The Work - as Christopher Wren modestly called St Paul's - is a workshop on Voice which I've been asked to run with a local AmDram group in Wantage; and I have committed about the same time and effort to this enterprise as I did to both my degrees combined.
I ran one of these puppies last year for the Oxfordshire Drama Network - a sort of support group for AmDram companies throughout the county - and that time I tackled it by thinking of a really funky title and then writing something around it. I used to do this a lot for my MA, like "Was Aristophanes' Comedy Just For the Birds?" and so on.
But a whole workshop on one topic? And voice? The most nebulous, subjective, contentious subject of all?
Too late now - I'm off to nail jelly to the wall. Fingers crossed no-one's read Cicely Berry too closely or the game's up...
Friday, 15 January 2010
Thursday, 14 January 2010
A Possible Explanation for the Difficulty I am Experiencing in Writing my Grand Opus
"There is no more sombre obstacle to great art than the pram in the hallway"
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Connolly
Audition, Schmaudition
In the pantheon of auditions, it was somewhere in the middle. No-one said "Wow, you just blew the others AWAY! That's it! I've found my Hamlet!!", but then no-one stopped the audition to call security or Equity.
It was certainly not in the same ball park as the one where I was invited to "...express yourself physically, like a...well, just...express yourself physically, you know?" or the one where I had to show up in my dressing gown because the CD was incapable of just picturing people in dressing gowns.
Sometimes they're special for other reasons, like schaudenfreude - I did a workshop audition once where I watched someone (infinitely more suitable for the part than I was, too) gradually talk himself out of a job. Extraordinary. And once in a commercial casting, I left the room, realised I'd forgotten my water and re-entered just as someone said "Well, I just LOVED him!".
This was one of the ones when you close the door, put your papers in the bag and chalk it up to experience. This position is becoming ever less tenable the older I get.
It was certainly not in the same ball park as the one where I was invited to "...express yourself physically, like a...well, just...express yourself physically, you know?" or the one where I had to show up in my dressing gown because the CD was incapable of just picturing people in dressing gowns.
Sometimes they're special for other reasons, like schaudenfreude - I did a workshop audition once where I watched someone (infinitely more suitable for the part than I was, too) gradually talk himself out of a job. Extraordinary. And once in a commercial casting, I left the room, realised I'd forgotten my water and re-entered just as someone said "Well, I just LOVED him!".
This was one of the ones when you close the door, put your papers in the bag and chalk it up to experience. This position is becoming ever less tenable the older I get.
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Down in Town
I've just laid down the script to "A Village Life", a show I'm being seen for tomorrow. I wouldn't normally dream of posting before the event (out of superstition, I suppose) and the puritan in me has guilt about not staying up late to read, re-read and make notes on the script, but I'm not twenty any more. Suffice to say that I've read it plenty, researched the company and the director and I'm probably as right for it as thirty or forty other actors my age - some of whom I'll run into at Spotlight tomorrow, no doubt. Wish me luck.
Friday, 8 January 2010
Next Big Thing
I see that Toby Stephens is playing Henry in The Real Thing next year at the Donmar. Normally the vicissitudes of who-gets-cast-in-what don't bother me too much, but I confess this news fills my head with scorpions - and not cuddly scorpions, either.
You see, Henry is the role in which I first acted - I mean properly acted. There's a line in the play where he talks about something responding "...like a raised blind" and that's exactly how it felt to do that part. I'd never seriously considered acting as a career before that show; afterwards I knew I'd never be really happy doing anything else. The experience has, I suppose, committed me to a working life of shocking uncertainty and wildly oscillating mood.
This isn't a coherent post. I'm not saying that I could be a serious contender to star in a Stoppard revival at the Donmar, I'm neither egotistical nor deluded enough for that. But being the right age for that part when it's being revived is a watershed moment for me.
That's enough now.
You see, Henry is the role in which I first acted - I mean properly acted. There's a line in the play where he talks about something responding "...like a raised blind" and that's exactly how it felt to do that part. I'd never seriously considered acting as a career before that show; afterwards I knew I'd never be really happy doing anything else. The experience has, I suppose, committed me to a working life of shocking uncertainty and wildly oscillating mood.
This isn't a coherent post. I'm not saying that I could be a serious contender to star in a Stoppard revival at the Donmar, I'm neither egotistical nor deluded enough for that. But being the right age for that part when it's being revived is a watershed moment for me.
That's enough now.
Saturday, 2 January 2010
Brum Fun
To Birmingham to see my chum Alex - who's also also Jake's godfather - in "The Gruffalo", which I think he's been touring on and off for about three years. He and I worked together on Midnight in 2005 and found a mutual love of Daily Mail Quizwords and sabotaging stage props - which he would then have to find or repair in time for the show. Only fun for me really, then.
I saw this show before in Milton Keynes, where it somehow managed not to be swamped by the size of the theatre, but at Birmingham Town Hall they're up against it. It's a cavernous and soulless place with no raked seating and poor acoustics. In fact you could put "Miss Saigon" in there and it would still feel tinny. They're a great company, though - here on temporary posting from Australia (cheaper to fly them over than rehearse UK actors) and due to return in early January where, bizarrely, my nephew will see the exact same show with the same actors.
Alex is great as the predators - he's not my casting age or type so I don't mind him being good - and Jake and his friend Sam love it. Although they love flipping their seats up and down more...
I saw this show before in Milton Keynes, where it somehow managed not to be swamped by the size of the theatre, but at Birmingham Town Hall they're up against it. It's a cavernous and soulless place with no raked seating and poor acoustics. In fact you could put "Miss Saigon" in there and it would still feel tinny. They're a great company, though - here on temporary posting from Australia (cheaper to fly them over than rehearse UK actors) and due to return in early January where, bizarrely, my nephew will see the exact same show with the same actors.
Alex is great as the predators - he's not my casting age or type so I don't mind him being good - and Jake and his friend Sam love it. Although they love flipping their seats up and down more...
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
Off Tour
The vexing thing about a touring blog is that you don't tend to write much when you're at home - it feels a touch meretricious, I suppose. And there's the niggling voice of Noel Coward, who famously asserted that you were only an actor when actually acting - he didn't favour us with what you were supposed to be the rest of the time, but as a raconteur, playwright, diarist, librettist, composer and all round Renaissance man that probably didn't bother him much.
For mortals like me, the end of a job - even one as unexpected as Beauty Queen - heralds the powerful suspicion that one will never act again. Hitherto an irrational fear, but one with teeth nonetheless.
Vexing, too, is the matter of How To Actually Get Another Job. I wonder how much of a formula others have for this - mine is casual at best, slapdash sometimes and seat-of-the-pants at worst. You wonder how often people need to be reminded you exist, too. Every six months? More? I mean, I forget where my specs are after twenty minutes or so, but I'm not a great benchmarker for memory.
My agent, of course, is beavering away in the background, but one of the negatives of being on tour is that I have been largely unavailable during our partnership. And as I have observed before, I am not as high-temperature as some of his other clients.
And so it goes on. Sending out CV's and 10x8's to local companies, checking the Equity website, bugging ex-employers with a cheery email every now and then. And wondering if there really is a critical shortage of plumbers and electricians...
For mortals like me, the end of a job - even one as unexpected as Beauty Queen - heralds the powerful suspicion that one will never act again. Hitherto an irrational fear, but one with teeth nonetheless.
Vexing, too, is the matter of How To Actually Get Another Job. I wonder how much of a formula others have for this - mine is casual at best, slapdash sometimes and seat-of-the-pants at worst. You wonder how often people need to be reminded you exist, too. Every six months? More? I mean, I forget where my specs are after twenty minutes or so, but I'm not a great benchmarker for memory.
My agent, of course, is beavering away in the background, but one of the negatives of being on tour is that I have been largely unavailable during our partnership. And as I have observed before, I am not as high-temperature as some of his other clients.
And so it goes on. Sending out CV's and 10x8's to local companies, checking the Equity website, bugging ex-employers with a cheery email every now and then. And wondering if there really is a critical shortage of plumbers and electricians...
Winter
My bit of Oxfordshire has finally succumbed to the weather, and we have a sprinkling of snow on the ground. This is in contrast to most other places, which seem to have a mini ice-age - Facebook is littered with stories of 6-mile journeys taking 6 hours and the like.
Touring is an odd experience for many reasons, but the changing seasons is one of the oddest because it's the backdrop for a largely unchanging universe, i.e. the show. Looking back at my Midnight photos there's everything from floods to punting.
Snow, though, being rare, is more memorable. Touring Abs Party in Northern Ireland in Spring 2008, we were caught in a proper blizzard driving back from Enniskillen, and passed stranded and abandoned cars all the way. It's the only time I remember the car being silent - I imagine because we were all praying. In Hamburg earlier this year, the weather changed enormously and quickly over three months, and inevitably it meant that jumpers too thin for severe winter conditions were far too thick once the sun came out the following day.
The coldest I've ever been, though, was picking my way across a snow-filled courtyard in sandals for some Roman farce in King's Cross. Either those Romans were a seriously hardy breed or they wore thermals, because the wind-chill protection offered by a toga is zero.
Touring is an odd experience for many reasons, but the changing seasons is one of the oddest because it's the backdrop for a largely unchanging universe, i.e. the show. Looking back at my Midnight photos there's everything from floods to punting.
Snow, though, being rare, is more memorable. Touring Abs Party in Northern Ireland in Spring 2008, we were caught in a proper blizzard driving back from Enniskillen, and passed stranded and abandoned cars all the way. It's the only time I remember the car being silent - I imagine because we were all praying. In Hamburg earlier this year, the weather changed enormously and quickly over three months, and inevitably it meant that jumpers too thin for severe winter conditions were far too thick once the sun came out the following day.
The coldest I've ever been, though, was picking my way across a snow-filled courtyard in sandals for some Roman farce in King's Cross. Either those Romans were a seriously hardy breed or they wore thermals, because the wind-chill protection offered by a toga is zero.
Sunday, 6 December 2009
Small World
I mentioned tangled webs a while ago. I've been sorting out my study (and the Dineen Archive - the sort of thing you can get down to when you're not in gainful employ) and I came up with the following Odd Coincidences:
- Paul Fields (emergency replacement for Michael Magnet in Wolverhampton Rep 2008) was in a graduate show I saw at the Jermyn St Theatre in 2002. The actor I was actually there to see came originally from...Wolverhampton.
- Janette Owen (Midnight DSM in 2005) was ASM on "Life's a Monkey" in 2002 - a show I workshopped and was offered a part in, but had to turn down because I was visiting Australia during the rehearsal period. This would have been my West End debut three years earlier than - oddly enough - Midnight.
- In June 2008 Abigail's Party began it's final week at Basingstoke's Haymarket Theatre, exactly 29 years after I opened Every Good Boy Deserves Favour there with Oxford Playhouse Company in June 1979 . It was the first venue on the EGBDF tour.
More spook stories as I find them.
Chalk it Up!
Ever since "Chop" wrapped (and post-production finished, and the premiere happened, which I'm shocked to realise I didn't post about) I've been cast in their next short. In fact, I was asked to do it on the night of the press showing by Barrie, who wrote the script.
The "Beauty Queen" situation knackered the original shoot schedule, and it's been rescheduled for January, which is what I thought he was calling about yesterday. But it seems he's been even busier than me - he's got probable serious funding for his feature about women's rugby, likely shoot next summer. And guess what? Small cameo for me if it can be managed. Love his chops.
The "Beauty Queen" situation knackered the original shoot schedule, and it's been rescheduled for January, which is what I thought he was calling about yesterday. But it seems he's been even busier than me - he's got probable serious funding for his feature about women's rugby, likely shoot next summer. And guess what? Small cameo for me if it can be managed. Love his chops.
Saturday, 28 November 2009
Taxi for Mr Dooley
Last nights are odd on tour. On single-venue shows there's generally a massive knees-up; I guess that last night party thing is to mark the fact that the show couldn't possibly have been properly explored in 4 weeks - that the surface has only just been scratched; and, of course, that the very intense friendships you have made are about to abruptly end. If you've been raised on a diet of that then you'll be disappointed with touring.
There's a blowing-out-of-cheeks and a wearisome bag-packing goes on; inappropriately hurried goodbyes, too, because family are always there. There's an awareness too that the next person who opens the prop boxes or costume bags won't be you, unless you're coming back, as I was at the end of the first tour of Ab's Party. I haven't been invited back this time - I imagine for good practical reasons.
However, I would love to play the role again with the chance to explore it properly in rehearsal. And I had no idea quite how much I rely on that for what I do on stage. Without it, it's almost impossible to recall onstage and automatically the intentions behind the actions, for example, because much had inevitably been decided privately by me, but not really fixed in rehearsal. So going on stage was always a precarious business.
Without the support of Michael, Alice, Carol, Ben and Alan, it would have been a disaster. That I wasn't slammed in the reviews is a pleasant surprise bearing in mind the circumstances - and I have a brand new epithet to add to my suitcase of mild critical approbation: "...sensitively played...". Lovely.
There's a blowing-out-of-cheeks and a wearisome bag-packing goes on; inappropriately hurried goodbyes, too, because family are always there. There's an awareness too that the next person who opens the prop boxes or costume bags won't be you, unless you're coming back, as I was at the end of the first tour of Ab's Party. I haven't been invited back this time - I imagine for good practical reasons.
However, I would love to play the role again with the chance to explore it properly in rehearsal. And I had no idea quite how much I rely on that for what I do on stage. Without it, it's almost impossible to recall onstage and automatically the intentions behind the actions, for example, because much had inevitably been decided privately by me, but not really fixed in rehearsal. So going on stage was always a precarious business.
Without the support of Michael, Alice, Carol, Ben and Alan, it would have been a disaster. That I wasn't slammed in the reviews is a pleasant surprise bearing in mind the circumstances - and I have a brand new epithet to add to my suitcase of mild critical approbation: "...sensitively played...". Lovely.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
You Know My Name
We get to our Travelodge tonight to discover that no rooms have been booked for us. Well, Carol Dance and Ben Sherratt are welcome to stay, but there are no reservations for Alan, Alice and me. It's turning into another Abigail's Party Buxton Incident (when we were all booked in for the day after the show...) when suddenly the receptionist mentions there is a room booked for a Mr R Dooley. We can't believe it - there's a bloke called Dooley in the hotel - what are the chances?
"Mr P Dooley and Ms M Folan are booked in too" she continues.
"What? Please tell me they're not in a double"
"No. Separate rooms"
What's happened at LCT HQ? Has Pauline finally cracked under the pressure of administrating the company and making sure Michael has clean underwear? Has she turned into one of those crazed women in Northern towns who can't separate soaps from reality, and who pelt Steve McFadden with chips in the street? There's no answer from the nerve centre yet...
"Mr P Dooley and Ms M Folan are booked in too" she continues.
"What? Please tell me they're not in a double"
"No. Separate rooms"
What's happened at LCT HQ? Has Pauline finally cracked under the pressure of administrating the company and making sure Michael has clean underwear? Has she turned into one of those crazed women in Northern towns who can't separate soaps from reality, and who pelt Steve McFadden with chips in the street? There's no answer from the nerve centre yet...
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Eleven Drunken Nights
There are two kinds of tours, really. The ones where you drink a couple of nights a weeks to oil the wheels of sociability - businesslike and, to be honest, a bit dull. And the other kind, where you behave as though you were on holiday all the time, as though the money is just to be spent on the here and now, and as though there are no such things as matinees. This is one of the latter kind.
Guinness is an elusive beast, but since I'm not risking wine any more in pubs, it's tonight's choice. Alan tests each pint for quality, and winces slightly each time. By midnight we're three unhappy pints down each and heading home with Ben.
And then we spot Crosby's.
It's like a Bosch painting, where there's something gruesome going on in the background wherever you look. There's a group of schoolgirls wobbling around by the decks - no, make that a bunch of women in St. Trinian's outfits. There are even smaller dresses in this bar than Alice wears in Scene 3. Ben is fixated on the girl serving us already, and zones out whenever she approaches to give her a dreamy smile which says "I'm ready to drop these losers whenever you're ready, lady. Just say the word".
By the sixth pint I could be drinking bleach but I wouldn't care. I can't remember the last time I was up this late unless I was putting Jake's duvet back on him. I haven't the faintest idea what Alan and I were talking about, but at one point we laughed so hard and I farted so sonorously that the DJ heard.
Carpe diem, for tomorrow we die. And I'm sure the matinee will be fine.
Guinness is an elusive beast, but since I'm not risking wine any more in pubs, it's tonight's choice. Alan tests each pint for quality, and winces slightly each time. By midnight we're three unhappy pints down each and heading home with Ben.
And then we spot Crosby's.
It's like a Bosch painting, where there's something gruesome going on in the background wherever you look. There's a group of schoolgirls wobbling around by the decks - no, make that a bunch of women in St. Trinian's outfits. There are even smaller dresses in this bar than Alice wears in Scene 3. Ben is fixated on the girl serving us already, and zones out whenever she approaches to give her a dreamy smile which says "I'm ready to drop these losers whenever you're ready, lady. Just say the word".
By the sixth pint I could be drinking bleach but I wouldn't care. I can't remember the last time I was up this late unless I was putting Jake's duvet back on him. I haven't the faintest idea what Alan and I were talking about, but at one point we laughed so hard and I farted so sonorously that the DJ heard.
Carpe diem, for tomorrow we die. And I'm sure the matinee will be fine.
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Top of the Evenin'...
The unthinkable has happened. I just got an exit round after my monologue. I am finally Irish. Well, Irish-ish.
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