Vaudeville Rehearsal Day 7 - "I'm looking at the woman, looking at the women, in the mirror..."

I had a conversation with Matt today about his performing in "Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd." Matt is a well known circus performer with Circus Oz. He has already featured, albeit somewhat anonymously, in one of the previous images on this blog. (He's the one standing on top of a stack of about half a dozen chairs.)

During the readings he was completely silent, naturally, given that his character is mute. It was during the Script Discussion, mentioned in a previous posting, that his extensive knowledge of old Australian vaudeville became apparent. Matt foregrounded the historical links between circus and vaudeville, telling some stories about wonderful figures he met in various parts of the country; people who have incredible histories of their own in vaudeville.

'Vaudeville' is the first play of this type that Matt has performed in. Interestingly, when he was young he acted in plays with youth theatre companies, and was interested in being a character actor. Through his development as a performer he was drawn toward circus, however, and went on to forge a successful career in this area. As such, this theatre show is particularly interesting for him.

I asked him what the differences between rehearsing for circus and rehearsing for theatre are. This was his response;



Another particularly interesting comment was that details in circus are far more onerous and time consuming. Apart from the trick itself there is the rigging, the safety issues, the live band, as well as the inability to use aural cues because of the high amount of noise. When preparing for a circus act half the day can be spent in just coordinating the technical details for a single act.

Matt's character is mute. We talked about how mute characters are often especially poignant, and in this way his character is a very 'theatre' character, yet he also draws heavily on his circus skills. I asked him whether how he considered the particularities of being a mute character.
This was his response;



In the afternoon Julia works on a scene with a mirror. She plays a couple of different characters in the play, which are similar and connected. In fact, at the risk of generating spoilers, one of her characters actually 'plays' the other at certain times in the play. The moment they rehearse consists of Julia playing both her characters at once, having a conversation between the two, while looking at her own image in the mirror. It's a fascinating exploration. Playing two similar characters is perhaps a far more difficult thing than to play different characters with obvious contrasts. As Julia is explores these overlapping characters, she is trying to tease them apart in her mind and her voice.

Julia talks about the characters' voices as she's working through the scene. The 'voice' of the character is a very important notion for her. Last week she was looking for recordings of the time period, not especially for the music, but so she could tap into a style of 'voice' for the time. She wants to feel the rhythms, the intonations, the turns of phrase that in their turn provide a powerful 'in' to understanding the people of the time. We often hear the wonderful expression that the eyes are the windows to the soul. For Julia it seems that the voice is the window to the soul of a character.

In conversation with Chris, Julia demonstrates the voices of the characters she is playing, and the physicality that she has developed in relation to those voices. At this point in time the voice in combination with its physicality is the largest part of her definition of the two characters. But because of the overlapping nature of these characters this definition is being challenged by the demands of the scene. Julia works incredibly hard, all the time looking at her own image in the mirror; whether this makes the work harder or easier is difficult to tell. It's brilliant to watch. I'll try to find some time to talk with her about this scene and some of the details of how she builds character later on.

I'll also get back onto to Lally to find out how she and the writing team have gone in their development of the second act.

One word for the day for Julia – Shirley Jones
One word for the day for Darren – radical action
One word for the day forChris - accumulation
One word for the day for Lally – texture