs of Gaelic Ale. It's like a buffet of hangovers. We left the party early and staggered home. On Sunday, she made her annual cocoa packets (almost 5), and we split laundry duty. We had leftover party wings for supper and caught up on our TiVo. A quite-ish domestic weekend. I also managed to go over my lines for Gooper, and I'm eager to try the new tact tonight.

Picture of the Day
Gossamer and Bugs bedeck our tree.


In the News
The Time Person of the Year pick (the Interneterati) is weak. There should at least be one person who embodied the access to information and resources online. A YouTube founder, the Google guys, somebody who represents this growing demographic. And I'm not sure this is really a novel development. The '90s tech boom was all about people going online to get whatever they wanted, either from Amazon, eBay, Napster, AOL or online groceries. If anything online altered the culture this year, it was the pajama media, the political blogs that affected the election with their links to information on Foley, Iraq, Katrina, and Delay.

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Iranian moderates are winning their elections today.

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On "Face The Nation" Sunday, Colin Powell said the plan to send more troops to Iraq is flawed.

POWELL: Let’s be clear about something else, Bob, that gets a little confusing. There are really no additional troops. All we would be doing is keeping some of the troops who were there there longer and escalating or accelerating the arrival of other troops.

[Host Bob] SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you about that because… do we have the troops? You seem to be suggesting that we don’t.

POWELL: I’m suggesting that what general Shoemaker said the other day before a committee looking at the reserve and national guard, That the active army is about broken. General Shoemaker is absolutely right. All of my contacts within the army suggest that the army has a serious problem in the active force.