T Minus

Our two hour rehearsals have now stretched out to 4. We've added the clothes, the make up, and sign-age. Our lights and sound people are working hard. Our props and costume people are working hard. Our backstage tumble is turning slowly into a choreographed dance although occasionally we still break step and find ourselves in a pile of wheel chairs or shopping carts.

I've had a change of heart toward buttons. Seemingly innocent and efficient the button is a clever technology. In theater, however, when you exit as a woman and need to reenter in approximately 30 seconds as a man, the button (especially when in groupings of more than 4) is the enemy. And that is a difference between the real world beyond and the stage. A wall separates us from a time and place where the button is tiny and cute. I always laugh at the difference that wall can make. This is theater right? The illusion that whatever is happening in the space directly ahead of your seats is all there is. But not true. Just three feet to the left there is an underworld of moving parts. People rushing and frantic. People focused and undeterred. One character from Minnesota is dusting on their final powder as a character they'd never meet on stage slowly morphs into her Florida do. And all counting how many buttons between them and a late entrance.

We open Thursday. Time to take a breath.

Interview with Julianne Moore

Fresh Air interview with actress Julianne Moore. I always listen more carefully to actor's interviews when I'm in a show. At one point Moore says, "It's (film) not an actor's medium. You're really in the hands of the director in terms of how the performance is shaped." On stage as an actress you have you and then the audience. The audience sees you directly, not through a form of edits and color corrections. Also in theater your character gets to have an emotional arch...even if it's half a page. You act it front to back as it is written. In cinema you may film your death scene on page 89 three weeks before you film your marriage scene on page 14.

Listen to the interview here.

And the Clock Starts

Holy something! A quick glance at the calendar lets me know we have just over 4 weeks until our curtain rises and we'll stand in front of an audience. This knowledge rests peacefully most often in the back of my mind, but every once and awhile it stirs. At first it's only a rustle here and there, but as we get closer and closer to opening night it builds. There is a knot forming in my stomach and it is vaguely familiar. "Oh hello there nerves. I knew you'd be back."

This week we go off book. Off Book means you no longer get to look at your lines. They should be in your head not in your hands. We can still call for a line where in a friendly assistant director will say the first few words to help jump start our brains, but all the progress we feel we've been making through the past weeks will vanish suddenly on Thursday. This is just how it goes. You get use to having that script there. You get comfortable not actually looking any of your cast mates directly in the eye. And then poof! It takes some readjustment but this is the point (hands free) when we can really begin the acting. The script is necessary but it's also a hindrance. How much can you interact within your character with other characters when you are all face down in paper?

So scary? Um, yes.
Exciting? The fun is just about to really begin.

Where do I go?

This last week we've been working on blocking. Before I explain what it is, I'll explain how it feels. Like chaos in a chicken pen. Normally competent human beings are face down running into each other speaking lines that may or may not exist. You sort of watch yourself in slow motion be in the wrong place at the wrong time and you're trying to scribble notes as fast as you can but you know you won't be able to read your hand writing later and did the director say come in before Hector says the f-word or AFTER Hector says the f-word. Chaos.

Blocking. Blocking is the completely unintuitive act of figuring out where people are when. Or as wikipedia so aptly defines:

"Blocking is a theatre term which refers to the precise movement and positioning of actors on a stage in order to facilitate the performance of a play, ballet, film or opera. The term derives from the practice of 19th Century theatre directors such as Sir W. S. Gilbert who worked out the staging of a scene on a miniature stage using blocks to represent each of the actors."

That makes it sound so clean..and eventually it should be. But until then, awkward at best. The next time you're at the theater notice how the actors use the stage. Notice how action generally happens in a horizontal line in front of you so that you can see everything. The really odd one though is notice that when two characters are talking to each other very often both characters look out at you and hardly make eye contact with each other. This doesn't seem strange to the audience, but it is a weird habit to get into on stage.

When in Rome

For first time actors (as I was last year at Albany Civic Theater) there is a lot of reorientation. Most often we come to the theater as patrons so when we step onto the stage we are still thinking in audience member terms. It's sort of like an American in England. We always look the wrong way at first when crossing the road. Everything seems backwards.

And apparently to me it still does. My original graphic was completely opposite of everything it should have been. Upon seeing it our assistant director wrote in something very helpful:
"These terms originated when stages were raked to create an illusion of depth. So actors at the back of the stage would move "down stage" literally. And when they moved away from the audience they literally walked upstage." (Thanks Nancy!)