Actor's Angst. Part One. (Audition T-minus 23 days.)
Guess what!? It's Rex Has An Audition Coming Up time again!
And already my eye is twitching.
Because instead of the usual "One Shakespeare and one modern, 2 minutes minimum" bollocks, they've just sent out a list of ten, five for each gender, from which we are to pick one. And not only do we need to learn the damn monologue, we also have to read the whole play it's taken from so that we can be conversant about it at the interview.
Goody goody.
So, before the whining proper begins I need to ask: is anyone out there able to steer me towards an example of an Illinois accent? Specifically farmland-Illinois-near-the-Iowa-border type accent? I don't even have the beginnings of an inkling what that might sound like ...
(Oh. And just how the hell am I supposed to "briefly" describe my theatrical experiences? In six narrowly spaced lines?? How small do they think my handwriting can get ffs???)
The choices are all stupendously uninspiring. I was seriously considering doing one of the boys' monologues as it was the only one I really liked. (Doug from Cosi in case anybody's interested.) The Shakespeare choices were revolting - Hamlet for the boys and Cordelia for the girls. Euch. And there was exactly one play from the rest of the list that wasn't Australian. (Please note I am completely ignoring the existence of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.) I'm all for patriotism and encouraging local theatre types and all that, but Australian theatre does not begin and end with Michael bloody Gow or Louis Nowra. I love Leah Purcell too much and have too much respect for her as an actor and writer to even attempt her stuff - I am just too damn white.
Which leaves me with the sole Yank on the list. Sam Shephard and his charming little effort entitled Buried Child. I've read it three times now and I'm still confused. Especially about what the Pulitzer committee were smoking in 1979. I know seeing it vs just reading it will have different effects, but still. WTF? And the monologue they've sent out to people who are mostly going to be school-leavers is one for the 60-something grandmother character! W00t!
So I settled on "Halie". Ok. It's a nice monologue (well, not nice but you know. God forbid anyone in contemporary theatre should actually be happy), one I can get into pretty easily given it starts out with some pretty overt anti-Catholic sentiments ... but then I tried to get the script for the show. Angus and Robertson don't have it. Dymocks doesn't have it. QBD doesn't have it. The best Borders could do was a four-to-six week wait while they ordered it in from overseas. The University's own damn bookstore didn't have it!!! Now there's organisation for you. So here's a little plug for The Book Nook on Edward Street just down from the Belgian Beer Cafe. They saved my fingernails.
This is going a little bit out of order isn't it? Tough. I chose the monologue, I got the script eventually. I've read the script. I. Don't. Get. It. The story's simple enough, but ... yeah. Even putting it in historical context it's confusing. Even taking the incest inferences and running with them it's confusing. That's possibly the point. I'm almost convinced it's one of those Rorschack (sp?) plays - what you take away from the story, how you paint the characters and fill in their backstory says more about you than it does the play; but I'm not sure if that's genius or laziness on the part of the writer.
There's probably more of this to come people. Sorry. I'm going to obsess over this - they should seriously not tell someone with even the small amount of Stanislavsky training that I have that they need to be "familiar with the play and its characters and themes" with less than a month to do it.
Whole lotta eyetwitching going on.
P.S. VOTE GREEN!
NOVEMBER'S BOOKS
How To Kill - The Definitive History of the Assassin - Kris Hollington
Buried Child - Sam Shephard (re-read x5)
Bones To Ashes - Kathy Reichs
Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks - Christopher Brookmyre
And already my eye is twitching.
Because instead of the usual "One Shakespeare and one modern, 2 minutes minimum" bollocks, they've just sent out a list of ten, five for each gender, from which we are to pick one. And not only do we need to learn the damn monologue, we also have to read the whole play it's taken from so that we can be conversant about it at the interview.
Goody goody.
So, before the whining proper begins I need to ask: is anyone out there able to steer me towards an example of an Illinois accent? Specifically farmland-Illinois-near-the-Iowa-border type accent? I don't even have the beginnings of an inkling what that might sound like ...
(Oh. And just how the hell am I supposed to "briefly" describe my theatrical experiences? In six narrowly spaced lines?? How small do they think my handwriting can get ffs???)
The choices are all stupendously uninspiring. I was seriously considering doing one of the boys' monologues as it was the only one I really liked. (Doug from Cosi in case anybody's interested.) The Shakespeare choices were revolting - Hamlet for the boys and Cordelia for the girls. Euch. And there was exactly one play from the rest of the list that wasn't Australian. (Please note I am completely ignoring the existence of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.) I'm all for patriotism and encouraging local theatre types and all that, but Australian theatre does not begin and end with Michael bloody Gow or Louis Nowra. I love Leah Purcell too much and have too much respect for her as an actor and writer to even attempt her stuff - I am just too damn white.
Which leaves me with the sole Yank on the list. Sam Shephard and his charming little effort entitled Buried Child. I've read it three times now and I'm still confused. Especially about what the Pulitzer committee were smoking in 1979. I know seeing it vs just reading it will have different effects, but still. WTF? And the monologue they've sent out to people who are mostly going to be school-leavers is one for the 60-something grandmother character! W00t!
So I settled on "Halie". Ok. It's a nice monologue (well, not nice but you know. God forbid anyone in contemporary theatre should actually be happy), one I can get into pretty easily given it starts out with some pretty overt anti-Catholic sentiments ... but then I tried to get the script for the show. Angus and Robertson don't have it. Dymocks doesn't have it. QBD doesn't have it. The best Borders could do was a four-to-six week wait while they ordered it in from overseas. The University's own damn bookstore didn't have it!!! Now there's organisation for you. So here's a little plug for The Book Nook on Edward Street just down from the Belgian Beer Cafe. They saved my fingernails.
This is going a little bit out of order isn't it? Tough. I chose the monologue, I got the script eventually. I've read the script. I. Don't. Get. It. The story's simple enough, but ... yeah. Even putting it in historical context it's confusing. Even taking the incest inferences and running with them it's confusing. That's possibly the point. I'm almost convinced it's one of those Rorschack (sp?) plays - what you take away from the story, how you paint the characters and fill in their backstory says more about you than it does the play; but I'm not sure if that's genius or laziness on the part of the writer.
There's probably more of this to come people. Sorry. I'm going to obsess over this - they should seriously not tell someone with even the small amount of Stanislavsky training that I have that they need to be "familiar with the play and its characters and themes" with less than a month to do it.
Whole lotta eyetwitching going on.
P.S. VOTE GREEN!
NOVEMBER'S BOOKS
How To Kill - The Definitive History of the Assassin - Kris Hollington
Buried Child - Sam Shephard (re-read x5)
Bones To Ashes - Kathy Reichs
Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks - Christopher Brookmyre