Zoo Story (continued) chapter 12

I gained more and more insights about Jerry.I went thru every line in the play. Jerry has some very descriptive dialogue and I worked until I had a very good visual image of everything I was describing as the character. Terms that I heard at HB Studio made more and more sense to me. In acting class we would theorize about moment to moment acting but now I was experiencing it for real and for the first time. The actor playing Peter would react slightly differently every time and that would change proportionately what I was doing. I had set mental images to everything I was describing to Peter. For instance, there is one point where Jerry talks about this woman who lives in his flop house that he has never seen but hears her crying all the time, whenever he passes her door. For this I used a combination of fantasy and reality. I took my mother and put her behind that door crying all the time. I pictured my mother, down and out living in a flop hose which wasn't true. One of the main subjects that Jerry talks about is the landlady's dog. Here I had to make up an image from total fantasy as I couldn't think of a animal in my own life that was at all like the dog in "The story of Jerry and the dog". Here I was using the Strasberg technique of affected memory, using real objects in your own life to get to the reality and the Meisner technique of using fantasy. Combined, they worked very well together. (continued)

Zoo Story (continued) chapter 11

Well anyway, I went up to this guy , sitting and smoking a cigarette. I was a few feet from him when he looked up at me as if to say, what the hell do you want?". I was embarrassed so just walked away. I was still determined to feel what it was like to speak to a total stranger, when I saw another man, reading a newspaper. I was near him and I mumbled been to the zoo?. The man looked at me and continued to read his newspaper..

I walked out of the park thinking my experiment had failed when I got a revelation. What if it was just as hard for Jerry to do this? What if he was trying all day to engage someone and was unsuccessful until he came upon Peter.

That night at rehearsal, I tried what I had discovered in the park. Up until this time I would enter all full of energy as I wanted to entertain Peter. This time I walked fast into the scene , saw Peter and just kept walking off stage, on the other side. I entered again and just looked around. Peter glanced at me and just kept reading his book. We played this back and forth for awhile until it seemed that these two characters had a rapport before even the first line was said. "I been to the zoo".(continued)

The Glass Menagerie Chapter 8

I was really into the acting scene now , auditioning around town for non-union plays that paid no money but were providing me with the experience that I needed. I was also hanging out at night at a actor's bar in the theater district where I was learning the business end of acting from actors that had been around for years. 80% hardly ever had a paying acting job and when a working actor would come around everyone paid them the utmost respect.

About this time I received a call from a small basement theater in the east Village that was rehearsing "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams . They needed a replacement for an actor that quit the show. I jumped at the chance to do a famous Tennessee Williams play.

Once in rehearsal I soon realized that the few scenes that I had done in class and supporting parts in small plays were nothing to doing Tom Wingfield in "The Glass Menagerie". Not only was this the biggest part I had ever done but the character actually comes out to the audience to deliver 5 monologues. My inexperience and lack of technique came to bare in rehearsal. I would do ok in the scenes with the other characters but the monologues sounded, or so the director kept telling , like I was reciting lines. Plus I had to do a southern accent which came to me easier than I thought it would, maybe because the time I spent in the Navy helped me with it, as I was around sailors from all over the country and especially the south.

I tried everything I was taught at HB studios. I made substitutions, I played actions, I imagined myself as Tom Wingfield all the time , in the cab, at the bar. When the play opened I was still going on basic instinct, some performances were good and the audience really appreciated it, and some were ok and the audience would quietely leave the theater after the show.

Occasionally something would happen on stage and I would go into a zone and the performance was great. I would be totally free and have the audience in the palm of my hand. Other times I would be aware of myself on stage instead of living thru the character. I did ok with the monologues but never realized their full potential. I might add the director was no help except to tell me when I stunk.