We had our read through on Thursday. As I’ve said, it’s been a long while since I’ve done a play. The last few shows I’ve done have been musicals, so coming back to straight drama is an interesting experience. On top of that, there are only five characters in the play, which is smaller than anything I’ve done, other than some one-act plays years ago. We did some shows in college that were designed for small casts, but the director split roles up to allow more people to be involved. Doing such an intimate show should be a lot of fun.

The read through was fun, but I discovered a number of things that will be challenges for me. First, the character I’m playing (Sydney) is written to be 45-50 years old. I’m 35, so I need to find the mannerisms that will add another of decade of experience. Physically, we need to figure out a way to make me LOOK older, without making me look like I’ve been made up for Halloween. To make that problem more challenging, we’re going to be putting the show up in the black box stage at the theater. A black box is significantly more intimate than a main stage proscenium type setting, so everything has be toned back a tad. We’re also going to be doing the show in a modified arena setting, with the stage cutting the space in half, with the audience seated on either side. I hope that the aging we come up with will read right with people right there . . .

This brings up the next point. The person opposite me playing Clifford is supposed to be a former student. He is, however, in his forties. He has a boyish look, but we’ll have to either make sure he looks even younger, or modify the script a touch to make the less broad age difference make sense. Not a big problem, but another challenge, and one that comes up often in small town theaters.

The other challenge that I’ll face is laid entirely at the feet of the character. He’s an erudite playwright, and as such he uses a broad vocabulary. Making that vocabulary, which includes words like ‘emetics’ and some rather convoluted sentence construction, sound natural and realistic will be a challenge. It could so easily become presentational and stilted. Fortunately, we have about eight weeks to put it together, so I have some time to find the character. I think I’ll be breaking out Creating a Role and using some of Stanislavsky’s advice to get him in place. With musicals you don’t have to do quite so much prep work, since realism is secondary so often. He’s going to be a fun character to get to know, even if he is an elitist asshole.

We start blocking rehearsals this week, jumping right in to some tricky fight work, which will be extra tricky with the sightlines that the staging will present. I welcome all these challenges, though, because I haven’t had a chance to work my chops in so damn long!

On a completely unrelated note, I’d like to know what the deal is with Costco parking lots. They are the most disorganized messes, and people seem to lose all sense of courtesy and common sense. A grocery store or department store doesn’t have these problems, but it always seems to take 15 minutes to get out of the lot at Costco. Maybe the unbridled consumerism causes a deeper, darker portion of the human psyche to rise to the fore.

Anyway. Check back often for updates on Deathtrap, and more confused ramblings on the world around us!

This entry was posted on Monday, August 27th, 2007 at 8:37 am and is filed under Acting, Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.