Cranky Actress Blog

I do both theater and film. But I have to admit, I prefer film people in general.

Often, at theater auditions, you can cut the pretentiousness with a knife.

Does anyone want to see Shakespeare with an unknown director and an unknown cast? No. If it doesn’t have a famous actor in it, nobody is interested. Even then it will have better luck if it is edited. Lose the songs. Cut the running time. Everyone loves the 90-minute no intermission show.

Same goes for Greek Tragedy. There is a well-known MFA program in a prestigious school churning out mini haughty directors following in the director of the program’s footsteps. They all have dramaturges.   They want to produce Greek tragedy. As if anybody cares. Honey, if you can’t get Diana Rigg, forget it.

And the monologue seems so yesterday. Give me a script.

Film people send you a scene from the project. They film the scene. They look at it the next day. They’re concerned with technical things and mostly don’t blow too much wind over their projects.

I actually went to a theater audition where the director (a doyenne of experimental theater past) actually took a group of us into the theater to tell us about the play. It went on for 40 minutes. A blow-by-blow minutiae filled plot description. “Then they go out in the boat. Then a storm comes. Then there is lightening. This whole time they are falling in love.” She is acting the fucking thing out. No!! This goes on and on and I am trying to figure out how to get the hell out of there. I have a fantasy of going down on all fours and crawling out between the seats with my purse wrapped around my ankle dragging behind me.

ALL I HAD TO DO WAS MAKE BELIEVE I HAD AN EMERGENCY TEXT MESSAGE. When did I think of that? When I got home.

Theater people can be suspicious of film people. I had a theater director look at my resume and say I should pick one or the other. She hated that I worked on films. Like it was some sort of sacrilege. How stupid is that? It does not take a brain surgeon to work in both mediums. There are so many actors that easily go between both. Ralph Fiennes anybody? It is a matter of size and distance. Bigger for stage, smaller and more nuanced for film. But always authentic, if possible.

I love when I go to an audition and they ask me which I like better, theater or film? I’m not kidding.

Of course film people have their quirks. Often in the search for realism they will ask personal questions to see how like that character you are. When going to play a Mom once, a director asked if I had any children, and looked disappointed when I said no. Do you think they asked Tom Hanks if he had been to the moon before they cast him as an astronaut?

I’ve been steering clear of a lot of theater projects because of the time involved. An accurate casting ad would read: “We will workshop twice a week for three months. Nights and weekends. Then we will rehearse seven days a week for three weeks. Also nights and weekends. Followed by two 12-hour days of tech rehearsal. Followed by a three week run which no one will attend!”

For this I need the attitude and the dramaturgy?