Ensemble Performace: UJAMAA Theatre & Titus Theater
Show Announcement:
UJAMAA Theatre & Titus Theater presents To Be A Black Man In America by Titus Walker.
At: Dillions Dinner Theater, 245 West 54th St., Between 8th Ave. & Broadway.
Tickets: $20 in advance, $25 at the door, with $10 food-drink minimum.
Last Monday (2004.08.09), I went to an open audition call, held on the 9th floor of the New Yorker Hotel, 34th St. & 8th Ave, just across the street from Madison Square Garden which is currently undergoing heavy fortification for the upcoming Republication convention.
It was an audition for an upcoming 'pro-life' abortion play. It was not clear from the call if they required a monologue, there was no phone number, and I didn't have one prepared anyway, so I went thinking they would probably ask me to cold read. I was wrong.
I met Mr. Walker, and when it became apparent there were no sides, I promptly told him I didn't have anything prepared. To my surprise, he invited me to just talk and he asked me questions about why I wanted to be an actor, why I was interested in being in this play. We talked a bit about political and poetic theatre, and I told him, quite frankly, that I was suspicious of 'political theatre' because while I believed that "stories always have 'Truth,' 'Truths' do not necessarily have stories.'
Interestingly, he immediately understood while politely stating that he did not agree. This prompted me to say that, well, this is something I strongly believed, but in the end, it was only my opinion, not based on experience, and that was one reason why I was interested in auditioning and perhaps working on a play with a strong 'political' agenda.
He then asked me if I was a committed individual and if I could see things through. I said yes. He then said that he had another show (To Be A Black Man In America) opening this Sunday (today), and ask if I would be interested in participating. (Gulp -- me & my big mouth!). I asked what would I be doing. He said 'it's an ensemble.' I asked what that was, exactly, and would there be lines? (Clearly, I am a very inexperienced actor). He said again, 'it's ensemble.' For some reason, I then just took a deep breath and said, 'OK, what you would like me to do?' and he said, 'rehearsal is tomorrow night, 7 sharp, show up and be a good soldier .' I said, 'ok, I will report for duty tomorrow evening.'
To Be A Black Man In America: The rehearsals were fast, hot, furious -- a virtual race war on stage as the play involved re-enactments of various historical racial episodes drawn from the last 50 years or so where the minority & progressive sides were, for the most part, taking heavy casualties.
I was in a three scenes (a fair amount to memorize in 4 days), mostly playing various vile, violent, and unrepentant murdering S.O.Bs, scenes of high emotional intensity -- each night was a serious workout, and after I was soaked in sweat. It was great to be able to throw, literally throw myself, 100%, into what I was asked to do -- all instinct and power. This type of work requires a serious professional environment, and Mr. Walker worked hard to insure that it was. After the first rehearsal, Mr. Walker told me that I had done well, and that he was proud that I was able to give it my all.
Before the show today, someone, I forget her name, interviewed the entire cast about the show (apparently excerpts of the show, and the interview, will be shown on a public channel in the Bronx). When it was my turn, she ask me what the experience was like from the perspective of a white actor. It was quite an interesting question, because I had been returning to just that question all week long, i.e., how it is that I can effectively play these characters?
I told her that I believed an actor, ultimately, had to have compassion and love for the character he's playing, and that comes from the deepest empathy that one is capable of experiencing. While I am not at all like these men, I felt that after finding out what they wanted in the scenes (always the first question), and then finding ways to bring that to life, I started to have insight into just how utterly lost these men were, how they were connected to nothing, had nothing -- absolutely nothing -- to give, except humiliation, pain, and death. Theatre is living poetry. I told her that, in the play, when she sees a white man, with a gun, standing over the body of a dead black man, she'll see two things: a victim . . . and a hero, and I asked her to decide which was which . . .
"When good men die their goodness does not perish, but lives though they are gone. As for the bad, all that was theirs dies and is buried with them."
- Euripides
It's fascinating. I did not arrive at that perspective intellectually, cognitively -- though this is highly consistent with my values and sense of life. Rather, it's come out of the process of trying to find the living truth of these men, and in finding the living truth of these men, I started to feel, quite unexpectedly, that somehow this was helping to put their souls to rest -- I don't know if I think their souls deserve to be at rest, but nevertheless, this is what I felt was happening, independent of my wishes or feelings. I'm begining to think that theatre is spiritual place.
Performance notes: High emotional intensity.
When I stage managed, so often I saw actors hit an emotional peak/intensity that was perfect (at that moment), but then in subsequent performances, they seemed to try to push it, for it's own sake, and at times the moment devolved into simply an actor screaming a line, and it looked like that's exactly what they were trying to do: the emotional intensity seemed to get decoupled from the scene and become an exercise onto itself . . . I think I understand how that happens (at least one way):
This afternoon, at high emotional points, I found myself 'pushing' for a big emotional effect, and I could only seem to do this at the expense of staying in contact with my partner and the the goals of the scene -- or perhaps what I want at those high emotional moments wasn't clear enough, and so the energy just bloats onstage into a big shapeless mass, going nowhere.
Solution: ALWAYS know why I'm getting super-heated, i.e., what do I want or expect from my partner, and stay in contact with that. I think that will help focus things, and I won't have this big overblown emotional moment, ultimately, just for the sake of it.
Audition notes: When I don't know if a monologue is required, and I can't find out, and I'm not quite prepared to do one, bring the text of a monologue that I have been working on, and warm-read that. This would have been the perfect solution for Monday's call.
