Back in 1999, when I auditioned for a professional theatre company in Saskatoon, the artistic director asked me what roles I dreamed of playing. I gave him two.
The first thing I said was Alan Strang in Equus, which I think is the greatest play of the 20th century. Equus is a flawless script, penned by the British playwright Peter Shaffer. I think the play is about religious awe and the human need to worship. Detractors of religion say that it is harmful to force religious belief on people. I'm sure that's true. Equus tells us that taking religion away from someone can be just as dangerous. That's my take anyway and I'm a Baptist. I would have loved to play Alan Strang, would have sang that Doublemint jingle and would have done the finale as naked as the day as I was born. Alan's nudity is not pornographic; it is symbolic of Adam's innocence in the Garden of Eden.
I'm 39 now. Too old to play 17-year-old Alan Strang. If I were offered the role, I'd have to refuse it. It would be selfish of me to accept. I'd be putting my own "desire to explore this role" ahead of the audience's need for authenticity. The first thing the audience would say is: "He's supposed to be 17? Come on..." It would take them out of the play and it would lessen the experience. An astute audience member would have the right to feel manipulated and demand his money back. Love the craft in yourself, not yourself in the craft.
My second role of choice was Richard Roma, the on-a-hot-streak salesman in Glengarry Glen Ross. I once joked that I'd play the role better than Pacino. Probably not true but you may as well aim for the stars.
Roma, to my mind, is pure id. I see him as a psychopath. People like Roman are unfortunate side effects of the American dream. Someone once said that it's easy to make a million dollars if all you want to do is make a million dollars. That's what Roma does. We witness him as he bullshits, and possibly seduces, a man in a Chinese restaurant - persuading him to invest thousands of dollars in, what very well could be, worthless property. The next day, when the man shows up at the office asking for his money back, Roma manipulates him and even outright lies to him in order to keep that money. It makes no difference that this could spell the end of the man's marriage, that he may now be destitute. The only thing that matters is Roma's own bank account. His own self interest.
Now this is so NOT me. I'm compassionate to a fault and I have a long history of letting people walk all over me. So the chance to play such a scoundrel would be a real challenge. I think I'd be absolutely fearless in rehearsal. My underlying motivation would be to make as much money as possible. The only people I'd be nice too are the underperforming salesmen, who I'd pity but not really like. Why? They don't pose a threat to me.
I auditioned for that role twice. Once, when I was 21, a small community theatre company in Calgary announced it was going to mount a production. The artistic director, whose name was Dean, held an open audition at the university. About 50 men showed up. One of them said he wanted to play the Alec Baldwin role. Ha ha ha. Joke's on him. The Alec Baldwin role - Blake - is only in the movie, not the stage play. (Incidentally, the late Jack Lemmon, who played Sheldon Levene in the movie, believed the screenplay to be superior to the stage play, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984.)
So we did the auditions and I did my Roma schtick and I guess I did it very well because at the end, when Dean announced he was going into the green room for a few minutes to make his decision, all the other actors shook my hand and told me they were sure I was getting the part. But I didn't get the part. Some other dude did. And then Dean announced that the role of Sheldon Levene would be played by himself. The actors groaned and thundered out of there and yelled "this is bullshit." Many of them felt that they'd wasted their time and that Dean never had any intention of casting anyone but himself.
I don't think that play ever got off the ground. Someone told me that in the end, Dean couldn't get the rights to produce it. Sucks. I guess I was happy to not get the role. That disappointment would have been too great.
I was 23 the second time I auditioned for the role. Calgary's Theatre Junction was putting it on as part of its 1996 season. I called the artistic director, Mark Lawes - who had taught me a voice and diction class at Mount Royal College - and asked if I could audition. Mark was not happy to hear from me. I was a complete shit in his class - a spiteful, lazy jackass who thought he was God's gift to acting. I didn't blame him for trying to brush me off.
I apologized to Mr. Lawes for the way I acted at Mount Royal and I told him that now I was a completely different person and a completely different actor. I told him that I'd gotten my ass kicked hard by the professional theatre world and that I now realized that what I didn't know about acting could fill Yankee Stadium. I pleaded for him to give me a second chance. I also apologized to him personally for the lack of respect I showed him when I was 19. And you know what? Mark accepted my apology and gave me a chance to audition.
I auditioned, doing Roma's Act 1 scene 3 monologue and Mark was kind enough to tell me that it was miles ahead of any of the patronizing shit I did in his voice and diction class (my words, not his.) But while he said I did a good job, he told me that I was a bit too young to play Richard Roma, who the script said was in his 40s.
I was disappointed, but Mark was right. The characters needed to be older so the play would be more tragic. Having a 23-year-old onstage with a bunch of 40 and 50-somethings would have seriously disrupted the balance. The words are written for middle-aged men, not younger men. Having a younger man in there would have been a great disservice to the overall spirit of the play. If Roma was in his early 20s and everyone else was in their 40s and 50s, Mamet would have written the words differently.
This became so apparent to me ten years later when I wandered into a production of Glengarry Glen Ross being put on by a group of guys in their late 20s and early 30s. Levene looked more like a football captain than he did a tired and broken down old man. There was no tragedy. None. If Levene were to get fired, or Moss, or Aaranow - where's the tragedy? All these guys could probably find other jobs in a week. When you're an old man and you still need to work, it's much more tragic. The play struck me as inherently false and I left before it was over.
Well I'm almost 40 now. I've got my eyes peeled for theatre companies mounting Glengarry Glen Ross. Give me a chance, someone? I'll play Roma better than Pacino.
I'm joking. But not really.
Thursday 17 May 2012
Wednesday 9 May 2012
David Mamet and Abbey Road
I am the managing editor of a weekly newspaper in Eastern Ontario. My duties include writing a regular column. My column cannot be defined, really. Sometimes it's serious, sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's religious, sometimes it's nostalgic, sometimes it's even a bit offensive.
One of the things I enjoy is working David Mamet references into my column. I did it recently with my piece on Abbey Road. Here it is:
---
Abbey Road gets very few jaywalkers.
That’s one of the things I noticed while watching webcam footage of the iconic London road.
For those of us who are completely ignorant of pop culture, the road is iconic because it was featured on the front cover of the 1969 Beatles album, which was named for the road. (If you’ve never seen it, look it up on Google images now or this column will make no sense.) I first became aware of the album when I was in Grade 9 and my English teacher, Mr. Jelinek - a huge Beatles fan - showed it to us. To me it was just a picture of four guys crossing the street but Mr. Jelinek insisted that it was much more than that. It was rife with symbolism. He pointed to a Volkswagen Beetle in the background whose license plate read LMW 28IF. “Paul McCartney was 28 when this picture was taken," he said. Actually, Paul would have been 27 but I’ll let it go at that.
Rock musicians might be notorious for planting hidden imagery in album covers but it’s doubtful that the Beatles had the time or the inclination to do that with Abbey Road. According to the BBC, photographer Iain Macmillan only had 10 minutes to take the shot. Abbey Road was a busy thoroughfare and the authorities weren’t too keen on having traffic diverted just so a rock and roll group could get its picture taken. Also, that car and its license plate weren’t planted at all. The car was owned by some poor dude who lived nearby. For years he had to deal with Beatles fans stealing his license plate. He later sold that car to an American collector for 2,500 British pounds. Apparently it still runs.
By the way, there’s actually five people shown on the front cover of Abbey Road - two of them are named Paul. There’s Paul McCartney and there’s Paul Cole, who can be seen standing on the sidewalk on the right side of the album. Mr. Cole, a salesman from Florida, just happened to be vacationing in London with his wife. His wife had wanted to go into a nearby museum and Mr. Cole had elected to stay outside. He happened to be in the right place at the right time when Mr. Macmillan’s camera went click. Mr. Cole had no idea what happened until much later, when he became something of a minor celebrity. When he died in 2008 at the age of 96, newspapers everywhere carried the story. I’m sure Mr. Cole lived a happy life but it must suck knowing that the most significant thing you’ve ever done was just stand there.
(Note: I tried to work in a funny reference to the Beatles song I saw her standing there but was unable to do so. I hope this bracketed tangent brings a smile instead.)
The album Abbey Road was released in September of 1969 (Paul was still 27) and I guess that Beatles fans ate it up and thought it was fantastic and super. They also decided that the intersection - which features a zebra pattern and is located in the borough of Camden right outside the Abbey Road Studio - is holy ground. In December of 2010, English Heritage gave it Grade II Listed Building Status. I’m not sure what that means but you’re probably not allowed to go there in the middle of the night and tear it up with a jackhammer.
Somewhere along the line, some genius got the bright idea to install a webcam overlooking the crossing, which brings me back to my original point about the virtually nonexistent jaywalkers. It seems that everyone who crosses that street crosses at the crosswalk. I guess it’s because they know that crosswalk has the stuff of immortality in it and they’d like to walk where John Lennon trod. I’m a nominal Beatles fan but if I found myself at Abbey Road, I confess I’d probably want to cross it too. And take my picture. (To prove that I’m just as big a fanboy as the next person, I confess that I did drive down to a cafĂ© in Vermont once so I could sit at the same table where Pulitzer Prize winning playwright David Mamet once sat.)
If you watch the webcam for long, you’ll notice a lot of people getting their pictures taken. You can actually tell when it’s going to happen. A group of people gathers on one side of the road and then waits for a break in traffic. Then they rush onto the sidewalk and pose while their designated photographer snaps the pic. Sometimes cars approach the intersection and they usually wait patiently. I imagine that delays at good ole Abbey Road are just a part of London life.
With fan photos taken at the site every single day, it stands to reason that a few people are going to have some close encounters with traffic. In a 20th anniversary retrospective essay published in The Guardian in August of 1989, writer Tom McNichol tells the story of Arne, a vacationing Swedish newspaperman who was almost wiped out by a motorcyclist while trying to photograph his four companions. Thankfully the motorcyclist was not from Quebec. He would have run right over him.
So a word of advice to anyone planning on taking a picture at Abbey Road: Look both ways before you cross the street.
I’m just speaking words of wisdom. Let it be.
One of the things I enjoy is working David Mamet references into my column. I did it recently with my piece on Abbey Road. Here it is:
---
Abbey Road gets very few jaywalkers.
That’s one of the things I noticed while watching webcam footage of the iconic London road.
For those of us who are completely ignorant of pop culture, the road is iconic because it was featured on the front cover of the 1969 Beatles album, which was named for the road. (If you’ve never seen it, look it up on Google images now or this column will make no sense.) I first became aware of the album when I was in Grade 9 and my English teacher, Mr. Jelinek - a huge Beatles fan - showed it to us. To me it was just a picture of four guys crossing the street but Mr. Jelinek insisted that it was much more than that. It was rife with symbolism. He pointed to a Volkswagen Beetle in the background whose license plate read LMW 28IF. “Paul McCartney was 28 when this picture was taken," he said. Actually, Paul would have been 27 but I’ll let it go at that.
Rock musicians might be notorious for planting hidden imagery in album covers but it’s doubtful that the Beatles had the time or the inclination to do that with Abbey Road. According to the BBC, photographer Iain Macmillan only had 10 minutes to take the shot. Abbey Road was a busy thoroughfare and the authorities weren’t too keen on having traffic diverted just so a rock and roll group could get its picture taken. Also, that car and its license plate weren’t planted at all. The car was owned by some poor dude who lived nearby. For years he had to deal with Beatles fans stealing his license plate. He later sold that car to an American collector for 2,500 British pounds. Apparently it still runs.
By the way, there’s actually five people shown on the front cover of Abbey Road - two of them are named Paul. There’s Paul McCartney and there’s Paul Cole, who can be seen standing on the sidewalk on the right side of the album. Mr. Cole, a salesman from Florida, just happened to be vacationing in London with his wife. His wife had wanted to go into a nearby museum and Mr. Cole had elected to stay outside. He happened to be in the right place at the right time when Mr. Macmillan’s camera went click. Mr. Cole had no idea what happened until much later, when he became something of a minor celebrity. When he died in 2008 at the age of 96, newspapers everywhere carried the story. I’m sure Mr. Cole lived a happy life but it must suck knowing that the most significant thing you’ve ever done was just stand there.
(Note: I tried to work in a funny reference to the Beatles song I saw her standing there but was unable to do so. I hope this bracketed tangent brings a smile instead.)
The album Abbey Road was released in September of 1969 (Paul was still 27) and I guess that Beatles fans ate it up and thought it was fantastic and super. They also decided that the intersection - which features a zebra pattern and is located in the borough of Camden right outside the Abbey Road Studio - is holy ground. In December of 2010, English Heritage gave it Grade II Listed Building Status. I’m not sure what that means but you’re probably not allowed to go there in the middle of the night and tear it up with a jackhammer.
Somewhere along the line, some genius got the bright idea to install a webcam overlooking the crossing, which brings me back to my original point about the virtually nonexistent jaywalkers. It seems that everyone who crosses that street crosses at the crosswalk. I guess it’s because they know that crosswalk has the stuff of immortality in it and they’d like to walk where John Lennon trod. I’m a nominal Beatles fan but if I found myself at Abbey Road, I confess I’d probably want to cross it too. And take my picture. (To prove that I’m just as big a fanboy as the next person, I confess that I did drive down to a cafĂ© in Vermont once so I could sit at the same table where Pulitzer Prize winning playwright David Mamet once sat.)
If you watch the webcam for long, you’ll notice a lot of people getting their pictures taken. You can actually tell when it’s going to happen. A group of people gathers on one side of the road and then waits for a break in traffic. Then they rush onto the sidewalk and pose while their designated photographer snaps the pic. Sometimes cars approach the intersection and they usually wait patiently. I imagine that delays at good ole Abbey Road are just a part of London life.
With fan photos taken at the site every single day, it stands to reason that a few people are going to have some close encounters with traffic. In a 20th anniversary retrospective essay published in The Guardian in August of 1989, writer Tom McNichol tells the story of Arne, a vacationing Swedish newspaperman who was almost wiped out by a motorcyclist while trying to photograph his four companions. Thankfully the motorcyclist was not from Quebec. He would have run right over him.
So a word of advice to anyone planning on taking a picture at Abbey Road: Look both ways before you cross the street.
I’m just speaking words of wisdom. Let it be.
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