Curtains! (Part Two)

Yesterday, without any respite provided by some one-off posts, I got right back into another prolonged discourse- this one centering on the realization of my one man show efforts. Where I left off, I had just finished writing my show. When the writing was done, it was time to begin performing before the class. I was not exactly 'show-ready' from the first, with blocking and all manner of other things in an extremely raw state. What I did make my best effort to do was get my lines down as soon as I possibly could. I happen to have the time to do so. While I am not yet fully at ease with a script as opposed to material I improvise fully on the spot, I did a reasonable job. I never did exactly do any of my monologues in precisely the same words twice, so taking on Shakespeare is not in my immediate future, but evidently I was somewhat impressive in my ability to get away from scripts and notes as early as I did. It seemed important to do that in order to facilitate the rest of what I had to do.

The physical aspect was more difficult for me. Imagining and carrying out the 'business' and blocking that suited my character of Twain- rather than falling into my own habits as a person- was a challenge. I think I managed with reasonable success. This part was more improvised than the words, as I hoped embodying my character as fully as possible would allow me to instinctively move as him and not myself. What helped ease expectations in some of these areas was my conceit of Twain giving a lecture. Having that established, I didn't exactly have to deliver a Busby Berkeley show. I just had to do what a lecturer does, albeit in my case with greater energy and animation most of the time.

As I said, rounding up costume, props and set pieces was to me a daunting task. I would naturally have loved to come up with a stark white suit of the kind Twain became known for, but it wasn't to be. In truth, most of his life he wore plainer garb, and so the gray suit I fell back on was perfectly plausible if not evocative of Twain in itself. Ultimately, my set consisted of a plush chair with side table, a smattering of books and loose papers, a stand to hold one or two other papers and a unidentified bottle in a paper bag. The ultimate goal was simplicity, and the lecture premise permitted only one location, which meant I could have a more tangibly realized one. That suited my limited capacity for mime.

The week before the show, we finally had the opportunity to develop some familiarity with the space we'd actually be doing our show in. This was nice in more ways than one, as it was actually an easier place for me to get to from where I was then living. It required one bus as opposed to the two transfers which took me to the practice space. Now, I'd been to the college campus where we'd be performing plenty of times, but needed this advance exposure as much as anyone, really. Never having been there with this motive before, I had to look at it from a different perspective. My show required some minor tailoring to the space, but I needed to get comfortable. I achieved that well enough.

The next week I would benefit from fewer performance jitters. This was good, as the week of the show wasn't as tranquil as I would have liked outside of this activity. Stress related to the moving process was mounting, and it reminded me of a story about Bogart on the set of 'Casablanca'. Evidently he had been having severe domestic problems, and arrived on set each day in a terrible rage. Each day, however, he managed to do his job like a professional, and the results were legendary. The point is merely that one has to compartmentalize, and I did my best at this, knowing that undermining the show with worry about extraneous matters wasn't going to help anything.

Tomorrow, I'll get into the actual performances.