Phew. What a week. Sometimes it's only a waiting game. A few auditions here and there. Nothing. I keep busy doing my own work - at Dixon Place with Eva Burgess, working on a website, writing. Then suddenly something in the air changes and things get busy instantly. But let me back up a bit.
Last Friday night I went with my friends James Shanley and Sarah Ford to see the Obie Award winning production of The Brig at the newly-opened Living Theatre on Clinton Street. This show is unbelievable! And I mean that in a good way. Judith Malina has reclaimed her title as the Mother of American Theater with this production. You will not encounter another show like this anywhere else. And understandably so. This is a production that has been 40 years in the making. If you have a chance run - don't walk and see this show immediately. It's only play for a few more weeks. Wednesday nights are pay what you can, so don't let money stop you. It is well worth your time, believe me.
On Sunday I had my first rehearsal for Wake. The film is scheduled to begin shooting the second week of August. We had a table read with the full cast. I'm truly honored to be among such fine actors. Congratulations to director Andrew Lawton and producers Shane Tilton and Anre B. Garrett for assembling a first-rate company.
Monday afternoon I received a phone call from my agent David Cash at Henderson-Hogan with an audition for Tuesday. It was for a play called Alfred Kinsey: A Love Story by Mike Folie being produced in September by The New York Theatre Collective. They sent me the script by email and I got to work on it right away. I fell in love with the role of Alfred Kinsey. As you would expect from a play based upon the legendary scientist, it plunges the treacherous waters of sexuality and taboo. I prepped as well as I could in a short amount of time then decided to just go have fun, not getting my hopes up too high. I got an offer the same day.
Wednesday morning, however, David Cash calls to tell me it isn't going to work out after all, because my shooting schedule on Wake conflicts with the first week of rehearsal. Argh! I was crushed. So I did what any desperate actor would do in my situation. I begged. I pleaded with David to work it out, and I promised to make up some rehearsal time along the way. To my absolute and complete surprise - it worked! Suddenly I'm in the enviable position of working on a film and a play, both great roles, both terrific projects, all at the same time! This life is sure confusing.
Thank you to casting director Cindi Rush for bringing me in, and mucho thanks to director Craig George for casting me. I can't wait to start!
OK, enough about me. (Is it even possible to say that on a blog?) Back to Letter To Actor D. In the first two sentences Eugenio Barba writes:
I have often been struck by a lack of seriousness in your work. This is not the same as a lack of concentration or good will. It is the expression of two attitudes.
For many years I've read this is saying "You don't your work seriously enough. You must work harder!" But working hard isn't the same thing as working well. I'm beginning to learn the difference. I think what Barba is getting at here really is a belief in oneself as an artist. To take yourself seriously is to have the conviction that what you are doing is what you should be doing, that working in the theater is important, and isn't just a frivolous self-indulgence. The next few sentences could also be read as "you don't know what you're doing", but again, I don't think that's what Barba's saying:
First of all, it seems as if your actions are not driven by any inner conviction or irresistible need which leaves its mark on your exercise, improvisations and performance. You may be concentrated in your work, without sparing your energies, your gestures may be technically correct and precise, but your actions remain empty. I don’t believe in what you are doing. Your body clearly says “I have been told to do this.” But your nerves, your brain, your spine, are not committed, and with this skin-deep-commitment you want to make me believe that what you are doing is vital to you.
Driven by...inner conviction. I don't think he means the character. He isn't talking here about believing in a Stanislavskian objective, or getting behind the situation in the play. He's talking about political conviction. It can only be political. It was Judith Malina (again) who told me as a student at NYU that unless you have a political message to convey, all theater is nothing but vanity. "What you're saying is look at me! Look at my costume! Don't I look wonderful! And listen to my voice! Don't I sound powerful!" Theater without political conviction is folly.
Barba continues:
You do not sense the importance of that which you want to share with the spectators. How then can you expect the spectator to be gripped by your actions? How can you, with this attitude, uphold the understanding of the theater as a place where social inhibitions and conventions are annihilated to make way for an open-hearted and absolute communication?
The annihilation of convention makes way for open-hearted communication. Bingo. Now we're on to something. We begin to see why theater is in fact imperative, even in this age of film, video, and mass communication.
And so, dear reader, I leave you with that. Until next time...break a leg.
w.
