Lovely Rita - 9/23/05

For those of you immediately concerned with the question of whether or not we are in Rita's path, the answer at this writing is "yes." We are not in the direct path, but as you might see from the NOAA picture above, we are fairly close to it. We are about 19 miles from the TX/LA border in NW Louisiana, and given the current path of the storm, it appears we will be within the 60-mile band of the hurricane's eye. Most likely we will have to endure tropical storm winds at the least. In addition, predictions are calling for between 4-8 inches of rain, and the storm is supposed to stall as it makes land and moves up into our area. Saturday and Sunday look to be the worst, and at this point we are simply waiting to see what will happen. All this could change dramatically, of course, and perhaps we won't be as hard hit as some areas, but it appears we will not escape unscathed. So if you see no current posts over the next few days, you'll know why. We have no internet access in the house, so it could be a few days before I can update this again.

As for the shows so far, I can say that we are being well-received here at Centenary. The opening performance of Planet proved to be something else. By the end of the show we had students up on the stage dancing along with the encore. But interestingly enough, the audience seemed bifurcated. People who "got it" were enjoying the show, but there were not a few people who seemd to be totally confused. I noticed one guy sitting with a blank stare on his face almost the entire show. There was a group of theatre students, however, who apparently had either just read MacBeth or simply got all the references and were just howling. Same thing occured last night during Planet, which for me was not a particularly good performance. I was really disappointed in my performance and just went home and sulked a bit, angry with myself. Just a matter of precision and execution, as well as feeling as if I couldn't get a breath and my voice was just going to die. Perhaps the humidity in the room is affecting my ability to get a breath and I'm not adjusting quickly enough. All I know is I have to focus more and cut down on the stupid mistakes, like fumbling over words and jumping cue lines for underscoring. Very disturbing from a personal point of view. I'm sure the audience enjoyed it, but I know I was nowhere near up to my own standards.

As for Richard III and Much Ado, we did the former for a high school audience and the latter as an evening show. Now here's an interesting issue: are high school audiences the equivalent of Elizabethan audiences? Most actors I know hate to do high school matinees because they believe high school audiences do not know how to behave in the theatre; i.e. they do not "sit down, shut up and listen." I know high school audiences are hard, but until working with ASC techniques I would just move through the performances as best I could. I believe we have to so these types of shows in order to guarantee an audience for the future, and because we never know who just might be having that one experience which will stay with them and make them a theatregoer or artist. But in this situation, the R3 high school audience was indeed alive and rowdy, but the "audience interaction" aspect of original practices gives us as actors the freedom we need to respond to this situation. It's absolutely great to be able to take these responses right into the show, and the kids loved it. They were right there during the Lady Ann/Richard wooing scene, during the parapet scene where Richard and Buckingham work the crowd (they became a great crowd, cheering for Richard), and especially during the final fight, where they were cheering Richmond on to defeat Richard and really reacted to his ultimate demise. I think no other type of audience puts you in the "Elizabethan atmosphere" more than today's high school students, and playing Shakespeare in this interactive fashion is a remarkable experience. It harnesses the energy high schoolers naturally bring to a show, and moves it in a positive and involved direction rather than trying to control it in a typical "behave yourself" fashion. Rowdy, raucous and involved - makes it great fun for all, and certainly a new frame of reference for me.

Much Ado went very well, I think, and I was pleased with that performance. We cut off some time (even in Planet) which means we're trying to stay tight. Audience response was good, but a bit more muted than we're used to . It's interesting how I've begun to gage audience reaction as some sort of measure of success. Since I can always see and hear and intereact with the audience I have been paying more attention to audience response. It's so much easier to gage it, even when I've worked in small theatres where you can see the audience via light spill. Something tells me that I'll have to watch this tendency, because I don't believe it's good practice to judge the value of your performance solely by audience reaction; see Hamlet's advice to the players about audience reaction. :-)

I have managed to put a few more videos up on my video website. Try this link to see what you might be able to pick up. I am trying to convert everything to smaller files, and prefer the H.254 compression available in Quicktime. Some are in MPEG4 format, which requires downloading the file and not playing it within the browser. But in some way or another you should be able to view the videos. I convert a few each day, and upload them via the internet connection at Java Junction (whose proprietors have been very kind to the troupe). One of the baristas came to see Planet last night and enjoyed herself (despite my terrible performance).

Bulletin - Jessica came in and I've just found out that Centenary College is closing for the weekend and all the rest of our performances have been cancelled. The college is closing for the weekend to let students in. I don't know at this writing what we're going to do, whether pack up and go or ride it out, but I do know I've got to grab lunch and find out and sign off. Wish us the best! -TWL