All Hail the King: Walter White as Tragic Hero

"This is the first day of the rest of your life, but what kind of life will it be, huh? Will it be a life of fear, of 'Oh, no no no I can't do this'? Of never once believing in yourself?"

-Walter White, Breaking Bad, Season 1, Episode 7: A No-Rough-Stuff Type Deal

For as long as I can remember, Hamlet has been my favorite classical play. At times, it has been my favorite all-around play. I have a personal theory (which I have absolutely no interest in proving) that a significant factor in Hamlet's continuing popularity is that it hits so many young men at just the right time in their lives for identifying with angst, indecision, patricide, and so much else. It is a truly great work of literature, and it's a great play - though that latter is as much for flaunting the rules as for any decent playcraft.

What I find extremely interesting about people's responses to the play, however, is something that I believe they tend to neglect in their interpretation of it. That is, the concept of divine order (or justice) that permeated Shakespeare's life at the time he wrote it. Very few people question the morality of Hamlet's actions in the course of avenging his father's death, apart from perhaps having some qualms about how it all works out for poor Ophelia. Yet the play is mercilessly just. In his pursuit of a murderer, Hamlet becomes a murderer, and is thus killed himself.

When Breaking Bad first premiered, the concept was so bizarre I and Wife Megan felt we had to give it a shot. AMC was just transitioning into its phase of incredible original programming, and that as much as the critical buzz and series conceit was so strange we just had to see what it was all about. Embarrassingly, I don't believe we made it through the first episode. I found it too bleak by half. Maybe if I had lasted the 45 minutes or so, I would've clued in to what makes the show so amazing but - as it is - I chose to leave it to the critics and cynics.

I'll admit I was wrong. I enjoy knowing when I'm wrong, even when admitting it is difficult. In this case, the admission is easy as pie. Breaking Bad is an exceptional example of drama and cinema, even outside of its television milieu, and I was a fool to wait as long as I have to catch up on its four seasons available to me. I'm now contemplating renting the first half of season 5, just to get caught up and experience the final episodes in real time - something I have never been compelled to do before.

I have another theory, one specific to Breaking Bad and its writers, and one that I've been debating a bit with a few people lately. This theory represents my personal hook into the series, which means I have a ready bias about it. If I'm wrong, I lose interest in the series or - worse yet - whenever the series finale rolls its way around I am bound for horrific disappointment in its story-telling. My bias is of course what leads me into debate about it. I need to test my theory against others' perceptions, to learn if I'm fooling myself.

It is so easy to fool oneself. You need only pay attention to yourself above all others.

My theory is this: Walter White is a character cast in the mould of the classic tragic hero. Furthermore, the writers know it, and use tragedy as their guiding principle for their tremendous, unified story arcs.

Found here.

Boring as it may be for a way to begin, I feel the urge (rising, UNSTOPPABLE) to define some terms. Many of the disagreements I have had with people on this theory have I believe sprung from one word: Villain. People seem very invested in the idea of Walter as a gradually developing villain, and when I call him a "hero," they take umbrage. They take it all the way to Mexico and back.

My use of the term "hero" in this sense is not strictly speaking the inverse of "villain." I mean a hero in the sense of a "protagonist." I'm not sure why the term "tragic protagonist" has never caught on - it has lovely consonance. Perhaps it's a preference for the inferred irony of some of literature's most villainous tragic heroes. And therein is the crux of the semantic difficulty - a tragic hero can be a real dickhead.

(Perhaps it's for another post, but I take umbrage [all the way to Umbria and back] with the misuse of the term "anti-hero." People seem to think they understand what an anti-hero is based on the concept of a hero as a swell, stand-up guy. Ergo, to them an "anti-hero" is someone imperfect or not nice. But that's rather missing the point, or at least beside it. Grrr. Anyway...)

So why is the definition of hero-protagonist (Snow Crash fans, amirite? Hello? Is this thing on...?) so critical? Well, to begin with, the dramaturgical definition of a hero is simply more useful than "a righteous dude." And to conclude: That definition supports my argument.

According to literature both literate and dramatic, a hero is:

• Chosen, rather than choosing of his fate.
• Reactionary, usually reacting to antagonist characters, but sometimes just to such forces.
• On a journey, in which he will learn and gain things and eventually apply these winnings to the world from which he comes.

And that's about it, as far as commonalities go. Mythological heroes may be transformed, comicbook heroes may operate from super-natural abilities, and Scoob and the gang may always catch their criminal, but none of those factors define them as heroes. Heroes are our connection to a story of learning and change, our guides, and there are no promises either the story or the hero will end happily.

Enter tragedy. It's another much-maligned term, in that people tend to take the colloquial usage and apply it to fiction. It is of course tragic when six nuns die in a horrific and sudden bus accident, and still more tragic when sixteen newly ordained nuns on their way to give cookies to quadriplegic blind orphans die in a horrific and sudden bus accident, one that could've been prevented by the driver simply using Google Maps instead of Apple ones. But it is a travesty rather than a tragedy, in the dramaturgical sense.

In fiction, a tragedy has a specific form. It is not enough for things to end badly for all involved. If it were, you could have a hysterically funny play that in its last ten minutes kills every character you care for (Paging Martin McDonagh [Just kidding! {Really kidding - you don't care for his characters one bit!}]). Much as we might enjoy such a play or movie now, it doesn't qualify as a tragedy, because a tragedy has to do with inevitability. In a tragedy, we feel the end coming, and know 1) nothing will ever be the same afterward, and 2) there is nothing we can do about it.

So when I call Walter White a tragic hero, here's what I'm saying:

He is on a journey through strange territory, from which he is returning with things he applies to his origins. Hardly anyone would argue with this, I think. A good portion of the humor in the show has to do with Walter applying skills associated with his hard-earned "street cred" to his increasingly shaky suburban life. Whether it's carrying a second cell phone or learning how to get the drop on a thug, Mr. White has been on one darkly heroic cycle.

He reacts to antagonists. This is an easy one to get tripped up on. After all, Walt expends so much of his effort in maintaining or regaining control, and in the long run (to date) he's been very successful. He adopts little pretense by the end of season 4 - he is IN CHARGE, and "the one who knocks." It's also difficult to cite an antagonist to Walt when we first meet him. Who's got it out for him when he's a mild-mannered chemistry teacher? Certainly not his overbearing boss at the car wash? Nope.

No, it's cancer.

An antagonist isn't defined solely by being in opposition to the protagonist. Something very important is accomplished by the antagonist - the inciting action. The thing that gets the ball rolling on the plot, for the hero to react off of. It can seem counter-intuitive at first; we'd like to believe that we are good, and that good is active, but consider for a moment some incredibly heroic story (in the "heroism" sense). Odds are you'll see Superman doesn't appear until some schmuck falls off a skyscraper, and Beowulf can't get decisive until Grendel rends a few limbs himself.

Cancer incites Walter to his new lifestyle, and is what threatens to prevent him from achieving his aim of providing enough support for his family once he's gone. It does so directly, by occasionally crippling him when he has to cook meth or kill a dealer, and indirectly, by threatening to end his life before he can pull through enough business to make his gamble worthwhile. The antagonism passes hands (not to Tuco - that's a period during which the plot frankly frays) to Gus just about as systematically as possible. In the beginning, Gus is literally impelling Walt to return to cooking, and Walt's cancer even abates in conjunction with his increasing fear for his life under the threat of Gus's rule.

He has a fatal flaw that will prove his downfall. This is some of that inevitability I referred to earlier. Beyond the vague sense that this series of events can't possibly work out in Walter's favor, he has to evince some seed of failure or lack of insight that will eventually destroy him. Oedipus had his figurative (eventually literal) blindness about his parents, Macbeth his ambition, Lear his prideful vanity. Pride is a classic.

Hubris - overbearing pride or presumption. Mr. White has it in spades. It could be argued to be his characteristic trait. It prevents him from getting out of his dangerous business, from accepting financial help from an old colleague and flame, and drives him to improve and protect his product. So prideful is he, in fact, that Walt may have allowed Hank to find him out as "Heisenberg" rather than allow someone otherwise uninvolved in his affairs to believe he wasn't responsible for that magically pure meth. It remains to be seen if that moment of pure hubris will prove his tragic flaw. Walt's ever-shifting momentum and position make for some taut suspense on that count.

He is a noble/every-man, brought low for the gratification of the masses. With Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller very specifically made a tragedy of someone who was not a king, thereby implanting the idea of a tragic everyman as something of a contemporary American take on tragedy. We can certainly argue for Walter being an everyman like Willy Loman - an imperfect working man simultaneously sacrificing all for, yet undermining his family - but I'd also argue he can be perceived as something of the knighted class. He represents white, middle-class America, and though he's hardly well-off he also stands in stark contrast of benefit to the meth addicts and pushers with whom he comes to consort.

For a time, at least.

Walter White is chosen. This may be the toughest point to argue, and brings us back around to the beginning of the story of Breaking Bad. Walt proving a predominantly reactive character does not of itself indicate that he is chosen, merely that he is subject to much circumstance (which is of itself a rather Shakespearean tragic-hero trait; but never mind). No amount of strange conjunction (like the grief-addled father of his partner's deceased girlfriend crashing a couple of planes over his house at just the right time) or unique portents (such as a roving stuffed bear's eye) or elaborate subsurface camera angles proves W.W. to be the chosen one. The question to answer is, "Why must it be him?"

This is where kings have it all worked out. They are ordained by God, generally speaking, and the land suffers as they do. It's hard to get more chosen than that. It's difficult to say whether or not there is a God in the world in which Breaking Bad's story is told (and here again we have a whole other dissertation) but if there is, he or she seems to be pretty far from the crime scene, so to speak. Still, there's another divine factor that we contemporary audiences are somehow less reticent to accept as a part of our stories. I'm speaking of course of fate.

If you rewatch the first episode of Breaking Bad, it's hard not to feel as though forces are aligning to send Walt down his eventual path. Every incident gives a subtle, necessary nudge to him, from how his diagnosis is delivered to his being along for a scouting mission on a meth lab a former student happens to be involved in. In the hands of lesser talent, this would read simply as weak writing, but the trend of Breaking Bad has been to continue to make excellent use of far-reaching and interwoven influences. In fact, the structure of whole episodes and even seasons involves setting up a quixotic moment ahead of the story, in the future, making the action of the story a steady march to that inevitable conclusion. As though it's delivered to us by a soothsayer - we don't know what to make of the brief portent of what's to come when we receive it and once it becomes clear ... it's too late.

Walter White was destined to his fate, and it could be none other than him. All that remains is to see where that fate ultimately lands him.

Found here.

How I Will Know That I'm Right:

• There will be an antagonist in season 5.
• Walt will die - preferably as a direct result of his hubris.
• There is a God. Or at least a sense of divine order.
• You'll tell me.

I have plans (SECRET WAYS) to see what's been aired of season 5 soon enough, though I frankly expect it to seem to refute my argument. At least, if I were the writers breaking (har har) a fresh season at the midway point, I would probably raise my protagonist up pretty high. All in preparation for one very tragic fall.

Bang! Pow! Zwounds!: Richard III as "Graphic Novel"

Editor's Note: Once again, I'm adapting personal email into 'blog posts. I shall mutlti-task, and you shall dig it. This comes out of a discussion with a director friend of mine who was tasked with considering a production of Richard III based on a graphic-novel approach.

Found here. Grisly remains found here?

So: "a pre-1700's graphic novel story," eh? First of all: Do we mean a graphic novel written and drawn in the "pre-1700s"? A graphic novel set in the "pre-1700s"? And why the "pre-1700s"? Do we set Richard the Three in 1699, or Roman-occupied Ireland, or dare we make it 1485? {Ed.: I've since learned that the particular audience in discussion rejects any Shakespeare set later than that as being too much a departure from historical accuracy. Hilarious.}

But my greater confusion here is what on earth we mean by "graphic novel." That's a little bit like saying, "Let's produce a Richard the Third like a pre-1700s movie story." Graphic novels are a medium about as varied as cinema.

But not everyone knows that, and were I to assume (thereby making an ass out of you and ume) a thing or two, I might assume we mean a sort of highbrow comicbook approach. Somehow. Which is still about as clear as the mud from which one might need a horse in order to extricate oneself.

My assumption however is based on the following facts:

• The most commercially viable and well-known printed graphical storytelling of the prior and current centuries has been "comic books"; and
• "Graphic novels" is a popular term for comic books when you're trying to lend them prestige, or raise people's opinions of them from out of the pulp.

The term "graphic novels" also frequently refers to works that have a little more length or over-arcing story to them than some, but that usage is a little reductive as it implies all "graphic novels" were written in one go (like a novel) when in fact the majority were originally published in a serial manner. Comic books, in other words, then collected into the so-called graphic novel.

So what are we to do with a concept based on highbrow comicbooks? In short (HA HA HA) there are too many different kinds of graphic novels to know what we mean when we use that ill-defined term, and the differences traverse everything from art to layout to content. A few varietals:

• Maus - seminal in raising the reputation of comicbooks; it casts mice as Jews and cats as Nazis in a true story of one family's experience of the Holocaust
• The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen - in a fit of zeitgeist, Frank Miller and Alan Moore both eschew/satirize the bubblegum aesthetic of superhero comics; Miller by taking a classic hero and giving him hard-boiled moral ambiguity, and Moore by taking superhero archetypes and subjecting them to a dystopian environment and socio-political realities
• From Hell - Alan Moore here again, this time writing an exhaustively long "graphic novel" that delves into one possible explanation for the identity of Jack the Ripper
• Sandman - what began as a pitch by Neil Gaiman to revitalize some of DC Comics' forgotten characters evolved into an epic story with a beginning, middle and end that chronicles the king of dreams (and his family: Death, Desire, Despair, Destiny, Destruction and Delirium [formerly Delight]) whilst tying in extensive details from the world's mythology, literature and religion

Ma' humps, ma' humps...

And those are fairly conventional examples, as far as just form goes.

I suppose the thing I can't quite wrap my mind around yet is why exactly to apply this concept to this particular work of Shakespeare's. As I see it, there are other plays of his - even other Histories - that might be better fits. Henry V is a pretty good Superman/superhero analogue. Hell, the Henry VIs have those constant turn-overs that would make pretty interesting structure for exploring "serialized" storytelling on stage. Richard III may be episodic enough for serialized storytelling, if that's the angle, but I can't quite make it work without adding layers.

Recently it has been tremendously popular to adapt graphic novels into movies and, even more recently, television. The Walking Dead, for example, is an on-going serialized story that's perfect for television. But they also adapted Watchmen into a film, which tried to do too much and with so much flash that the vital humanity of the story was lost. Even Ang Lee made a superhero movie with the first Hulk Hollywood blockbuster, which in my opinion is practically a lesson in what elements NOT to take from graphic storytelling when adapting from it.

Is there a better reference? Nope.

When they go wrong, what many adaptions have done is adhered too closely either to the content or the form of graphic storytelling (or both). When a graphic-novel story is transported cross-media, it's an injustice not to re-conceive at least a little. Two Frank Miller comics have been adapted into what most consider to be quite successful movies - his Sin City and 300 - and both with a keen eye on staying loyal to the aesthetic of the source material. I would argue, however, that as graphically similar as these movies are to the artwork from which they came, they are in fact very thoroughly re-imagined into a cinematic landscape. Miller went on to direct his version of The Spirit, which copped Sin City's look and failed miserably, lacking the originality of the other two adaptations.

Graphic novels, or comicbooks, work because of the spaces between the panels and how our minds fill those in. They give you some of the interpretive freedom of books or radio, with more of the visual fireworks of TV or film. It takes a certain amount of mental coding to read them, but that can be learned intuitively, and when a good unity between the words, layout and illustrations can be achieved, the story-telling is enhanced. Simply sliding that on top of a film, the languages do not converse. Movies are all about seeing change, seeing it very closely. Just because one of the steps to creating them involves story-boarding doesn't mean that a medium that utilizes frames and composition will automatically translate. You're still filling in the white spaces. You're still animating the iconic.

When it comes to adapting a live show into a "graphic novel" context, there are a few examples from which to pull, but most of them take a fairly satirical (or lightly tongue-in-cheek) slant and have more to do with traditional superhero comics than more varied graphic storytelling. I was in a production of Stand-Up Tragedy in college for which the director brought the main character's comicbook imagination somewhat to life on stage with enormous puppet cut-outs, but that was for one sequence only and functioned rather more as a simple staging element than as anything functional. Vampire Cowboys here in New York have done many a popular show using comicbook tropes, but these are largely original productions and focus on the combat elements (not a bad notion at least by the end of Richard III). I don't know of any examples specific to only the medium itself - not the characters within them, for example.

So anyway: why Richard III in this context? Perhaps we are thinking of him as a character similar to superheroes like Marvel's X-Men mutants, who are ostracized and persecuted for being different, said difference being what makes them special and powerful? Perhaps Richard's story is episodic enough to remind of serialized story-telling - there is a strong procession of scenes of mounting ambition and stakes. Perhaps we're thinking aesthetically of something that utilizes iconography, or stained-glass windows, both of which comic books owe something to.

Yet in discussing all this, what I'm struck by is a very different idea. Richard III reminds me of nothing so much as the trend in television over the last five years or so for highly successful, critically acclaimed shows to feature a main character who is morally flawed. Don Draper of Mad Men is a philanderer, Walter White of Breaking Bad is someone we've watched become (or simply come into being) a ruthless criminal, Dexter is a fracking serial killer, and a host of other shows have followed suit - Damages, Boss, etc. In other words, tragedy makes for great television. In terms of a contemporary hook for RIII, that's where my mind goes. Those shows are incredibly effective, and we root for some of the worst characters in them the hardest. Did this begin with Tony Soprano, or Richard the III?

I have no ideas, however, about how to invite those influences on a production. That's an entirely other conversation. One we should have soon!

In Defense of the Small Theatre

A popular phrase in the theatre addresses the generally accepted philosophy of a regularly working actor: There are no small parts; merely small actors. I confess to you now -- I have not even a small idea what this is supposed to mean. It has been quoted at me my entire life, and I have gone from bafflement to frustration and back again pondering the ambiguity of the saying. (Most theatre traditions seem intentionally ambiguous; the Freemasons have nothing on us.) Does it mean the actor that worries over the size of his or her part is a small-minded individual? Does it mean a part comes across as small only when the actor lacks sufficient panache with which to fulfill it? Does it in fact mean, "Listen kid: Ya' gotta start somewheres..."? (My theatre-authority inner-voice always sounds like a cigar-chomping box-office manager from the '40s Bronx.) I smile, and accept, and usually think, Well, at least so-and-so's using theatre terms, so the form can't quite be on its dying gasp...

This weekend past I had the opportunity to see two shows, which inevitably invites comparison. One was rather modest in scale, the other a hugely financed Broadway play, transplanted from London. Now, these are not forces I consider to be in any sort of opposition to one another. Are Broadway shows a threat to regional theatre? God, no. Does regional theatre stand for some kind of principle against big-budget shows? Nope. So why am I writing about them together? What on earth could the Electric Theatre Company's production of The Dining Room have to do with Donmar Warehouse's of Hamlet?

Apart from both plays dealing with the passing of a way of life in some larger sense, very little. My comparison comes from a feeling of renewed appreciation for more intimate theatrical settings. It's very convenient, of course, for me to favor smaller theatres. ETC is where I do most of my work, after all, with its 99ish seats and relatively low-ceilinged performance space. Amor fati, as they say. Yet my appreciation of the venue in general goes beyond that, to much more objective criteria. I have to admit that the budgets are paper thin, the productions can be rocky and unrewarding as often as they are surprisingly professional and transportive -- this is the smaller theatre. Nothing is tried and true, not even the occasional Neil Simon imperative. I even love circus, and would like nothing more than to rig up ETC with trapezes and silks and slides, and it ain't gonna happen any time soon. Broadway can do that. I've seen it. Broadway can spend thousands of dollars on textured paint alone.

My biggest complaint about the production of Hamlet is one I would normally quickly let go of: to wit, the set. Who cares, right? Hardly the focus of any serious lover of Shakespeare. Yet it especially bothered me for its grandiose melancholy. The set was essentially very minimal: Virtually no furniture, except for moments when modest thrones were brought out on a small platform, and all was on stage level, except when a few panels were removed to accommodate the grave-digging scene. Huge, granite-looking castle walls ascend on all three sides of the playing area, with a similarly grandiose door at the back. The trouble with all this, as I saw it, was that it felt to me like the play was being dwarfed by gloomy nothingness. They achieved some very nice visual moments with snowfall outside the door, and shafts of light or the odd curtain, but for the most part the minimalism and darkness served not to aid the story but to point up how out of place such a human drama felt as it took place in a giant theatre. I would have loved to see the exact same show...only closer.

In The Dining Room, A.R. Gurney winds his exceedingly clever, heartfelt and economical way through various stages of dining room culture in America. The play is a standard, really, of theatre departments and regional theatres -- very accessible and good for a small cast. I performed in a shortened version myself in high school, one of the first shows I did there. The ETC production was very good, honoring all the humor notes and serious moments with equitable specificity without losing touch with the audience, nor playing it too out. What struck me the most about the show, however, was how inviting it felt. Hamlet worked rather hard at making us feel that we were involved in the action -- starting off with an image of a mourning Hamlet alone (or with us) in the middle of that huge stage, keeping him close to the proscenium throughout and even going so far as to put us on Polonius' side of the curtain for his eventual murder. Hamlet wanted us involved, but had to fight for it. Dining Room had us involved simply because we felt we were in the same room.

I am not saying that a theatre being small in scale or structure is a virtue unto itself. The theatre created there still needs to be and do good for its community, and certainly Broadway has to power to influence a far greater (in size, that is) community than any regional outfit. However, comparing these close experiences have allowed me to formulate a theory of which I'm fond. It's widely proposed that live theatre is dead or dying, and I can see many an example to support this belief. I don't believe it, personally, because I believe live theatre will always exist for humanity in some form or other as a part of what defines it. (That, and because I remain unmoved by the argument that "fiscally nonviable" equates to death.) However, there's little use in denying that theatre is rather unappreciated by the majority, at least as compared to its former glories. It is sad, for those of us who love and respect it, to see that our love is rare, but rare it is. We'll always be engaged in some degree of uphill battle to let theatre live. I acknowledge that struggle, the Sisyphean CPR, if you will.

Here is my theory: In this state of affairs -- and I doubt very much this is the first time theatre has had to widely fight for its right to party -- what matters most, what makes the most difference and does the best things for people, is so-called small theatre. There is where you'll feel your life changed. There is where a show fulfills its full potential, and where the dialogue really matters to all involved. Yes, there's every possibility that you'll be bored out of your mind or not believe in a moment of it, and that horrible risk is not levied at all by spectacular effects or the relative proximity of movie stars. But if you remember what it feels like to be opened up by a story, if you weigh the risk against the possibility, small theatre is the best bet. The possibilities in a space of a hundred or so are thousands of times greater than in a space of thousands. There is no small act of theatre, only small responses to it. In short (har har), small theatre is really, really damn important.

I'm thrilled to realize that.

Le Provi Specifica

So. Hi. Sorry for the adamant lapses, but I am at this moment sitting in a tiny piazza in Montefiascone where we have discovered available WiFi. This is tantamount to finding gold, or an Etruscan ruin heretofore undiscovered, hence the long delays. Also, we are busy. Very, very busy, so I can't even pre-write and load an entry all that easily. I could no doubt find a few hot spots in Rome tomorrow during our little trip to see a Plautus show in the Roman ruins, but I'll be honest with you -- I care more about my shoulder hefting about Gracie here than I do about 'blogging. Mi dispiace. I'll make it up to you, I promise.

It goes well with me here. Every day is a new adventure in highs and lows, and everyone has had their little panics, but on the whole the group is amazing and the work is wonderful. We've seen no less than three theatre productions of various sorts (not including tomorrows), learned a lot of Italian, learned a classic Scala scenario, been to the hot springs and an arts festival in Spoleto, had some time at il lago di Bolsena, had master classes with two Italian actors, some great meals, and Friend Heather and I even performed our clown Romeo & Juliet for a crowd of appreciative Italians in a renovated Spanish amphitheater. It goes well with me here.

I miss you all, but I wouldn't have missed this for the world. I'll write more in detail soon. Or later. That's me being very Italian . . .

Act, then Write. Or, the Reverse.

I'm attending another open call today, this one for The Folger. If I and my esteemed readers have learned anything about auditioning this month past, it is that it doesn't really matter in a direct sense. Certainly, people have joined casts by finding their way through the open-call process, but it's such an unpredictable blend of circumstances that it would make a statistician wince. No, the way to get work is to know, and thereby work with, lotsa folks. Open calls are a part of that, of being seen and staying on the ol' radar, but not direct lines to the President, as it were. Still and all, every so often one comes up that provokes some dreaming. And, as I've also iterated numerously at the Aviary, dreaming's an important part of the process.

The Folger is one of those D.C. theatres that I grew up visiting. Between that, Arena Stage and The Little Theatre of Alexandria is the space in which I was formed into a young acting enthusiast. I've actually performed there before. They hold an annual festival of short, high school Shakespeare productions, and I was a part of one Winter's Tale that graced their Elizabethan stage. As I'm sure you can imagine, at age fifteen it was quite a thrill. And, lest you be duped by my omissions: It would be quite a thrill today, tomorrow, and when I'm eighty, too. As something of a topper, they're doing two favorites next season -- Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet. My favorite comedy, and my favorite tragedy (though in recent years, King Lear has been giving the Dane a run for his money in the racetrack of my preference). So, I dream. I'll pop in midday and lay out my Romeo for them-what-make-the-tough-choices, and I'll do my best to enjoy the rush.

In the meantime, I'm plenty busy. T.S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruelest month, and I've often wondered how much his opinion had to do with taxes. In addition, work gallops apace, unrelenting in its demands on me as the new office-manager/HR-coordinator/assistant. Finally, I'm traveling for the next two weekends, to such far-off and fanciful locales as Pennsylvania and Virginia. Yet, yesterday, as I was writing Friends Mark and Davey to break the bad news of feeling unable to contribute much to a new writing project . . . I got an idea, and wrote a story for it. Because, dang it, nothing is more motivating than being told, "No."

I love that the universe keeps throwing writing ideas -- nay, entire fictitious worlds! -- my way. Thanks, universe (read: friends).

* * *

Well. That happened. It was fine, apart from some nit-picking on my own part. The start went better than the end, and I thought I'd at least get a chuckle. Alas, no, but I can hardly blame the casting assistant. I lost a little breath control toward the end (it is an awfully long line to carry through) owing to, I think, nervousness and not enough abdominal stretching, but overall I feel pretty good, and it's always nice to know one's resume and headshot may now be occupying space in someone else's files. I don't believe they were casting, however. Maybe a few roles, but I doubt it. Couldn't say exactly why, really. Only the casting assistant was there, and something about her "thank you" -- just a feeling. Of course, as we've already learned, Dear Reader, my "feelings" rather suck.

Lately I've been fantasizing quite a bit about what it might be like to be a professional writer. Fortunately, I just read a book on Neil Gaiman that disabused me of some more fanciful notions. It is hard work indeed, becoming a paid writer, and then even harder work still to stay one. Heck: The high degree of fame and accomplishment that Gaiman has accomplished only makes his life more chaotically busy. The only advantage over acting I see is that most of the rejection that happens is written rather than spoken (and seemingly it actually gets done, instead of letting one drop off the face of the earth, tied to one's own sense of expectation). It would even seem that writers need to do as much networking as actors. Who could have imagined that an acting career would be so much like so many others? I should have, for one. Art imitates life imitates art, etc.

Still, it is a nice fantasy, this idea of doing work that I want to, when I want to, and receiving compliments and praises left, right and center. Plus, I could sit at a nice desk (you can justify the expense and cost of a "nice desk" when it supports your primary income) and drink tea and dream about more fantasies, and more teas, expensive teas, teas that defy you to resist their calming, meditative influence! Dear God! It would be beautiful! There would be affectionately attended potted plants during the day, not the neglected, lonely aloe I have now! At night, candles with subtle musky scents, that I could monitor regularly enough to make them of actual FLAME, and not a flickering LED! I would read and write and read and write and write some more!

And man, oh man, but I'd miss acting. *sigh* Anyway, it appears that fantasy is based largely on soothing things, and if I've learned anything at all in my life to date, it's that soothing things don't generally pay the bills. Hugh McLeod is of the opinion that staying busy with the business of living actually aids one's creativity. Maybe I should teach yoga.

There'd be mats, and Vinyasas, and chanting, and . . . !

The Run Down

It was dark out when I awoke this morning, suddenly, and for no particular reason. I woke up with Shakespeare on my lips, "...speak again, bright angel, for thou art...." After almost an hour, I gave up on getting back to sleep, and squinted at the clock hard enough to make out some numerals. 5:00. May as well get up. I take it easy, making my breakfast and lunch and showering and shaving, sparing a moment or two to check in at Google Reader, and then I'm out into the chilly air.

I should have dressed warmer. The predawn temperature is just below freezing, and it's been a few days since I've had to deal with that. I turn my back to the wind on the train platform, and when I get outside of the Actors' Equity building I nestle as well as I can manage against a deli's storefront window. Waiting in line takes on a peculiar atmosphere when it's that early in the morning. Everyone has chosen to be there, and there's nowhere to rush to, only the question of whether they'll consider the weather (or not), and let us into the building much before 8:30. Once my hands warm up a little more, I read my book, pausing here and there to run over my monologue in my mind; not just the words, but imagining it as though I were living it under ideal circumstances. I'm in Italy. I'm in Civita di Bagnoregio, under a balcony that's jutting out from a building on the outskirts of town, where the gardens are, isolated. On the balcony is the most beautiful girl I've seen in my entire life. It's warm.

They let us in (mercifully early) and as we initiated march by the building guard we hold out our membership cards. Once past him, I begin to return it to my wallet, then remember that I'll have to show it again once up the stairs and headed into the studios. I keep it in hand and end up walking past a great many actors who were there to sign up for free tax processing, the fifth past the monitor, the fifth in line to sign up for an audition spot, the fifth to sit, and wait some more.

It was my first audition since arriving back in town. My first, to be perfectly frank, in many months. "Shakespeare on the Sound" is doing A Midsummer Night's Dream and, it would seem, casting all roles. I figured it would be a popular call, and I figured right. Hence my early-morning line-waiting. I needed to get a slot of my choice, to make it work with . . . er . . . work. As the hour of nine steadily advances, they finally start signing people up, and I take 12:30. It's possibly the worst slot in terms of the receptivity of the casting director, just before the lunch break, but they don't start until 9:30 and I haven't run this one by my day job, so I can't come in late. More fool me. I take my slot and a brisk walk from 46th and Broadway to 30th and Park, arriving just in time to start the work day.

It's harried at work. It has been -- economy, lay-offs, etc. I'm making it worse. My temper is edged with a diamond crust of anxiety, but I try to be aware of it and not externalize irrationally. Instead, I channel it into things that need doing around the office that are also physical. Sitting at my desk and working is not at this point an option. I move boxes and clean areas and organize files, but I can only hold on to this for so long until something urgent and desk-related comes my way, so I hunker down. My attention is a bucking horse, as much in danger of slamming into a wall as of throwing its rider. I double- and triple-check assumptions as I work, but my work is not slowed, I'm running at such a pace. Most of my coworkers use this energy all the time. I do not know how they do it. I feel like I'm sprinting toward 12:00.

Then I'm out the door. It's my "lunch break," but that's not what has me rushing. It's a couple of avenue blocks to the N/R, and if the trains screw me I have the potential to arrive late for the call for my time slot. The trains cooperate, I walk in just as they're registering the 12:30 group. I hand over my registration card and headshot/resume, the second to do so, and so the second in line to go in. I've fifteen minutes to kill, and I do so by checking the audition notices posted on the giant bulletin wall and meandering through warm-up gestures. It's awkward to warm up at Equity. The place is a throng of people trying to look more casual than they feel, and you disrupt that when you sit on the floor and twist your spine. I try to loosen up in spite of it all, try to be warm and loose and receptive. As I do so, people from the "alternates" list are being lined up in amazing quantities. It seems this casting director is quite a firecracker; she's getting twice the people in each time slot as is expected. Before too long, the 12:30s are lined up outside the door. The first goes in, and I have 1-3 minutes to prepare.

The proctor has told us the casting director wants brief Shakespeare (check), our best piece (check), and no eye contact (this is irritating when it comes to direct-address dialogue, but standard procedure for auditions -- check). I abandon all pretense of being relaxed, and in that mystical, permissive space just outside the studio door I stretch, and twist, and breathe. It's too late to run over the lines again, but I do anyway, speedy, just for the words. I think of myself walking in and charming the pants off of a new person, easy, calm, likable. This is going to be fun, I tell myself. I get to revisit Romeo for a couple of minutes. This is going to be fun. The first auditionee opens the door and walks out, leaving it slightly ajar for me. I know not to engage her too directly. The switch from audition state back to real life is a halting one for most. I walk through and close the door behind me.

And almost immediately, I see that the hours of anticipation were not, in this case, worth it.

This poor casting director. She looked exhausted, disappointed, disengaged -- stick a fork in her, because she is done. I heave a little mental sigh whilst going straight for the first chair I lay eyes on (it has arms, I didn't anticipate that, what the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is an audition studio doing with such a fancy chair) and smiling broadly, saying "Hi, I'm Jeff Wills." I get a deflated "Hi Jeff," Pause. "And what will you be doing today?" It sounds slightly accusatory. "A little Romeo," I reply. Getting no particular response, a hand her my own pause, and begin.

It's a tiny room, and I suddenly realize that though I'm speaking perfectly well for our proximity and the context, it won't do for showing her that I have a voice that can support Shakespeare. Plus, I've overcompensated in my not looking at her, so Juliet on her balcony is to the high upper right, and the "audience" is . . . on an adjacent balcony, I suppose? (Great seats; must have cost a fortune [maybe they know someone in the cast].) The casting director must feel positively underground, which is fine by me, because it's rather how she's made me feel so far. But I haven't given up hope. I'm playing with my choices in the monologue, adapting on the fly, making it far sweeter than ever it was in our raucous production. Too sweet? I up the lust ante on "...that I were a glove on that hand..." and check in with myself to make sure I'm taking my time, in spite of instinct informing me that I have not hooked my audience. I'm doing fine, but not making friends and influencing people, and, dang it, not living it, not getting carried away.

Forget it, I think, though not in those exact words, and as I round third base I rock back on my heels and crane up to the heavens, getting louder and stronger as I proclaim, "...for thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head, as is a winged messenger of heaven unto the white, up-turned, wondering eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him as he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds and SAILS upon the bosom of the air!" I carry it through to the absolute end of the line (thanks, Simon Callow), that top it off with a little take to the balcony that says, I hope, "O . . . was that a little loud?"

"Thank you," I announce to my actual audience, who so far as I can tell hasn't looked up from the table the entire time. "Thank you," she replies. I can not tell if the emphasis is automatic, or if she genuinely appreciated my contribution to her day of endless verse, or if she was in fact thinking, one down three more and some alternates to go thank you merciful God. I move the chair back to where I found it, allowing for just the briefest second to gestate into conversation, or at least a question. Ultimately unhindered by such an obligation, I walk out, displacing the next sucker in. Just now it seems weird to me that I didn't add a "bye," but it didn't at the time. It just didn't seem welcome, somehow.

It's on with hoodie, with pea coat, and my various daily props back to my pants' pockets. I'm out the door and headed to the subway, no time now to walk back to work if I'm to get there before 1:00. I don't feel disappointed, of course. I feel only that familiar sense of relief I always have after surviving another open call. It wasn't a bad one to re-enter on.

The thing now, is to keep going.

Wrapping Up Romeo

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!

[The actor is silent, twitching his fingers as if to draw something out, then upping the gesture until it is a furious, full-arm coaxing.]

Arise, fair sun! And, and and...

[The actor looks around himself frantically, finally spotting something in the distant horizon.]

KILL the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief that thou her maid art far more fair than she!

[The actor gives a take to the audience as if to say, "Wow, did you hear me come up with that?" The actor is never sure if this take is going to land as he intends it {that is, as a gleeful sharing of enthusiasm rather than giving the sense that he's impressed with himself} and so, sometimes, he skips it. Sometimes.]

I'll miss my clown Romeo. Though potentially not for long, as the Italians are very encouraging about getting some part (if not all) of the production to Italy to perform, either this summer or next. Still, the curtain has fallen on this particular outing, and it's unlikely that another will be quite the same. So. To review:

The key to my take on Romeo lay in a late note from our clown director, Mark McKenna. He compared Romeo to a puppy -- all loyalty and enthusiasm, no strategy or subtext. This worked great, though I'm sure another performer could have done it better. One of the greater challenges for me in this exploration was to let go of my calculation and crispness in favor of an instinctive openness. I've never done so well at this before, yet I'm certain I didn't take it as far as it could have successfully gone. (So I'll be thankful for another chance, or two.) Romeo had big, ungainly paws and an ear-flapping energy. Part of the beauty of this puppy imagery was that it gave permission to be angry as well as cuddly, which helped me figure out how a clown Romeo could slay a commedia dell'arte Tybalt. It's funny: I used to attribute an animal to every character I played, a technique I've gotten away from in my adult career. Of course playing such a young lover would end up being nested in that work!

Prior to that image, there was a lot of struggle on my part to succeed as a clown in the role and, as I said, my success was mitigated by me just being me. I remember in college my TV/film acting teacher told the class that I shouldn't be going after non-brainy roles, that my "look" or "type" was too focused for that. I thought, thank goodness I'll be doing theatre, where I can more easily transform, but the personality traits she was picking up on were perfectly valid. I'm a thinker. That's not to say I'm especially intelligent, just that I work from my head first whenever I can. Bad habit for an actor, generally speaking, which is part of what I like about trying to do this amazing craft. I like the work involved in getting instinctive, getting into my heart. That didn't save me from some fury-inducing frustration during this rehearsal process (natch'), but even that was reminiscent of my teenage years, and so wasn't entirely an obstacle.

I have come to a new appreciation of the axiom that "there is no subtext in Shakespeare." This is a saying so often said that it is starting to lose letters, holes appearing like new constellations in the firmament of phraseology. (And yes, I do miss the language already.) In the little roles I've previously filled, it was apparent to me that every character says what is on his or her mind, and nothing less, but it wasn't until trying to fill out a role like Romeo that I felt how essential that no-subtext rule is. You don't just say everything as you feel it, you express it, wholly, and the whole thing is in motion the whole time. There is no stop to your internal life, there is no censorship or, ultimately, room for grand interpretation. Take, for example, the following:

"This gentleman, the Prince's near ally, my very friend, hath got this mortal hurt in my behalf. My reputation stain'd with Tybalt's slander -- Tybalt, that an hour hath been my kinsman! Ah Juliet; thy beauty hath made me effeminate, and in my temper softened valor's steel."

This ended up being the text I most had to mess with, interpretation-wise. Somehow in the clown world and with our vasty cutting of the text, it needed to be an upbeat bit, in order to more dramatically drop in the moment when Benvolio came back with Mercutio's mask in hand to tell of his demise. It's right there: mortal hurt. Romeo's upset and knows that Mercutio's at death's door, yet I felt I had to play it lightly, as though Romeo were oblivious right up to the last second. It never felt right, and it never would, because there's only so much room for interpretation. The conditions are all right there in the text, and honesty lives in living them out in their time and measure.

Apart from a few other little alterations, I feel strongly that our show was very true to the story and the characters. There was some doubt of this to begin -- we didn't know if a clown & commedia world would work at all, much less whether it could be convincingly applied to R&J. (Note: Next time, Jeff, read through the play a couple of times before you get super excited about your concept....) We were lucky in discovering, in my opinion, that this concept was in fact well-suited to the material. Romeo and Juliet are just as innocent and moment-to-moment as clowns, and they are surrounded by a world of connivers, and scarred fighters, and hypocrites. And all these people are lovable, even the worst of them, which makes the tragedy truly, uh, tragic. You feel bad for everyone. It will be a while before I'll be able to see the play as anything other than how we conceived it. Indeed, watching film versions of it I'm compelled to laugh, especially during the back-to-back "banished" scenes. You can't expect me to believe that he wrote those without some sense of the comic irrationality of teenagers.

One criticism of the show lingers for me: That it was too manic, that the tragedy was ultimately undermined by all the broad comedy preceding it, and came off as too abrupt. This sticks with me because I feel quite the opposite. To me, life is like that. Tragedy is abrupt, and I meant every emotion prior to our characters' deaths, regardless of how comic the effect was, so I feel that there was plenty of room there to believe that something truly sad was happening. This critique is also interesting to me because, technically speaking, Romeo & Juliet is not exactly a tragedy. The deaths are quite accidental and unnecessary, rather than inevitable. There is no return to the status quo, true (the hallmark of classical comedy), but neither are the main characters of especially high status. Furthermore, it seems to me that Shakespeare knew this, and spent some effort to counteract it. Of all the lines we cut, a great many were (I believe coincidentally) of a foreboding nature. Hardly a scene goes by without Romeo and/or Juliet saying something about a bad dream or sudden image of death. Methinks the playwright doth protest too much, in other words.

What we made, ultimately, was a very broad, structured comedy that aspired to inspire tragic catharsis at the end. I know we reached this aspiration for some, and not for others. Such is theatre, such is life. I feel very fulfilled, now all is said and done. It was not as I imagined it, but that's collaboration, and the show was probably better for it. I learned much, and kept learning, which I take as a sign that we were doing something right in terms of story and character. The audiences enjoyed themselves, and we achieved some measure of delight, surprise, and grief. It was funny, and it was beautiful, and if I never get to play another leading Shakespeare role again, I can happily hang my hat on this.

That's not my plan, though. I've got a taste for it now.

Juliet'n'Romeo Photo Retro

"Arise, fair sun...!"

The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet has opened its three-week run, and I am on our first sincere day off (during the rehearsal/development process, no day off is truly spent "off"). I write to you now, Dear Reader, from my super-secret Astorian lair, where I will spend the next twenty-four hours in blissful avoidance of hemp rope and hard lumber. I love our set, but she is a harsh mistress.

How shall I begin to tell you of our process? Well, I'll start with the product by saying that this is the happiest I've been with a Zuppa del Giorno show in years. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's as effective as Silent Lives, nor as consistently funny as Legal Snarls, but it is a good, funny, heartfelt show that audiences seem to enjoy. I've grown accustomed to Zuppa shows being very reliant upon audience -- they're all broad comedy, and if we don't grab you, then we don't have you. TVNPCoR&J is no exception, but this time we have the benefit of a script and we're working with a story everyone knows to one extent or another, so it's easier to keep the audience even when a couple of jokes don't land. And we've had great audiences so far! Sunday was by far our smallest (and toughest) house so far, with only twenty or so, spaced out both is seating and in energy, it seemed. The rest were great; big audiences with lots of energy to contribute to the party. May the trend continue!

As it so often happens with the Zuppa shows, our process was varied and anti-linear. So many people contribute so many things, and everything has such equitable value that we can sometimes dissolve into a bit of confusion. David calls this "committing to the chaos," and it sometimes makes me want to tear his ears off, but he has a point. To a point. Whether it's order or chaos, Zuppa's process is inclusive and positive, and I appreciate it for that. This time around was particularly zesty. We were working with three directors and a fight choreographer, essentially. One director can't hear so well, one can't communicate in English so well, the third was only there for short periods and was trained in a different style of theatre altogether, so really it's kind of an accomplishment that we got a cohesive show of any shape to its feet, much less one that runs as well as this. There were many other scary/insensible moments and factors, but this is all just to say that I didn't come here to complain -- as with any show, there were points at which I thought, "Hang it up, all of it. I'm going to be a goat farmer in the east Andes."

The script went through various revisions. David did an initial cutting that he decided was just too long for the comedy we were trying to build. He suggested we choose lines that were especially important to us and feel free to improvise around those . . . which is a cool idea, but a little complex in practice. We were already improvising scenes based on the scenario set forth in the text, and reading the scenes straight, but to do the two together in the moment takes a particular genius, the first step of which would be (in my opinion) to know the text inside and out. We didn't yet. So eventually, David did another cutting, and we modified that through petition. (I want to keep, "Then I defy you, stars"; we can lose, "The fee simple? O simple!") For a while there, I found myself feeling heretical, slicing into the scansion as such, but eventually it became clear that what we were creating was going to be mongrel Shakespeare. After all, some of the text would be improvised, and some would even be spoken in Italian. Our priorities were sense first, then humor -- the music would have to be found in the spaces between.

An early rule we set, however, plays to our advantage: Romeo and Juliet's scenes together are whole, and wholly the original text. For a stretch it seemed we might have to make cuts to the balcony scene. It is, under the most formal conditions, like a mini-play inserted into the larger (making yet another case for Midsummer's being a parody companion piece to R&J), and Shakespeare had good reasons for giving everyone an act break and a chance to buy a few walnuts just before it. We did not have such a luxury -- our one intermission was resolutely set between Tybalt's death and Juliet's "gallop apace, ye fiery steeds" -- so for a time the scene was set on the carving block. Fortunately, we gained a sense of our style just in time to save the playlet. We chose early on to have Juliet and her Romeo speak the original text, as an indicator of their love and to distinguish them from what we assumed every other character would be doing at the time (that is, improvising dialogue left and right). Though we eventually decided it was best to have everyone speak mostly from the script, this early rule was somewhat prescient. By making the lovers clowns in a world of commedia dell'arte characters, we automatically made them a different pace and energy altogether. Commedia characters address the audience, but aren't ruled by them, whereas clowns have needs to ask permission, and must take even more sensitive cues from their audiences than intuiting what will make them laugh. It's as though the commedia characters are adults, enthusiastically sharing their argument with the audience, whereas the clowns are children, checking in with their parents to make sure they are pleased and eager to share with them each new discovery.

This has been the hardest work for me: Being, as a clown. I've done clown work for a few years now, but silently, and I wouldn't say it's my forte. Heather's much, much more natural with it than I. She has only to look at the audience, and they know everything she's feeling and thinking. I'm more calculating, less open, and am easily sucked into the rampant, frenetic energy of my fellow performers -- it's what I'm used to, I'm good at it and it gets laughs. But it isn't nearly as honest, vulnerable or interesting, frankly. I can hit the rhythms precisely, and get a laugh, but there's nothing precise about the clown. He is too present, too young to be precise, and that is part of his appeal. It works beautifully for this story, but it has been throughout an effort for me to make it work. (In some ways, of course, this is appropriate -- Romeo gets sucked into his environment and its violence, and spends a lot of his time trying to "make it work.") The most helpful note to me in this regard, a rather eleventh-hour one at that, was to think of Romeo as a dog, innocent, loyal and incapable of seeing past the next moment. Since I sometimes feel like a reincarnated dog, in both helpful and less-helpful ways, this resonates for me.

As if this work to "relax" in my work (oh yes -- many's the time that "relax" was my note for a scene, and not one but three directors almost got their respective ears torn off) weren't enough, hey: IT'S SHAKESPEARE. It is, to be perfectly honest, in spite of my abiding love of it, and four Shakespeare plays on my resume, my very first lead Shakespeare role ever. In fact, prior to this, my career in Shakespeare was particularly notable for playing roles that would just barely qualify as speaking ones: Philostrate in Midsummer's, Ned Poins in Henry IV 1 and Much Ado, the ONE messenger who speaks. So this was both great and terrible, and I've done it with no resident Shakespeare director, really. Some may be horrified by my interpretations, but I think I've done all right. I read up, and reviewed notes, and generally made the text a particular priority even at times when it seemed not to be one to others. It's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, and I hope I'm doing it some small justice.

So through much trial-and-error, "finding the game" of the scene, improvisation, a little text analysis, collaborative gag making and general mayhem, we have made what I would describe as a very lively, very youthful cross-pollination of commedia dell'arte, clown, screwball and even a bit of Shakespeare. It's good fun and, I believe, loyal to the spirit of the original, for all we can know about it. When I read the play now, I can hardly believe it hasn't been played more comically more often. Even after the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt, the keening is so young, so naive in its way, I can easily imagine the rabble of Shakespeare's time eating it up with spoons as they chuckled in melancholic empathy. Friend John feels that the pallet is too heavily laid with comedy to prepare the audience for any of the tragedy, but I affectionately disagree. This is how life feels to me more often than not. We're all trying to live out a joyful comedy, especially in the face of tragedy, and innocence makes us weep just as passion makes us laugh. My feelings turn on a dime as our play's do.

I'm glad to have it up at last, and I'm proud of our work for what it hoped to be, and what it became. And who knows what it will yet become?

Bus Rides and Show Business

The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet has its official opening tonight, after three successful preview performances. There's an awful lot I have to write about that process and its outcome, and I will, but for the moment I'll be a bit coy about it in order to clear up another mystery. I've been writing here ever-so-occasionally, and both of my past two entries hinted at some audition process in which I was ensnared, one about which I didn't want to write too much for fear of jinxing it. Well, yesterday I had my callback for the thing, and my impression is that all that's left is for a decision to be made by the powers that be, which frees me to reflect on the work a bit and draw what conclusions I will.

There is a show opening at Manhattan Theatre Club called Humor Abuse -- a one-man show about and starring Lorenzo Pisoni, a performer who grew up in The Pickle Family Circus. It concerns his relationship with his father, predominantly, and incorporates all sorts of interesting performance sources, such as clowning, commedia dell'arte, acrobatics and even martial arts. They have had, as you might imagine, had some small difficulties in finding an appropriate understudy for Mr. Pisoni, whose star is very much on the rise and will likely miss a performance or two for other obligations.

So a couple of weeks ago (when R&J was yet an embryo of a show) I received an email from a casting director inquiring as to my interest in auditioning. I replied immediately, grateful that I got to check my email that day. MTC is one of my favorite theatre groups and it would be huge to even be seen by them, not to mention I felt I was well-equipped to the demands of the show . . . as I then understood them. Forces seemed to be aligning to my favor, too. A circus friend also got contacted by the casting director, looking for men who fit the bill, and she thought first of me. An old director had some small connections with both Lorenzo and the director, Erica Schmidt. At first I thought I had to learn a new, difficult acrobatic move for the show -- a "108" -- only to discover it was a common pratfall that I already did as part of one of my clown routines, one of the first I ever learned. So, on January 29, I rented a car and drove to New York for my audition.

I was nervous enough, but it was one of the best auditions I've had in a long while. It was just me and three other people, casting directors and representatives of MTC. They had me prepare a side from the show, which I over-built with quasi-clown elements, imagining that the style would be used in such a show. They gave me an adjustment that amounted to, "Um, yeah: Stop that. Just tell us the story." Which I did, no problem. Then they had me perform a bit of my clowning, and I did a segment of trying to "escape" my hat, which I had previously utilized both for Friend Melissa's Blueprints and my solo (theatrical) clown debut. It went beautifully; so much so, in fact, that it helped crystallize what I was trying to do as a clown Romeo. I felt great about the audition, but also came to realize I didn't have about half the skills under my belt that they were looking for. I am not a juggler, per se, and have not mastered face-balancing nor a standing back-tuck. I managed not to cut myself off at the knees in interview, but let them know these short-comings, as well as the fact that my final R&J performances conflicting with the first four days of the contract. They assured me I'd hear something soon from them. I drove back to Scranton, just a half-hour late for that evening's rehearsal.

After about five days or so, I had persuaded myself to give up hope for it. All actors do this, I'm sure. It's like waiting to hear from someone you've given your number to. It's a grieving process, really, though a bit preemptive. I was on my way to a rehearsal when I got the call from the casting director -- could I make a callback for Lorenzo and the director on Friday, the 6th, at 4:00? I told her it would be almost impossible to get back to Scranton in time for the 8:00 show, and asked if it could be even a half-hour earlier, and she said she'd check with them and call me back. I gave my phone to the company manager as I began an Italian run of the show. At a break, when we'd hit our intermission, I checked in with the company manager, who told me she had called back and they could go no earlier. I conferred with my director, and we convinced ourselves that it could be worked out, so I called back and confirmed, reminding her that I would have to be in and out.

And so, yesterday, I caught the 7:20 bus to New York. The theory was that a bus would be able to circumnavigate rush-hour better than I. If I could catch the 4:30, I was supposed to pull into Scranton close to 7:00. I'd miss fight call, but be there in plenty of time to prepare for curtain. The next bus was for 5:05, getting in at 7:45, which was too close for my tastes and tempted worse the gods of rush hour. I pulled into New York at 10:00, and walked to MTC to plan my best route of escape. I found a parking lot that cut through the block between 43rd and 42nd, and mapped out the twists and turns to get me to gate 25 in Port Authority. Thus prepared, all that remained was to re-read the play, which I did over coffee in a cafe in NYU-land before meeting Wife Megan for lunch at Two-Boots. Thence it was to Knickerbocker to catch up with Friend Geoff and Sister Virginia for a couple of hours. Then, to MTC's studios.

I signed in and started my warm-up. The casting director came out and told me she was about gathering folks to get me started on time. Another actor from the day I auditioned was there, as well as a fellow who I took to have auditioned that day that they were asking to stay for the callback session. In their lobby I stretched and balanced. I was terrified, of course, stressed for the time and convinced they would see my juggling and cut me immediately. I tried to psyche myself up and out, reminding myself over and over that I knew what I knew and couldn't magically be someone else. The important thing was to be loose and inviting, at joy in my work. I looked at my watch, which I normally remove for auditions. 4:05. %$#*!

Finally, shortly after watching Lorenzo and Erica enter the studio, I was invited in. My audience was comprised of them, the casting director and the MTC rep. I dropped my hat and backpack on the floor and twirled the cane I brought as I asked them what they'd like first -- my thought being that I could save time by demonstrating skills in between other demonstrations. They asked for the side first, which I provided in the more subdued style, though choosing to make eye contact -- a choice usually inadvisable in auditions (one generally speaks to a point somewhere above the auditioner's heads to avoid making them self-conscious), but given the material I thought it best to be open and engaging in that way. That done, they asked for my clown excerpt, which I performed much as before. It did not go over nearly as well, sadly. It's tempting to blame your audience for this, but the fact is probably that I rushed it, and put too much emphasis on tricks and not enough on connection. It was over quickly enough, however, and I had shown them my "108" on a linoleum-and-concrete floor, so there could be little doubt as to my ability to perform acrobatics safely.

After that, they interviewed me a bit, and asked about my schedule conflicts and the skills. They seemed pleasantly surprised when I replied that I felt confident that I could train up to doing a standing back-tuck. They asked about staff work, and I twirled the cane again and cited my stage combat and (limited) martial arts experience. Then: juggling. I told them honestly that the longer I was asked to do it, the worse it got, and referred to a line from the show about how you either juggle, or you drop, and don't. Lorenzo responded to that, which was gratifying, as he was mostly quiet through the process. They didn't make me juggle, and I owe some sacrifice to some clown god. Then the conversation turned to my need to depart in a hurry, and I commented that it was odd how this audition came up when I was working on a show that involved so many related aspects. They asked about it, and seemed quite interested in our regional R&J and its concept. I glance at my watch discretely: just time enough at a jog. They asked who I was playing, and told them, and Erica Schmidt -- Erica Schmidt -- asked me if I could do the balcony monologue for them.

Ah. Well, yes. Of course. Of course. (In my head: TIME! TIME! TIME!) I gathered myself to one corner of the room, put on my nose, then realized I hadn't decided where Juliet was. I stepped out and said, "Sorry; need to find my window." The wall behind them was all window, and as I chose a corner to address, I went back to my corner and thought, "What in the hell am I going to do?" The moment in the play is staged around various set elements, and prepped by twenty previous minutes of madcap hilarity, in comparison to which the balcony scene is quiet and innocently tender. What in the hell could I get across here, in clown style, without seeming to mug, nor to seem neutered by my lack of environment? I dove in, and mimed sneaking in to the garden. I addressed the audience of four directly, and made eye contact, as clowns must. They were neutral. I kept on. I tried out a silent joke that I had only discovered the night before, gesturing for Juliet to come out before actually saying, "Arise, fair sun..." and got a laugh. I don't know how the rest went. For some reason I interrupted myself before another sure laugh, "See how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O that I were a glove on that hand, that I might touch that cheek!" They thanked me, and I thanked them, and I was off.

Running! Running across 43rd street, through the parking lot, across 42nd, into that entrance of the Port Authority, down the stairs, down the underground hall connecting the two wings, down more stairs, up to gate 25, where there was no one left standing but the driver. I hand my ticket, get on the crowded bus and find a seat. Almost immediately, I doze off. Twenty minutes later, I awake to find us in gridlock, and that I have pulled something in my upper back. Hard to say when exactly I did that. When we finally get to the Delaware Water Gap, I call my stage manager and let her know. The bus has very little traffic thereafter, but it's taking local roads, and time is slipping. It pulled into Scranton at 7:45, the company manager drove me to the theatre, and I had just enough time to do my presets and get into costume and make-up. It was our best show yet: Tight, funny and well-paced.

Well, I don't know how I fared. I'm grateful for all of it. You can analyze this sort of thing all to pieces. They did ask about my schedule. But they weren't willing to adjust times for my audition. They seemed to like the idea of the work I am doing in concept, but they didn't have an overwhelming response to what I showed them. What it all boils down to, as friend Geoff and I discussed in the hours leading up to the callback, is that it was worthwhile simply to be seen in that context, and by those people. I met admirable artists, they met me, and I have a good story to tell. It's wonderful, really, whatever the results may be. I love running for these dreams, and I love working to these purposes. Thank you, clown gods.
Now I just have to go through a few days of convincing myself I'm better off without the job . . .

News Brief

ITEM:

We have had our first preview performance of The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet. It went well. We had a capacity crowd for the pay-what-you-can preview, which seemed to include a great many students from the local universities, there by requirement. Nonetheless, they were a good audience. It's safe to say we learned more from them in one performance than we might have in a week's more reherasal.

ITEM:

The audition I attended in New York last Friday has resulted in a callback for this Friday. It's at 4:00, despite my protestations, and it will be a very narrow thing indeed to get back to Scranton for the show. Regradless, I'm going. It's for the director and star of the show and they will, much to their chagrin I'm sure, be asking me to juggle for them.

ITEM:

It's cold here again, but I understand it will warm up considerably for the weekend. My health steadily impoves, though minor injuries from my exhuberance and our over-built jungle-gym of a set are steadily accumulating. I need a massage, some acupuncture and more money, so am in some ways living for Monday, our day off.

ITEM:

Bottlecap.

ITEM:

I miss my friends and family in New York and elsewhere, and am excited by the prospects for some of them to attend R&J. My bounty is as boundless as the sea...

"There is no world without Verona walls..."

I came into this development/rehearsal process for The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet with food poisoning, which I considered a good omen. After all, I arrived for the very first collaboration with Zuppa del Giorno, way back in 2002, with a fever. Now I am recovering (knock on wood, cross your fingers, pray and sacrifice small woodland creatures) from a cold that arrived just in time for yesterday's day off. Hence yesterday was spent largely lying about and feeling sorry for myself (though I did learn a line or two more, as well). Yesterday also, however, delivered some exciting news, with which I must merely taunt you -- I don't want to jinx it by letting on too much. Suffice it to say, I need to get back to New York after rehearsal Thursday night in order to attend an exciting audition Friday afternoon, after which I will HAUL REAR back to Scranton for our last rehearsal before teching.

Things in the world of R&J are good. Good and scary, that is, which is as good as it gets in my personal little circle of hurly-burly. We had a nigh-disastrous "run" Sunday, which has focused our intents to getting the show streamlined and specific. Specifically, David has requested that everyone learn the text in order to depart from it at our leisure (as opposed to the other way around) and the ensemble has been tasked with getting unerringly specific with its foley effects. We are, in brief, starting to fuse together as an ensemble, as our many directors make their choices as specific and consistent as possible. Is there enough time now? No, absolutely not. But that is the status quo, and worser works have saved themselves through a similar schedule.
Today, awaking for the first time in a few days with a little energy, I am spending the whole day at the theatre working on lines and my upcoming audition before this evening's rehearsal. It's more than a little harrowing, having two such important things to prepare for, but it's thrilling as well, and makes me feel a lot of faith. How likely was it that an audition that requires clowning and commedia dell'arte skills should come up just as I'm rehearsing for a show involving both? In this context, even my cold seems to me somewhat fortuitous. It has kept me rested just prior to the news, and given me a lot of time to think about what I'm doing. Actors in general are tempted by perceptions of fate and destiny even when we're not working on Shakespeare; I'm trying to keep my head straight through all this . . . but also to be open to omens, such as they may be.

I wrote some time ago (see 11/28/08) about turning down an audition for a very lucrative commercial because it conflicted with teaching work I was doing out here in Scranton. I have never wavered on the decision, as fruitful as such work may have proven, and if this new audition couldn't be compromised with R&J, I would probably not have committed myself to it. Foolish? Yeah. Then again, I'm the one who has to live with my choices, and I'd rather being doing the work that has something more to do with me and my creative life than someone else's. I feel very lucky indeed to have an opportunity to do both over the next few days.
Now if only I can get off-book for act five at the same time...