Letters from Eurydice III

First dress rehearsal:

As I mentioned earlier, TTT makes camp in all manner of places not designed for theatrical performance and uses whatever light is present in the room. Occasionally we perform someplace that has natural light from windows, but it’s mostly artificial lighting and mostly fluorescent. That means that, unlike sitting in a darkened theatre, our audiences see Eurydice in full light. They can see the actors of course, but they can also see each other, which is sometimes unnerving. But more importantly, we the actors can see the audience. This often requires a radical adjustment for actors used to performing in the comforting, cloak of darkness — did for me at least. With the audience sitting so close and in full view, it’s practically impossible to not include them as participating members of the experience. This always works well with Shakespeare, where soliloquies and asides are meant to be shared directly with an audience. But as we rehearsed Eurydice, we found the solution to a problem often lay in finding a way to open the scene to the audience. (For more perspective on this subject read about my moment of TTT epiphany as described by American Theatre Magazine.)

Eurydice had two dress rehearsals, and the first one was especially unnerving, at least for me. Remember that when we’re rehearsing there is no audience except for Larissa, our director, and any actors who aren’t in the scene, who perhaps decide to sit and watch instead of going to the bathroom or finding a quiet nook to run their lines. So, up until dress rehearsals, the actors are imagining the audience: speaking to and looking at empty chairs.

For our first dress rehearsal, along with Larissa we had two other audience members: Michelle Hensley, the TTT artistic director, and Peter Rothstein, the brilliant artistic director of Theatre Latté Da and director of TTT’s upcoming spring production of Once On This Island. Larissa, Peter, and Michelle settle themselves among the seats, giving the actors at least three living breathing faces to react with. Except that Larissa, Peter and Michelle aren’t actually there as audience members, they’re on hand to help Larissa get some perspective on the play- they’re there as consultants. Sympathetic, encouraging consultants to be sure, but for an actor, anytime somebody sits down to watch you act with a pen and legal pad on their lap they are no longer your friend. They are a critic.

In Eurydice my first appearance is a monologue (I don’t want to give away any more of the play than I have to so I won’t say what the monologue is about). I have worked with Peter Rothstein once in several new script workshops and have found him a wonderful director: affable, encouraging, intuitive and imaginative. Moreover, he has never seen any of the previous rehearsals for Eurydice. So for my first connection with the I audience, I choose Peter. I look at him in the eye, begin to speak, and before I’m halfway through the sentence, his head is down and he is writing furiously on his pad. I keep going, but my inner actor, the little dickie bird who sits on my shoulder any time I’m performing, immediately goes into a paranoid panic: what’s he writing down, and why is he writing so fast, and is it about me? Why isn’t he paying attention? It’s because I’m terrible! He hates me! And he’s writing down that he hates me and why he hates me! Mayday! Mayday! I turn away from Peter and look at Michelle, and omigod she’s writing too! Sheets and sheets about how I totally suck! Where’s Larissa? Oh, there she is, journaling away eight to the bar on the pluperfect putrescence of my so-called performance. I haven’t spoken five sentences and I know, I know, I’m a complete failure.

What were Peter, Michelle and Larissa writing? I don’t really know. It may be that they were commenting about how awful I was. But just as likely they were making notes about sight lines, blocking or how much they were enjoying what they were seeing. This kind of note-taking happens in practically every dress rehearsal of every play ever produced. The difference is that in most theatres, the note-takers are sitting in the dark. The actors can’t see them scribbling madly and, in those cases, ignorance is our friend. At the end of the first dress rehearsal, Peter and Michelle smile at us (me) encouragingly, but I know they hated it (me). Then they dash off. They will call Larissa that evening to offer their thoughts and the first thing they will say to her is Steve Hendrickson has got to go.

Next: Second dress rehearsal.