My First Acting MonoBlogue!

     Hello, all!  Welcome to my first acting monoblogue!  I've known for a while now that "writing" your thoughts down is good for you emotionally and creatively and allows you to express yourself in ways that you might never express yourself otherwise, but I also recently discovered that it's a great way to network in your chosen field.  With this blog, I hope to reap both the personal and professional benefits I just mentioned.  Anyway, on with the acting part!

Last night, I went to rehearsal for "Little Women."  We start the show February 3rd at The EmilyAnn Theatre out in Wimberley, Texas (more information can be found here: http://www.emilyann.org/productions_nowplaying.cfm) and I will be playing not one, but two roles.  I will first play the role of Mr. Davis, the strict teacher who orders Amy to toss out her pickled limes and disciplines her in front of the entire class.  My second role, and by far the most demanding, will be that of Professor Bhaer, the German scholar who inspires Jo to be a better writer and, eventually, his wife.  This is not to say that Mr. Davis will be a cake walk.  Sure, I can play him as the big, bad, mean teacher who humiliates poor little Amy in front of her friends and get a decent enough response from the audience.  But I believe in subtlety and playing opposites.  Yes, I will be angry with her for violating my rules and bringing contriband into my classroom but just working with pure anger and apparent malice is one-dimensional and flat and not very engaging for the audience.  If the audience can see that the anger comes from somewhere deep within Mr. Davis, perhaps from a time in his past when he was scarred by the negative effects of a lack of order and discipline or from a long-ago-formed belief that social anarchy leads to the degeneration of society, even if they can't pin exactly what the source of the anger is, they will be drawn in and feel like they can relate to Mr. Davis on some level as a human being.  That's because human beings constantly behave in terms of opposites.  A man can be completely head-over-heels in love with a woman but not call her after they make love for the first time (usually, a sign that a man has lost interest), not because he has lost interest, but because his last girlfriend broke up with him shortly after they first made love and he's afraid of that happening again when he calls his current lover.  In the case of Mr. Davis, outward anger over Amy's cache of pickled limes can come from a place of inner love and concern for the upbringing of the current generation.  Human beings in real life are complex and non-linear and confusing, like Mr. Davis, and if you're doing your job as an actor, your characters will be just as enigmatic.  I think the best way, perhaps the only way, to mirror reality in this fashion is to make the choices on paper so that you have something concrete from which to act upon.  Improvisation and in-the-moment choices are very useful and natural and the audience eats them up, but you have to do your homework and have a plan before you go up on stage.  You can't just "wing it" and not write anything down because at that point, you just have thoughts, nothing you've committed to in a hard and fast physical form.

As wonderfully challenging as playing Mr. Davis will be, it will be trumped in terms of difficulty by the portrayal of Professor Bhaer.  The girl playing Jo is not even 18 yet and I am well past that age, so I not only have to become comfortable getting all lovey-dovey with jailbait, but I will have to convince the audience that there's plenty of reason for an ingenue to be in love with a man who's so much older and larger (and bearded!)  Also, I have to find a way to physically differentiate Professor Bhaer from Mr. Davis enough so that audience members won't mutter to their friends, "That's just Mr. Davis with a different coat on."  I think I should age my way of movement and walking, but not too much (I'm supposed to be in my 40s).  Just adding movement of any kind to a character is always a challenge for me.  I think the biggest challenge, though, will be speaking all of my lines, both those to my fellow actors and those directly to the audience, with a credible German accent!  I emphasize the word "credible" because you can go up on stage and spit out a half-ass German-ish accent that some people might buy.  Even that's a gamble.  I imagine most people would think they were at a crappy elementary school play where all the kids just say "dahk" instead of "dark" a few times and then expect you to believe they were born in London and eat fish and chips every day.  In an effort to keep eye-rolls at a minimum, I have researched common German accent patterns (here: http://www.learntheaccent.com/how-to-do-a-german-accent and here: http://www.howtodothings.com/education/how-to-talk-with-a-german-accent) and marked my dialogue accordingly.  At this point, it seems like I'll be breaking my jaw up on stage with all the necessary speech alterations, but I hope that, with practice, the actual performance will be much more fluid and natural and, most importantly, believable!  

I still have a TON of work to do before opening, such as backstories for both characters, beat dissection and the associated break down of strongest emotion, the moment before, what the problem is, etc.  I hate to admit that it's been a while since I've done that kind of work for a role, but I really want to do well up there and satisfy myself that I've done what I can to put out a quality performance.  Stage acting is not improv.  It is preparation and analysis and disassembly and making decisions, beforehand.  Once all of that has been done and you're on stage, then you can flavor your performance with improvised choices and spontaneous inspiration.  This is not to bash improv - I have a lot of respect for the art and the people who are able to perform it skillfully and I believe actors who apply improv skills to stage acting are usually more spontaneous, comfortable, and believeable.  This is also not to say there isn't room for improv in stage acting.  There is, but it has to be a garnish, not the main course.  If you just slack off and go up on stage without any choices made or homework done previously and expect to improv your way through a performance, it will come across as vague and a lazy toss-off.  (Speaking of improv, I will be taking the 201 class at The Institution Theater starting January, 14th.  Visit their website here: http://www.theinstitutiontheater.com/) 

At the end of the day, no matter how much work I'll have to do for these parts, I am honored that someone at The EmilyAnn thought so highly of my previous work that they hand-picked me for these very different, challenging roles.  I am very grateful for that and it gave me a shot in the arm that I needed.

Back to work for me!  Until next time...