Our Theater Doesn't Do Rain

SOP is not a standard play. People play multiple characters. Those characters spend a lot of time speaking to the audience and not to each other. I'm beginning to see the ramifications of such a show. Some are good. Some are bad. Some are neither the prior two and just are.

1. Cast bonding: there is less of it.
Every cast has it's own feel. I think I can confidently say that now. My first show in '06, I had a director that worked to make sure his cast of 4 women bonded. We had field trips together for Christ sake. It set the bar very high. I've never had a show that was that tight, but my last show, Memory of Water, did have some bond. It may not have been totally positive, but it was there. This show doesn't have that yet, and I'm not sure it will. We are all on stage the entire time so there is no down time between scenes to connect as people. We are always playing characters. We are rarely interacting as back stage confidants or whatever. We are never actresses, we are always acting.


2. It's more exhausting.
The last show I was in had an exhausting character. She was truly messed up. But she was somehow less work as an actress, b/c once I found her, I could stay there. I only had to do the emotional work once per night. I only had to picture my space once, too. This time I have to do it many dozens of times. Yes I play 5 different women, but several of those women move between dozens of scenes themselves in just a few minutes. We have to do the emotional shifts of each new character but then also try and really visualize where we are as we're talking through memories or scenes.

It's also more exhausting b/c we talk to the audience. That may be the hardest part. How do you keep that interesting and engaging? I'm not totally sure, and while I'm not worried about that yet, it is something that needs to happen or we won't pull this off.

I have no number 3. But I have one more comment about this show as it relates to others. I'm guarded. I'm guarded as an actress to my characters and especially to those around me. I'm never a super open person on first contact, but I'm having a harder time in this show than I have in others. I'm having a harder time with characters b/c we have so little time with each...literally a few pages. And I'm guarded with my co-actresses b/c I think I know zero of them. In all of my other shows after my first one (this is like my whopping 4th) I knew at least one person in the cast fairly well. So I had an in. Here I have no in.

But none of this is to say I'm having a bad time. I like the challenges. I love the director. And I have a lot of work to do before Monday.