Since my return to the States, I've been desperately trying to regain my excitement for acting. Uncertain economic times, and 5 months of filming in sometimes adverse conditions drained me of my desire to seek out acting gigs. Seeking to remedy this, I devised a plan. I would see some stage plays so that I might recreate the environment in which I first fell in love with it all. I saw a number of plays; none of them particularly good. I was starting to suspect that acting was a wholly selfish act and the audience members were but hapless victims paying to be kidnapped and held in silence for as long as the actors and director deem a show should drag on.
I was losing hope. Then I got an email from GoldStar offering discount tickets to "A Skull in Connemara" by Martin McDonagh. McDonagh is one of my favorite playwrights (the next play you buy should be "The Pillow Man"). So I bought myself a ticket. I'm glad I did.
From the opening moment with Mick Dowd standing alone in his house searching for the last drops of booze at the bottom of his glass to the closing scene with the same Mick Dowd speaking a heartfelt promise to his dead wife – it was absolutely enthralling. Morlan Higgins, John K. Linton, Jeff Kerr McGivney, and Jayne Taini all give great performances. The set design by Jeff McLaughlin was ingenius in it's use of space; the opening of the second act managed to instill the same sense of awe I felt when I saw the giant-robot transformers-style set of Le Miserables when I was 7. I left the theater in an altered state, once again believing that while there are few things more torurous than bad theater – there are even fewer things better than a truly great live performance.
Also, Stuart Rogers, the director this production apparently teaches acting, directing, and pedagogy at the Stuart Rogers Studios. One must first go through an interview process before joining his class, but I'm definitely interested.
No comments:
Post a Comment