Acting

Becoming Sarah: Part Six

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The Many Layers of Sarah

To me, the mechanics of performing a role come more easily than the character development. They are the parts of acting that are finite – go here, do this, say this. They provide the measurable side of bringing a character to life on stage. As I’ve indicated in previous posts, the mechanics can be daunting but, with discipline and hard work, you can be successful. I think that my extensive understanding of the logistics of theatre is what suits me (and my personality) more for directing.

I came to this conclusion following one of last week’s rehearsals. I was particularly wrecked – just physically and emotionally exhausted. Believe me, hell week is called hell week for a reason. Once we finished the rehearsal, Will, who plays Richard, said something about how he could tell this role was getting to me. He then said, “There’s no rust on you,” eluding, I presume, to the fact that it’s been a very long time since I’d had to flex those acting muscles and that I was doing all right. Yet, somehow, I didn’t feel that I’d been able to fully flex and extend those rusted joints.

So there I sat, waiting for Dorothy to happen along with an oil can.

Later that evening, I emphatically stated to Aaron, “Acting is hard!” He found this proclamation to be pretty humorous despite the fact that I was being completely serious. Tapping in to your emotional stores in order to convey the proper feeling is tough, doing it repeatedly for two hours is positively draining. The interpretation, motivation and emotion required to create a dramatic character are so much more complicated and personal than the mechanics.

People who have known me outside of the theatre know that I’m not a really emotional person. I’m pragmatic, forthright, snarky and sarcastic, not unlike Sarah. These are the elements of her character that come naturally to me. As for the sadness, guilt, anger and fear that Sarah feels, that is a little harder to access. Like Sarah, I have spent a long time rewiring myself to suppress and desensitize myself to feeling these kinds of emotions. It’s a defense mechanism that has been in place for quite some time and it works for me, despite what any psychotherapist might say. The problem with this approach to life arises when I’m trying to summon some of the more difficult emotions demanded by this particular script and character.

One thing I have never been able to do is cry on command. I saw this video a few weeks back and it gave me such cry jag envy. If there really is such a thing.

Like Bryce Dallas Howard, there are some actors that can just recall real and genuine emotion in an instant. Erin, the actress who plays Mandy, does it so well. And I secretly hate her for it. Okay, maybe hate is the wrong word. I envy her for it. There are a couple of times in the show when her eyes just well up with tears and, like Sarah, I find myself saying, “I wish I could cry like that.” Fortunately, suppressing emotion is Sarah’s thing, so if tears never come, so be it.

Aside from the emotions, building meaningful connections within the scope of the play was something that was integral to my process. Connecting to Sarah, developing the relationships with the other characters and finding truth in her journey was critical as I worked to become her. Beat by beat, line by line, moment by moment, I broke up the script and tried to make a personal connection to what was happening in the scene. Some of those connections are inherent in the relationships that I have with the three other actors in the play. Building upon existing friendships, making new ones and finding meaningful attachments within those relationships has been interesting terrain to navigate as I discovered both a closeness to and distance from each of the actors and characters.

Other connections are found in my personal life experience which I have attempted to intertwine with Sarah’s. At one point in the play, Sarah observes that her partner could have walked away from her after her accident, stating that he didn’t have to take on the responsibility of her rehabilitation. Every night, when I say that line, I recall my sister’s near-fatal car accident that happened over twenty years ago, specifically how her boyfriend dealt with her recovery. It was a long haul between the ICU and the six months she spent in long-term rehabilitation before she came home. Eventually her boyfriend walked away. Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what was going through his head and what was going through hers during that time. There are so many moments in Time Stands Still that I have made deeply personal and many really tug at those heart strings. It is a very intricate tapestry that ends up being displayed in Sarah each night and weaving it is exhausting.

Another very important resource in the development of Sarah’s character was the research I did about photojournalists and why they do what they do. I found a great deal of inspiration in the work of Lynsey Addario, one of the few female conflict photographers whose work is primarily based upon stories unfolding in the Middle East. There is one picture that she spoke about during her book tour that resonated with me.

Addario
In this picture, Addario and her fixer happened upon two women on the side of the road, one of whom was in labor. The father of the child had lost his previous wife during childbirth, so he had rented a car to ensure that his wife would get to the clinic in time to deliver safely. However, the car broke down and he left the two women to go find another means of transportation. When she learned what was going on, Addario sent her fixer down the road to get the husband so that they could take the women to the clinic, which they successfully did. People have asked Addario why there were no pictures taken at the hospital or after the child was born and she explained that once she inserted herself into the story, it was no longer documenting it, it was participating in it. Sarah remarks that the photographer’s job is to “capture truth, not stage it.” I feel that this photograph exemplifies that notion and I look at this photograph every night to help me to get inside Sarah’s head.

Early on in tech week, I was struggling to reconcile all of these elements into what was becoming Sarah. It was really taking its toll on me. So on one of my commutes to work that week, I decided that I needed to get out of Sarah’s head for a while. I put on the original cast recording of 35mm: A Musical Exhibition. I just wanted to rock out a bit, not really thinking about how this particular show is based upon the marriage of music, words and photography (it is the brainchild of the brilliant composer Ryan Scott Oliver and his equally talented husband, photographer Matthew Murphy). I was humming along when one particular song came on that just hit me, like a ton of bricks thrown at me out of nowhere.

I listened to the song on repeat for the remainder of the commute, everything just twisting together in a painfully miraculous way. And I cried. Probably the only time I will actually be able to summon tears for Sarah. Naturally, all of my best acting and singing happens in the car. In his blog, Matt discussed the photograph that he created for “Hemming and Hawing.” He said, “I wanted to create a type of melancholy relationship apocalypse (you know…one of those) where one partner’s stability is wavering, and the innocence and purity of the relationship is something only the other partner can embrace.” That statement encapsulates Sarah and Jamie’s relationship perfectly and I need to listen to it every night at some point before the performance. That picture, along with a few Addario shots, is taped to my dressing room mirror.

Certainly the process of embodying a character is different from actor to actor. There are some characters that are extraordinarily difficult to connect to and to spend extended periods of time with. Despite her challenging nature, I have grown to love Sarah. I empathize with many of the things she is experiencing and she has helped me to feel and appreciate some of my own emotions and thoughts. When all of this is over in a few weeks, I will have to say goodbye to Sarah and that will be very hard. But I’m ready to get back to Alicia, at least until the next role comes along.

Becoming Sarah: Part Five

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Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (A.K.A. Act I, Scene 3)

FUD
When working on a show, regardless of your contribution to it, there are points in the process where you begin to doubt yourself or question your choices. Generally speaking, everyone is working toward a common goal – to put on the best production possible. However, as humans who are putting something out there to entertain or connect with other humans, those inevitable moments of uncertainty are bound to appear. There are the universal questions that we all ask: Will the show be good? Will people come? Will they like it? Then there are the personal moments of doubt that we deal with throughout the process.

The first time I heard about the “FUD factor” was in my role as a marketing professional in the corporate world. Regardless of its corporate roots, the “FUD factor” – or Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt – has certainly been alive and well in my journey to bringing the role of Sarah Goodwin to life. I’ve already talked about the daunting task of learning a ton of lines and thankfully I have somehow managed to rise to that Herculean undertaking. Yet there remain other points in the show where I find myself more vulnerable than others. In my ever-obsessive mind, I have dubbed a particular scene in the show as The FUD Scene, where seemingly trivial fears, uncertainties and doubts seem to crop up in quick succession. I always breathe a sigh of relief when those moments in Act I, Scene 3 are over and I can get out of my head a little bit.

Fortunately, these moments come in quick succession and are over within five minutes of performance time. The first moment comes when my character has to fall to the ground. Having been injured in a roadside bomb in Iraq, Sarah is outfitted with a fair share of medical equipment, including a full leg brace, arm sling, wrist brace and crutch. To make the fall even more exciting, I have spent the better part of the last eight weeks recovering from foot surgery. Every time I fall, I am painstakingly aware of how I will fall, how I will land, where the crutch will go and, most importantly, if I will feel any pain in the recovering foot. So far, most of the falls have been without incident.

OK – so I’m on the ground and presumably have not broken or bruised anything. Now I have to get up. Remember, I have a full leg brace and an “injured” arm, so I can’t just bounce up like a Mexican jumping bean. This is where Aaron, the actor playing my boyfriend, has to help me up. Let me tell you, my right quad muscles have gotten quite a workout while trying to assume as much of the effort of raising 150 pounds from the ground as possible. But does it end there? Oh, hell no! Now he has to lift me up and carry me across the stage. As someone who has spent the better part of her life worrying about her weight, that 30 seconds is generally spent in silent prayer hoping I don’t end up on the ground again. Thankfully, I haven’t been dropped yet. And now I’ve been transferred to the bed for the next awkward moment which the producer has affectionately dubbed “sexy times.”

As someone who has spent the majority of her acting career as the sidekick or in a supporting role, I have managed to generally evade the need for any romantic interaction onstage. My first onstage kiss was in The Fantasticks when a 15-year-old me was portraying Luisa. My last onstage kiss was about 20 years ago when I was doing an irreverent mash-up Christmas comedy and, as it would happen, that kiss was with the man who would become my husband. The reality is that I haven’t kissed another man onstage or off since. Now let me tell you, musical theatre and comedic kissing is very different from kissing which is meant to come off as believable, which is generally not set to music. Yeah, I panicked about this a little. It gave me a newfound respect for all of those actors I directed in Spring Awakening, who had to take onstage intimacy to a whole new level. The reality is that onstage kissing is less about romance than it is about mechanics, like blocking, finding your light and being aware of volume and projection during the dialogue. It is also about having mutual respect for your scene partner and maintaining a sense of humor, which thankfully exists in my situation. Most importantly, it is about avoiding onions, garlic and tuna fish. Thanks to Liam Hemsworth for the reminder (Skip to 2:45)!

So, I’ve made it through the fall, the transport and the sexy times all with what is perhaps my biggest underlying fear, which unfortunately does not go away at the end of the scene. As a Type 1 diabetic, I am constantly thinking about my blood glucose levels, hoping they don’t plummet to the point where I pass out onstage. Mind you, this has never happened in my six years as a diabetic but the thought is there, nagging at me like a child pulling on my pants leg. In this production, I spend very little time offstage. Fortunately, there are Skittles stashed in the dressing room and in offstage spots and I diligently test my levels when I can to avoid any kind of dramatic medical situation. I honestly don’t know how Elaine Stritch or Victor Garber did it. I have such respect for them as performers with diabetes and I breathe the hugest sigh of relief when I’ve successfully made it through the final scene of the show.

The thing about fear, uncertainty and doubt is that they are surmountable. When you face your fears head on, you become a stronger and more agile performer. Thankfully, conquering my fears in The FUD Scene has given me a new respect for both myself and for performers that overcome similar uncertainties, if not more challenging ones. In all honestly, I feel taking a little risk and exposing yourself more than you normally would is what makes for an interesting and memorable performance. So by the time this performance is over, I will no longer fear The FUD Scene but embrace it for all it has done to develop my character and me as a performer.

Becoming Sarah: Part Four

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DirectorsChair.jpg

Source: Hatena Ftolife, https://commons.wikimedia.org

Divorcing the Director

When directing a show, there are certain types of actors that are hard to direct. The divas, the drama queens and the slackers provide obvious challenges. It is also difficult to direct an actor who has already portrayed the role you’re directing him in or someone who has been involved in previous productions of the same play. Perhaps, though, the most challenging person to direct is another director.

Going into this production of Time Stands Still, I knew that I would have to fold up the director’s chair and do my best to view the project solely through an actor’s eyes. In many ways, I have found myself greatly liberated by having to tend only to the responsibilities of the actor. I am working hard to know my lines, remember my blocking and develop a memorable character.

But there are times when it is difficult to suppress the directorial urge. One of my cast mates can attest to this because apparently you can “see it on my face” when I want to say something. Fortunately, though, Sonnie is a very open and collaborative director and we have had an open dialogue about character choices, blocking or other business. I do, however, make a point to speak to her privately on those occasions.

I am enjoying the different perspective that being behind the footlights brings. It has been interesting to see how easy (or difficult) it is to practice what you preach when it comes to rehearsal protocol. When I am directing a show, there are a few ground rules that I lay down with the company at the beginning of the rehearsal process. Though not all were articulated, per se, I suspect the director of Times Stands Still (and most others) would agree with these simple rules:

Start On Time
When I direct a show, I tell the company that I expect them to be on time. Just as the actor’s time is valuable, so is the director’s. A properly managed schedule can be very productive and can even afford some actors a “night off” here and there. I also think it is important to be respectful of a call time, both for the actors and the creative team. I maintain that actors should be onstage and ready to rehearse at the scheduled time. It is equally important for a director and crew to, as best they can, tend to production-oriented tasks outside of the rehearsal window. Naturally, there are times when circumstances or the point in the production process preclude this. And all bets are off during Hell Week.

Remember Your Blocking
This one seems like common sense, right? When you are stumbling through and/or fine-tuning blocking, it stands to reason that you are expected to remember it or at least have it written down, especially if you still have your scripts in hand. I can’t tell you how many times during our rehearsal process I’ve had the stage manager remind me that I had to cross to a certain point or sit or stand. When this would happen, I would look at my script and see no blocking notes. If this occurs more than once, as it did with me, it is inevitable that you will hear the director say, “This is why I tell you to write it down!” What is even worse is when you go to write it down, discover you don’t have your pencil, and the director rushes up to the stage to hand one to you. This also something I’ve done as a director and, mortifyingly, something that happened to me as an actor. Which leads me to…

Always Be Prepared
In early rehearsals, always bring your script and a pencil with an eraser. Highlight your lines and blocking so it is easier to find your place when you are running scenes or have to backtrack to a certain spot. In later rehearsals, when you are told to be off book, be off book. If you are asked to bring a prop or costume element, bring it in when it is expected. Likewise, the creative team and crew should be prepared by having blocking notes or ensuring that the technical elements come together as expected. When you are prepared, it is a much smoother ride. If you are constantly scrambling, then you better buckle up because it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Pay Attention
When in rehearsal, pay attention to what goes on around you. Listen to your fellow actors when you are on stage. When you are off stage, listen for your cues or prepare for your next scene. Time spent waiting in the wings should not be spent checking your Facebook or chatting with your friends. During notes, pay attention to what the director is saying. Oddly enough, this is the one that I have the hardest time with. It is difficult when you are building a camaraderie with your cast mates to resist making conversation or sharing little inside jokes. But, truly, timing is everything with that. There is nothing more frustrating to a director than having to repeat themselves because someone wasn’t paying attention.

Don’t Give Other Actors Notes
I hate this as a director. I hate this as an actor. This is where building a good relationship with your director and your scene partners is key. Having a conversation or posing your idea as a question is far more productive then simply telling another actor what to do. There is nothing more annoying, for the director or for the company, than an actor telling fellow actors how to interpret a line or their character. Except for maybe the actor who takes that direction.

Respect Everyone Involved
There are many theatre maxims that relate to respecting everyone involved with the production, no matter their role. There are no small parts, only small actors. Be nice to the lighting guy because he controls the “off” button. If you mistreat a crew member, your prop could be missing or your quick-change costume might not be there. It truly does take a village to build a successful production. From the producer to the director, from the crew to the front-of-house, from the actor to the audience member, every person plays an integral part in the theatrical experience. Never forget that, no matter who you are.

This latest project has really broadened my appreciation of what it takes to bring a theatre production to life and it has refreshed my memory of what the actor experience is like. Acting is completely different from directing in terms of how you reap the rewards of doing theatre. I have to say, I am really loving  this acting gig. I’ve joked with friends that I might never direct again. Of course, we all know that isn’t true. So, I guess I’m not really divorcing the director, it’s more like a trial separation. And I’m okay with that.

Times Stands Still is playing weekends at TheatreWorks New Milford from July 10th to August 1st. For tickets and further information, visit www.theatreworks.us.

Becoming Sarah: Part Three

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So. Many. Lines. To. Remember.

MyBrain
I would say most theatre people would agree that every actor is keenly aware of how many lines they have when they are cast in a production. Some actors may even count them, which is no big challenge when you only need two hands to do so. Actors, by nature, love their stage time and the number of lines they have is a good gauge of how much time they will spend on stage. I would say that most of the characters I’ve portrayed, especially in plays, have been of the supporting variety and I firmly believe there are no small parts, only small actors. While I’ve had a decent amount of stage time over the years, much of my time has been spent backstage waiting for my cue. This, however, is not the case with my role in Time Stands Still. I haven’t even tried counting the lines, there are so many.

Regardless of whether your role is large or small, at some point, you need to commit those lines to memory. Only then, in my opinion, can you really start to live in the character and engage with what is going on around you in the onstage world you are creating. I believe that as a director. I am passionate about it as an actor.

Over the past few years, I’ve had a couple of friends who have made their return to the stage after a significant hiatus (meaning a decade or more off the boards). One common concern they all had was how difficult it would be to memorize the lines. As a woman in her mid-forties, I freely admit that my mind is not what it used to be. In my twenties, I was a quick study. However, with the passage of two decades and very little need to exercise the memory muscle, the lines don’t come to me quite as quickly.

Let’s just say that the role of Sarah in Times Stands Still pretty much requires me to flex that memory muscle. In fact, it’s like a Crossfit workout for my brain.

Holy. Crap.

Our director, Sonnie, is a stickler for precision when it comes to line memorization. As a writer and director, I have to say I wholeheartedly agree that exactitude is critical to a successful production. First and foremost, when a writer puts a line in a script, he puts it there for a reason. The words have been carefully chosen to accomplish the progression of plot or action, actors should not be permitted to purposefully change or add words to a script. The other reason it is important to be accurate with the words is that your line is a cue for something else – another actor’s line, a point of action or a tech cue depends on speaking the right line.

I would now like to draw your attention to Donald Margulies, the author of Time Stands Still. Mr. Margulies is a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and Time Stands Still was a Tony nominated play. Believe me when I say the man has a way with words. He also has a way with the cadence and musicality of natural language, which includes a lot of interjected words. The writer in me loves this style but the actor in me is all the more challenged as I try to find not only the traditional cues but the cues where I interrupt or overlap with another actor’s lines.

As far as the lines are concerned, this show is definitely testing my memorization skills. Despite the time away from the stage, there are some habits you don’t forget. This process is a bit like learning to ride a bike. Once you learn, you never forget. Here are some tips that have helped me learn my lines over the years:

Read The Play
Sure, this seems like common sense but I cannot stress how important it is to read the play outside of the rehearsal space. When you are in rehearsal, you tend to be focused on acting, blocking and trying to get off book. Invariably, when I go back to the script, there is a parenthetical that I missed, a line that I memorized incorrectly or something I missed during scenes I’m not in. Being aware of the play in its entirety helps an actor to tell the story.

Highlight Your Lines
Invest in a new highlighter in your favorite color and highlight every line your character has in the play. Sometimes I will even highlight my action/blocking or, in the case of this play, the cue lines for the lines involving overlap or interruption. Doing so makes it a lot easier to find your place in the script during rehearsal and when working on memorization because it helps you to visualize the line on the page. I also go through with a pencil and indicate my cues, like so:LineUnderstand The Lines
Sometimes the lines are written in a way that doesn’t come naturally to you. Here is where I find it helpful to understand the primary purpose or theme of the line. Doing so can help you to remember the line’s context, which can help trigger the words in your muscle memory. For example, Sarah has a line in Times Stands Still where she says, “I live off the suffering of strangers.” For some reason, in rehearsal, I always have a hard time finding that line. So I’ve given myself to prompts to help remember the line: (1) Sarah’s previous line talks about killing which prompts me to think about suffering. (2) The line is a play on Blanche Dubois’ line in A Streetcar Named Desire, so I remind myself that the killing line is the prompt for the Blanche Dubois line. This is my own personal way of correlating the line, which helps me remember it.

Say The Lines Aloud (Over and Over Again)
While this is obviously something that is done at most rehearsals, it is critical that you find ways to say the lines out loud outside of rehearsal. The more opportunity you have to say the lines aloud, the more easily they will be embedded in your memory. If you can find someone to be on book and read the lines with you, that is the most helpful, it is even more helpful if that person can be a scene partner from the production. If you don’t have someone to read with you, I find an index card masking the cue lines to be a helpful alternative and one that I tend to use when I don’t want to be saying the lines out loud.

Make A Recording
When I was in college, back in the days of cassette tapes, I would record everyone’s lines into a tape recorder, pausing in the spots when my lines would be delivered. I would listen to them on my Walkman (gasp!) or play them on my stereo before I’d go to sleep (see Study Your Lines at Bedtime). While it is always better to have someone on book, this helps with listening for your cues and fitting your line into the flow of the dialogue. For Time Stands Still, the actor playing Jamie recorded the four of us reading the script allowed and the recording to CD for us. This has proven to be extremely helpful because we have the benefit of a “read aloud” tool but also the rhythms of how the actual actors in our production read the lines.

Listen
While much of line memorization is achieved by rote, it helps to pay attention to what else is going on in the scene. Very often the other lines and action in the scene can prompt you. Clearly, it is important to listen for the actual cue but participating in the scene and understanding the dialogue can also help you to remember your lines. Listening is also a building block for developing the scene and the character by requiring that you engage with what is going on around you.

Ignore Punctuation and Parentheticals
Sometimes an actor can get bogged down by the punctuation or described emotion that is attached to a line. Certainly some punctuation makes common sense but when you allow yourself to give the line different nuances, you make it your own. If the find yourself obsessing over every pause and exclamation point, you may lose an opportunity to bring new light to a line.

Study Your Lines at Bedtime
Studying before bedtime is another trick I discovered when I was in college. Gleaned from a proven study technique, research shows that if you read something before a good night’s sleep you will retain the information better. This is particularly effective is you are trying to learn new material. As you go through the line memorization process, especially early on, time spent with your script before falling asleep can help cement the lines in your memory.

Despite the many years that have passed since I’ve last had to remember a significant number of lines, line memorization is still a skill I’m pretty good at. We are meant to be off book for the entire show tomorrow night. While there are still those few pesky lines that don’t want to come, I am confident that very soon the lines will click and I can sink my teeth into character development.