Last night I opened in the title role of Mike Foley's play Alfred Kinsey: A Love Story (playing now through September 23rd). There's always something jittery about an "opening night". It's a strange psychological phenomenon. It's really no different from any other night. We'd already done the show in several previews. But calling one performance the official "opening" ramps up the energy for some reason. Not necessarily a bad thing. Energy can be good. It's knowing how to channel it that's the trick.
I'm always curious about this process of creating a character. We began previews last Thursday, and by Saturday night I felt completely lost. I began to mistrust all the good work we'd done in rehearsals. I felt tentative about the story. I didn't feel like I was breathing the role. My focus was off. I began to drop lines. It seemed like a total disaster.
It wasn't, of course. People who saw that particular preview liked the play a lot and didn't notice anything wrong on stage. I call that "the level below which you cannot fall" (meaning - no matter how bad you think you are, your technique should kick in and carry you). But still I was sure I was missing something vital. I had to go back to the proverbial drawing board and rethink my playing of Kinsey.What I realized was that I was blocking my merging with the character. Kinsey does some terrible things in this play, and goes on quite an emotional journey. I was growing more and more depressed as we got closer to "opening" night. I thought it was my work. I kept thinking..."I don't understand the role." In fact, I was beginning to experience the role physically, experientially. And my conscious mind didn't like it. I was trying to protect myself. Hence the conflict. Hence the confusion. Hence the weak performance and dropped lines.
You can feel it when your acting really lands. Something shifts inside you. It's literally a physical sensation. The work moves from intellectual to cellular, and there's a period of adjustment as your body re-negotiates the change. It may take a few shows. It may take many. Sometimes it never happens at all. There's no integration of character and the performance remains trapped in "thinking". That is a worst-case scenario. And that is what was happening to me as of this past Saturday night.
I went home and did some thinking. It finally dawned on me...Kinsey is a villain!! How delicious!!
I don't often get to play bad guys. Here's my crack at a contemporary Iago. This is going to be fun.
Fun. Oh, that's right. This is supposed to be fun.
By Sunday the character landed. I began to let go and just trust myself. I stopped worrying about the lines and started just really watching my fellow actors - all of whom are amazingly present. I remembered those words of Sanford Meisner: "Get the attention off yourself and onto the other person." My body relaxed. My voice dropped down nice and deep. My hands were no longer flying about. The play flowed along, and I started to lean into the nastiness of Kinsey rather than trying to bend him to some version more acceptable to my own personality. I didn't miss a beat. And it was fun.
Now, with opening night jitters in the past, the exploration of character can really start.
