There is a certain part of my brain that houses “lines.”
I’m pretty confident, that is all that is in there. It runs mostly like a dry-erase board in that (almost) the second a show closes, the bulk of the lines are wiped out, so new ones can begin to take their place. This makes sense to me if for no other reason than I’ve done over 60 main-stage runs, and no human being can retain that much text-information…other than Stephen Fry.
And everyone knows this.
…Only very rarely do pockets of them from shows past, live on in my memory. At that, they are prob’ly part of a monologue, and particularly dramatic. Which means I spent twice as long working on them as others, and prob’ly have a fairly healthy sentimental tie to them.
For instance, I cannot remember a single word from “Twelfth Night”…which closed all of six months ago. If I picked up the script, and read through it a couple times, it might excavate a few of the monologues here and there, but that’s about it. Certainly, not without prompting. And none of the conversation.
…While I was running that, I began rehearsals on “Children’s Hour.” Which (if you were with us at that time) was a fucking mental trip of intensity. For that one, off-hand, I remember my final scene…prob’ly still at approximate performance level. But only because it was such a mind fuck…with just me n’ Marty ripping it wide open and letting it all hang out. It will be a collection of phrases and thoughts that will live with me for…oh…a long, long time, I should think. But only that one scene, very little (if any) of the former.
…”Anne Frank” directly followed that, which bring us to February through April. I’ve always had a special place for the theme and book, so not surprising that the text stuck hard. I think Mrs. Van Daan will always be someone I can easily slip into, and wouldn’t mind in the least re-visiting again. Maybe that’s why I could remount the show right now in my living room, and get damn-near word perfect.
…And now: “Earnest.”
The line-load of the year…not in size, but in content, formation, structure and specificity. (And that includes a Shakespeare in the season, friends.)
Yes. In this case, with this role, Oscar kicked Bill’s butt with intricacy, musicality and sheer ridiculousness.
We are now a week out from Preview, tech hasn’t even been tackled yet, costumes are still being built and the theater looks like a bomb went off in it (as all theatre’s do, directly moving into and out of Hell Week)…with half built styrofoam topiaries, wet-paint-warning-signed benches, half-erected walls, clumps of stand-in props, swishing rehearsal skirts paired with converse sneakers and the occasional fuck up so grand, that everyone just bursts into tears of laughter.
…So you’d think that getting the solid on lines, with no calls for a week, would command some massive sense of achievement right now.
…Which it sort of does.
…But only “sort of.”
…Because making the audience understand the outlandishly overtly-soup’d-up version of the accent we are using…(reminding one very much of Noel Coward: squared)…will be an ever constant push for articulation, and enough breath support to carry one through a tied-in, one-worded-sounding, run on sentence for two pages. Don’t believe me?
…Of course you don’t.
…You’ve seen the movie.
…I have too.
…Many times.
…And I adore it.
…But we are emphatically NOT “the movie.”
The movie is: “English.”
We are: “English, only more so.”
What does that mean?
It means that, much like Oscar, we are paying homage while simultaneously making fun of them. Or rather, while making fun of ourselves.
We are frequently just ridiculous with “R’s” and chewy, rolling, affectation…spewing barbed darts of insult, intoxicating with breathless sexual innuendo, pouting with precision and exclaiming with the power to bomb a brick house.
…Which totally works.
…But which also, totally means we will never be quite “done” with these lines. We will be at war to own them until the bitter end.
…Which makes my current conundrum, not a little distressing.
…For, you see, I fully realize my brain’s capacity to “white-board” lines from all existence.
…I feel I have more than the usual in there, as it is.
…And now that “Earnest” is nearing it’s opening, I’ve got a dandy little script sitting in the corner by my bed, staring at me nightly with not a little insistence to pick it up.
My next show.
To begin rehearsals almost immediately following the “Earnest” opening.
…In a little over one week.
An entire new book of lines, in three accents, lying there right now. Just. Waiting.
And at some point, (‘tween now and first read), sister here, needs to bone back up on her German, Scottish and 40′s era posh Brit.
…Which (did you know) is absolutely nothing like what we are currently doing? Or will be doing? Through a vast part of the next show’s rehearsal process while this one is in production.
Anyone who says what we do ain’t hard work, should try living five lives simultaneously sometime. That’s what I’ll be doing in roughly two week’s time.
…So it’s good that I love it.
…Cuz baby, you couldn’t pay me enough to psych myself out on total purpose, otherwise.
~D
