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From: Al G.
Date: 07 Apr 2004
Time: 01:20:48 -0500
Remote Name: 216.192.45.12
Nancy - the opportunity to call you Fruitcake is almost irrestible. Hmmm. 9/11 is a difficult one to call. The pathos is tricky to navigate, especially in a performance peice. I can empathesize with having not having the ideal type on hand. I think in Shakespheres day, because all the players were male, it was easier to get the audience to buy into the fact that they had to use their imaginations a bit more than we do today. Cod pieces being so prevalent, all you had to do was de-emphasize it when the actor was on stage and most people could overlook the obvious and get caught up in the play aspect of the first act. Funny how COD peices remind me of fish, and fish remind me of . . .what is the guys name ???. . .the one who got tricked into getting into a coffin and chopped up into bits and his wife had to resemble him but one piece was missing. Osiris . . . Or Isis? Gives a whole new meaning to the idea of de Nile and how necessary a thing is to create time in the form of Hours . . .opps Horus. (Hmmm. Tech pal? . . .Is that a polit eway to say nerd or geek?) . . . . . Well, all I can say is I hope Osiris does not have to coordiante with moving men or car mechanics. Both seem to require &errr& *membership in some club* to make things go smootly. . . . . I would send you diploma URLs but that does not seem to be the problem you face. My guess is that you either have to find another performer or adapt to the one you have. This is where it gets very tricky, indeed. How important is the ideal to represent the work? Is it integral or peripheral? Is the ideal founded on your expectations, the expectations of the audience or inherent in the work itself? For example - someone playing the Statue of Liberty needs to kinda look like the Goddess the French designer based her on . . . see the Columbia /Tristar logo for a better depiction. If this was the case, as long as she stood on the pedestal - you could have someone much shorter and drape the robes around the base to give the illusion of a taller silohette. Opps - makes her sound like a grain silo. Silhouette. Better! You can always make someone seem taller and bigger than in real life - but shorter and smaller are a bit more problemattic. I am not sure what to tell you. The only advice I seem to come up with is this bit I got in grad school - which proved all too true. "Choose your classes by the teacher, not the subject." It seemed at the time totally reversed from common sense and popular wisdom. But it was dead on right. Here is the jist of it . . . A great teacher who loves the subject will teach you more than just the subject - great teachers regardless of what the subject material is - also teach you about yourself and inspire you and get you excited about the process of learning. A mediocre teacher going through the motions is not worth the time - you can get more out of reading the textbook in the library. Why? Because that teacher can make the material so boring that you get turned off not only about a subject you were enthusiastic about, but turned off about learning in general. A great teacher can also make boring material come alive just because they love it so much that you catch the bug and get hooked on it. (BTW - no relation to hooked on phoneticians) . . . So does the same idea apply to your performance peice? Who best can bring your words to life and create the impact on the audience you have in mind? Sometimes if you do not have the right performer, the piece has to wait. It depends on how important the casting is to the work. Some movies wait for the right actor instead of signing up whoever is *the best available* at the moment. If the work hinges on the actor and really requires the right type - you wait for them to free up their schedule. For example, Robin Williams is the only guy who can do the ad lib the way he does - and if you need to make a film where improv is King - you gotta have him or not make the film. You want to make an Indiana Jones sequel - you wait for Harrison to have an opening. (Ford, not Rex - although what would My Fair Lady be without Rex???) You want wild and crazy physical comedy - Jim Carey and Mike Myers are the only ones who can carry the weight to bring in the box office right now. . . . Not sure any of this helped. However, considering the time investment and the brain cells expended - do I get at least partial points and the allowance to call you Fru? LOL. (Hmmm. I am so tickled pink I have to leaf that one in.) AL G and nothing but the G. Well - except for a few dancing stri . . .