I just wanted to reinforce for myself and my fellow actors, directors, budding dramaturgs, playwrights, etc., that the characters’ need to communicate can make or break the show. This has come up multiple times in Theatre Ensemble and my Directing I class with David Gram. This notion of need, objectives, communication, action, etc., is one we’ve all heard in rehearsals or classes, so why does this question of stakes or need come up so often nowadays? If an actor as a character doesn’t need their lines, or care about what they’re saying, I could care less. Lydia Diamond said something similar to me when I had a first reading of my play in her office a few weeks ago. She said: “People go to the theatre to see characters make bigger mistakes or better choices than we do.”
I’m saying this all knowing that I am suffering from the same affliction of “casualness.” I feel like I shouldn’t be saying this, but I feel like “natural” and “believable” acting have somehow crept back into our psyches, and are preventing actors from making truly bold and risky choices. We’ve been working on Sarah Ruhl plays in Theatre Ensemble for about two months now, and I am shocked to notice that it took the magical qualities of the final scene of Dead Man’s Cell Phone to remind me that I SHOULD NOT and CANNOT assume that the world of a play parallels my own. I’m struggling in my own work with this: Why have I been so afraid to throw myself into a character recently? Why wouldn’t anyone jump at the chance to love as greatly, grieve as fully, berate as violently, laugh as heartily, sob as passionately, as a character they had the opportunity to play? I think in the past years I’ve been so concerned with bringing myself to the character that I’ve forgotten to immerse myself into the world of the play.
All that being posed/said, I would like to applaud the recent Q1 productions for truly making me care as an audience member, and inspire me as a director. Every single play DEMANDS attention to its world, and within that, the present needs and actions of its characters. I guess this is more of a “call to arms” for all of us with the opportunity to be theatre artists in this program. PLEASE throw yourself into the work, the world, and allow and ask for me to do the same. I know we’re all tired, stressed, or sick, or all of the above, but I know that my desire to embody the work can trump all that. I have to keep reminding myself that the reason I love theatre is because it gives me the chance to love, hate, laugh, scream, and cry, deeper and louder than I ever have or will in my life off-stage. So keep finding the need, the love, and the stakes, and people will keep caring.
