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.
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