A Strange Turn of Events” Part 9

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My Adventures and short brush with Fame in Community Theatre continues..

Okay back to the Tartuffe rehearsal…

At the first rehearsal, I was introduced to the rest of the cast and I couldn’t have been asked to work with a nicer group of people. It consisted of four adults and three college students. The adults – three women and one man had various degrees of theatrical experience- while the College Students not so much.

Case in point – the Adults seemed more relaxed when performing and actually spoke their lines as if in real conversation onstage. The Kids (as I liked to call them) spoke their lines with faux British accents as if performing a play at the Royal Academy for Dramatic Art School. So, all in all, it was a mixed bag.

And so the rehearsal and the following rehearsals followed the usual course. We did a couple of read-throughs and then G. Got us up on stage to start moving about with scripts in hand.

My immediate goal was to memorize my lines as quickly as possible so I wouldn’t be chained to holding that damn script. So I ran my lines constantly – driving to work, in the shower, walking by myself, at my office desk and in short any moment I had alone.

After a couple of weeks, mission accomplished.  Now I could focus on what I was going to do onstage.

G. was pretty much a hands-off director so it was pretty much up to the cast to figure out our blocking etc. But if memory serves correctly that didn’t pose a problem.

At first, I was restrained as I moved about on stage. Then I started to push like a child tests the boundaries of a parent. Pretty soon I was starting to throw as much as I could into my performance.  I didn’t hold anything back – since I had given myself permission to be “lousy ” I acted as outrageously as possible.

 If I was going to be a clown my goal was to make my fellow actors and director laugh. If I could get them to crack up onstage I knew I could get the audience to laugh as well. So I used that as a barometer- if I could G. to laugh at something I did – I kept it.

Since I was wearing a suit I figured I looked like one of those TV evangelists so I patterned my voice and some of my mannerisms on Jimmy Swaggart who was a popular Fundamentalist at that time.  I didn’t use a Southern accent but I used some of Swaggart’s dramatic behavior he was known for when he would preach on TV. I would stomp, growl, bellow, wave my arms and point at characters as if I was giving a sermon onstage.

 In my previous incarceration as a “Serious ” actor, my friend Jimmy would have given me a call. Jimmy and I had been good buddies at The Playhouse and I have never known a more dedicated student of Theater.

He was really into it man and he loved to teach even back when we were students. Whenever I crashed at his apartment he’d wake me up with a cup of Joe and then pull out a book and start lecturing me on Acting.

Kind of a hard wake up call since I had to work late as a waiter at the restaurant but there you go. His heart was in the right place.

Anyway, whenever I got cast in a play he’d be calling me and the conversation would go something like this:

 
Jimmy: “Charlie my Boy how are you going to play this part?!”

Me: (squirming on my end of the phone) “Uhhh…I don’t know Jimmy…I guess I’m just going to have fun…”

Jimmy: “OH NO!!!” in a voice like he had just heard I had announced I had a terminal disease!

Well WTF? Even back then I knew I was no Daniel Day-Lewis, I was not a Yale graduate.  I was no master of accents, I didn’t write a 30-page Character biography,  I didn’t affix a putty nose on my face, nor did I gain massive weight to play a character  I was just me playing a character and using my instinct to do so. I guess you could have called me a personality or an instinctual actor back then.

A chap who was basically playing himself in different situations.

Anyway…I was starting to have “Fun” Goddammit! So I didn’t need any phone calls from Actor friends to cast any doubt in my mind.

And so the rehearsals moved forward. Everything was falling into place as we got nearer and nearer to the opening night. However,  we had a benefit for LBC (Luther Burbank Center) to do before then.

This was back when LBC had benefits back then as a way of raising money to pay for its yearly budget. Now it just let’s big corporations do that. For example, Wells Fargo ponied up some dough at some point. So LBC became known as The Wells Fargo Center of Performing Arts for a while but locals still called it LBC.

Now it’s back to being called LBC.

So the Benefit was kind of a high-end pot luck where the public could come and watch an open rehearsal. All well and good.

I remember people coming in to watch us rehearse.  Well, they watched the other actors rehearse. I was trembling backstage hiding and refusing to come out. “NOOO! I WON’T COME OUT! THERE ARE …PEOPLE! THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE!!!” I moaned loudly

 
G. eventually coaxed me out. “Charles I need you onstage” he intoned. Charles?! Who the hell was G. talking too? Oh. Right. It’s me he wants. “Okaaaayyyy,” I said and I lumbered forth onstage but stood as far as I could on the edge of the stage out of the lights.

“Now Charles don’t be scared…come on over here and join the rest of the cast and the audience…He’s just a little nervous Folks. Over here Charles. “he said. “Over th..th there?… Uh, Okaaaayyy.” I replied and I moved a foot or two closer. 

G. scowled as I really hadn’t moved much closer but he continued. “Now Charles in this scene Elmire has just caught you out in a lie and you need to react to her accusation. Show us five different ways you could react at the moment? Please?!”

Well, it sounded like a request but I knew it was a command. Also “What?! He’s finally directing now?!” I thought.

So I figured on two responses – One, I was gonna do what I already planned on doing during that scene. Second, I was going to run like f**kin’ hell out the backstage exit door when no one was looking!

Okay,  I didn’t bolt but God, was I terrified but we got through it somehow and  I managed to react in 4 different ways which seemed to please G. to no end. Plus the audience seemed to enjoy it. After the rehearsal, several of the Cast members congratulated me on some of my acting choices for the scene.

Little did they know!

Good. That’s done I thought. Another hurdle cleared. And soon opening night was upon us.

End of part 9

To be continued…