For Laughing Out Loud

Contents:
For Laughing Out Loud
Summer Question
Weekend Puzzle Answers
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Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth.

Shakespeare
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One of the most difficult things for an actor to do on the stage is to laugh. It is easier to cry than to laugh, we all have sorrows and injustices to weep about and it's fairly easy to make a connection with them. But laughing is another matter. People have fake laughs, polite laughs, obligatory laughs, laughs that indicate something is supposed to be funny but you aren't really laughing at it. Some characters have those kinds of laughs also. But at the moment in the play when the character is genuinely amused to the point of laughter the laugh has to be genuine. And that's hard, particularly when you've heard the amusing remark a hundred times or more.

The best on stage laugher I ever worked with was an actor named Rob Gomes. I did five performances with him n a Pintauro play. At one moment something strikes his character funny and every night Rob was literally overcome with mirth. It was a pleasure to watch.

Other actors will just rely on a fake laugh, and I worked with a woman, whose name I forget, who had a laugh that was so genuine sounding that it had me fooled for a few days. Most fake laughs are transparently false, sadly.

Some actors will simply walk away from it and not laugh at all because they know they can't do it. They may get by with a broad smile. But with some you won't even see that. I was doing an O'Neill play with an actor, whose name I also forget. At one moment he is supposed to laugh. My next line was "What are you laughing at? I suppose you thin it's funny." The first night he laughed. The second night he didn't. I waited. No laugh. I went on "I suppose you think it's funny." which made no sense. Fortunately I didn't say "What are you laughing at?" The third night there was no laugh. He was just staring at the floor. I said "What are you staring at? I suppose you think it's funny." which also made no sense. On subsequent nights I just cut the short scene altogether and got on with the play. When confronted about it the actor said he was so moved by my performance he couldn't laugh. Sure.

There's another kind of on stage laughter and it's when something is funny and it isn't supposed to be. Every actor has been on stage when someone made a slip up of some kind, usually in a line of dialogue. It hits the funny bone with an unexpected shock and it takes a great effort not to laugh. And it usually happens at a very dramatic moment with a lot of people on the stage or waiting in the wings.

In a performance of "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller a character has a line referring to the devil which goes "death driven into her forked and hoofed."
One night the actress said "driven into her horked and foofed." The rest of us were biting out tongues and cheeks and staring down so we wouldn't make eye contact with each other which would have been disastrous.

I was in a production of Shakespeare's "Othello" when another such slip up accored with almost everyone in the play standing by. Othello is describing Desdemona before he kills her.

"Yet I'll not shed her blood;
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster."

One night he said "and smooth as alumental momblebaster." More tongue biting and teeth grinding.

Theatre people also like to do things to break each other up on the stage. I was in a production of "Greetings" when one night, and every night after that, a fake eye ball showed up somewhere on the set. The first night it was in the ice bucket, the next night in the desert bowl, then under the Christmas tree. We never knew who planted the eye ball or where it was going to be, but every performance one of us would come across it somewhere and try not to get the giggles.

The great thing about all these events is that we can get together and tell theatre stories to each other. Did you hear about the night so and so slipped during the big dance and fell into the orchestra pit. Or how about the night what's her name's costume almost fell off and the guy playing the cop had to hold it up from the back. Remember when Alice entered in the black out for her big dramatic scene and sat in the bowl of water?

Life is serious business, so get all the laughs you can out of it,

and
Never give up.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
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SUMMER QUESTION

It's a long, hot, sticky summer, so here's a hot, sticky question for you. Don't let the recent New York State decision rob you of your thunder.

Same sex marriage. Should it be legal or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

dbdacoba@aol.com

7 answers so far.

You have until the last day of summer, but don't dally.
I eagerly await your answer.

DB
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WEEKEND PUZZLE ANSWERS

You were asked what the following names have in common?
And for extra points, to identify them.
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The answer is they are all non human characters in film and television.

Beethoven - the movie dog

Champion - Gene Autry had a number of horses and they were all named
Champion

C3PO - the tall skinny robot from Star Wars

Ed - Mr. Ed the TV talking horse

Hal - the devious 2001 computer

Lassie - everyone's favorite movie collie

Louie - Donald Duck's nephew

Ollie - From Kukla Fran and Ollie, TV

Scout - Tonto's horse

Toto - Dorothy's little dog from The Wizard of Oz
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First prize of a bunny costume goes to Geo of the Blogspot Tigers who got most of them correct.

Thank You

DB
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Shoot The Actor

In order for an actor to play a scene he has to know in which direction the scene is going and he knows in which direction it's going because he decides.

DB - The Vagabond
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In almost every important scene an actor has he has at least one secret. A secret is something that gets revealed. It may not get revealed until the end of the play, unless it is revealed to the audience earlier.

In the thousands of years of dramatic literature some of the greatest scenes ever written are the scenes between Iago and Othello when Iago, starting from nothing but a simple question: "Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady, know of your love?" gradually plants a seed of suspicion in Othello's mind. Thereafter, taking advantage of every opportunity and chance encounter to insinuate his lies into Othello's perturbed mind while pretending to be his friend, he finally drives Othello into a state of blind rage and murderous jealousy "Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow hell!"

The beginning is simple, the end is horrifying, but all the subtle steps along the way, the dimensions, colors, pauses, latitudes, perspectives, leverages and twists are up to the actor and if the actor makes the right decisions about how the scenes progress the result will be tragic in the fullest sense possible.

There's a show business story about a production of Othello that was playing out west many years ago in which the actor playing Iago was so good some pioneer type in the audience took out his pistol and shot him. The actor wasn't killed, fortunately, but it sure stopped the performance.

I never played either Othello or Iago, but I did play Cassio, the innocent soldier that Iago blames it on and so I got to witness that scene every night played by Clayton Corbin and Charles Kimbrough. Since both actors had made strong decisions they had very powerful directions in which to go.

So much of acting is following directions. The playwright gives you directions, the director and the production give directions. But in the end it's the actor's own directions that make the role. No one else can act the part.

Another interesting aspect to Iago's role is just how and how many of his secrets he reveals as the play goes along. We have a macabre fascination watching that friendly guy destroy Othello and a few other people along the way. Our reaction to him is going to depend partly on how much of himself he reveals to us. If his decisions are right we can't help ending up hating him. But leave your pistol at home.

DB
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Satisfactory Service 8/06/09

I played it right because that's what you're supposed to do - play it right and with respect.

Ryne Sandberg
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Smile, you're on Candid Journal.
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"Jus' 'cause it ain't by Shakespeare don't mean it ain't no good."

I used to do public readings of new plays for a playwright's workshop way over on the East Side of Manhattan. One evening I read a major role in a political drama. A year later the playwright called and asked if I would come back and read it again. I did, and before the reading she said to the audience "A playwright is one who if she changes a line from 'I want to meet with you' to 'It's important that I meet with you' that is a major rewriting of the play and therefore needs to be read again. She was half joking, but she made a valid point about how important the lines are to the playwright and the play. They need to be respected.

I was doing the role of Cassio in Shakespeare's "Othello" at a theatre in New England. After one of our late rehearsals, close to opening, the stage manager, who was a nice, polite, benign fellow, came up to me with a sheet of paper and said "I thought you should see the difference between the way you are speaking the speech to Desdamona and the way Shakespeare wrote it." I was stunned. I had almost completely rewritten that speech.

That was early in my career, but from that day on I have always made sure that I spoke the lines the way they were written. That's called playing it right and with respect.

It's not just the lines that need to be played right. I saw a production of Sophocles' "Electra," In that play Electra's brother Orestes enters with a friend, Pylades. Sophocles has given no lines to Pylades. It is a completely silent role. But he is on stage with Orestes the entire time. I watched an actor named Maurice Breslau play that role and if I didn't know that he had no lines I would have sworn he spoke. He was mentally, emotionally and physically involved in every moment of that play. That's playing it right and with respect.

I did many original plays while I was with the Circle Rep Lab in New York. There were excellent actors in that Lab. We were professional, working actors. It was a great challenge and an invigorating experience to take on the problems of a new play and solve them. The playwrights were usually around and had a hand in rewriting if they felt they needed to. But we played them right and with respect.

Some actors and directors think nothing of messing around with a script, rewriting things, cutting things and rearranging the scenes, adding characters and dropping characters. That's not playing it right. Playwrights worry over every line. They should be respected.

I was in a show in New York in which the leading actor got the same line wrong every night. He bungled it because he didn't know what it was and he never went back to the script to find out. He will remain nameless. He was a famous actor, but he was a lazy bum.

Whatever you do, do it right and with respect.

DB - The Vagabond
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Grasp some joy today and don't let go of it.
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SUMMER QUIZ
This is not a contest.



A young man out west just took home 88 million dollars from the lottery.



Whether you play the lottery or not, if you suddenly had 88 million dollars, or the equivalent of whatever your currency is, what are the first three things you would do with it?



You have all summer to answer if you wish.

19 responses so far.



DB



Thus on the edge a screwed up miss is egotistical. (9)



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