Talking about a play

On Thursday, I was blessed to go and visit with the cast of the new production of The Mayfair Affair - a dedicated group of high school students at The Wesleyan School in Norcross, GA, under the direction of my good friend Steve Broyles.  I got to see the set under construction and the first scene being rehearsed.

But most of our time was spent having the actors ask me questions about the play, what something meant, what I had in mind regarding a particular action or character.  What I found was that some of those questions I had answers to, others less so.  Good questions, all, but some of them I really had to dig into the recesses of "what DID i mean by that..." to come up with an answer.  I think eventually I did come up with answers, and reasonable ones at that.  I was happy that a number of questions I was able to divert to the director - it's about what he thinks will play best opposite what other people are also playing.

But I'm continuing to understand the idea of farce as a comedy machine - the difficulty in playing it is turning off the improv impulse after rehearsals are over in favor of supporting the big laughs as you've rehearsed them.  You can get an extra laugh at just about any time in a production - but it will hurt the overall work unless the laughs help an audience carry through.  They have to get the information they need (exposition and development) and the rhythm of the play must be maintained in order to connect the info to the big surprises and revelations later in the script.  And in the climactic moment of the play, realistic character response and processing of new information (revelation) only slows down the rhythm of the machine.

I can't wait to go back and see the production in October.