Greater Tuna

Things Tuna Taught Me (this time):

1. It is a privilege to make people laugh. Usually the shine begins to tarnish on a show as I go along, till by the end of the run, I'm ready to move on. But with Tuna, I felt a swelling sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. I was deeply touched by what we shared with the audience each night. Some will say, shared what? Stupid silliness? Well, yes. I am reminded of the passionate lecture Lillian Groag gave us before we began rehearsing The Imaginary Invalid. It had to do with how comedy is not honored properly in this country, how it is a vital part of the dramatic literature of any great civilization, and how it is not only fun, but necessary. I am reminded of Antonio Fava, who has dedicated his life to stupid silliness, executed with marvelous courage and precision. I am reminded of William Shakespeare, who I suspect would hold A Midsummer Night's Dream next to Othello and say "Equals". But more than anything, I am aware of how comedy has healed my wounds, and how deeply committed I am to the notion that it heals the wounds of those who come to laugh.

2. Edmund Gwynne was right. Comedy is hard. This show drew on every skill I possess as an actor. It was demanding physically, vocally and mentally - the concentration required to get from A to Z each night was daunting. It took a full week of performances before I knew who I was becoming next from scene to scene. I wonder: should we begin by teaching our students comedy, and save dramatic realism for last? Comedy is such a demanding master that it obliterates the self-indulgence dramatic realism can provoke. Self-indulgent comedy isn't funny, only embarrassing, and so kills itself except in the most egregious instances. And so I learned that the joy experienced as a result of Tuna was the result of hard work - on all of our parts, on stage and off.

3. I act to connect to people. There I was backstage, every night, watching the audience enter the little house from a choice hiding spot behind the middle door. More clearly than ever, I became aware of how important this ritual is form me. I need to see the people I am about play for. I want that relationship to feel as intimate as possible. I want it to be nearly familial. This clearly comes from my wounded beginnings as an actor, when acting for me was a dysfunctional replacement for family. That need is still alive, but in the light of my awareness, and subject to the transformations I have undergone in other ways, that need is now in service of the play, not my wound. Some play lend themselves to this audience/actor bond. Our production of Tuna was one of them. Played in a tiny theatre (80 seats), and directed to take advantage of that intimacy, John and I were in the audience's laps by the second act, sometimes literally. My peeking was really the next to last step of my preparation. I was beginning to create that bond.

I needed that bond in Shrew, and peeked awkwardly from the upstage right and left curtains. Kate's relationship with the audience began adversarial and ended intimate. I needed it during Crucible, when there was little chance for peeking, but I did so anyway, gently pulling open a seam between two great hanging blacks down right. I felt Hale channel the audience's witness of the play's atrocities.

It's personal, acting is, for me. And I want it to be personal for you too, if you come to watch me.

4. Each character is a universe. Even towards the end of the run, after I had done it 32 times, I would reach the end of the breathless act one change into Pearl, which had me leaping around backstage in my underwear and jumping into her costume and wig in under ten seconds, and I would wonder, how can I possibly do this? Then I would be onstage, usually 12 inches away from someone in the front row, padded out the wazoo and clucking softly like a chicken. And I was Pearl. And I'm still not sure how it happened, every night, so fast.

Part of it must have something to do with rehearsal. I must have began the run with something Madi and I felt secure about. There was a foundation there I could trust. Part of it is what I call my "anchors" - very specific vocal and physical choices which I can execute technically and which don't require any level of psychological "belief". I had these for every character and they were absolutely essential: Pearl's voice and posture with her cane; Leonard's pace and voice (oppositional to Pearl and Bertha, so in act one sequence it went: Bertha-high/smooth, Leonard-low, Pearl-high/scratchy); Elmer's twisted face and bad-motorcycle-accident gait; Bertha's hips and fingers; Thurston in my nose; RR wobbly; Sheriff vocally close to me; Hank's swagger and belly; Yippy, well, yippy. The one character which didn't have any specific anchors, but was somehow a mosaic drawn from Elvis, Bill Clinton and The Farting Preacher from YouTube, was The Rev. Spikes.

But belief plays a part in it too. There could be no room for doubt that I was Pearl. The play requires an immediate leap into character, no second guessing, no regrets. So I was marvelously forced into the present with each new character. More and more, I believe it is this experience of being fused with time in the unfolding present which makes us hopelessly in love with acting.

5. Groping is essential. Only two or three of the nine characters I played came to me fully formed at the outset (Thurston, Pearl, and maybe Bertha, except that she had to pass through a bizarre Blanche duBois phase). The rest I had to grope for. This means I had to begin rehearsals not having a clue what these characters sounded or moved like. So I had to make an ass of myself trying a bunch of different things that didn't work. The Rev. was originally much closer to what ended up being Leonard. Leonard sounded like a deranged talk-show host for a while. RR was more addict going cold-turkey then town drunk. But this is at the center of creativity - the permission to explore all the things that don't work. This is how we learn. And it takes a skillful director to create a warm and welcoming environment for this kind of comic exploration, which makes you feel really, really vulnerable. Great students of acting are able to tolerate this vulnerability. Great teachers invite it and protect it.

6. Let the costume be your guide. Man, did I learn about working a costume with this show. Item A) Bertha's ass padding. As soon as I put that costume on, I knew the first thing I had do on stage was bend over and show that ass to the audience. Which is just what I did. Item B) Hank's tank top. It just begged to be adjusted grotesquely, and it was. Item C) Pearl's cane. It created her physicality. Item D) Thurston's hat. It led me to a subtle understanding of a Western man's relationship to his own head. I know that's a bizarre statement, but I'm sticking to it. Item E) Leonard's chaw. I know, not really a costume piece, but a design feature which led to a cementing of his voice.

Anyway, thanks Tuna. I can't find no place better, so I'm not movin'. Oh, and I just might see y'all next year . . . around Christmas time . . .

It had been a long day. I didn't sleep well last night. Griffen woke me up twice. Once at 1:30 a.m. when he reported an "ear ache". That took an hour, between the administering of liquid Ibuprofen, settling him, re-settling me. Then, at 6:30, he and Ella were doing something that sounded like dodge ball downstairs. I staggered downstairs and quieted them with extreme prejudice. Maybe I got another hour of sleep after that. So today, I was sullen, tired and grumpy as we went to see the holiday toy trains at the Brandywine River Museum - an annual Christmas pilgrimage for us. Even though I slept for about a half-hour this afternoon, I still arrived for the show tonight feeling like I was dragging a 10 pound bag of sand behind me. Then I was transformed.

Here's the equation: Ben needs to escape (he had a bad day). Ben finds an escape (Greater Tuna). Ben meets people who delight in him there (the audience). Ben delights in them. Everyone's delighted. Everyone's transformed. This equation has happened over and over. It doesn't need to be a comic play either. Tragic catharsis can occur for the actor too. And sometimes, the worse the day, the bigger the catharsis - or comic release - and the higher the dramatic effect. This is the cycle of the Wounded Actor in microcosm - a cycle I describe in more detail in my book The Actor's Way. The actor uses the performance as an escape from his life, and creates a bond with the audience to do so.

It helps when you have an audience eager to play, like we did tonight. Especially fine was the elderly lady in the front row. Seated there propped up on her cane, staring at us from behind spectacles, she could have been the personification of my characterization of Pearl Burras. She got so into my manic Rev. Spikes routine, she shouted "Hallelujah!" during a pause in the proceedings. I had to stop and acknowledge the raucous audience response to her by sitting next to her and improvising something along the lines being so glad she could make it to church that day. And if you believe as I do that the Spirit is present all the time and everywhere, that's exactly where we were - in church . . . being transformed . . . by the Spirit.

Griffen's "ear ache" turned out to be a build up of wax, by the way, dealt with through the application of ear drops and a warm water flush later in the morning. He was fine, and had a great time looking at the trains, and throwing rocks into the Brandywine Creek.

Packed house tonight, and the late-comers were loopy. Several tipsy ladies sat in seats that were almost on stage with us. In the opening moments of the play, two of them chatted audibly before getting up and leaving. Good riddance, I thought, except they came back. When I returned to their end of the theatre as Leonard, I again heard them audibly chatting. I mean, they were three feet away from me. I had one of those extreme "split screen" experiences actors have, when half of you is executing the part - the lines coming out of my mouth etc - and the other half is asking myself, when do I tell them to shut up? Then, as if I had been possessed, I turn to them as Leonard and say something sweet like, "Now, ladies, your gonna have to keep it quiet 'cause we're on the air and the microphones are going to pick up everything you're saying." They looked at me shocked, then laughed and said sorry, and I continued. I learned later, though, that they picked up again when I moved away and other audience members were trying to get them to shut up.

At intermission, I saw what our stage manager is like when she gets steamed. Look out. She went out to the lobby to back up the house manager, who had told the ladies that they couldn't behave that way any more. Predictably, the ladies (and I am now using that word ironically), threw a fit and wanted their money back. When the second act began, they were gone. There was a palpable sense of relief in the house, like when a loud drunk is removed from a bar, and everyone is free to have fun again. Vera and the Rev. rocked. Then, at the end, when I usually ad lib a few things to cover John's final change, asking him about the "lost news", I said" "Maybe the drunk chicks took it." There was a moment of silence, then a collective gasp, then a roar of laughter, which required me standing still and John to wait off stage for it to subside before he entered. I turned to the audience and smiled and the giant laugh crested. When we came out for our bow a few moments later many in the audience stood.

Driving home, I was reminded of a performance of Taming of the Shrew last spring (see this blog post), when I had a less elaborate but equally comic connection to the audience. And it made me think about the pit in the Globe 500 plus years ago, when I believe the connection between audience and actor was this alive and spontaneous all the time. Have we - audience and actors - grown too fond of being so separate? I wonder about the emergence of the director in our art, who made the stage a place of gloriously organized images, which are witnessed best at a distance. It feels to me like my audience, for the most part, doesn't want to be at a distance anymore. They want to be connected to us, included by us. The want to be implicated in the event they are witnessing, giving them a more active kind of participation. And this active participation of audience, this inclusion - which is what Greater Tuna thrives on - is also what sets theatre apart from film and T.V., in which the audience can never be "touched" by a performer.

Susan is performing in the holiday panto at People's Light right now, which is another form which invites audience/actor connection. She has felt frustrated at times by what she feels is a directorial reluctance to give the actors the freedom they need to make spur of the moment judgment calls about audience interaction. Is it because this kind of spontaneous invention - like the one I had as Leonard tonight - cannot be directed that some directors fear it? Is it because it is at the center of the actor's power, the power to bring an audience more deeply into a collective experience? I watched Madi move from a fairly strong position against having us relate with the audience too much early on in rehearsal, to one where, by previews, she was encouraging us to look for opportunities during the scenes where it makes sense. She even gave me an ad lib to use as Pearl which gets one of my most reliable laughs now.

What is it that makes a theatrical experience successful? I submit it is the exquisite communion between performer and audience - almost erotic in explosive power sometimes - which defines that success. When an audience has been taken along by the actors, whether in comedy or drama, even flaws in writing are overcome. And it is only in the living event of theatre (or dance) that this can happen. But (and I risk tooting my own horn here, but it's my blog, so deal with it), it takes actors of skill and experience to pull it off. The only way the audience tonight could have a good time with us, was that they sensed John's and my confidence in what we were doing. Even with the chattering drunk chicks, which could have made everyone feel tense and un-funny, John and I managed to make everyone feel safe, first by acknowledging what was happening, then by playing with it.

Sort of lesson for life, it seems to me.

So I arrive at our last preview last night to discover Madi rummaging through a plastic bag full of cards and gifts. "Hey", I say, "you're a day early for opening night gifts!". Chris, the sound designer, standing next to me on stage says, "Oh, didn't you hear? They moved opening up a day."

They moved opening up a day?

Sure enough, sitting in the front row last night were three - count 'em - three critics, note pads and pens at the ready. Two things struck me as strange about this. Firstly - the front row? In a house that only seats eighty? When you are basically on stage with the actors because of lighting spill? In my experience, critics have tended to want to blend in and not draw attention to themselves (whether it's because of modesty or fear of stoning I will leave to others to guess). So it seemed weird to me that they essentially announced themselves that way.

Secondly, since when do critics sit together? From what I've seen, there's usually a stiff, professional distance between critics. I've never noticed herd mentality at work amongst them. But there they were last night, elbow to elbow in the front row. It was almost comical. It was if they were saying "We're here. We're weird. Get used to us."

Part of me - the grandiose part - thinks they were forming a united front in the face of my critical antagonism, in these virtual pages and elsewhere. The other part of me - the rational part - thinks they arrived late and sat in the only seats that remained. In any case, of course we had the lamest house so far, though they warmed up as we went. And we and a couple of costume and scenic malfunctions, including John and I improvising around a frightening wig pin he discovered in my Bertha wig, which i finally ripped out of the fake hair. Then I nearly obliterated the phone as Pearl, dialing with my cane. Earlier, I came on with my Pearl dress jammed into my underware, so I was flashing a sizable part of the house.

But all of this is the fun of this show. These kinds of "mis-haps" are going to happen a lot, and the warmest moments we had last night we ones in which the audience felt spontaneously included, either in a wayward wig pin, or in the second act, when Vera and The Reverend speak directly to them. The truth of the comic energy of Greater Tuna has been born out through the previews: it's the playing of it that's fun. The jokes, as written, vary in comic punch, and some of them are frankly dated (agent orange?). So what the audience delights in is me and John, whirling around in outrageous costumes and silly accents, with enough character precision and actor chops to lift it slightly above burlesque. And when we invite them into the fun, through ad libs or staged moments, they have obliged with gusto.

Some jokes that got reliable laughs in rehearsal are falling flat in performance. Two examples: my over-emnphasis of "ass" in the Sheriff's line "Yeah, I'm going to charge your ASS, boy." Gets a chuckle or two, that's it. And R.R.'s deranged cat U.F.O. chase is a chuckler too, not a belly laugh. I think it's because, in rehearsal, the gags were set up, and it was their invention which which amused. In performance, the audience has less information, and has to react much more immediately, and so the jokes lack the set up they had previously.

Looking forward to more fun in Tuna . . .

PS: The Inquirer critic liked it. To read her review go here.

Mid way through our second ten out of twelve. The company is in good spirits. The zany energy of the play has infected us all, and even the ridiculous six-second costume changes don't get us down. John and I frequently come off stage and look at Jess and Angela in a panic, having no idea who we're supposed to be changing into. The girls tend to steer us into our next costumes and position us for our entrances. John is finding some comic gold, especially with two of his drag performances: Charlene and Vera. I struck my own gold as R.R. yesterday, when I chased a "U.F.O" lighting effect around the stage like a deranged house cat. Leonard Childers is so fat I resemble a Macy's Day parade blimp, and Bertha's buns are padded right down the backs of my thighs. I display said buns prominently at my first Bertha entrance. For the first time today, I got through the Rev. Spike's eulogy without calling for a line. I'm not saying I got 'em all right, I just didn't ask for 'em.

Greater Tuna is the kind of play looked down on by the theateratti. It is low-brow comedy in the best American tradition: populist, self-effacing, uncomplicated in its message. There is barely a plot - it's really a series of comic sketches loosely strung together through the conceit of a day at the local radio station. Its value lies in the performance of it, and so it claims its place as pure comic theatre along the lines of commedia dell'Arte, successful only if a talented enough company can bring it to life, meeting the transformational challenges it presents with brio. I hope we are up to it. I sense we are, but we will learn a lot as we add audiences in previews next week.

The Walnut Street theatre, which is producing this production, is Philadelphia's great populist theatre. Long sneered at by our local theateratti, it has never-the-less maintained the most robust subscription base of any local theatre. It thrives by knowing who its audience is, giving them what they want and doing it well - at least well enough that the theatre remains fiscally sound. I sneered at the theatre myself when I arrived I arrived in town some thirteen years ago. I raised my nose at its consistent menu of American musicals and "old chestnuts". But as I have matured, my nose has lowered and my perspective has shifted. I now admire this theatre for being what it is unapologetically, and am grateful for the work I have been offered here (three shows in four years). Interestingly, Greater Tuna is a collaboration between one of Philly's most outrageous theatre artists (Madi diStefano, our director) and its most conservative theatres, in terms of play selection. Madi is founder of Brat Productions and well-know for both her direction of gritty, site-specific Conor McPherson plays in local bars, as well as her theatrical performances in her own plays, Popsicle's Departure and Sweetie Pie. But she has made a useful alliance with Walnut Street, having appeared in at least one of Neil Simon's Broadway Bound plays here. Bernard Havard, the artistic director here, has taken a shine to her, and I remember being in auditions watching the two them - Bernard in tweedy British jacket-and-tie style and Madi in post-punk black leather and bleached white hair - and laughing inwardly at the pair they make.

Tonight, peering out from backstage during a break, I took in Madi and our designers sitting in the dark house, their faces lit by the pale ambient light of computer screens and small note-taking lights. Each is doing what they love, I thought, and isn't that a measure of success? I am particularly fond of Elisa's costumes (all 20 of them) and Christopher Coluccci's sound design. He's picked some great southern rock for accompanying music, and given us a variety of goofy sound effects to use as Thurston and Arles in the radio station. Turning my head, I saw Jess and Angela scurrying around and getting the next change set up, and John dressed half in Petey and half in Arles. I felt proud to count myself one of them: an artist at work, hell-bent on making people I don't know laugh as much as possible.

I long for an end to the snooty judgments. But as I have written here before, I fear our academic institutions are too deeply invested in passing judgments, and they pass on that tendency to the students they instruct. And so we get a division along an ancient fault-line: on one side the academic intellectual aesthetes, on the other the populist, pragmatic workers. For years I have been trying to live on both sides of that line simultaneously, and the result has been a certain amount of stress and academic professional disappointment. It's as if I am being led again and again away from colleges and universities, led backstage and into costumes and out in front of audiences. But I am stubborn and head-strong. I refuse to leave my students. I refuse to believe I can't have it both ways. There must be a way to lift up Greater Tuna next to Antigone and say "both/and" rather than "either/or".

Making people laugh is serious business. Indeed, in this wounded war-torn world, one might argue it is more urgent than the business of making people cry. So just watch it if you lift your nose at me about Greater Tuna. I just might poke it.