Getting to character

My Friend Laura wrote this to me after seeing me in The Goat or Who is Sylvia?:

"I can't imagine what it must have taken for you to become that character emotionally. It's quite a remarkable achievement. Not the easiest guy in the world to relate to. ;-)"

I responded:

"Thanks. ;-) I'm not a big one for confronting difficult emotions. I prefer to drown in the nice ones. However, I must confess that he was actually very easy to relate to, once I accepted the bestiality as a mask the playwright was using for a larger purpose. Albee kept telling me that Martin didn't fall in love with a goat. He fell in love with a soul, a spirit, a god, that happened to inhabit the goat and that the experience was transcendent and at a level so primal that words, thoughts and concepts of love are superfluous. It is that notion of the communion of soul that is accepted and felt without even being understood. It is no more stoppable than a hurricane or wildfire or earthquake or any other force of nature. And it is even more destructive to us in that it destroys any and all structures in our lives, our souls and even that in the lives and souls of those we love. It lays everything waste.

If you've ever wandered around in that waste land, where everything you held dear was ripped away, either by your action or inaction or by someone else's, than you can play Martin. Only for that poor guy, the stakes were as high as they could possibly be. Perfect Marriage. Height of professional success. I really loved Martin Gray. I understand why he did what he did. I feel so, so sorry for him. In the last show, I cried, hard and close to uncontrollably, as I tried to explain to Ross why what he did in exposing this was so wrong. I could barely see.

Thank you so much for sharing this with me, the show, your reaction, everything. It is payment enough for the 4 months of work and toil.

;-)

Tom

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Made My Day
Category: Blogging

This is an addendum to my earlier post about critics. I won't rehash here, but one of them has a blog where he can throw his two cents up. Here's what he wrote about the play we just closed yeaterday.

"Getting Edward Albee's 'Goat'
By Michael Barnes | Friday, February 9, 2007, 10:39 AM

Theater: The subjects of tolerance, imagination, sexuality and kinship are pretty thoroughly debated in Edward Albee's quick, 90-minute family squall, "The Goat or Who's Sylvia," which, thanks to Different Stages, has finally made its Austin debut. (Closes this weekend at the much-improved Play Theatre.)

It's not full-gale-force Albee, but, then again, what except "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" really is? "Goat" matches the chilly, ruminative dramas of "A Delicate Balance," "Seascape" and "Three Tall Women."

The staging is above average for DS, better at the biting humor and word play than the soul-shattering gravity, the set functional for the home of a Pritzker-Prize winner (if he shopped at Ikea). Tom Chamberlain, Frank Benge and Trey Deason make considerable contributions, but it's Rebecca Robinson's blazing, vengeful — and winningly sarcastic — wife that elevates the production to memorable status."

Not bad. Good review overall. But being a blog, readers could leave comments and this one made my day:

"Comments
By Dave
February 9, 2007 12:15 PM | Link to this
Regarding "it's Rebecca Robinson's ... wife that elevates the production to memorable status"

I agree that her performance wa excellent, but worry that you might have slighted the actor who played Martin. I really believed that he loved the Goat!"

Yes, I'm the actor who played Martin. Thank you, Dave.

4:38 PM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Lead and Soul

Completed show 8 of 14 of The Goat or Who is Sylvia? last night. A woman with whom I appeared in my first play in Austin was there and she greeted me with polite praise after the curtain. What stuck in my head was her comment that she was shocked to hear me utter the rough language and go through the histrionics the play requires. Her image of me was as a quiet, reserved, laid back fellow. Now granted, she is not a close friend. I run into her on the rare occasions I'm around Austin theater. Still, it struck me as strange that she knew me so little, regarded only my superficiality. 16 years pass and that is as well as you know a human being?

Well, yes. Conversely, there are folks who've had 5 minutes with me that know me surprisingly well. Sometimes, flesh might as well be layered in lead. That is all you see. Sometimes a soul sees a soul, immediately, nakedly. Why? Because, I guess. Sometimes, a child-like answer is the best one can do.

8:06 AM - 2 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

A word about Critics...
Current mood: thoughtful
Category: Life

If you are a writer, performer or expressionist of any kind, you will have to deal with critics. Each is just one opinion, but for better or worse, they carry a weight equal to their reach and audience. If they are poor critics, you may have to bear the brunt of their influence, whether their opinion be good or bad.

I have done the job, so I know whereof I speak. When I was at the San Antonio Current from 1986-1989, I was music and theater critic. My perspective as a critic was not to be a voice of authority, or of the audience, but merely a respondent to whatever it was I was seeing or hearing. I felt it legitimate to express what moved me or what didn't, what distracted me, what engaged me, and so on. All of that I could honestly and earnestly write.

When a critic writes for the audience, as in, "the performer never connected with the audience.." or "We were shut out of the performance...," they are necessarily overreaching. You have no idea what happened to the folks 17 rows down center. You only know what happened in your own head or heart. To claim universality in reaction is nonsense on the face of it.

Likewise, some critics pretend they know the material better than the writers, directors and performers by writing, "so and so never rose to the requirements of the script." What nonsense. They did not move you, fine, but don't presume to know why. You've seen it once or twice. They've lived with it for months and rehashed it 100 times. Simply state your personal opinion honestly.

Other critics feel qualified to dissect direction or the script or performance as if they were there and saw the thing being made. How do they know if a performance was directed a particular way or not? How do they now if text was changed or edited or chopped up before hand or on the fly? All you can do is shake your head at this as they don't seem to get that they only see the stew and not how it was made.

All of which is to say, you will face bad critics, beyond facing bad reviews. Do not take it to heart. Have confidence in your interpretation of your role and play it with commitment and concentration. Sometimes you will have the thankless role of playing a foil and some critics will blame you, the actor, for the shallowness of a character. No matter. Play it as written. They are wrong. Do your job and pay attention to your fellow actors and director. They know what you are doing and should be supporting you in your role as it is in their interest to do so.

Besides, the audience is the finally arbiter and rightly so.

8:30 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Theater Review
Current mood: amused
Category: Art and Photography

Seven more perfomances for Albee's The Goat or Who is Sylvia. I include a review from the Austin Chronicle. She's wrong about Frnak and Trey, but I'll say more about that later.


Arts

HOME: FEBRUARY 2, 2007: ARTS

Arts Review
BY HANNAH KENAH



The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?

play! Theatre, through Feb. 10; Running time: 1 hr, 30 min

"Does nobody understand what happened!? Š Why can't anyone understand this?"

This amazing play is about a thing that cannot be understood. A violation that is outside the realm of expectation or preparation or comprehension. And in a time when "taboo" seems increasingly nonexistent, when "shock value" seems no longer achievable, when "desensitized" is a common denominator, Edward Albee has found a final frontier. Perversion - sexual, emotional, and intellectual perversion. The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? is about a man who is in love with a goat. Sounds funny, eh? It is funny. It is hilarious, and it is a modern tragedy of ancient Greek proportions. The undeniable hilarity of the situation makes it all the more sickening as you begin to understand that this story will not end well.

Martin, a man at the pinnacle of his career, falls in love with a goat. This is only the second time he has ever fallen in love. The first time was with his wife, Stevie, with whom he has had a perfect marriage. Not a "seemingly" perfect marriage. Not the kind of externally perfect, internally rotten marriage that modern thought loves to expose. This was an actually perfect marriage, loving and witty and committed. Until one bucolic day when Martin takes a trip to the country.

This play is about lives being destroyed. About things coming so far apart that they can never be put back together. The thing with destruction is that, though the whole is broken, the pieces still exist. At one furious point, Stevie breaks a painting over the back of a chair. Martin says, "That was my mother's painting." Stevie replies, "It still is!"

Incredibly, bestiality is not the most disturbing idea in Albee's awe-inducing tale. By the final act of this tragedy, we are presented with anecdotes and evidence of other kinds of perversion. Arousal that crosses all lines anyone might ever hope to draw. And yet the play makes one consider the humanity of it rather than the monstrosity. Martin, pleading with those around him, asks, "Is there anything anyone doesn't get off on, whether we admit it or not - whether we know it or not?" The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? asks an audience to consider things that are entirely uncomfortable. To admit their existence.

Bully for Different Stages both for bringing this brave play to Austin and for laying down such a fine production of it. Norman Blumensaadt's keen direction achieves the difficult blend of heightened emotion and rapid-fire comedic timing. His best move was to cast Rebecca Robinson as Stevie and Tom Chamberlain as Martin. This show is worth going to simply to watch these two actors duel it out on stage. Chamberlain's performance is driven by the humility and confusion of a man who has hurt all those people he most cares about. He makes one hear and consider things that are not considerable. Robinson is Austin's Bebe Neuwirth. She is gorgeous, physically gifted (her jealous impersonations of Sylvia are a highlight of the play), and she turns in a powerhouse performance as Stevie the scorned wife. Robinson gets a laugh with almost every line she delivers, and yet not for one second does she let go of the ferocious engine driving her character. The tragedy of this play is galvanized by the strength of Robinson's performance. The supporting performances are not on par with Robinson and Chamberlain. Frank Benge plays Ross, Martin's best friend, and his take is heavy on the caustic side. I found myself wondering why on Earth Martin would confess sensitive information to this guy apart from the obvious expositional needs. Trey Deason plays Billy, the son of Martin and Stevie. Deason's performance borders on immature; he could barely keep a straight face anytime he said the word "fuck" (which was often). However, he does an excellent job of delivering the last line of the play - one of the finest last lines in the whole history of last lines. It is a thrilling, crushing end. Albee has created an intellectual car wreck, and Different Stages has skillfully executed it. You won't be able to tear your eyes away.

8:26 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Strange Monday
Current mood: calm
Category: Writing and Poetry

We just finished opening weekend of The Goat, or Who is Sylvia, and it went very very well. Excellent response. I have the lead and I'm on stage the entire 90 minutes of the play, with just two scene changes for a break (no intermission), so it's been a work out for sure to play a man in the moment his marriage and sucessful life disintegrates. But it's also been amazingly satisfying. Anyway, here is the text of an email I wrote to the director and cast today. We did a line-through tonight to prepare for opening the second weekend tomorrow.

I had a very strange Monday. For long sections of the
day, I found myself unable to attend to what has
become a very busy life for me. I could not
concentrate, focus, stay at anything intellectual. (My
sister Caroline would claim this is nothing new as she
is convinced I'm ADD, but anyway...)

Instead I spent a lot of time looking and watching and
occasionally seeing things. Accompanied by my loyal
cadre of dogs, my pack, I wandered around around my
back yard, enjoying every ray of sun, noticing for the
first time the bit of yellow and buff color under the
tail feathers of immature House Sparrows, seeing just
how fragile the tubular shoots of rye grass I'd sown
three weeks ago to cover the bare patches in the
backyard were. They barely clung to soil with the
wispiest of roots. Their impermanence reminding me of
my own, maybe even more than my mother's death of not
more than 3 months ago did--or even the coming of my
dog Elvis'. I can see him lose a little more purchase
on life every day.

And all this struck me as beautiful and uplifting. I
smiled a lot. I had a bounce in my step. My caring
for this old dog, my struggles in dealing with and
caring for my frail, demented mother, my enjoyment of
the birds in my yard all were fraught with meaning and
usefulness not because the act of caring or enjoying
did or accomplished anything, but because I cared or
enjoyed.

This is really getting a lot squishier than I ever
intended, but my point is I think my immersion in this
play has done this to me. Released from it on Monday,
I came up for air and it was, oh, so good.

By the way, I saw Pan's Labyrinth and Babel on Sunday
and Monday, respectively. Both recommended though I
loved Babel more. See you guys, some of you anyway,
tonight, squishy center properly encased once again.
;-)

9:32 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Just Saw Rain for the first time in 51 days.
Current mood: sleepy

The dust got wet today for the first time in quite a while.  Maybe I brought it home with me from Oklahoma. Rained up there the 2nd to last day I was there.  Shot a few scenes for Isolation, an interesting flick I'm the bad guy in, then flew home and went to the day job.  Apparently, I was pretty amusing on 39 sleepless hours. Prolly oughta check the work I did yesterday.  ;-)

I got a little dog therapy from the mutts who seemed glad to see me and I watched a few flicks got some from the girlfriend, V, who was very cool with me even though she had a hard day at the blind school and prolly needed some support herself.  My mom is still very disturbed at the nursing home and they still haven't figure out how to keep her medicated so she has some chance at a decent end of life. 

She's got it bad.  No real companionship and too unstable right now to get any.  She keeps saying god doesn't want her to die like this.  Even in her madness, that statement cuts not only to the bone, but right through it.  And it doesn't go away.  She is a real person and what I feel when I see her struggle can't be willed away.

Sunday and into Monday morning I played a very cruel man on the set.  But as convincing as the venom that spews from you doing that, it is not the real thing.  As much psychic energy as it takes to do that for 14 hours and feel that for the camera, it always ends.  I don't have to be David the megalomaniac, crusher of souls, denier of pain anymore if I don't want to.  But I'm still my mother's guardian.  I am still responsible for her care and I can't walk away from her pain, even if I get a break from it every now and again.  That stuff remains.

Another reminder.  Acting is easy, no matter what crap you're asked to do.  Life is hard.

11:57 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment