Creede Rep just won its fourth straight Readers Choice Ovation Award for “Best Season by a Company”. We also won Readers Choice for: Theater Person of the Year (Maurice LaMee), Best Year by an Actor (Michael Bouchard), Best Year by an Actress (Diana Dresser), Best Comedy (Imaginary Invalid), Actor in a Comic Role (John Arp), Supporting Actress in a Comic Role (Annie Butler).
In other words, anything Creede was up for won Readers Choice.
Now, two points come to mind; one is that the company is too small (and constantly working in Creede away from fame and fortune means we can’t be too ego driven) to have swung these votes by ourselves. This leads me to the other point; in order to win so overwhelmingly in every catagory we were up for means that Creede’s audience of die-hard theater goers had to put us over the top.
I guess it shouldn’t be all that surprising. Your audience base would have to be enthusiastic in order to continually make the trip up to a small mining town of a few hundred, at nearly 9000 feet, in order to see a play!
So this one goes out to you lovers of theater who return every year without fail, to think, laugh and cry at your favorite theater in the Rockies. Thank you, we wouldn’t be here without you.
Jake, 
Michael Bouchard, and 
Becky G. is discussing. 
Jake 5:01 am on January 22, 2010 Permalink |
so, you are so right, on all points. if person says “i am crying” and s ‘supposed’to be honest about it, and is not crying, that is bad. from experience, thats bad. And th ADHD thing, save a few personal relationships, you are right. To tell the story for an audience, an actor sort of has to go for the common denominator of that dissorder. NOW-
The only thing I think you left out is the absolutely always SUBjective part:
WERE YOU MOVED?
An actors job is to tell the story. Plain and simple. And sometimes, the story will move one person, while the person right next to them was simply, entertained for a bit. This is where theatre gets weird. And it is completely out of the actors control, but a good litmus test, I think, for the discerning theatre goer. Did the play move you. Did you think about your life and how it compares with other less fortunate than you. Did it make you want to call you mom. Did it make you want to vote! These are the things that excite me about our job. The idea that for 72 minutes, we have the chance not just to entertain, but to inspire; to motivate; to effect peoples’ lives!
My first goal as an actor is to tell the story as best I can, but my personal goal as a human being who acts, is to move people.
*this comment is redeemable for 2 cents at your local King Soopers.
Mike Bouchard 8:10 am on January 22, 2010 Permalink |
You’re right of course about my having had left out the subjective experience. Though I did comment that these sorts of questions were out of scope of these essays. I also tried my best to avoid confusion by making the ADHD severe. But anticipating what I’m about to say, I think Tropic Thunder makes a smart case for how best to play mental illness.
Now while I was aiming in this essay to give a solid foundation against relativism in theater, the question of what is most moving, while on the more subjective side of the scale, you’ll be unsurprised to find that I think that too can be rationally attacked. Though it will have have to be the subject of a different article.
But I guess there is no better forum than here to ask: do you personally approach roles with any general theoretical framework that allows you to create roles that are more moving? It is kinda the next step in this process for me, and I’ve begun a sort of Stanislavski-ish method of tackling it, ie ask the people who do it HOW they do it. I’d be appreciative of any thoughts.
Jake 1:06 am on January 23, 2010 Permalink |
Its funny, me and my fellow actor, Michael McNeil, were just talking about this tonight. And the thing we agreed on was that an actor CANNOT worry about whether or not the audience is ‘moved’ by their play or performance. In the play I’m in right now, I am tasked with (for the first time in my career) crying. And sometimes, the tears come very easily and are very real and other times, I fake it! And I have not heard from anyone who can tell the difference, thankfuly. BUT as an actor, its when I start worrying about whether or not the audience is in to it that I start going up, forgetting my lines, or just in general not being connected to the moment.
What I do in my prep for any show, is try to create recognizable human behavior. I try to not just blankly open eyed stare at someone to show I am listening. Alot of times, the most fervent listening is done while not looking at someone. Or if I feel an itch during a show, I scratch it. Not BECAUSE I think it will move people, but because that is my job. “To live truthfully within the given circumstances of the play”. And even that is relative. How one actor would react to a hot summer day may be completely different from another.
But you know, David Mamet (who I often disagree with) had it right when he wrote about an actor taking compliments. He claims (rightly I believe) that when someone says they enjoyed a performance, the right thing to do is to be very grateful. Some actors, me included, have the habit of saying ‘thanks, but you should have been here last night.’ or ‘REALLY? I thought tonight was terrible!’. Mamet says our job is to perform the play, and the rest of it is taken care of in the audience. And while I think audiences knowing more and more about theatre and how it works can totally help us as artists be more daring with our choices, I think we also need to sharpen the emotional open-ness of our theatre patrons.
Thats what Michael (McNeil) and I spoke about tonight. That we might do the same exact performance, of the same exact show for the same exact audience two night in a row; and the audience would react differently. Because THEY are different. Their perception has changed, their mood, whatever. Thats what makes theatre crazy and beautiful and indespensible.
I guess I will be the John Locke to your Jack Shepard, man of faith/man of science….LOST reference and spelling errors: mia culpa.
Michael Bouchard 2:03 am on January 23, 2010 Permalink |
“…an actor CANNOT worry about whether or not the audience is ‘moved’.”
I wholeheartedly agree with this. We as actors cannot worry about each individual audience members emotional state. So I think I may have phrased my question badly. What I’m asking is much more general and more in relation to the ways in which we craft a character. The assumption is if we create a more realistic and sympathetic character (and the writing is good) then the audience will be moved as a by product of this portrayal. The meat is how to do the former; the latter will follow without our conscious focus.
The heart of what I’m after is what you think you do when you do this: “What I do in my prep for any show, is try to create recognizable human behavior”. You do this I assume because you think it will create the best performance, one in which our other assumption as actors is; the audience will like, or respond to in a way that seems fitting. (Medea should not be a laugh riot for example) So, I want to know if you have a framework that continues from where I’ve left off in these essays.
So: Do you have any overarching framework to achieve recognizable human behavior? Can you articulate any theoretical foundation that allows you to approach each piece with the same “routine”? You put a phrase like this: “How one actor would react to a hot summer day may be completely different from another.” I’m wondering if you have any general framework that can help guide an actor to be able to discern how a given CHARACTER might react to a hot summer day.
Now I obviously have my own opinions on these topics, but I wonder about yours, and any other actor you may know who has an opinion on the topic.
Always a pleasure!
Jake 1:07 pm on February 1, 2010 Permalink |
Wow, now we’re really getting into ‘actor area’. “I’m wondering if you have any general framework that can help guide an actor to be able to discern how a given CHARACTER might react to a hot summer day.”
This is a really great ponder. When I work on a script, I have certain tools that help me do my job.
1. Training. In school and on the professional stage, an actor developes technique. Which I would define as all the little structural details of acting. Knowing what it means to be active, have an objective and the ability to take direction.
2.Imagination. This is how we participate in a sword fight in 14th century Italy without a time machine.
3. Personal Expirience. This ties into the last one. I have never been in a sword fight in Italy, but I have had confrontations before and I know what it feels like to be in physical danger.
Now all of this is very specific to me. My own experience and imagination will lead me to create an entirelt unique performance. No one else has my perspective. So I beleive that two equally good actors, given the same role, would create two completley different interpretations.
Even if you attack it from the ‘how would the character react’ angle, how ever you think the character would react, that is formed by your prejudice and opinions.
I have seen actors do roles I have played and sometimes originated and always amazes me how different their takes are!
But I am a wierd actor. E.G I think Medea COULD be a laugh riot, and still work quite well!
Thanks for getting me to think on these things!