August 5, 2023
Opening night sold out. The long wait between arrival and going on stage is annihilating to concentration, but, still, I think O and I came off well. Best of the evening, if chatter be trusted. As for the wait, I told the stage manager from now on I’ll appear when I need to, and she seemed to accept it. She is actually so efficient I assumed she would approve anything that increased efficiency. Sat for one of those hours with three young women I did not previously know, all of them very engaged or recently graduated drama students. They got onto the subject of acting, and I was treated to a three-handed discourse on teachers, methods, great moments and figures, that was the most learned and probing conversation I’ve heard since I retired. I literally had nothing to add. Not only were they hugely well informed, but their rhetoric was elegant and courteous, acknowledging the truth of what her colleague said before going on to add her next point. It was amazing and, for a teacher, gratifying. Somebody had been paying attention.
Not to refute, but to suggest what I might have said had I not been so gloriously outgunned, I believe all of that is actually irrelevant to the art of acting, though it may make an actor feel equipped and confident. I’d seen these young women on stage before meeting them. One did quite well (the one, predictably, who’d had the least to say) Two were bad, doing too much, calling attention to their doing, not presenting the play but themselves as players. You want to believe wide knowledge leads to deep practice, but it doesn’t. Theories of acting are like theories of painting, almost never employed by those who are best at the actual endeavor. I’ve had plenty of experience, but no training, and its coming instinctually to me makes me believe that it must be instinctual to all, if they’re doing it right. This might be an error. I ran into the same issue in writing, unable to give satisfying recipes and outlines to my students because I never used them myself. What is my theory of acting? Understand the text and deliver it with the greatest clarity possible. That is the first and great commandment. Like unto it: fully inhabit the moment; pay attention to what else is being said on stage; find your light; speak up.
One of the learned young ladies mentioned that she’s in Montford’s The Tempest.
“Whom do you play?” says I.
“Sebastian.”
The one word saves me from seeing that production. Montford has always been short of men and filled in with women. My advice: recruit or do a different play. They do not ask my opinion.
Driving to the theater, I had to ease past my flock (2 adults, 7 chicks) of turkeys who were using the driveway at the same time. I went dead slow. They regarded my car with alarm, but not enough of it to change routes.
Phillipe Sly is my current musical obsession.
Finished deep revision of Tub. Will likely change the title.
Matinee late this afternoon. The show runs over three hours, so we leaving the matinee will have to dance around those arriving for the evening performance. The last playlet in our group is so bad–and so long–it could be lopped as a gangrenous limb. So many directors are needed for an endeavor like this that there is little vetting. An eager hand waving “I’ll do it!” is enough. But, of course, it is not enough.
