Alive!

KING LEAR, 2013. Fat Man Acting

     "I was hoping you wouldn't do it," Mum said to me. "I don't want you to get sick again." She was talking good sense. Ever since I was in High School, I've always gotten some kind of malady right before or after the run of a play. Fatigue and anxiety take their toll, and it's only gotten worse as I've grown older. After my last two productions, I've fallen into such deep depression that my therapist seriously considered involuntary hospitalization. I was determined to make this show a turning point. Whatever it took, I wanted to hold on to my artistic standards AND my mental health.

     And I'm happy to report success on all fronts.

 

The whole Summer Session class came to the show. (all but little Sammy)

   Even before going to the theatre to pick up my script, I sat down with my calender and scheduled my rest. I may be the only person in the world whose daily agenda includes naps. My work as a runner and a trainer had taught me the importance of rest and recovery. I also knew how much fatigue contributed to my depression in the past. I wasn't going to let that happen. Once the rehearsal schedule was posted, I contacted my supervisors and colleagues at the Y. I was going to need backup to cover classes, and my YMCA family jumped right in. They supported me from the first day, and a lot of them even came to see the show. I'm not being funny when I call mine the #bestjobever. It's a fact.

     Time was only one of the resources I had to marshal. I was going to need the people I loved, too. Friends and family all stepped up to support me. They checked in to make sure I was doing OK. Invited me out to lunch or a movie. Paid visits. Dropped notes. Joined me for workouts and walks. Offered support and laughter. Trusted me with secrets. Asked for help and support. 

     The emotional toolbox I had assembled during the past year with my therapist was packed and ready. Managing setbacks. Coping with distractions. Accepting the hards times without letting them take over. I didn't spend a minute buried under the covers; didn't miss a single commitment because of depression, and that is mostly thanks to the skills I learned from my head shrinker. 

   

Lot of pushups in those old arms.

 Once I was confident about my emotional health plan, I turned my attention to my body. I had already set my sleep program in stone, but I knew that the role of the Creature was going to make some pretty intense physical demands. I changed the focus of my training to increasing strength, especially in my upper body. I stopped training like a runner, and started training like a lifter. One of my jobs was to pick up and carry a grown man at the end of the play, and I wanted us both to feel good about my ability to do that. I won't pretend there wasn't some vanity involved. I was going to be shirtless for the creation scene, and I wanted to look as good as I could. Maybe I was no Adonis, but I looked my best.  

Frankenstein and Son. Tim Hull as Victor.

 

    I usually dive in to the script with a single-minded focus that neglects nearly everything else. I thought I was making the Theatre the center of my life; I now realize that I was using it as a substitute for my life: a place to hide from all the things that I didn't want to have to think about. I thought I was being an Artist. Instead, I was an Addict. I abused acting as a drug to take away the pain of real life. The unique thing about my preparation for this role was that I put my life in order first. How different my career might have been if I had understood this lesson when I was 20, but I am so very grateful to have learned it now.

A company I will hold in my heart forever.

     The play itself was a joy from start to finish. Part of that is due to the changes in me, but a large part of it is because of the beautiful script and the wonderfully talented group of artists who came together to make the play happen. I'm not going to call them out individually because there is no way I could do everyone justice. But I have to say that Bo List's adaptation of Mrs Shelley's story is a terrific ride, for the actors and the audience. The role of The Creature is a masterpiece. The chance to play a character from infancy to adulthood, climbing through each level of physical, mental, and spiritual development toward a final, magnificent epiphany... it is an actor's dream. I will always be grateful to Bo for endowing his "monster" with so gigantic, terrifying, and tender a soul.

     You know, it's funny: I always wanted to be a great Shakespearian actor. I wanted to be remembered as Prospero or Lear. And I don't think I stunk in those parts. But at one point during the run, someone told me that in a strange and wonderful way... I just may have been born to play Frankenstein's monster. There was a time when I would have been insulted to hear that. I'm glad I've lived long enough to be proud instead. And I can't wait to see what the Theatre has in store for me next.

     

Pretending Frankenstein

We've been rehearsing about three weeks, now. Long enough to stage the whole play, and get a cautious, choppy run through in. Like Victor Frankenstein's famous Creature in the night, our production is starting to pick itself up from playwright Bo List's silent pages and stumble around the mountains and laboratories of Jerome Wills' increasingly fascinating set. I say increasingly, because every night we actors arrive to find that Tech Director, Dawn Connerley and her crew have built some new detail or structure for us to play around, under, or on top of. Last night, composer, Rob Thomas was in the booth, supplementing our on-stage rehearsal with some of the music he has created for the world of Frankenstein, and it was like having lightning bolts shoot through me as I played. So much talent is coming together to make this all happen.

Patti Heying, our director has conducted our cast like a maestro. She seems to have an instinct for knowing just how to work with actors of many different backgrounds all at once. She might tell one young actor, "You know what? I cast you because I liked YOU. You don't have to pretend to be somebody else, just be yourself and imagine what you would do if this happened to you." To a grizzled veteran, she can just nod with a furrowed brow or a knowing smile and tell you all you need to know about where to go next.

Getting my own Creature up off the slab has been a painstaking, joyful process of asking questions, and trying on answers to see if they fit. You ask physical questions. How does the Creature walk? What does his voice sound like? What does it feel like to be electrocuted back to life from the dead? What happens to your joints, your brain, your senses, your emotions when you are suddenly, violently reborn?

You ask psychological questions, too. What does the creature want? What stands in his way? What does he love? What scares him? What drives him? What does he learn? How does he change?

And of course, you point your curiosity toward relationships as well. Who matters to him? Who disappoints? Whose approval does he need? Who does he want to hurt?

And always, you are asking, "Why?" Why do I run away? Why do I hide? Why do I keep coming back when people are always hurting me? Why is the old blind man's love so important to me? Why do I kill some people and spare others? Why do I speak like a child one moment, and like a Shakespearean tragic hero the next?

See what happened there? Sooner or later, you stop thinking about "Him." The role stops being "That Guy." He isn't somebody else. He's me. He's Bob, pretending to be a monster in 18th century Geneva. You stumble and limp and chase down blind alleys and try all the possibilities, but finally you have to stop thinking about the guy and become the guy. I'm not there yet. But I'm getting tantalizingly close in spots.

In a famous video clip circulating on Facebook, Sir Ian McKellan explains acting the role of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings this way: "I imagined what it would be like to be a wizard, and then I pretended..." And that really is what we all do. Because, you see, whether you are Ian McKellan or a 10 year old boy in a little community theatre in Versailles Kentucky, the way you act is just the same: you ask yourself, "What would it be like to be that person?" And then you pretend.

To Build A Creature

Charles Stanton Ogle, Frankenstein, Edison Studios, 1910

Today is the first rehearsal of Frankenstein, a modern adaptation by Bo List in which I have been cast as The Creature. I was just thinking, I remember my first audition, way back in 4th grade, but I don't remember my first rehearsal. There aren't very many memorable ones. Still, the anticipation of the ritual is so exciting.

Nick Vannoy, Frankenstein ,2011

This afternoon, I will sit with a new company of actors. Some are old friends, and some are people I've watched and admired for quite a while. Some are strangers to me. We are going to review the routine tasks of scheduling and policy that go with keeping any herd of artists organized, and then we will open our scripts, pick up our pencils, and set about reading together for the first time. The script has had several productions around the country, and I was present for Nick Vannoy's moving performance as The Creature in the world premier at the Kentucky Conservatory Theatre's SummerFest in 2011. His work is sure to haunt me. He isn't the only ghost who will pursue me as I try to create my own interpretation of the role of the Big Fellow.

Colin Clive and Boris Karloff, Frankenstein, 1931

No, not alive, not yet. But the process of gathering pieces to stitch together has begun. I have had the script in hand for a couple weeks, and I've been pouring over it. I'm not really doing intense analysis at this point, just trying to take it all in through a wide lens. I've read Mrs. Shelley's novel. The story was born in her nightmares: the teen-aged free-thinker whose birth caused her mother's death, and whose elopement with the already married Percy Bysshe Shelley led to estrangement from her father and poverty. She wrote Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus on a dare during the famous summer of 1816 when she and her husband were guests of the notorious Lord Byron at his home on Lake Geneva.

Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle, Young Frankenstein, 1974

The novel isn't a page turner like Bram Stoker's action packed Dracula. It is more of a psychological portrait, told mostly in the voice of Victor Frankenstein, the ambitious scientist whose grief over his lost mother led him to seek the secret of life and reanimation. It is also a moral examination of a man who, like Prometheus, seeks to serve humankind by bringing down fire from heaven, only to find his hubris punished by the gods with an eternity of bondage and agony.

Kenneth Branagh and Robert De Niro, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, 1994

Bo List's adaptation is faithful to this psychological, moral tone, but also draws on more theatrical parts of the Frankenstein myth that have developed since the novel was published. Consequently, I've been digging into some famous and not so famous films. I'm sure I'll be gleaning insights from all of them.

Bela Lugosi, Karloff, and Basil Rathbone, Son of Frankenstein, 1939

In our script, The Creature (who never does get a name,) learns reading and language from hours spent reading Paradise Lost, John Milton's cosmic tale of Satan's fall from heaven and revenge against his Creator. Digging through Paradise... is not exactly light reading, but it helps to understand how the Creature's psyche was rebuilt after Victor's traumatic experiments left his mind a nearly blank slate. It also sheds light in the deep longing for love and acceptance that underlies the "monster's" desire for a companion... and the tragic consequences of Victor's failure to provide a bride for his miserable "son."

Elsa Lanchester, Boris Karloff, Bride of Frankenstein, 1935

Soon, it will be time to put all these outside resources back on the shelf, and turn my full attention to our script and  playing with my fellow actors. Till that time comes, I'll be relishing the opportunity to absorb the ideas and stories that will be components of my own Creature. It's a much more pleasant process than the one poor Victor had to go through. I won't have to dig up any graves.


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