This is what I've been doing for the last few weeks - it's a depression era American play by William Saroyan. The things about this play that take me by surprise are the lack of cynicism and conflict. When I was at Guildhall a rather odd woman came and taught us a course on playwriting. The course was designed to help us to understand and respect the process a playwright goes through. The first thing she made us do was write an argument. The rest of the course revolved around making that argument the centre of a piece of theatre. So she began with conflict and prioritised it. Which is rife in playwriting these days. I have heard people dismiss plays out of hand because they have no conflict. Surely this is foolish? The best reason to dismiss a play out of hand is because it is crap. I suppose there is conflict in this play, in the sense of conflicting objectives and worldviews. What is not present is violence, malice, smallmindedness, ill-will - things that I come across in plays all the time and that are at the heart of most of the plays I have seen recently. I think perhaps people are mistaking conflict for violence, and who can blame them with the preponderance of violent writing and entertainment in our culture - reality shows which focus on screaming and shouting, which are informed by soaps of the same ilk. People watch the soaps, absorb them, and then when their lives are being recorded they alter their behaviour to reflect what they consider to be normal. The theatre is an entertainment medium, but it should not be trying to fill the same slot as television. It's a night out and a night out should be rewarding and fulfilling, rather than just reaffirming a sense of bleakness. And now we appear to be about to enter another worldwide depression. It's time to start trying to cheer people up without being schmaltzy and artifical - an optimistic message, well delivered is all that is needed. Dammit!
William Saroyan is not very well known in this country. He won a Pulitzer for "The Time of Your Life", which is the only play of his that is regularly performed in the UK. This is because it has a cast of 24 and won a Pulitzer - perfect for Drama School shows and thus in the mental furniture of lots of theatre professionals over here. He dashed out The Beautiful People for a bunch of friends of his over a period of 2 weeks, and you get the sense that he workshopped it with his actors and added and took away throughout the rehearsal period. His stage directions are almost Shavian in their specificity, and we found ourselves picking and choosing which ones were useful and which ones were artistic fascism. Our company is brilliant, and have humbled Mel (the director) and I with their commitment and positivity. It's so hard that they cannot be paid - the only way we're even going to be able to give them something towards their travel expenses is if we pack the houses every night for the rest of the run. We nominally had a producer who came to the first meeting and promised the earth, but then had a series of disasters so constant and so relentless and badly timed that it was almost as if she was making them up because she was too lazy to do anything. Floods, illnesses, deaths in the family, more illnesses, domestic disasters... One time she phoned me up with her sick voice and I found myself thinking that no matter how sick I am I never phone with my sick voice. It's hard to tell if she is honest or not, but I will never work with her again for sure. In 3 weeks she never met the designer, watched a rehearsal, or, I suspect, read the play. On the day of the first performance her name was taken out of the programme. She rang me in the morning and told me she had managed to secure an anonymous donation of £50. Thank god for that, I thought, and put her name back in. I won't name her in this blog unless she finds some reason why that £50 cannot be paid. I think I can guess who the donor is... And here am I being cynical. Dear me.
So what am I doing in this play? Assistant Directing. I'm not in it. I always say that I like directors that know what it means to be an actor even if they are shit at it. I wanted to see what it was like on the other side of the table and it has been very insightful. I will be a lot less worried in auditions now - we had to turn down so many lovely and talented people and it was very rare indeed for us to dismiss someone because they were crap or insane. And it's good to have confirmation that actors that offer things in rehearsal are loved - having to tell someone not to do something is so much better than having to find a way to get an actor to ... just ... do .... something!
But these actors do. And it is joyful. So come if you read this before the run ends - come and pay for the travelcards of these wonderful talented actors who have given pots of their time to do something out of love. Cheer yourself up, it's only an hour and a bit, so you'll be out by nine. On Sunday evenings the pub downstairs is open after the show. Here's a link to the What's on Stage review, which was good and gave 4 stars: http://www.whatsonstage.com/blogs/offwestend/?p=550
It runs Sunday and Mondays only for the next 2 weeks. 12th, 13th, 19th and 20th October at 7.30pm at the Finborough. Latecomers can't be admitted. http://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/ is the website and you can book there. Hurrah!
A great company of good people, and a lovely show that was well received. And in a glorious place. Being back in London is strange and unfamiliar, and has left me feeling more vulnerable than usual. I went to Planet Angel on friday for a night of clubbing and relaxing, had a great night and danced like a fool, and then came back to my flat with a few lovely people. I then decided to show them the pilot that Tim had just finished editing. Now this came up as the result of a chat in a bar about 2 years ago, and Tim and I ran with it and started to work with it. After about 6 months I began to worry that what I was making was not what I wanted to be making, in that the values celebrated in it and the intentions behind it were corrupting. It was becoming a venomous attack not only on ourselves but also on the career that we have chosen. And since I love my career, and most of the people I have worked with, I lost interest in the project. But Tim took the baton and carried on, with spectacular energy, and kicked us all into shape until he had enough footage to cut together a loose pilot. And for what he was trying to make, he did a great job. Now it is going to get sent out to people and seen by them, and I am a little worried. I have been happily rumbling along as a jobbing actor for a good few years now, and this pilot could contain the seeds of destruction for that career. I get my work by being good, and good to work with. This pilot makes me look like a vast uncontrollable talentless ego. The mistake I made was in choosing to personify all the aspects of myself that I hate. The character is too close to me, and not sharply enough characterised to be distinguishable. And it's not particulary funny. Now this could be a manifestation of my insecurity. After all I am putting out something that shows all that I consider to be wrong with me and my acting. And insecurity is nothing more than ego turned in upon itself anyhow. After all, we have to think we're important in order to think that people hate us. But one man said "this is going to make people hate you." And perhaps I'm too wrapped up with wanting to be loved? So many people in this profession have insecurities about themselves. Maybe this is why we want to put ourselves into other people's circumstances. All I know is that showing a pilot with a character based on the worst of me to just a couple of people makes me vanish into insecurity. Especially if I consider much of my work in it to be suspect. So how will I feel when this is sent round to all the people I might want to get auditions from?
