An Actor's Diary: April 2024 (The Light Triad)

So, on SNL last night (4/13/24) everyone was cracking up, right and left.  Particularly, Heidi Gardner.  I don't think I've ever seen someone lose it quite so honestly and emphatically.  It's called "breaking character" and it was a delight.  It was like the show was overcome by some kind of Spring fever and if you ask me, they really needed it.  Of course, everyone on the show was probably anticipating this, so it became something of a fait accompli.  Ryan Gosling was the host and he's known to laugh almost at will during sketches on this show.  He simply couldn't seem to keep it in check and finally just went where the giggles took him.  Is that bad?  Not in my book.  Some of the most famous comedy moments have occured because of people losing it.  And they take the audience with them.  From what I've read; back in the day, if you "broke character" or even flubbed lines (on SNL), there would be a firing squad waiting for you after the show.  Usually with Lorne Michaels handing you your cigarette. No blindfold, I'm guessing.  Someone online commented about the Gardner sketch and was marvelling at the straight faces of the extras.  And then someone else said: "Lorne Michaels' office is probably lined with the heads of extras who broke character." And that made perfect sense.  But I'm guessing he's mellowed.  At least a little.  At least since the 70's, when I can't recall a single incidence of breaking on that show.  Too Carol Burnett.
Yes, I'm prone to breaking up; but I will say a little of it goes a long way.  The audience, as much as they love it, has a tolerance level for it.  Particularly if they can tell another actor is trying to get someone else to break up.  And Kate McKinnon, who was on last night, in her third alien abduction sketch with RG, is a performer who is a bit on the guilty side when it comes to this.  So, the first time RG did the abduction sketch, she was just doing her thing and he lost it.  The second time, she tried to get him to break, so it didn't work (maybe because she was working too hard).  This time, he started giggling before she even got to her third sentence (speaking of getting to sentences, more on that later).  So, she actually held back a little to keep the thing from totally going off the rails, which was kind of the reverse, so that was actually funny in it's own, different way.  When you do lose it, it can be really hard to get out of it; because you start anticipating it happening again; and, you start thinking about it have having happend and find yourself in a giggle loop.  I think the whole show last night was caught in a giggle loop.
I too had a performance this weekend.  Well, sort of.  I had a performance on Thursday of last week and today (Sunday).  It was a little cabaret-ish show to promote a local theater group:

I did a monologue from a Neil Simon play.  I hate monologues.  And I'm starting to hate Neil Simon.  This is the second Neil Simon thing I've done for this group. The Lake Players.  I wrote all about my first experience with the Lake Players and with Mr. Simon in a series of blogs, as it was happening: "An Actor's Diary."  There were numerous entries.  Here is the first:
www.christopherfreidy.com/blog/an-actors-diary-part-1

So, when we did Rumors, our director had us do an improv class early, during the six month(!) rehearsal.  The teacher of the class, who I also wrote about, was a gentelman named Matt Kariss:

So, that was like almost two years ago?  Anyways; I get a call from him, out of the blue, to be in this show.  I hadn't done much since Rumors.  Taking a break, I guess.  I did sign up to be in a short play a friend was putting on at another playhouse; but I had to drop out of that one; something I never do.  Or try to never do.  But it was an emergency of sorts.  My mother, who is 87, had a fall and I had to go to Boston and help out.  Thankfully, she recuperated pretty quickly; so I was able to say "yes" to Matt.  Now, I probably should look up the significance of the number 6, because Rumors had an agonizing six month rehearsal; and this show had the exact opposite.  We only had six rehearsals before we were in front of an audience.  Now, I'll be honest.  I'm getting a little older.  The remembering (rememberance) of dialogue is getting more challenging; although for me, it has always been a challenge.  Remember back in junior high school, when, for whatever reason, they'd make you memorize a poem and then test you on it?  Like, you had to sit there and write the poem out.  That was the test.  And you'd be graded on it.  I would always leave out something.  Some stanza or entire section.  Not enough to flunk; but certainly not A+ work.  I recall having to memorize The Tyger by William Blake (and I never could get past that "y" in tiger.  Like Why, "Y," Will?) And maybe part of that "...not with a bang but a whimper" poem?  And I don't recall even discussing The Tyger in an analytical way.  Like, the important part.  Like the part about what does Blake mean?  What's he getting at?  
Long story short.  I went to The White Room today.  What's The White Room, you ask?  I didn't know about it until fairly recently (at least, not in this sort of explanatory way). Well here's a sort video about it:

And you can't get much whiter than Steve, am I right people?

So, I can't say I went to "The White Room" exactly.  Why?  Because I was completely aware of where I was when I was, wherever I was.  Which was definitely on a stage.  In front of an audience.  Or at at least a group of people.  A group of people who I wished had been wet.  I think Bill Murray explains it best in the beginning of this clip:

I'm an actor.  I like to entertain the audience and have them (hopefully) like me.  But I also want to do my job correctly.  That means things like not breaking character.  Not going up.  Remembering all my dialogue.  Not phoning it in.  Being in the moment.  Or, oh, I don't know...nailing my monologues (although I don't think I've ever truly "nailed" a monolouge; that is, if nailing one is rectiting it verbatim).  I had a monologue in this, as I mentioned.  I also was in a scene with three other actors, wearing a dress.  The scene was from The Producers and one of my character's laugh lines was: "I had no idea that the Third Reich meant Germany..."  On the first performance, I dropped it; but it didn't throw the scene.  In my monologue, there's a line, delivered by an actor, who proclaims that he'll do anything for a role, including "wear(ing) a dress." Which would've been a call-back to The Producers scene and a guaranteed LAUGH (although, in theater, there really are no guaranteed LAUGHS).
Well, on Sunday, I dropped that entire section.  But here's the thing.  I didn't realize I had done this, in both cases, until I was off stage and removing my grease paint (to paint a picture).  I mean, I did utter those lines, at least once, during the aggregate course of both performances.  But that Sunday, which was a matinee, stymied me to a certain degree.  It was like I came out, started talking, and found myself talking to a wall.  It wasn't "crickets" exactly; because that's simply boredom on the part of the audience; and that's because what's happening on stage is boring them.  This was more like a bell jar.  Or when the Starship Enterprise puts up its protective shields...what's that called...oh, yeah...the deflector shields.

I was getting zero feedback from the audience.  The Light Triad was not complete.  What's the Light Triad, you ask?  Well, I'll tell you.  You've probably heard of The Dark Triad.  That's when NARCISSISM, MACHIAVELLIANISM and MANIPULATION, meet up.  Although, I would think MANIPULATION was already part of MACHIAVELLIANISM.  Shouldn't the third leg of the triad be, oh, I don't know...immorality, perhaps.  Or unscrupulous, mabe?  Let's just say: knowledge of "right" and "wrong" but generally opting for wrong.  And not caring.  For me, The Light Triad, as applied to theater, would be the circuit that completes the performance.  Or the experience of the stage, for all involved.  You've got the MATERIAL (play, song, sketch, etc.).  Then you have the PERFORMER.  And finally, the AUDIENCE, which completes the circuit.  And that last part, the AUDIENCE, is crucial.  Even if it's just one person.  It completes the flow of ENERGY.  But sometimes, the audience can be something of a faulty circuit.  Which is what happened on Sunday.  Like I said, I wasn't in The White Room; but I was adjacent.  Perhaps in some antechamber to it.  The Grey Room?  No, The Grey Room came after.  I would describe it thusly: it was like going to a drive-in movie theater during the day.  Empty. Pointless.  A blank screen that you couldn't see the movie on, even if you'd turned on the projector.  In order to see a movie, you need darkness.  So, I went to The Daylight Drive-In.
Here's what happened.
Matt gave a little background info on each section of the show.  When he came to my monologue, he told the audience what show it was from and who wrote it.  But then he described the character as complicated, neurotic and prone to substance abuse/alcoholism.  The audience must've forgotten that Neil Simon is known for comedy.  So, when I started talking, I think the audience assumed my character was an escaped mental patient or something.  There was utter SILENCE.  I started talking and then the SILENCE transmogrified into STONEY SILENCE.  I thought, Uhh-ohh.  I thought: They're not laughing.  They're supposed to be laughing.  How can I make them laugh?  I amped up the fidgetyness.  I started veering into Don Rickles territory.  No, wait.  Make that Rodney Dangerfield:

I started jumping around from place to place within the monologue, trying to find its "funny" parts.  Well, this monologue is from 1970 and one of the big "jokes" in it, is that this actor character was replaced in his show by the understudy, who is Puerto Rican and doesn't speak English.  Ostensibly, the funny part is the part about his not speaking English.  But really, the joke is that he's Puerto Rican; because being from Puerto Rico is funny, right?  Apparently it was in 1970.  I remember when I was a kid, there seemed to be a preponderance of Puerto Rican jokes.  In any event, the Big Laugh Line in this speech was the (let's face it) RACIST joke on Puerto Rico.  And sure enough, it got the laugh.  Am I proud of this?  No.  But I didn't write it.  One of the most successful playwrights of ALL TIME did.  Come to think of it...the giant monologue from Rumors (which, thank God, I didn't have to perform), hinges on jokes around the Spanish language.  I guess our take-a-way here is that Neil Simon thought all things La Espana were hilarious.  So I got the cheap laugh.  But I got it at the cost of something, I feel, because as I said, I left out huge chunks of what I was supposed to say.  It wasn't until afterwards that I realized it.  And that's when I went from the Daylight Drive-In to the The Grey Room.
The Grey Room, I'm realizing now, is where an actor goes (at least, this actor) when they are disappointed in themselves because what they gave the audience was not what they were supposed to have given them; even though the audience has no idea.  The Grey Room is where an actor goes to beat themselves up.  To second guess themselves. To flagellate their ego.  And for me, for getting a laugh at the expense of Puerto Ricans.  The Grey Room is also where regret reigns.  And the awful truth that it can't be fixed.  It happened.  It was a moment in Real Time that came and went.  Has come and gone.  And there's nothing you can do to change it.  My monologue had a lot of "goddamns" in it.  A fellow cast member mentioned that folks around these-a-here parts don't cotton to taking the Big Guy's name-in-vain.  So I said I would just keep God out of it and say "damn."  Maybe I should've kept Puerto Rico out of it instead.  Maybe this was the Big Guy's way of letting me know this.  Why I'm still ruminating about this a week later, when most parties involved have probably completely forgotten ALL of it.  So, I will offer up a prayer and a supplication for forgiveness to Our Lady of Divine Providence and the Virgin of Charity, Puerto Rico's patronesses. And Rita Moreno, who is Puerto Rican (a Sagitarrian) and really should be canonized a Patron Saint of the Stage.

The SNL sketch in which Heidi Gardner "broke" is getting a lot of press.  Apparently, Heidi went straight to The Grey Room after the sketch ended.  But really, she needs to give herself a break.  She may just have ensured that moment will enter some kind of Pantheon that includes Johnny Carson and the hatchet and Carol Burnett and the curtain rod dress.  That was the one where the audience lost it.  I'd say that's some pretty awesome company.

P.S.  I just came into possession of a video of the Smith Mountain Lake Players Rumors by Neil Simon.  I will post it here, once I figure out how, in another "Actor's Diary" blog.
Ciao for now!

CFR   4/21/24