Dad Update

UpDade? UpDad?

He had his port installation yesterday and called to say he felt fine. He had his hair cut short so his hair loss won't clog up the drains. Dad's only had one haircut since I was minus-8 years old, but I've had my hair shorter than his for a while now. His hair has a weird consistency due to, no joke, repeated lightning strikes, and I'm eager to see his new look this weekend. He was told his immune system's OK to be out and about, so we might be able to take him to dinner. We'll have to go down on Saturday because Sunday will be taken up with rehearsal. I realized I won't be able to catch the WrestleMania (the year's biggest wrestling party) as the last performance and cast party falls on the same Sunday.

The gas prices have nudged my boss to again suggest telecommuting or using 10-hour, four-day work weeks. We'll see. The hamster-powered internet in our town makes working at home hinky, and uploading through a satellite dish is really no better than dial-up.

Picture of the Day
I always wanted to know just what kind of advantage Lando allegedly had to make him think he was safe in betting the Falcon. And I don't see Han holding a better hand so much as bluffing Lando off the table. I'm sure there's an expanded universe story about this, but I want Lucas or Kasdan canon, not the scribblings of a third-rate scifi hack. Did you ever try the novel that filled in the holes between Empire and Return. Awful.

I remember my high-school girlfriend asking me if I ever read scifi novels, and I mentioned I tried a few Star wars books. You could actually hear her eyes roll.

Day 15: Conquering

This will be a sit-down line-through. No movement, no sound cues. We just recite our lines around a table. The trick to this, at this point, is that I've started latching my lines to movement. I ran my lines at lunch and during the commute home, hoping to improve on Monday's weakness. I was thinking earlier in the day that the reason the theatre mounts so many plays with older characters is because the actors would mostly be retired and have much more time to memorize their lines. The murderer said he skipped school today to give his brain a rest, and I don't blame him.

He's thinking of his costume and wants to ape Heath Ledger's Joker outfit in the final scene. He's also using the character as a template for his own. I'm not sure how that will play or if he can reconcile the wilder behavior of the Joker with the early subdued scenes of the play. We're told that we will have Wednesday off, giving us two days' break before Friday's runthrough at the stage location. This might be our last night in the warehouse, and we'll have ten scheduled rehearsals before we open.

While we run our lines, the director sits with a script and makes marks on a sheet as we go. This is very much a test, and he's keeping score. Maybe it helped me, because I had the best night so far. I bobbled some words, but the lines were there. I was on a divine roll after hours of certainty that I retained nothing. The others were complimentary to the point I got a bit embarrassed, but I felt better when the mistress joked she wanted to kick my ass. She and the murderer were reading their scripts as we moved to Act Two. I cracked my script open to mark the words that gave me trouble. The director was, as usual, supportive and understanding but gently pressuring us to get on the ball with lines. I joked that I did so well because my brain was amped on panic and terror.

When we get to the last ten pages of script, we move to the set; we didn't finish the blocking on Monday. Because the line-through didn't require so much energy, I was able to goose my character with more emotion than normal. Maybe too much. I shake and wring my hands during the confession and I try to shudder with anxiety as I threaten the murderer with the gun. I'm the emotional one in the play; I do the heavy lifting there, whereas the murderer has the longer chunks of dialogue. Because he has line trouble, the director suggests he needs more audio feedback, and he and I recite most of Act One for the other actor. The kid looks beat; I can't imagine doing a show this size as a high-school student. We'll have to meet on weekends to run lines, and I suggested our house for it. We can host the whole show, if need be, and sit around the place and recite lines.

Picture of the Day
Stars in prolonged exposure.

Well, that sounded tabloid.


In the News
Once again, the most telling information from the primaries lies in the partisan voter turnout. Lookee here, and remember that McCain won each primary for his party.

Ohio
Democrats: 2,180,292
Republicans: 1,004,391
Obama came in second and still beat McCain and Huckabee combined.

Rhode Island
Democrats: 181,092
Republicans: 25,434
Obama came in second with 73,000+ votes, and that was four times as many as McCain's 17,000+ votes.

Vermont
Democrats: 139,935
Republicans: 33,589
Four times as many people voted for Democrats. Clinton came in second and doubled McCain's totals.

Texas
Democrats: 2,807,329
Republicans: 1,317,008
Again, Obama came in second and still beat McCain and Huckabee combined.

It would take an unprecedented party scandal for the Democrats to lose the election in November. Their second-place candidate beats the GOP leader every time.

Day 14: Scattered

I used the weekend to put the whole script in my head, and by the time we started rehearsing, it was vaporized (the script and my head). When Act One starts, the con man is almost hit by a car. He walks onstage favoring his arm. The actor wants someone to punch his arm and make it hurt for that first scene. I ask him if he's ever heard of "acting." But I had the same attitude when I was his age, and my director said the same thing. (There's a movie story precedent: When Dustin Hoffman and Olivier were making Marathon Man, Hoffman insisted on using some visceral method approach to a torture scene, and Olivier admonished him: "Why don't you just act it?") We have to change blocking because the new sofa is too tall. The murder is moved closer to the audience.

The director adds a rehearsal for Tuesday so we can just sit and deliver lines. The mistress needs it; her whole weekend was shot with the fallout of her friend's death. She seems OK now, mostly tired. I'm determined not to carry the script on the set and work from memory, but we have the line-reader to cue us if we need it. And we do. A lot. Especially as we move to Act Two.

Act One is virtually locked in. I actually hate starting that act because it's boring to me, and the script is very weak here: I bring in a kid I almost run over, sit him on the couch, trade life stories, and he leaves. All within five pages. We have it cold, and I'd rather skip this a few nights to tackle the second act, where we really stink. When I'm offstage (rare), I scan the script for the upcoming scenes, and I'm stunned how little seems to have stuck with me.

And let me now lament the changing of lines, including the addition of dialogue. This brings me no joy. Some of the actors petition to alter words, and in one case we do it because the actor can't pronounce "anonymity." I don't like this happening so late in production. Now I have to remember the alteration on top of the original line I memorized. The wife requests my line about her character change from "wealthy, young -- well, youngish divorcee" to "wealthy, blonde divorcee." When the director asks me if this is OK, I say "just tell me what you want me to say." It comes off brusque, and I apologize and explain I'll say whatever we decide upon. But, no, I don't like actors changing another actor's lines. I wouldn't ever ask that.

She also wants to talk about how we're handling the argument scene and requests I lighten up my tone a bit. We sit on the couch in front of the director, and I explain that the script makes my guy react strongly to her verbal jabs, and his lack of composure feeds her desire to divorce him. He might have salvaged the marriage (and his livelihood) had he been smoother. But he doesn't know how, and he's bitter and pouty, and he digs his own hole. That affects his behavior in Act Two when he pleads his innocence instead of taking responsibility. The director likes my logic, and we stick with the way I've been acting it. Now, I in no way minded her suggestion because I'd rather we talk about where we're coming from than individually try to guess what the other person's doing.

The Act One energy is good because we had a small break, but as the act ends, it's obvious that some of us reach the end of our memorization. And when Act two rolls around, two of the actors are reading from their scripts. I call for lines when needed. But the night drags on for so long that we don't finish the play tonight. We stop about 10:30 with ten pages to go. But it's high-energy stuff on those pages, and we're dead dog tired.

I have to start work on my magnet design soon, and I'm playing with 1940s style movie posters of noir films. I'm also determined to have the script set in my head by Wednesday's deadline.

Pictures and Link of the Day
Rejected Star Wars licensed products (scroll down for the images).

Day 13: Stumbling

Dad called Sunday to say he's doing OK. A Friday checkup showed reduction in the white blood cells and a small elevation with the red. He's starting to lose some hair, but the armpit growth has shrunk considerably. He's taking a liquid to increase his appetite, and he says it works. We might see him this weekend if he feels up to it. Your Sister still has a lingering cold, and I don't know if she can visit him.

I got as far as page 53 in a 61-page script. We're due to be offbook on Wednesday, and I'm pretty sure I can nail down my four remaining pages by then. We were scheduled to run the whole play tonight, but as I arrive, I learn that the mistress can't stay. She found out about a friend's death within the hour and had to leave.

As I walk in the warehouse, I see the stage progress. I have a huge pulpit of a bar in the back corner. The wife brings in some soccer trophies from the local college that look like racing awards. We also get a new phone (cordless), and the director shows us the new gun. Instead of a cap gun, this is a starter's pistol. It's much heavier, and I enjoy that weight. He also tells us of plans for the blanks and shoots once to show how loud it could be. He plans to use half or quarter rounds; a full blank rings our ears. The murderer has to be shot onstage, and he's a mite concerned. He's too young, I think, to know of the stars of Brandon Lee or Jon-Erik Hexum, both killed by blanks. And we show him that the gun has a capped barrel. We quickly run the final scene, and he takes the shot, and I get to fire it. It's much more dramatic. Oh, and he lived.

The wife has also brought in the wigs, and she lets the murderer try his too. They're shoulder-length blonde wigs with flip ends. It's very much like a news anchor or First Lady. The director asks me if I have gray slacks for my character, and if I don't, I'll run out to the local charity stores and find a pair. After about half an hour, we get going on Act One, the act without our mistress.

It's a catastrophe. We focused on Act Two lines, and we stumble through, calling for lines often. We lose our movements and paraphrase often. It's our weakest effort yet. It's so bad that when my first-act responsibilities end, I walk over to the couch and talk to the director for the usual post-rehearsal notes. I was so determined to get to the mea culpas that I forgot the act wasn't over, and the other actors had two pages left. Off I went, and on they went. Then we get our many, many corrections and warnings. We open three weeks from tonight. We're not supposed to be offbook yet, but we have to put the hammer down to refine this play.

Speaking of which, I found reviews from New York and London for productions of this script, and I discovered that it's a commonly reviled play.

This is from the New York Times in 1984:

These facts, which are presented early in the play, are so improbable that they manage to turn this thriller into a comedy, but they do not impede this plot from becoming even thinner.

Instead of believable characters, Miss Cox has written movable cardboard figures who wear telltale mannerisms like Girl Scout badges. The husband waves a gun around several times, so we know the gun is eventually going to be used. The homicidal maniac is a cola-addicted homosexual who is also a pathological liar. The girlfriend is an actress who can't cook and who wants to wear the late wife's nice clothes.

The only believable character is the wife, who is level-headed enough not to want to finance her husband's affair. Unfortunately, she gets murdered almost immediately.

This is from London:

The Murder Game is an old fashioned thriller of a type which I thought had been safely buried in obscurity. Written by Constance Cox (a playwright better known for her dramatisation of the classics and translation of foreign plays) it was first produced in 1946 and I can assure you it has not worn well and shows every year of its age.

The plot owes more to Patricia Highsmith than originality on the authoress’ part and creaks so loudly as to be deafening.

We know it's a stilted play, and we have changed pages of dialogue. The reviews go one to cite the stereotype of a psychopathic gay murderer. We've discussed his sexuality before, and there's nothing overtly sexual. But the play, as a relic of the mid-century, seems to confuse homosexuality with transvestitism. I argue that the murderer dresses as a woman to torture the husband. There is no mention of sexual pursuit or appetite. But my character does accuse the murderer of being "an obvious fairy." Then again, he's not the brightest bulb, and he's prone to panicked accusation.

The question arises of how our audience will perceive this. Are we perpetuating an outdated paranoia? Will the older attendees carry those outdated notions or will they laugh at them? The kid has to work the cross-dressing seriously, or he'll turn this into a comedy. The director also has to make sure he veer that direction. I still hold that the murderer is more a vampire than gay, and I hope that comes through.

Picture of the Day
Scary Star Wars-fan love letter.

Two Days Off

Lost was awesome last night, as was the supercool Iron man commercial.

Online, I've been discussing Daniel's journal, which includes this metaphysical diagram.


Questions abound about the time sickness hitting Desmond and George and the crew of Rousseau's boat. Also did the destruction of the hatch in Season Two displace the island through time instead of its previous displacement in space? The Black Rock trivia we got last night suggests the island grabbed that boat while popping across the globe.

I'm on page 52 of a 61-page script, and I should be able to finish memorization by Sunday night.

Moving Picture of the Day
Italian Spiderman. It's genius.

Day 12: Act Two Fragments

Dad called to say that they are inserting a port in his carotid artery to ease the IV. This will be an outpatient operation, taking maybe 30 minutes. He says his red and white blood cells are rebounding nicely, and the armpit growth is shrinking a bit. That's just after chemo treatment.

A longtime reader anonymous asks: "wait, what does apple juice do to YOU?"

Well, back when I was a boy genius, it used to open a trap door in my tummy. But when My Mom asked about this, I was about 26, and those days were long behind me.

Tonight, like Monday, we chop an act into pieces and focus on movement and tension. It starts with a stage smooch, and we're pretty comfortable with it by now. There are two face smooches and a hand smooch within 15 pages, and there's some flirting. Harmless stuff, even if the actress wears the leopard-print PJs the director is suggesting. I've been lucky int that the gals I've kissed onstage have smelled clean and been personable. I've also been slapped onstage, and that's not nearly as much fun. Also, I learned that if you're going to be slapped onstage, you don't wear a ring in your ear during rehearsals. You only need to learn that once.

We're still changing language as we stroll along. "Make a bunk" becomes "make a break," and we're drowning in "shall"s. The director asks us to provide updated playbill bios. It's not as easy to write as it seems; you usually get a word count, and it always feels like a bragging sheet. But you have to think of it as a reference for the audience. They may have seen you in a previous show but are unable to place you.

We trade horror stories from earlier productions, like the time we used a thawed turkey for a musical. The show ran for three weekends, and we used the same bird for all the shows. I had to carry it around barehanded. The murderer mentions a show where he has to eat a burger onstage, and the backstage crew sabotaged it with hair. In another show, an actor added ice to a glass of water that was to be spilled on him.

The director repeats the improv experiment with the mistress and murderer. It's great to remind us to apply a more natural acting style, but this vedy, vedy British script encourages us to go stiff and formal. The act is coming together well, and the director seems happy with our progress with so many rehearsals to go.

Picture of the Day
Did you know that, in Asia, instead of seeing the man on the moon, they see a rabbit making rice cakes? You probably did.

Day 11: Act One Fragments

We start the evening by looking at costume options. Two blazer suits from storage are too small for me to wear. The jackets look fine until I move my arms, and then the sleeves shrink. I can look for such blazers at the local donation stores. The director also suggested an ascot for my character, which leaves a bolo tie, a dickie, and a noose as the only neckwear I've yet to try for theatre.

We run Act One in segments to tighten up movement. Both male actors are amazed at how much is covered within 5-page increments. This script is huge and unnecessarily wordy. Too much passive voice, too many clutter words. It's clearly a British script from the '70s, and I don't regert for an instant requesting we drop the accents. That would have been too much to shoulder. The best scene of Act One remains the argument between the lazy husband and the rich wife. It's quick and animated, whereas the rest of the act is a slow con punctuated by short questions and long answers. The argument has give and take and waves of emotions. The wife actress is bringing it every night. It's such a good role: it's one act long, she rips apart her schlub hubby, and she dies twice onstage. Then she puts her feet up for 90 minutes.

One habit the director is trying to break me of is turning out to the audience. One of the fundamental rules of theatre is that you don't turn your back; you always face front, even when you're allegedly looking at the other actors. You cheat your body at an angle so the audience rarely sees you in profile. You're usually at least at three-quarters to them. When I move to the bar in this play, I'm always backing up a bit so I look at the audience and the other actor. Almost every movement to the bar has dialogue, and I didn't want to speak to the back wall. But the director says it looks unnatural. I don't mind organic movement so long as the audience can hear me. Hoepfully the words will echo off the wall and back to their ears. Also, I go to the bar about a dozen times. And I get a drink each time.

I had a similar role in Barefoot in the Park, and we used juice instead of liquor. When one performance was over, my parents came backstage while I was talking to Your Sister. My Mom asked, "Son, don't you know what apple juice does to you?" That was the first impression Your Sister had of the woman who would later become her mother-in-law.

We get a new schedule, and it's not so different from before. We get this Wednesday off. I'm within 20 pages of memorizing the script, and the extra night will give me some more time to work on that. We are to be off book by the middle of next week.

Picture of the Day
Yes, it's a robot head.

Oscar Weekend

I called Dad and learned he has a follow-up with the surgeon who removed his neck growth in January. Maybe they have an idea about what kind of lymphoma he has. (My guess: No.) Dad is also growing adamant about removing the armpit growth, which suggests he's impatient with the chemo or doesn't want 18 weeks of chemo-induced nausea. I can't blame him.

An NPR interview encouraged Your Sis to want to see Eastern Promises, despite the presence of Viggo Mortensen, whom she can't stand. And the Oscar broadcast lead her to want to watch more movies I couldn't drag her to last year. Eastern Promises is good, but no way did he deserve an acting nomination from that. Still, if it gets him bigger roles, I'm all for it.

The Oscars were very good last night. A warm, polite show that flew by at just over three hours. Jon Stewart was the perfect host and fan and everyman. Disney must have strong-armed the academy to nominate three songs from Enchanted; two of them were clearly filler nominations. And a bunch of solid actors won awards. It seemed like every winner was a solid choice and not just because I have a crush on Tilda Swinton.

Your Sister spent the majority of the weekend working. I shoved the fist scene of Act Two in my brain and suffered for it the rest of the weekend. I'm trying to nail down the Act One lines verbatim. I now have a week and two days to learn the remaining 22 pages.

Picture of the Day
Pouty astrokids will fuck you up.


In the News
Ralph Nader is a jerk.

Day 10: Pictures and Lines

I barely looked at the script on Thursday, and I didn't review lines. I took a break. I have just under two weeks to learn Act Two, but it's very feasible. Unlike in the first act, I'm offstage for a number of pages. We also have clearly delineated scenes, and I can work on blocks of script at a time. My brain still dreads the necessary heavy-lifting, but I'm not freaked out by the deadline.

An early Friday email told us we're to take our fist batch of publicity pictures before that night's rehearsal. Unfortunately, it comes a day before my haircut AND I have to hurry home to clean up, shave, and dress in a suit after gobbling a quick dinner so I can arrive early at the warehouse. The suit I thought I might wear is too big in the pants, and the blazer I considered has apparently been donated. I had to wear my suit from the courtroom show. The only one who would have recognized it would be the photographer who also mans the theatre website. He's also the unprofessional backseat director from the last show. I girded my loins beforehand for him to say something -- anything -- about this show, but he instead snaps our pictures without the expected frenetic attitude and leaves. I do wish that the pictures were taken with a better realized set or after we had talked to the costumer. We're using cardboard boxes to represent record-players, blue-foam insulation for walls, and patio furniture for a dining set. The show doesn't run for a month; why take production pictures now? They in no way represent what the show will look like.

The wife is wearing a potential wig, but the director isn't keen on it, and the other actress joins in the debate for wig styles. The murderer and I exchange stories of high school (he's still attending). If you're in theatre at that age, you are, of course, gay as a chandelier. But we both know that drama students get to see each other change clothes, and we've seen more of the girls than their boyfriends. When I told a football player this way back when, he stopped giving me shit. Out of curiosity, I Googled his girlfriend today and found her immediately. She works as a media trainer for military folks, helping them handle press interviews. She looks very much the same.

It takes a while to gets started, and this will be the first run-through of the whole show. I eschew the script for Act One, and do OKish. Not as good as Wednesday, but I recall more of the blocking. I'm aware that I'm paraphrasing the lines, and I know I'll hear about it after. We do. We all do. The post-rehearsal notes from the director are encouraging and complimentary, but he warns we have to knuckle down and work. And we will. As the mistress points out, we're all good and experienced and committed to the show. The murderer and wife choreograph the killing; she's worried about her shoulder strain as he drags her out of the house, and the director says he'll noodle it through in the downtime. We don't go back until Monday night, and I hope to have most of the first scene of Act Two memorized before that.

Picture of the Day
Here we are: wife, murderer, director, mistress, me. Note the walls and table. That's supposed to be the interior of stately Greg Manor.

Day 9: Act One from Memory

The director called me earlier in the day to ask about stage managers. The folks he originally asked can't work the show, and he wanted to know about the couple from the previous show, which apparently has entered lore as That Show. I told him I stayed out of the backstage, onstage, and online ugliness until the stage managers were impugned. I had to speak up to defend them. I told him I'd work with them again in a heartbeat.

I ran my lines as I drove to work, took a lunch break, and drove back home. This was the rehearsal I'd dreaded since the first night: 25 pages, no script. I got to the warehouse a little early and met with the other actor; we didn't run lines, we just shot the shit, escaping the anxiety for a minute. The actress playing the wife had been in Florida for a week and learned her lines driving there and back. Everyone caught up in chat for a bit (including some gossip about potential new buildings for the company), and we two actors sat on the couch, eager to get to work. Finally, the director called us to order, and we started. His wife observed our lines while he checked our stage movement.

It went really well. The lines were there, mostly. I'd say I recalled 80% of them and even recalled the preceding cue lines. I made sure to not recite those when the other actor had trouble; that might be overbearing. But I could have, and I'm competitive enough to be proud of that. It was a fun atmosphere. We'd cracked up at mistakes, affirmed our lines with the reader, and ad-libbed lines when we obviously went off the rails. We all knew the gist if not the specific words, and the director instructed us to nail down the exact wording. Even when I was offstage, I kept my script closed. The blocking was sporadic. I couldn't remember where I was supposed to stand until a few lines later, and I remembered from where I was supposed to walk away. But the director was patient with us, and we'd often hear our directions and redo the page to cement the movement.

I'm happy with last night. It was a big relief, and just working without the books made the play lift off. We got to focus a little more on props including the glasses from the bar. They make for great props, and they let you adjust posture, gestures, and breathing when you pantomime drinking. But now that I tackled en entire act in two weeks, I know I can learn the second act in the same amount of time. The pressure's off.

The director held the two male actors a little later to walk us through our initial conversation. But what he really wanted was for us to inject some natural manner into it. He told us to forget the lines, and just talk. Improvise the conversation. Be our characters and go with the plot. And we did, and it was easily the most illuminating rehearsal moment I've ever enjoyed. The other guy (still in high school) was up for it, and I was simply writing out loud, something I do with my comic stuff anyway. We went for about ten minutes, coming up with pretty good lines and jokes, and then we introduced the topics of the divorce and the will and the murder, and the other actor starts to lean in to sell the hit, and I joke with him to distance my character from the situation.

And right then, the director jumps up, stops us, runs up to us, and says "that's exactly what I want." The instinctive movement and attitude. Two guys talking. A clear distinction of background and experiences. Just that easy. Our mistake was trying too hard to "act," and the director showed us how , to use the cliche, to be in the moment. It was a moment of clarity so crystalline that I couldn't stop smiling. And if we can repeat that onstage, the audience will be in our hands the whole way through. We left the rehearsal practically hovering, and there to greet us was a red half moon.

I got home before Your Sister did, and she walked in the door asking if I wanted to find a meadow to watch the eclipse. And we did. We even saw two shooting stars. It was as good a night as I could ask for. And I get tonight off from teh play to eat wings and watch Lost.

Picture of the Day
I'm pretty sure this guy was already gone when the moon snuck into our penumbra.

Day 8: Act Two Again

Other stuff from this past weekend:

1) We did our taxes and got a nice federal refund, despite a lull in our charity giving. I think Your Sis really wants a new HD TV.

2) One of our favorite local restaurants temporarily lost my ATM card. I paid the bill, and the card fell out on the way back to our table. I freaked. Your Sis freaked. The waitress, upon handing us the card, was nonchalant. She offered no apology for it nor did she sympathize. Your Sis almost decked her. This oddly happened right after we talked about closing out my first credit card account, the last burden of my first marriage.

I've walked around every rehearsal with the script binder in my hands and a pencil behind my ear. Tonight, the mistress wanted to add props (wigs, glasses, bottles, letters), and it screwed me up. I was juggling while trying to emote and get the lines right, and I gave up after half an hour. She also wanted to negotiate our kisses, now that we're both past our colds. I decided my guy would be a cheek kisser; he's too square and dispassionate to be a full-on smoocher. So that's what we did. This is the third play where I'm kissing someone onstage, and it's a nice little perk if you get along with the actress. I already warned Your Sis about it, and she was OK.

She and the murderer try on the blonde wigs, and I think they settle on a bob hairstyle. I'm a bit jealous as I don't get to wear a wig, but then again: kisses. We also have walls for the set, complete with two doors and a window. It makes the set looks much smaller. We're told right off that the set will need to squeeze back a bit as the stage is smaller than our arranged rehearsal space. It won't be so bad an adjustment this early. The walls shake when the doors close, but I'm sure they'll fix that later on.

The first scene of Act Two is the most normal. The widower and mistress play house, and the murderer shows up to lower the boom on the widower. It's a lot of slow exposition, and my guy shifts from happy-go-lucky to whining guilt in 12 pages. It's the duldrums of the play, and there's not much we can do to spice it up except move around a lot. And we do. My default stage direction is to head back to the bar. I will drink something onstage throughout the play. Probably apple juice. The murderer has to chug Coke the whole show. We may need pisspots backstage.

I haven't had this substantial a role in this small a cast in a decade, and I'm exhausted. I drag going home, I drag going back to the warehouse, and it's harder to retain the new lines. It will be much better when we aren't holding scripts, and Wednesday night will be our first off-book rehearsal. The murderer (a high-school student) is of course cramming at the last second. But with his youth and homework-honed brain, he might be OK. I'm running my lines during my commute. And tomorrow I start memorizing Act Two, which conveniently is broken up into real scenes. Act One is just an entire scene.

Picture of the Day
Colbert the Crusader

Days 6 & 7: Act Two Details

Dad started chemo yesterday and called last night to say he felt alright. They doped him up before and after to fight nausea. Five more treatments will be administered every 3 weeks, spanning into June. This puts him on temporary disability, just a few years before was was going to retire. He sounds fine, if tired, and he says he's eating fast food to slam on the calories. Because the chemo will hit his immune system, he's somewhat homebound. I want to keep my visits short so I won't wear him out, and we hope to stop by this weekend.

I gave blood Sunday and received the hard sell to donate twice through apheresis. So I relented. Your Sis sat in the car and read while I leaked for an hour in the bloodmobile. What they don't tell you is that the IV solution that brings your plasma back in the veins gives you a sugar rush, and I spent the next few hours babbling and giggling. And then Your Sis bought me half a pint of Bass, and I went loopy. As the French say, "loo-pay." As they say in Germany ... something German. I believe very much in giving blood, and I was glad to do it. But when the room-temperature plasma went back into my 20-degree-warmer arm, I turned into Keanu from The Matrix. The scene after he takes the pill and the silver slides up his arm? Yeah, that was me.

We sat down to watch a DVD Saturday night, and I let her choose the film. She put in Lagaan, and it ran for 20 minutes before she accused me of being bored (untrue), and we switched to Blade Runner instead. It's going to be one of those weeks where we won't see much of each other as she does school and I do theatre. Speaking of which ...

Friday night saw us run through the first two scenes of Act Two. I was achy and tired and it may have helped me play older. The director wants us to learn the lines verbatim and stop drifting into paraphrase. It's a tricky script to learn, and we're constantly editing out the awkward British dialogue. Really, who says "daren't?" Who squishes together four prepositions within ten words? We have to adjust it. I was doubled over with laughter at one point because my line ("And what the hell is what she does to do with you, may I ask?") simply wouldn't come out.

We might be able to get our stage a week early, giving us two weeks of on-site rehearsals before we open. That'd be great. We also learn our first Sunday matinée will be on Easter, and one wonders if people that day will flock to a psychosexual murder thriller. There is word that 20 tickets are already purchased for our first Saturday because a local group wanted to see a mystery. However, this isn't a mystery. The murder takes place on page 24. There's no doubt who did it. The tension is in how far my character can be bossed into subjugation. (Answer: Quite far. And then he cries.)

We spent rehearsals Friday and Monday night testing out our initial blocking directions. We stopped often to rework moments, and we ran the scenes an awful lot. We need to, sure, but the third scene is my character's most wracking. Displaying a nervous breakdown for three hours is exhausting. I wore my contacts Sunday night to see if the director preferred that. He didn't say anything, but everyone said I looked tired. Again, maybe this will help me sell "older." Our current gun is inconsistent with the caps, leaving me to yell my lines and improv the gun sound. "Maybe we will be together ... in hell. BUT YOU'LL GET THERE FIRST!!! ... Oh, um, bang. Peyow. I'm, like, shooting you and stuff."

Trivia: Our fake mink coat is made by "Lykafur." Because it's like a fur.

Picture of the Day
We played a little Guitar Hero. I officially loathe Carry On, My Wayward Son.




In the News
You asked about pundit links to the comments I mentioned. I couldn't find them, unfortunately. But the next time you hear about a mass shooting, switch on right-wing radio. Give it an hour. And you'll hear the accusations and sophistry.

I did hear our local hillbilly preacher use his radio show to ascribe school shootings to hippy parents who taught their children nihilism. Logic says this was exactly opposite of what hippyism was all about, but this man wouldn't recognize logic if he came home and found it fucking his wife. I'm tempted to contact the man and suggest he use his daily Prayer Time slot for, well, prayer, but he's playing to his elderly frightened audience convinced we live in the end times. And I'm sure his accusations will lead to requests for money.

A Mixed Day

Dad's lymph polyps are getting bigger. One is restricting his throat and the armpit growth is leaving stretch marks. They made an appointment this morning to start radiation treatment which is less intrusive than surgical removal. The radiation will be administered gradually. They'll call later today to say if they finally have a diagnosis.

I memorized the final pages of Act One yesterday. Now onto Act Two.

Picture of the Day
Someone got a haircut. She says she won't bother to straighten her hair every morning. She gave me a giant cookie, which we devoured during Lost and then fell into a sugar coma.


In the News
I don't know what angers me more: this new outburst of violence or the automatic reaction by Those Who Make Money by Talking. Here's what they'll tell their loyal listeners:

1) If another student had a gun, this wouldn't have happened.

2) The victims have been made docile by lovey-dovey parenting and cultural input to fight back. Which is a veiled way of saying "if I were there, this wouldn't have happened."

I've heard these arguments for years, and I heard them the loudest after 9/11. But what I don't hear is this: This is domestic terrorism. A suicide gunman is no different than a suicide bomber. And this is used to seemingly be the actions of Angry White Men. But, the Louisiana Tech shootings last week were the result of a female shooter. And the Virginia Tech shooter was Asian.That means this isn't just a Angry White Guy problem anymore. This isn't class warfare and people pissed off by Affirmative Action or immigration or such nonsense. Did you hear about the gay student shot at his high school and left brain dead earlier this week? Killed because he was gay.

This is a cultural symptom, and no empty-smiled political platitude is going to solve this. Don't blame the drugs (legal and illegal), don't blame the music, the games, the movies, or the books.

We have to fight the guns. Now.

And Happy Valentine's Day to You

I couldn't memorize any lines yesterday. My brain wasn't having any of it. I looked at one page all day long, and it just wouldn't take. And it wasn't a difficult page: My character plays devil's advocate to point out possible flaws in the murder scheme. Fifteen lines of dialogue with 12 questions. The rehearsal was canceled as the crew builds our set, and Your Sis and I enjoyed an early valentine dinner. I did wake up this morning and work over the lines of the last two pages of Act One, and I should have them in my head by the end of the day. And then it's onto Act Two.

Your Sister's gift indeed arrived yesterday, and I picked it up at Malaprops during pet duty. It's a collection of Robert McCloskey stories (Make Way for Ducklings, something about blueberries, etc.). I didn't grow up with these stories, but she showed me some of them a few years back. She seemed happy with it. This is really a holdover gift until she finds the jewelry she wants to ask for.


Moving Picture of the Day
Indy is your whip-cracking valentine.

Day 5: Back to Act One

I managed to stuff 17 pages of script into my head before tonight's rehearsal, but of course it all vanishes once I actually need it. Because this is only our second rehearsal for this act, we need our scripts for the stage movement, and because the lines are right there, the memory decides it's not needed and takes a nap.

The director pulled me aside before we get going to apologize for the late ending on Sunday. I assured him everything worked out and thanked him for the gesture. All was cool. There's some concern between the wife and the murderer involving the minx coat; both have to wear it in the play and it takes a beating when the body is dragged offstage. The director isn't worried, though.

I do manage to occasionally close the script and recite lines, and I feel good about that. I can also tell the other actors are reading at home, and the sense of progress is heartening. I'm trying to physically distinguish my character with posture and gestures and expressions. Again, I look to Jack Lemmon -- dramatic Lemmon, not comic Lemmon. I mean the guy from Towering Inferno, Airport '77, Glengarry Glen Ross, Days of Wine and Roses, etc. That Lemmon is effusive and confounded and irate and boiling and whining, and all of that just pours out of his head and shoulders and elbows. He's almost vaudeville in his manner, but he makes a perfect noir victim.

That's who I think my guy is right now, but that may change: The director has altered a small stage direction that could radically shift my character. The first act sees the con man explain a "perfect murder" to a guy losing everything in a divorce. As the script reads originally, my guy has no idea the murderer is spelling out a real plot; he thinks it's all hypothetical. At the end of the act, my guy doesn't see the murderer steal a key that will let him back into the house to kill the wife. The revision, however, has my guy see the key's removal without reaction, meaning he knows what's going to happen. That affects the inflection of his dialogue for the previous act. He's a co-conspirator, not a stooge. That also colors his subsequent lines when he pleads innocent. I gotta play with this. I don't think we can be unclear about my guy; the audience has to know where he stands, even if he pretends he's unaccountable.

The scene between the wife and husband is the best in the entire play. It's a great argument between unequals, and I think we both chomp into it before we close up for the night. My guy is an utter shit: he offers to chuck his mistress only when he learns he'll lose the house and allowance. On the other side, it's a great act for the wife actress. She takes the stage midway, destroys the spineless husband, and dies twice. All within 20 pages. There's no second act for her. She can put her feet up and gobble all the backstage snacks. Who wouldn't want this kind of role?

The next time we do this act, we're to be offbook. I'll need to recreate the set at home and memorize my stage movements over the next week. And then I'll need to start memorizing Act Two. I have roughly the same amount of time to learn roughly the same amount of pages.

I ordered Your Sister's valentine gift from a local shop, and I hope it gets here by tomorrow. If not, I gotta get a back-up gift at the literal last second.

Picture of the Day
Kanye killed at Sunday's Grammys. I remember we talked about this song in Washington the morning after I saw the video for the first time. Is there a bigger solo star right now? Is he not rock and roll?

In the News
I got home in time to watch the Obama and McCain speeches, and McCain is in deep shit if he has to debate Barack. Obama was speaking to a civic center while McCain was in a hotel conference room, and it appeared as if he had two hundred supporters to Barack's thousands. There's still hope for Clinton (Edwards' delegates would tie her with Obama), but Huckabee can only wish for McCain to implode. The Washington, DC numbers are shocking: 114, 000 Democrats voted compared to the Republicans' 5,700. CNN has outdone themselves with their primary coverage. I watch it for hours.

Frustration

Dad called to say, again, that they still have no idea what he has. I'm starting to wonder if this isn't lymphoma. If local pathologists and a national convention of them can't ID your lymphoma, maybe you don't have lymphoma. It's possible, I suppose, that Dad's exposure to so many classic lymphoma influences has given him a super blood cancer with powers and abilities far above those of mortal lymphomas. They won't take another sample from him, much less deflate the giant armpit lump; they're afraid of jostling loose more of this mystery junk into his system.

Dad wouldn't be this far along in his diagnosis if he and Mom hadn't known some of the hospital staff. The first appointment was bumped up a few weeks. But now we're back to the normal "stress and wait" schedule. His health is the same. I guess this is what it means to live with cancer.

I'm up to page 16 in the script, and we finally go back to Act One tonight. I'll have to carry the script for the stage direction, but I hope this memorization at least helps me get more into character, as the director requested, on this, our whopping fifth rehearsal. Yes, I'm still fuming. A little voice in my head whispers "ego" and rolls it's imaginary eyes. A dozen other voices chirp in with "isn't this the theatre we were walking away from in November?" But it's a good role, and I was asked. So I will trudge on. Trudge trudge trudge.

We're still dying to know about last Saturday.

Picture of the Day
Coolest signboard job ever?

Days 3 and 4: Blocking Act Two

I got into a groove with memorization, and I now have the first 12 pages committed to memory. I think that's pretty good for five days' work. I can have Act One done by the end of this week.

I dodged a bullet of sorts in the casting. The girl who played the widow in the previous play is, as you might recall, a student of Your Sister. She emailed me to say, had time allowed, she would have auditioned for this play's mistress role. If she were cast, we would have smooched onstage. I'm 18 years older than her. That would rile up Mayberry. I think she's mature enough to handle Stage Kissing. The blue hairs watching? Not so much. Even her mom (whom I've met) might sit up a little straighter over that.

On Friday night, we sit around the table and write down the initial blocking for Act Two's first scene. The mistress is sick as is the director and his wife. We walk through the act afterward. We also bump up the age of the wife by ten years. There are also more changes to language and locations. Instead of Salisbury and London, we're talking Syracuse and New York. We leave about an hour early.

Sunday's rehearsal is much the same as we finish Act two with the murderer. He wonders how to play his character -- is he gay or is it all mind games? I think it's more kin to vampirism than sex, and there's no suggestion of anything physical happening between the two male characters. The play includes a line explaining the murderer as carrying hate for his step-dad and projecting it on my character, but it's fleeting compared to the cross-dressing and references to traveling as a married couple.

The director is concerned about our emotional flow throughout the play and singles me out as playing the role at too even a keel. I do not point out that this is only our fourth rehearsal, and we're walking with script binders and writing down blocking notes while we're crossing out anachronistic language. But I'm tempted. I'm leaning toward Jack Lemmon as a performer template, especially his work in Glengarry Glen Ross. I picture this play as a noir, and I'm playing the guy who makes his own torturous bed. The murderer here could very easily have been a femme fatale. It's noted that this will be the most risque show this theatre has tried, even when he dilute the hard language and play the murderer as straight.

The director also mentions that in order for the murderer to credibly knit onstage, the actor will need to learn simple stitches. We'll perform very close to our audience, and the majority female attendees will get distracted if he's not doing it right. I had to learn a piano chord for an earlier show for the same reason. The wife, mistress, and murderer have to wear identical wigs, and the mistress has to wear two at one time at the play's end. That actress works at a costume shop, though, and can get us wigs easily.

Despite the director's assurances, we run over our time, and it's 5:20 before I can pick up Your Sister to catch the live wrestling show in the next state. We were supposed to see Julius Caesar Friday night, but my rehearsals bumped me from the show, and she took the art teacher instead. For that, the acting note, and the long Sunday rehearsal, I'm grumpy as I run out the door.

Picture of the Day
We sat this close to the ring.

Day 2: Blocking Act One

I should mention we're back to the warehouse and the taped floors. But we do have a lot of furniture and props. The director also has very specific movements and cues, and tonight's three-hour block is used up by navigating through Act One's 25 pages. The blocking provides insights to the characters he wants from us. My guy is all reaction -- very passive, easily manipulated, defensive, pouty.

We spend the first segment of the rehearsal replacing the English idioms and softening the cursing. This isn't unusual for community theatre. Often, the audience is made up of the reserved, older types, and they spook easily. Out go the "bastards" and a few "hells." Technically, this is against the rules of the contract with the script provider, but it's almost universal. When we performed Barefoot in the Park about ten years back, we changed the core line of the play -- the one with the play's title -- because it has a "goddamned." If you drive away the blue hairs, you lose business. Also, like with Barefoot, I've also warned the wife of the impending stage kisses.

Speaking of the script, I have to admit how scared I became last night when looking at the schedule. We rehearse Act One twice in the next two weeks, and we're to be off book by that second night. That gives me two weeks to memorize Act One, but that's almost all away from the practice space and the other actors. This will be rote memorization (the hardest kind for dialogue), and the volume of it requires I learn about one scene every two days. This is professional-grade scheduling, and I am, in every sense, an amateur.

My script is already scribbled with stage directions, and I'm starting to underline which words I'll emphasize.

Lookee here. When you click on the below images, they open to proportional size. Here's what the last play looked like. I'm Flint:



This is the current play. I'm Brian:



I'm going to wake up earlier to give me more time to tackle the scenes. Act Two is a little bigger than the first act, and I'm making with the yak-yak in both acts. This could be the toughest play I've ever tried, and I'll need a long break when this is over.

Starting Up the Play

Your Sister was more disheartened than I to learn I was out of the contest. She was oddly quiet for a while. Me, I'm planning to make a minicomic out of the proposals; it could be listed as a business expense on next year's taxes.

+ + +

Six of us met for the read-through last night: the four actors, the director, and his wife. This was the first chance for me to read the script, and my first thought upon opening it is that this will be the toughest script I've had to memorize. It's dense, even at a seemingly short 68 pages. The dialogue is single spaced and packed tight. It's twice the text of the last script, and my part then was considered too long to memorize. I have 2 weeks to learn Act One's 25 pages, and that breaks down to about 2 pages a day. Starting right now. This is daunting. The two actors indeed carry the show.

The play itself is simple enough: con guy kills the wife of a schlub and then blackmails him in a psychosexual melodrama. One set, two acts, four people (con guy, husband, wife, mistress). I met the latter tonight, and everyone seems to have the same idea of the type of play. That helps, especially with this tight rehearsal schedule. We open in five weeks.

The director set down his rules in a friendly manner and explained he won't allow the kind of ugly backstage drama they had on the last few shows. He then gave short character notes to get our heads right and asked us to determine if we wanted to try the play with the original British accents. By the end of the read, I asked out of that. It's going to be tough enough learning this in an American dialect. If we had another three weeks, maybe. He seemed OK with that. Everybody did. And that's a relief. He's planned out this play for months if not years. He has the set design and blocking in mind already, and he gave us a full rehearsal script on the first day. He's ready to roll.

It's going to be a fun part to play. My guy's a washed-up sportsman mooching off the missus and trapped by the con guy because he's easily manipulated and weak. And then he cracks by the play's end. I didn't really have a character in the last play -- just a stack of questions to recite -- and I'm looking forward to this role. I'm already thinking of actors to emulate (William H. Macy, Paul Giamatti, etc.).

I started my usual theatre diet (soup and bread) last night because I had so little time between work and rehearsal. When this is over, I should be in good shape to start running again. If I have any brains left.

Picture of the Day
Quick! To the Bat-bat!



In the News(papers)
My old weekly newspaper has again gone under. It closed about three months after I moved in 2004 and came back about than a year later under a new name and owned by James, the writer with whom I butted heads. As of Friday, the print version is again no more, and a posting on their website says he's walking away and leaving the online presence in other hands. James cites "a level of support hard to obtain without excessive pandering in a free publication funded solely by advertising dollars." I don't know what he expected after working for the same free paper for years.

I think "pandering" refers to his perception of a stubborn audience he couldn't win over; the paper was distinct in the area for its progressive voice, and, unfortunately, that voice tended to get shrill. He might also complain about the weekly tabloid launched by the town daily, but that paper is a hollow ad vehicle lacking any substance. There were enough willing, small businesses in the area to support our weekly before the decision was made to slough them and target high-end clients already dedicated to the daily. The paper had a bad business model, and this is what happens to bad business models.

+ + +

I'm dying to know what Tuesday was like for you. Spill it.

Super Bowl Weekend

I auditioned for another play with the local group. This is a four-person murder drama with a different director, and he approached me a few months back to audition. Three people showed up Saturday for the first audition, and I was one of them. The others were there for the young con guy and the older man's wife. We read long scenes (instead of the usual two-page readings), and we were close to blocking and directing the scenes. If we three people are cast, that would leave a younger woman's role, and she would be the mistress of the character I read for. I hope that doesn't go to one of Your Sister's students. Tad awkward. I should find out today if I got the role.

We watched Omega Man, the second film adaptation of I Am Legend, and the last before the Will Smith movie.

The order goes like this:
I Am Legend story
The Last Man on Earth film
The Omega Man film
I Am Legend film

I can definitively say now that the Smith movie adapted Omega Man, and the filmmakers may never have even glanced at the cover of the original story. Given that, they did a nice job. Omega man is a vehicle for Charlton Heston, and I tried to prepare Your Sister for his fiery machismo. He did spend a third of the movie shirtless before discovering and conquering the supercool, leather-clad, black mama. Your Sis now also has the story in print. I haven't read it in ten years or so, but I remember it as a good precursor to Stephen King.

Dad looks OK. The growth under his arm is mostly internal, and it's mostly an inconvenience. The doctor's report says he has enlarged nodes throughout his torso, some possibly causing his heart to race but that could be from the caffeine. He's eating well and seemed in good spirits. We did have a long sit-down about domestic budgeting and insurance planning. He also wants to buy us stuff, and I'm trying to politely decline.

I didn't make the cut for the superheroine contest, and I won't know what the winning proposals look like for another month. They better be good. They better win me over.

Hey, any luck seeing Hillary today?

Picture of the Day
Is Indy looking for the Ark?