A weekend in Grover's Corners
So. As I've written about briefly, this past weekend was opening and closing of the local production of Our Town in which Geo and I played. It was a whirlwind production, giving us only 3 weeks to put the show together. Herein, then, are some of my thoughts on the experience.
The cast members were delightful to work with. One of the things I regret about our limited rehearsal time was that we didn't quite have the opportunity to gel as a cast, though. Those with whom I did work were delightful, and there were others (the kids who played my children, for example) with whom I wished I could have spent a little more specific rehearsal time.
The play was, of course, written by Thornton Wilder, one of the foremost American playwrights in American literature. I believe the play won a Pulitzer Prize. It is a premiere piece of American literature, American drama, and American history. I am probably the only American theater student who has ever completed her academic coursework without reading or being required to read the play. :-)
Now, as such, this play has been very carefully written and constructed. It's deep, layered, and becomes more so with life experience. As such, it was incredibly frustrating the amount of ad-libbing that was going on. I wish I could remember who said it--I think it was Katherine Hepburn--but one of my favorite sayings about learning lines vs. ad-libbing (I'm paraphrasing) is this: If the play is well written, the writer has taken great care in selecting each word, and you should therefore learn the lines as the writer has written them. If it's not a well written play, you shouldn't be doing it to begin with.
Now, of course there are times when a director chooses to judiciously edit words here and there--you don't use the "f" word in a high school production, though the rest of the play is great for such a cast. Even in this play, the director opted to change rubbers to galoshes because of the connotation the first term has to today's teens (disappointing, but understandable. Though I would have preferred "wellies." :-) ). And I've certainly re-written dialogue for some of the free-off-the-internet church stuff I've done, particularly when the dialogue becomes circular with no progression. But as a general rule, I love that saying. Because it's so true. The writer chooses the words carefully, for rhythm, for meter, for pacing, for texture and flavor, to be reflective of the times, or to develop a specific character. To merely learn the gist of the line and then deliver it as if you are yourself saying it, betrays the story you're trying to tell. It's disrespectful of the text.
Also, learning your lines shows respect for your cast mates. Someone else might be depending on the wording of your cue line to them to trigger the thought process they need to start or continue. "Winging it" just for the sake of winging it doesn't help your cast mates or scene partners, and actually makes their job harder. Theater is a team effort, and everyone needs to be willing to catch each other. And to be able to catch each other, you must know what everyone else is doing and what needs to be conveyed to the audience.
Brief digression: This is, of course, completely different from TV, where writing is often done by committee, new pages are written daily, and the actors come up with ad-libs on the spot that add to the scene. That's a totally different kind of ad-libbing. TV writing by its very nature changes daily, in contrast to playscripts, wherein the playwright is the first and primary decision maker.[/digression]
George and I played Dr. and Mrs. Gibbs (yes, we were typecast as a married couple. This is not an uncommon experience for us). I had three weeks to learn my lines, and was bolstered in that regard by encouragement from one of my co-workers back in Ohio, whom I'd worked with under similar time intensive circumstances. I did, in fact, learn my lines, I was getting comfortable with the speech patterns (though there was certainly room for improvement), but my mimed blocking was a little more free-form than I would have liked.
There were four of us, I counted, who did not, to my knowledge, depend on ad-libbing to get through the show. I can't say that our lines came second nature to us, given such a short rehearsal period, but we were to the point where we were listening to each other for cues and giving each other the proper cue lines.
A lot of people were ad-libbing, though. Some, I didn't mind so much. I knew they were trying, and they were making an effort to get the right words out. But the speech patterns of 1900's New England are very different from those of 2011 Virginia, and one of my scene partners really struggled with it. She totally understood the importance of it, but she just didn't have enough time or opportunity to become familiar with the patterns and textures of the lines. In retrospect, I probably should have caught her better than I did at times, but I wanted to give her the opportunity to get her thoughts out before simply cutting her off.
One young man, however, I'm not even sure he tried to get the lines right. He had trouble remembering what his circumstances and internal monologue were supposed to be at any time, let alone get the texture and flavor of the written lines. He had a general idea of what a conversation was supposed to cover, and for the most part, he covered everything. But he delivered his lines as a teenager in 2011 rather than a man of 1901. In fact, one of the amusing things working with this young man was last night, when he actually gave me something resembling the proper cue line, it threw me off guard, and I stumbled over my reply to him. Heh.
Again, none of this is meant to be a criticism of the actors themselves, but rather as illustrations of the importance of being familiar with the text and learning your lines. Everyone I observed worked hard to get there. And given another three weeks, we might well have been able to stay truer to the text than we did.
But this is what I mean by being in a position where I have to be able to catch myself and others rather than having the confidence of knowing that my castmates can catch me. I try not to put anyone in a position of having to catch me, but we hadn't gelled to the point where we knew each other well enough to do that. I hope that makes sense.
So that was the most frustrating part.
BUT!
The play was still a fun experience.
One of my favorite things about having time to work on a role is coming up with the little things--the little gestures and nuances that make a scene or a relationship real. I hope I do a good job of it. Sometimes it's hard to tell when one doesn't get specific feedback.
We had one young man playing four different roles, and he made each of them unique. He had such enthusiasm for the project and was really there for everyone.
The woman I had one of my talkier scenes with gave me the delightful compliment that I'm easy to act with. What a delight to hear.
And the young man who was playing the multiple roles told both me and Geo that we were doing excellent work.
And the mothers of the young people who were playing our children both came to me and said that their kids were so excited to have us as stage parents. The young man playing my son apparently told his mother that George and I are "awesome." So that tickled me greatly.
Overall, I hope that the project accomplished the process* that the director wanted it to. At our initial read through, Mr. Director said that one of the things he hoped to accomplish was giving the opportunity for his students to work with experienced actors. So, I hope they all found that to be beneficial.
Oh! I almost forgot about our audiences. We had good houses both nights. The interesting thing was that they laughed in different places. But the first night, after I was done with my first series of scenes and came off stage, I told people, "There are living, breathing people out there! And they're laughing! \o/" (Both audiences seemed tickled by my speech about visiting the battlefields of the Civil War. Something a lot of people can relate to around here.) Anyway, good audiences both nights, and some nice comments afterwards.
It feels strange that the play is over. I was just getting the hang of going through straight run-throughs. Heh.
*There are two facets to putting on a play: the process, and the product. In an educational setting, the process--the learning experience for the students--is just as important as--if not more important than--the product. Once you get into more experienced casts, the process is still important, but it becomes important more for its contribution to the final product, which of course is very important. The learning aspect of the experience, when working with a more experienced cast, is left up to the individual, what they choose to learn and take away from the experience, rather than being "formally taught" by a teacher. If that makes sense.