Have been eating role-sugar for eight months now, and my actor butt has gotten fat.
…As much as I love me some comedy, (and as hard a work out as they are in their own right), I’ve been missing the meat-n-potatoes of my average yearly diet, sorely. I love the drama and angst and hard book work and mental prep that goes with a good juicy steak of a role. Which shouldn’t be construed as complaining…I’ve been WORKING….and in fun stuff…but there does come a point where if you have to swallow one more bite of cake and ice cream, you feel like you’re going to explode.
…I’m right there.
The joy of the high tea delicacies of “Earnest” was wonderful, and I absolutely love it. The challenging a-la-carte three-desserts-in-one of “39 Steps,” kicked by butt with sugar rush, and now beavering away in “Narnia,” feels like a milk-n-cookie afternoon snack. But, finally booking something that requires actual chewing and digesting, just made m’freakin’ week…gotta tell yuh.
…Even if it is only a performance read, with only four or five rehearsals underneath it.
It’s an uber group of players, brought together with a director who produces nothing as just flake or muddle-and-serve. She plops in table work, gets the read up on it’s feet for action, and presents it in a style all-but-performance-ready, save the book in-hand to reference to, as needed. Wickedly well rehearsed, which means we get about four days of solid, amazing, script chewing and work-shopping ahead…for which I CANNOT FREAKIN WAIT.
…Throw in the fact it’s an Odets, and we’re walking in Group Theatre footsteps with all the ensemble complexities and arguments and whirlwind of emotions and politics coming with it, and you’ve got a very happy Hennie in the making, m’friends!
Steak dinner on the rise!
…But first, lemme finish these double-stuff Oreos, cold glass o’ milk on the side
~D