September 25 - October 6, Wonderful Town Rehearsals Continue...
By: Raymond McLeod Dec. 26, 2003
Worked through Act 1 scene 2 yesterday and it's eternally fascinating to see how differently people work. I believe Donna has most of her lines memorized as does Jennifer to a somewhat lesser extent, however David Margulies has a totally different way of working. Donna and Jennifer bring to the stage the pages of the script we're working on but David goes up without anything and if he needs a line he simply asks the stage manager the give it to him. He goes up with lots of energy but the impression is that of being a little out of focus but I'm not sure that that's the truth. It's as though Donna and Jennifer are working through a written script and David is working by improvisation. Nobody seems to mind either way and we're all working towards the same goal.
Had a lovely chat today with Donna about working with Stella Adler. She told me the story of her first performance in class for Stella. Donna had chosen a scene from "Boom Boom Girls" and spent quite a few weeks getting up the nerve, signing up on the performing sheet and then crossing her name off...finally her time came. Stella required each person to costume themselves for class and I mean right down to the underwear you chose. She believed that what you wore was an integral part of your character. So Donna costumed for the part...high boots, fishnet stockings, hot pants, etc. First thing out of Stella's mouth..."Whores, whores... Desdemona, Juliet, Queens, and they want to play whores." Donna had set the scene up to play with a male partner but when she motioned him to get up and do something he just shook his head 'no.' So she proceeded to start to lay out her props (another requirement for class...absolutely no miming allowed) and Stella started in on her..."Look at her, she's common"..."Why is she here?"..."Look at me!"...She's nothing." Now this was common practice in Stella's class. She required total commitment and absolutely no fear. If you were the least bit intimidated by her she would kick your ass off the stage...and I don't mean in a nice way. It was her way. This business requires lots of courage and you needed all of it for her classes.
Anyway, Donna got so frazzled and humiliated (who wouldn't) that she just started the scene which consisted of confronting her mother and father about the past...and substituted Stella for her mother in the scene and directed all the dialouge to her, to the point of walking up to the chair that Stella was sitting in (and Stella always sat in a huge chair in the center of the room like a throne) and tugging on her sleeves with tears rolling down her face and eventually Stella joined her. She ended the scene face to face with Stella both of them soaked with tears.
Stella wiped the tears away and said, "I have nothing to say...THAT is an actress." And then spoke more quietly saying, "Don't ever do that to me again. When I speak, listen."
Friday 9/26/03
In late today, 3 PM. Still working through Act 1, currently Donna, David and Jennifer are working at the first scene, Donna is wearing a knee length black skirt, a grey silk top and black sweater. She has a black purse and white gloves for costume and her hair is swept up. Jennifer in tan stage shoes, a flowered skirt just above the knees, a black cashmere top with a scooped neck and a long, seriously pink raincoat she bought in London. David in jeans, white t-shirt, blue corduroy sport coat and engineers cap. Listening to them work through the scene Donna has a low rounded tone to her voice with a slightly nasal quality and always has a dignified quality about her speech and manner. Jennifer has a high pitched, flutey, breathy quality to her voice and an endearing little girl quality to her persona. David has a rumbly, blustery quality to his voice, much louder than the girls and is very animated. Donna is very focused, precise and thinking through each scene with an eye toward the reality of it. Jennifer maintains that little girl quality but shows definite signs of having done her homework as well. With David it's difficult to tell because he relies quite heavily on the stage manager giving him the lines as he works through.
There's quite a bit of exchange between the three of them and Kathleen as they discuss the various aspects of each moment of each character in each scene. They exchange ideas and talk openly about what feels 'right' and 'comfortable' and what doesn't. Everybody is truly going with the flow...
Thursday 10/2/03
Haven't been needed until 4 PM the last few days and today we start "Pass That Football." We've been working pretty much straight through the show...
Bumped into Bill Evans on the street today and we chatted about the various careers of the Jekyll & Hyde alumni. He's off to Phoenix and Dallas doing the Radio City Christmas Show as Santa and then back to NY and he's hoping to join the cast of "The Producers."
He looks great and hopefully we'll cross paths during the runs.
Monday 10/6/03
Start of week 3 of rehearsal...Finished choreographing "Pass That Football" by adding an additional piece of biz in the middle of the dance segment. I swear I'm gonna need oxygen after this number. Six minutes of heavy aerobic activity but then I get to cruise the rest of the show. The process seems to have sped up today...perhaps we're feeling a time crunch here.
Three years ago we had exactly a week until we threw the show up to the public. We had started on a Monday and had a first run through on Friday. Now we have the time to really work the scenes but this also has it's drawbacks. It allows us more time to explore the inner dynamics and relationships between the characters but the writing is so good that all the scenes don't require that much work in order for them to be effective...but we work through them just the same and sometimes it's a little tedious. We've spent the first two weeks learning enough about each other that now we've started to work at a collective rhythm. Have you experienced that before? It's a little odd but very comfortable. Sometimes that moment never arrives and sometimes it's dominated by the rhythm of one person.
Not here. We have a percievable lack of "Diva."
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