The Joy of Theatre

Remember that audition I told you about earlier?

It was for the play titled Martin Yesterday; it’s being performed by Toto Too Theatre Company and is written by the talented Brad Fraser (he of Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love). You can learn more about the play here:

http://www.tototoo.ca

Here’s the thing: I usually don’t like going outside of my box. I’m a writer; we’re usually pretty solitary folk by our very natures. At least I am. Are any other writers out there like this? Help me out here, okay?

I also love the theatre. Years ago, I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to lose myself, and pretend to be someone else, in the silver screen. It did not happen for a few reasons, the primary one being that I was just not that into it.

At the time, I was living in a pretty hectic world. The years of a teen boy are a turbulent and crazy thing. You’re trying to establish yourself in world that encourages you to be a fighter, when you may want to do nothing but sit and smell the roses.

During this time, I am pretty sure that I used theatre, and my love for it, to escape. If you think about it, every play really just tells a story. It is like a moving novel on stage. Any movie is the same (just with huge sets and a bigger budget). But I like the theatre more because it has a quiet brilliance; under its fresh coat of paint, it’s hope to live thrives on the stage in front of you.

Theatre is like a diamond in the rough; something that wants to charm you but may falter a little bit in the beginning. A finding of balance as each actor finds their place, finds the person they have created inside of them. As they read the script, the try to inhabit that person, to create them inside of them.

It’s a powerful image, isn’t it?

Now that I am a writer, and I know this is what I want to be, I am still pulled in by the glitter of the Dramatic world. I took Drama all through high school, listened to countless musicals; Miss Saigon, Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, RENT, Wicked, Avenue Q, The Glass Menagerie.

I have seen more musicals than plays in my life, for obvious reasons (what queen can resist the powerful pull of the musical after all?), but theatre still calls out to me in a way. It still sings for me. I am very thankful when it lets me side step as a writer and, in a different way, learn to tell a story.

I have acted a few times in my life in plays and musicals, quite a few times in fact.

I remember, for instance, in junior high *shudder* I played bobby in Kids the musical. A horrible high schoolish play about different kids and their wants and hopes. Yes, it’s as bad as you’re thinking. I played Bobby who was afraid of things inside of his bedroom, who quaked in terror at the things he saw there.

I played Howie Newsome, from the intrepid Our Town. What highs school does not put this play on at least once in its repitoire? I think the play is old and dated now, but it does have a subtle charm. I played the milk man who seemed like a country bumpkin idiot, but still had a gleam of wisdom inside of him.

I played Mr. in Out of the Frying Pan by . I played the gayest man on stage today; I just didn’t realize at the time that it was me. I played Mr. who in the end helped a young theatre troupe become their stars (I still have the video and script of the play. Sigh, that was lovely).

In university, I played in a very experimental play called The Boyfriend. I only had one line. But in a way, it helped me to do different things. I was one of two males in a cast of ten. It was a really cool woman’s lib sort of thing. I played, duh, the boyfriend. I stood on a chair and said (and it’s odd I can still remember this, but I can’t do long division) “May the best woman win!” with all my gusto.

That one takes it as The Oddest Play I Have Ever Done. It also involved me, in one scene all in black (my black hoodie was from the GAP and was very comfortable) with a group of all of us in the same colour, stalking around stage to represent one girls dream.

I also had to do another scene where I danced with one girl. I do wish I remembered what her name was. We had to do the twist, after the group of us did the can can (and here, I kid you not) to the song The Candyman from the original movie of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the one with gene Wilder.

I kid you not.

And, what for it, we then had to dance the twist and jive to the rest of the song (because the sound master wanted the techno dancer version, of course).

Sigh. For those of you who need a reminder about the song, or have never heard the song, here is a link where you can listen to it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgbdVihagWg

If you listen to the song, you’ll realize how weird an image that is. We also had to throw candy into the audience at some point and his one poor woman in the eye.

I also went out to have a cigarette during intermission that night and ran into an old babysitter I had known and her new husband. I was outside having a cigarette and I seem to remember that the outfit I was wearing was pretty skimpy. And there she is. Her name was Julie and she was lovely and I hadn’t seen her since I was twelve or thirteen. I was eighteen then.

I also remember wearing a reflective shirt and blue checked polyester pant that were shiny and iridescent (and let’s just say that Stacy and Clinton would have been mortified.)

Talk about you’re very bizarre coincidences. At any rate, that sticks out as one of my happiest moments of university. And it has stuck with me all this time.

In short, most certainly my oddest moment in theatre history.

For the most fun to date, I think the best was playing George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? There was me and this lovely girl (I remember her being incredibly wonderful) had to play these awful, terrible people. It was the first time that I had played a person so terrible. I was very angry in that play.

But we had to play the roles exactly so. We were performing it for a guy’s masters thesis in drama; he was using the play to prove something in theatre, I think his maters thesis was something about the dynamics of relationship in manipulation in theatre. I kid you not.

I played that roll for all it was worth. I was a real bad ass. One of the girls in my program who knew me was actually crying, she couldn’t believe I’d been so different than the cheery person I was normally at that time. The thing is, I just played myself, instead of putting on false bravado. Thank goodness, I’ve gotten better with age. I age like a good, fine wine (and none of that under ten dollar crap either).

I did make up for A Clockwork Orange, Jeffrey and an few other plays. Oh yeah, I was acting and doing make up and some costume for Sweet Bird of Youth. I played Dan Hatcher, the evil jerk you love to hate, who had three lines.

That was an experience and a half. Sigh; let’s just say that one night, I gave those lines all they were worth. I think I was pretty gay in that role too. Grumble.

The Bald Saprano by Eugine Ioneskih: This was a delight and sheer pleasure to do. I played Mr. Martin, and not a lick of the play made one bit of sense. It is credited with being one of the plays that has started the Theatre of the Absurd and I had seen it performed in French a year and a bit earlier. It felt great to be in that play. It was lovely, very quirky fun.

I later ran into the girl who played the Maid while going home on the train while going to take L’ecole de Lange Francaise in Tois Pistole Quebec. Again, a very odd experience of coincidence. Right?

Metropolition. It was written by a guy who was a newspaper reporter (who was very cute). I got to play The Handler. I only had three lines (this seems to be an occurrence, doesn’t it?) but I got to say the first and last line’s in the play and I got to swear a lot on stage. Pretty fair that time, I’d say. That play was a trip and a joy about “Hellen Girly Brown”, except she was named something else, was really a man. Fabulous and witty stuff.

So up to that time, I had really been just a character actor. I had never really gotten a pretty big role. I wanted something different, and boy howdy did I get it.

Finally, there was at the time what I thought of as a stroke of luck. I was cast, by accident, as one of the leads in an amateur production of Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love. I took it without thinking and ended up with my first male lead role.

The guy who was supposed to play the role of Kane had to drop out. They remembered me from the auditions, wanted me for the part. I got to play the kid who falls in love with David, one of a duo of roommates who, in an effort to escape the bleakness of the lives around them, engage in the exploration of love.

In the play, my character nearly got taken advantage of twice, got a blowjob while high, had to kiss for real (blech!) on stage and was naked at two times during the play (Hello!) This ain’t your average night at the theatre.

This has been the play that has stayed with me for the longest. It was an incredibly bizarre experience (especially when my mother was in the audience) and I don’t think I’ve been the same since I’ve done it. The director believed in using real emotion to get the results she wanted. Let’s just say it was very difficult to do, especially since I prefer the quiet.

Puratory. I think the guy’s name who wrote this was called Matt. I preformed this play after Unidentified Human Remains and it was a very odd play. I played a man who was not a very nice man, but needed to repent in order to get into heaven. I needed to prove my worth but, at that time, it just wasn’t working. I felt bad that it was never preformed. I think that the company ran out of money.

As a writer, I seem to want more and more of that. But every once in a while, I will step out and enter the dramatic world once again. So I auditioned for Martin Yesterday. Having done Unidentified Human Remains, I kind of knew what I was going to see.

As I expected, the scene they had me read in had my character naked. Oh, Brad Fraser, you’re such a tease. I told my husband that the character I read in Martin Yesterday (Matt who is thirty three years of age) is pretty close to me now.

Although I’m not too sure how comfortable he would be with me appearing on stage naked. That’s a post for another day, folks.

The thing is (and here we come to my point, I do actually have one), now I’m waiting for the results of that audition. I hate waiting. Patience is a virtue, right? Except that patience is something I have to work on.

So I am immersing myself in writing to wait and see what happens. The odd thing is, theatre always comes around when I need a big change, usually when a career shift is happening and that is true of this time as well.

All this to say: stay tuned for some cool stuff that I have been working on and all for free. Okey dokey? I’ve been working on a few neat things to keep me entertained while I wait and to keep me from going crazy for the same reason.

Stay tuned for more!

Source: Jamieson Wolf