Eclectic Views

    
Yes, applause for you, <kafclown>.  What you're doing is wonderful.
  

    
Thanks.  I do have to say though, that I'm not doing it out of a 
particularly charitable or noble thought or idea-- I do  this work because 
I'm fairly good at it, because it's fun to do, and because I'm getting 
paid to do it.  Fifth or Sixth on the list is "for the children"

Not that I'm uncharitable, or that I don't enjoy touching the lives and 
changing the minds of our impressionable youth.  Just that I don't have a 
romantic notion about it--

Of course, realize that I have to wake up at 5:30-6 every morning in order 
to drive 1.5 hours to perform at 9 am, and that I normally keep more 
civilized "Actor's Hours"  and that it's currently 5:20 am.  Perhaps if 
the little buggers would only go to school at night, I would feel more 
charitable!  :o)

Signed:

Grumpy, Sleepy, Tired, Hungry, Sore, and Fershlugginer Children.  (Dopey, 
the last of the Seven Evil Dwarves, is still sleeping)  :o)
  

    
Heh.

It's great when you're doing something fun and it happens to have
beneficial side effects for everybody.
  

    
(the link you posted to the Westerly Sun is to the current edition, which
now features a photo of Platoon Sgt. Roddy Porter, whom I'm quite sure isn't
you, kafclown. The story is archived but the photo isn't, here's the link:
 http://www.thewesterlysun.com/articles/2004/05/06/news/news1.txt )
  

    
Thanks for posting the link to the article
-- I've posted the photo from the Westerly Sun 
 at <http://www.acmeclown.com/muchado/donjohn2.jpg>
  

    
I'm really enjoying these reports, Adam. 
  

    
Yesterday's performances went over well-- both of them were in gymnasiums 
without stages for middle schools-- which meant that we played relatively 
close to the audience, and that the entrances and exits were a little weird.

Still, the kids stuck with the show amazingly, and were really into it.  At 
both schools, when Claudio and Hero kiss, the audience burst into a round of 
applause.  

I'm honing my little bits, and continuing to find slightly new 
nuances to play.  We are now 2.5 weeks into the process, which is about where 
a normal show would begin to have runthroughs.

The weirdest thing is that we are also 2/3 of the way done with the tour!
  

    
By the last show, you'll really be in a groove, you know!
  

    
> By the last show, you'll really be in a groove, you know!

That's usually the way.  We're doing 29 performances of this show, which is a 
fair amount.  Most amateur semi/pro theatres will do a max of 16 performances 
(4 shows a week for a month)  A professional rep theatre may do between 32 and 
50 performances on average of a performance.  I've done my flea circus 
somewhere over 400 times.

Naturally, the more you do it, the better you get at it.  Little issues get 
resolved, you figure out a way to say something that you hadn't before, you 
have an insight into a line that you may not have had up until then, the 
audience laughs in a certain point, so you play it up a little 9and that 
informs the next show)

There are dangers of performing the same show a lot.  Becoming blase about it, 
not being able to perform AS IF these events were happening for the first time 
to you, being so fixed on your innovations that you forget the main point, or 
losing the excitement of playing for the crowd who has never seen this play 
before.  But with the actors that we have, that is so much less likely 
(although two of the actors are basically college students, but the rest of us 
are all seasoned and trained professionals, who have the technique, the skill, 
and the craft to not fall into those pitfalls.

Now, the hardest thing about doing this job is driving there early in the 
morning.  Acting for the kids is fun, and rewarding, and exciting.
  

    
Today's shows went very very well.  The first one was a private school for 
grqadesw 5-8.  The second was a small elementary school Grades 2,3, 4.

In both places the kids loved it!  I was especially amazed at the 
elementary school-- kids were following the story, laughing at all the 
right places, booing me as the villain, and having a great time!

It's days like this that make it glorious to be an actor!

Tomorrow we do an inner city school that is reputedly awful, so we'll see 
how long my glory lasts.
  

    

>  inner city school that is reputedly awful

I wonder if the right kind of introduction would make it more relevant
to their lives.
  

    
The inner city school wasn't that awful. The kids were treated a bit like 
prisoners, and it felt a little like we were imposing, but kids laughed at 
lots of places, and only a few times (the last few minutes of the second 
show, which had the very difficult 8th and 9th graders) did I feel like we 
lost them.

A lot of it has to do with set and setting, I'm sure.  If we brought these 
kids 70 at a time to see the show in a small and intimate room (rather 
than the stage of a large and outdated gymnasium with 400 other students, 
I'm sure they'd blossom more.

And probably like the show more too!

I'm at the Library in Enfield CT, which is our only "Open to the public 
show"  Got here very early (It's a long hike to here.)

It looks like tomorrow's prison show will be cancelled.  Apparently 2 of 
our actors have dismissed and expunged court records which were not 100% 
expunged (or were re-punged) with the advent of Homeland Security.  Long 
story short, policy somehow forbids them entering.

Bummer, but that's the way it goes.
  

    
They're afraid they come with red-hot pokers?
  

    
Twelve actors entered the prison for the show, but only ten left...
  

    
Har!
  

    
You could invite the warden to "devise brave punishments" for Don John after
he is "ta'en in flight and brought with armed men back".  On second thought,
that comes a bit too close to today's headlines.
  

    
Well, we didn't do the nick today (as one of our actor's calls it-- he's 
British)  their loss.  I feel bad that the kids who probably would need to 
see a play most of all probably have the least access to it, but that's 
our society in a nutshell.

The morning show was awesome-- a little private school in an old factory 
building on the Thames River (in Norwich CT)  The kids roared and roared 
and roared.


And then they asked great questions, like "Do you think you could have 
been the hero instead of the villain?"

It was loads of fun!
  

    
Interesting question. How did you answer it, kafclown?
  

    
I said that yes-- I thought that anyone of the characters could be the 
villain, and I could have been any one of the characters.  We all have the 
capacity and ability to portray any human condition.

That being said, I also don't think that I would have done as fine a job 
as some of the other actors did on their roles.I think the play was 
exceedingly well cast, and we were put into roles that we naturally are 
pretty good at.  I'm a very good villain (If I do say so myself)

And I'd like to think I could be a very good Benedick-- but probably very 
different than Nigel Gore's Benedick, which is very good indeed.
  

    
Today's shows went well--  I really think that we've really started to get 
the hang of the show-- too bad it's closing tomorrow!

That's right, one more show and it's all over.

The kids at the last elementary school loved booing me-- they booed me 
when I came on, they booed me when I left, and when i came on for the 
curtain call they booed me again!  (In a good natured way, of course!)

It's fun to be the villain!
  

    
did you boo back?
  

    
No, I shush them.  It's a clown thing.
  

    
Last show is over and done with.  Strike Up The Pipers!

It was perhaps the worst appointed school, 
and the smallest number of kids we did it for.  Still they genuinely seemed to 
like the show, and laughed and cheered (and booed) in all the right places.

So I told you-- Shakespeare In A Hurry.  4 weeks later and its done.  
Finished.  Caput.  

At least until we do it the next time!


If you have any questions, about it, feel free to ask me.  I'm now on to my 
next project, which is getting ready for my performances in the Piccolo 
Spoleto Festival in Charleston SC June 2-13, readying my Punch and Judy 
Election show (Vote For Mr. Punch:  It's Time To Put a Real Puppet in the 
White House) and trying to continue to scratch it out in this workaday 
lackaday world.
  

    

> (Vote For Mr. Punch:  It's Time To Put a Real Puppet in the 
> White House) 

!!!!!
  

    
Whenever you do a show, certain lines stick with you for a while.
Either for rhythm, for meaning, for poetry, for particular juxtaposition, or 
perhaps the way the actor says it.  

Here are some of the ones that I particularly liked:
That Shakespeare could sure turn a phrase!

BEATRICE: Speak count, 'tis your cue.
(which the actress once mistakenly said as "Speak cue, 'tis your count."

BEATRICE: He is civil; civil like an orange.
(spoken to sound like seville)-- backstage I would always say 
"Seville like a cadillac"

HERO: What catechizing call you this?

DON PEDRO: Does not this speech run like iron through your veins.

LEONATO: If you kill me boy, you have killed a man.

BENEDICK: a college of witcrackers cannot flout me out of my humour.

DON JOHN: I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace.

DON JOHN:  If I had my mouth, I would bite; If I had my liberty, I would do my 
liking.

BENEDICK I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a 
continuer.

BENEDICK  prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again 
with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me
up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid.

BENEDICK if her breath were as terrible as her terminations,
there were no living near her; she would infect to the north star


CLAUDIO  Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were
but little happy, if I could say how much. 

CLAUDIO  Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs,
beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses; 'O
sweet Benedick! God give me patience!'
(the actor would act it all out, basically having an orgasm on stage)

CLAUDIO  O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily
do, not knowing what they do!


There are others as well, but those are some of my favorites.