A Rant About Unprofessional Actors (Warning: Prepare for F-bombs)

I can't help it. I'm usually not like this. I mean, it really takes a lot to get me really aggravated. Seriously, I don't even send food back at a restaurant. Sure, if there is a Brillo pad baked into the bread or a used condom masquerading as salmon in Dragon Roll, yes, I'll raise my hand and try to get the server's attention. However, there are a few things that just piss me the fuck off. (I did warn you.) Some little, some big. For example, people who don't say anything when they are trying to squeeze by you in a store. Say something. "Excuse me." "Pardon me." "Move your fat ass, buddy." Something! Don't just stand there and get all irritated because I'm not clairvoyant. And don't exhale in exasperation as you pass by. That only pisses me off more. Here's another: Drivers who speed up when I turn on my blinker. Really? You're not gonna let me in and you are five cars back? You are gonna speed up just to let me know, what? You're so important that a little freeway courtesy is beyond you? Maybe you're in such a hurry that those extra two car lengths on the 405 are gonna make a difference to you getting to Target before the rush starts? Puh-lease. Asshole. Oh, yeah, those little stickers on produce? Fuck those. You ever try pulling those off a pear or a peach? Who invented those anyway? Ugh. Oh, and then, someone had to invent special printers to make those little fucking labels AND the special machines to put the little bastards on the fruit. No wonder avocados are so expensive!

Admittedly, those are mere annoyances that I wish could be remedied by civility or, in the case of those sticker-thingies, technology. There are, however, some things that are simply inexcusable. Actors, listen up. Specifically younger actors. I would hope the old pros out there would never do this, but who knows. I'm casting a play. I have cast many plays in my day, but this was a shock. A real wake up call. I put out the requisite casting notice in the trades. About 100 actors submitted for one of the roles. I invited twenty of them in to audition. Of those twenty, ten actors confirmed. The other ten didn't bother to respond at all. I sent the ten actors (who were professional enough to respond to an invitation to audition for a play they had submitted to) their times and their audition material. One of the scheduled ten contacted me the day before the audition and asked if he could reschedule because something important came up. Fine. No problem. The day of the audition arrived...two actors showed up to audition. Seven just blew it off. No call, no email, nothing. They just chose not to show up.


Why would anyone do that? People talk and people remember. Additionally, you never know where something might lead. My own company, for example, is work-shopping this new play (the one we're casting for), we have two movies going into production, we are working on a TV series, and we are planning a theatre season for 2019. As petty as this sounds, I will remember every single person who failed to show up, didn't call or email to cancel. Sad to say, I'll probably remember them more than the people who actually showed up, gave me their all for 3 minutes and didn't get the part.

Guess who I ended up casting? The guy who rescheduled. Why? First, he killed the audition. Second, I knew he was professional and would probably treat the role and the play with respect.

The business part of being an actor is hard. Really hard. It is as difficult, if not more so, than any other career. If you called a plumber and he never showed up after confirming a time to fix your sink, would you ever call him again? If you missed half a day of work for the cable guy to show up in that asinine four hour window and he never called but just didn't show up at all (okay, maybe a bad example), you would, at the very least, be somewhat annoyed. Do yourself a favor and treat your creative career like a profession not hobby. If you truly love what you do, afford it the people in the position of getting you work the same respect you would any other professional. Don't make me have to write something like this again.

Thank you. Next!

Why You Can't Read Plays

I was going to title this post: "Shakespeare Should Never be Taught as Literature." Then I thought some people wouldn't read it thinking it might only be about Shakespeare. Then I thought I'd be sneaky and call it "Never Read a Play Again!" in hopes that high school and college students would read it trying to get out of yet another assignment where they would have to analyze a boring drama by some dead guy who always wore a suit and tie.

Then a miracle occurred.

My wife found the following excerpt in a old theatre program. So instead of coming up with thoughts of my own this week, I'm just going to cheat and let you read what the legendary William Gillette had to say about reading plays. It's from his book, The Illusion of the First Time in Acting (New York, 1915, printed for the Dramatic Museum of Columbia University). You can get the ebook on Google Books for free. It's an excellent read for any student of acting, actual actor or theatre historian. So...read on:

"Incredible as it may seem there are people in existence who imagine that they can read a Play. It would not surprise me a great deal to hear that there are some present with us this very morning who are in this pitiable condition. Let me relieve it without delay. The feat is impossible. No one on earth can read a Play. You may read the Directions for a Play and from these Directions imagine as best you can what the Play would be like; but you could no more read the Play than you could read a Fire or an Automobile Accident or a Base-Ball Game. The Play -- if it is Drama -- does not even exist until it appears in the form of Simulated Life."

I have always railed against the teaching of Shakespeare (all plays, actually) in an English class. It is ultimately pointless. Plays are not meant to be read as literature, they are meant to be performed and seen by an audience at that moment. Each performance has the potential to be different from the night before. For the audience, and the actors, a play in performance is visceral. They are meant to be experienced then dissected. Didacticism must follow that intimacy of sitting in the dark.

Imagine trying to teach a class in cinema without watching some movies? A cooking class without food? Can't be done. Same with plays.

Non-Traditional Casting: My Crisis of Conscience

I've talked about this subject before. However, a recent article in the LA Stage Times got me going again.  Here's the elevator speech if you don't want to click and read the whole thing: Joe Stern (whose work I respect very much) of the Matrix Theatre Company (a stalwart of the LA theatre scene for 40 years) is mounting a multi-racial production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons (in my opinion, one of the finest American dramas ever written).

Those who know me well, know I have long been a proponent of color-blind casting whenever possible. There are too many fine actors of color not to allow audiences the privilege of seeing them ply their craft. However, I'm am truly struggling with the application of this concept to historical works. Or rather, works that rely on a very particular set of historical or cultural circumstances that by their very essence require a particular outlook towards casting.The desire to include racial diversity in our casting decisions should never be forced or seen as a marketing strategy. It should be organic and true. It should make sense given the time, place and circumstances of the play.

Now, in the case of many Shakespearean plays, we can adapt them, bend them, twist them into a concept that supports a multicultural cast. Easy-peezy-lemon-squeezy with The Tempest, Much Ado, Twelfth Night, or Midsummer Night's Dream. But even with the Bard, there are some plays that, if done straight, just do not work unless the director conceptualizes them away from their original history and deals with that shift in a creative and justifiable way. Julius Caesar, all the Henrys, Richard III, and Coriolanus for example are real people from a particular place in history.

Now Joe Stern is no dummy. He knows what he's doing and even in the article, he specifically states the challenges he faced in casting this play the way he did. The play was written in 1947 and takes place in 1946 with World War II still fresh in everyone's mind. It is set in the Midwest, where a racially mixed neighborhood was, well, let's just say, highly unlikely. Granted, the issues examined in this play are universal and large. Which then begs the question, what does the casting do to advance the meaning of the play?

Now, I'm pretty confident, there will never be a mixed race cast of August Wilson's The Piano Lesson. Nor should there be. David Henry Hwang's first play, FOB, must be cast is a particular way. It is too specific. How are those plays any different that the Miller play? Does age make it susceptible? Are the concepts presented by the drama so large and universal that casting really doesn't matter? Just thinking out loud, I guess.

You see, for me (I think, any way...at least right this second) we have become so concerned about non-traditional casting that we fail to advance the real issue. Playwrights must write for a multicultural society. Producers must nurture playwrights of all nationalities. Film, TV and the theatre must continue to fight racial stereotypes not just by selective casting, but by play selection. The issue is really about creating for a multicultural society in the first place, instead of trying to shoe-horn multicultural casts into existing works of the theatre.

Then again, I guess what I would really like is that it wasn't an issue at all. The best actors would get the part regardless of race, color, creed, or sexual orientation. I wouldn't have to think then.

Oh yeah, go see All My Sons at the Matrix: Here's the website for tickets. Regardless of what I may think I believe at this moment in time -- this is a great play, with an excellent cast, at a theatre known for exceptional productions. I'm going. Maybe it'll help me sort things out.

Standing Ovations

"The Subject Was Roses" is playing here in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Form. The play was written in 1964 by Frank Gilroy, won the Pulitzer, was on Broadway where it won a Tony Award for Best Play and was made into a film.This particular mounting was put in motion by it's star, Martin Sheen. Sheen was in the original Broadway production and nominated for  Tony and Jack Albertson won the Tony for his portrayal as the father -- the role Sheen inhabits today. It's a homecoming of sorts for Sheen.

Two things need to be said right off the bat: I'm a huge fan of both the Taper (It's great space and I am rarely disappointing in the productions) and of Martin Sheen. Pound for pound he is one of My favorite actors of all time. Missiles of October, Apocalypse Now, The Execution of Private Slovak, Da, That Championship Season. Those films alone put Sheen in my books as one of our best actors. Then, of course, there's The West Wing. Not just a masterpiece of television drama by Aaron Sorkin, but a brilliant cast lead by Martin Sheen as President Jed Bartlet. Sheen's President Bartlet spoiled me for any other President in my lifetime. But I digress....

Liz and I always love going to the Taper. We'll usually have dinner and drinks al fresco at the Pinot Grill just outside the Taper doors. We'll saunter in with the other patrons, take our seats and let the play wash over us. All of this we certainly did on this evening. The play was good enough. Just good, not great. Most people probably came to see Martin Sheen live and in person on stage. fair enough. And Sheen was fine. Frances Conroy as the wife and mother was fine. Brian Geraghty (from the Hurt Locker) was obviously green and needed a firmer hand from the director, but serviceable enough considering his relative lack of theatrical chops. The set was fabulous! Later, our ride home would be filled with an intense discussion about why this play was chosen, how we would have addressed some of the problems we saw, etc. You know, the kind of stuff all theatre folk tear apart and chew on when we go see a play. But, all in all, a pleasant enough evening at the theatre. We enjoyed it.

Then the play ended. The applause started and everyone stood up. Not to leave, but to applaud. A standing ovation.

Now I can count on one hand the number of times I have been in the midst and a willing participant in a true heartfelt standing ovation. A performance so enthralling or so fabulously moving no one present would have even known they were rocketed to their feet by some unseen force of the theatre. Antony Sher as Richard III at the RSC in 1984. Kenneth Branagh as Henry V that same year, same place. Ian McKellan in his one-man show Acting Shakespeare at the Westwood Playhouse (now the Gefffen). No question: Standing O. Brilliant, moving, tours de force, passionate, exquisite, nonpareil. Whole theatres on their feet in a flash, knowing they had seen something truly special.

Since then, however, and particularly over the past ten or fifteen years, I've noticed that audiences will bestow a standing O on anything they pay money to see. Liz and I have been the only one's seated at some of the most mediocre plays and performances of the last millennium. We have seen dreadful celebrity performances bring the house down. We have witnessed $100 a seat musicals receive standing ovations, yet not a single tune was whistled fondly on the street afterward. What gives?

Has the sheer price of tickets made us believe that what we are seeing is spectacular? Have we become so enthralled by celebrity that we will always stand for star because he or she is in the movies? Do we just not go to enough theatre to know good from bad? Are our expectations just so low that we are simply amazed that poeple can learn that many lines?

I'm worried. The standing ovation at the Taper could not have been for the performance that evening. It was fine. It wasn't fabulous. It was journeyman work. It wasn't transcendent. The only explanation must be that Martin Sheen is famous. So we should stand for the famous guy. 

I rarely agree with reviews. But for once I agree with a review in the Hollywood Reporter. It is a fair assessment of this production. Some of it is the fault of a dated play that just doesn't mean what it once did. Gilroy's play has become a period piece. Some of the fault should fall at the feet of the director for not doing more to address the play itself and for not guiding a young actor better through the minefield that is live theatre. But most of the fault lies in the clapping hands and standing bodies of audiences that demands nothing more than a nice evening out.

I hope to see a play soon that will force me to my feet without a second thought. Indeed, I long for the rush that fills my head and face as I stand in awe of a massive display of talent and words and collaboration to powerful that my very being is catapulted from my comfort. Until that show comes around, however,I will continue to enjoy my play going with my wife and friends. I will continue to work in and support the theatre and the artists who work in it. I'll just do it from the comfort of my seat.