Monday, January 11, 2010

Hunting Cockroaches

THEATER 26
-spring 1990
Spring at WCU brought us a show directed by new, part-time professor David Newman. I had been in his advanced directing class, with all the other theater upper classpersons. He was young, intelligent, and funny (and was from Reading, where his wife had once dated my cousin Greg). He chose a brilliant and funny play by Janusz Glowacki, about a Polish immigrant writer and his wife, who live in a very low-rent New York apartment. The writer was successful back in Poland, but he can't get any work. The play takes surreal turns as figures emerge from under the bed: rich New York socialites, KGB agents, and a bum. I had gotten along great with David, and the audition was one of the few in college in which i felt no possibility of not being cast. Rob Diremigio was the assistant director, and i've never had such an obvious audition success, from the standpoint of making the directors laugh unreservedly. I wanted to be the bum and the socialite, a casting that wasn't one of the listed options. I got what i wanted. David told me that he had picked the show with me in mind, and had expected me to be the lead. That gave me a moment's pause; it was a great part. But i became convinced that my casting direction had been the best choice. The actor (also named Dave) who played the writer did a credible job, and had i been the writer i think i might have had to carry the play more single-handedly. The wife was played by a decently talented French exchange student named Natalie. Even though her Polish accent was a bit, well, French, there was an authenticity there that worked. Dave complained that working with her was a bit more aromatic than one might have wished. Dave had been with the department a year or so, and we got on real well. The following year he would tell me how disappointed he had been when i didn't audition for one of Bob's plays. Had i known, i might have auditioned just for his sake. A young but very on-the-ball actor named Stu Jaffe played one of the KGB agents, and i kick myself that i can't remember the other one's name. They had some great moments, like when Stu, a tiny guy, is restrained by the much bigger guy, who strokes Stu's head, and whispers soothing words. Comedic on the surface, but they played the right values so that you never forgot the tragic that underlied it all. I got along great with them, Stu in particular. It would be very sweet to bump into he or Garrett Place, the student stage manager, again some day. The final cast member was my socialite wife, played by Laura Mealy, in her first mainstage role. I had developed a gargantuan crush on her during AM I BLUE?, and we spent many hours in her dorm room working on our parts, or just hanging out. She was kooky, she dressed in black, had short bottle-blonde hair, liked goth and Sinatra...and my quiet crush continued. Our characters were charitable dilettantes, but when the writer pressed them to really help out, they skedaddle. I wore a tux and glasses and a fake moustache. Laura was good, and i did a decent job, but it was as the bum that i really nailed something. Wearing raggedy clothes, i wander around the room, play with their broken things, and climb into bed with them. Slow-eyed but non-threatening, sad but funny, i'm a reminder of where they may soon be. When you really nail a part, it feels amazing. I won so much audience sympathy, which you could feel (and hear) when i finally crawled back under the bed. In rehearsal, we had tremendous fun learning the Polish accents. I picked it up quickest, which was a bit of a chuckle for David and Rob and i, as none of my roles were actually Polish (though that's not entirely true; i did do the voice of the Polish TV announcer). I loved doing that accent. The play was good, and very well-received. I was glad that Lou and Jeff hadn't auditioned, because one of the strengths of this show was in how well everyone liked each other. Lou or Jeff might have come in thinking they knew more than the director, or carrying around a lot of self-important energy…chemistry is such an important part of theater, hard to predict and impossible to buy. I didn't dislike Jeff and Lou, although they didn't make that easy. I think Jeff had a caring side, somewhere. Jeff also provided the funniest party memory of college. He once brought a game of Questions to a howling halt when he spun on someone, inquiring, "Are those beans?" That semester was David's last. In his one year, he did very well.

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