OCT
9

Enter (Laughing) Stage Left

By Christina Hamlett 

Former actress/director Christina Hamlett is the author of 42 books and 176 plays.  For Pioneer, she and her writing partner Jamie Dare have penned three “Seusspeare” comedies as well as a contemporary script titled “Fandemonium.”  She is also a professional ghostwriter and a script consultant for stage and screen.  http://www.authorhamlett.com. 

The good news was that I had just landed my first lead role in a community theatre production.  The even better news was I’d been cast opposite an older actress named Boots Martin, whose work I really admired.  Not only was I looking forward to picking up some tips about the craft, but I’d heard she was fun to work with, too.  Both turned out to be true, especially during the tedium of late-night rehearsals and the stress of tech week.  Always at the ready to listen to problems, bring snacks, or engage in playful practical jokes, it was as if a kooky, fun-loving aunt had swooped in to take us under her wing.

All of that changed on opening night.

Boots and I shared a dressing room.  Like everyone else in the show, we had to check in an hour before curtain.  She was already there when I arrived 15 minutes early.  The first words out of her mouth?  “Nice of you to show up.”  Since it wasn’t in her nature to be snarky, I laughed it off as a joke.  Until...

“OMG!  What did you do to your hair?”  “Did you steal my mascara?”  “Try not to mess up your lines tonight.”  “Are you putting on weight?”

I was completely shaken and confused.  The previous evening she had hugged me goodbye after dress rehearsal, called me “sweetie,” and told me to get a good night’s sleep.  Less than 24 hours later, I apparently couldn’t die fast enough.  I had no idea what I’d done wrong to get on her bad side.  Nearly in tears, I sought out the set designer who had known her longer than any of us.

“Not to worry,” he assured me.  “That’s just Boots getting into her part.”

“But the curtain hasn’t even gone up yet!”  I replied.

Let that sink in a moment.  Boots and I may have been great pals offstage, but in this particular show she played an adversary who relished bullying those around her.  Since this was so contrary to her normally pleasant demeanor, it wasn’t like a light switch she could flip on just a few steps from her first entrance.  She had to be that persona as early as possible.

Yet, how many times do directors see cast members doing the opposite?  Specifically, waiting around backstage to say their lines instead of visualizing what their characters might have been doing prior to walking into a scene?  In the words of the stage manager, it’s what makes the difference between good actors and great ones.

As nervous a lesson as it was to experience Boots’ transition from nice to nasty, it remained with me and became a crucial technique I employed in rehearsals when I moved from acting to directing.  In its most simple context, an actor’s cue for speaking dialogue isn’t synonymous with her cue for physical action, such as entering a room.  If the role calls for a plucky British accent, for instance, the actor should be speaking in that accent from the time she arrives at the theatre!  If a character’s relationship with the room itself (i.e., a parlor, an office, a dungeon) is one of confidence/familiarity vs. anxiety/formality, it should be immediately evident from one’s body language before a word is ever spoken.

Even the act of exiting requires performers to stay in the heads (and moods) of the characters they’re portraying until they’re completely out of sight of the audience.  In particular, I remember a show in which one of the actresses assumed the curtain had closed as she strode offstage and began peeling off her blouse!  (Not quite what the viewers expected from the prudish spinster she was playing.)

The deeper the understanding that actors have of their characters, the easier it is to know what makes them react and interact as they do.  Boots, as an example, had worked out a foundational story about how her character’s disappointments in the opposite sex and anger about her parents’ divorce had made her such a cynic about romance.  Accordingly, it was never just about her memorizing a playwright’s lines but, rather, dredging emotions from a colorfully fictitious past.

Keeping this in mind, one of my own pre-rehearsal exercises was to have my actors fill out a questionnaire in which they provided character backstory on elements such as family relationships and upbringing, biggest fears, biggest regrets, dream job, what makes them laugh, last time they cried, etc.  Though none of these answers were ever revealed in the actual play, the thought they had to put into composing responses was a necessary affirmation that their characters did not, in fact, emerge full-blown from the head of Zeus.

WHAT WOULD INSPECTOR JAVERT DO?

Another popular warm-up is to assemble the cast and ask them to improvise, either as a monologue or two-person scene, how their characters would react in the following situations:

• A family reunion
• A road trip
• A posh party
• A quarrel with a neighbor
• A delayed flight
• A jury summons
• A stalled elevator
• A terminal illness
• A break-up
• A lost wallet

COMINGS AND GOINGS

Every character in a play had a life before the curtain went up and, likewise, will have a life after the final curtain.  Too often, though, new actors treat a role as if they have just been beamed down from the USS Enterprise, will wander around for a while and then get beamed back up to exactly where they left off.  Consider this:  when someone onstage opens a door, the person on the other side hasn’t been standing there the entire time.  (At least we hope not!)  She had to have come from somewhere else — but where?

The following questions are designed to reverse-engineer a character’s arrival so as to explore intentions, mood, and motivation.

• What were you doing before you got here?
• Was it something that made you feel happy, sad, bored, agitated?
• Describe the room you were in most recently.
• How did you get here (i.e., walking, biking, driving, public transportation)?
• How far did you have to travel?
• If you drove, was it hard or easy to find parking?
• Who was the last person you talked to?
• What did you talk about?
• What’s the weather like outside?
• What’s the last thing you ate?
• How much sleep did you get last night?
• What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you leave here?
• Are you going to make any stops along the way?  If so, where and why?

Just for fun, imagine how these questions would be answered by (1) a servant, (2) a relative wanting to borrow money, (3) an ex-girlfriend, (4) a minister, (5) a neighborhood busybody, (6) a detective, (7) a co-worker, or (8) yourself.