Category Archives: OSF

family, moving, OSF, theater

My Suitcase Weighs Me Down With Memories

Zack and Pam are gone. It was so much fun having them here. I’m letting the sun go down on me as I pack and playing songs that make me sad. Like”When The Night Comes” by Joe Cocker. I remember lying under a blanket senior year and floating away into a sea of self-pity on this music.

To think that he was taken for
A wise man in the Civil War,
A stalwart servant of the King –
Does that all count for anything
Now his brain has all gone poof –
It’s just Tartuffe, Tartuffe, Tartuffe.

My OSF housing is done with Tartuffe being open, but I have two more weeks here before I make my way to SF, and then north. Boy, it’d be cool if I could come back and see how Tony, etc. have grown into it later on in the run… Seattle, help me out here.

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family, OSF, tartuffe

Family Has Landed

Zack and Pam are in town, after an adventure getting lost on the way to the Oregon Caves. They ended up on a series of roads maintained by the Bureau of Land Management (read dirt, not paved) but made it to Ashland safely.

They’re seeing Romeo & Juliet, the opening night of Tartuffe, and On The Razzle over the next three days. We did Martino’s and Zoey’s last night, so they’ve had the essential food. It’s really, really good to have them here.

Photo review this morning, and then second preview this afternoon. Kimberley sent me an email saying, “You’re almost finished rehearsing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival!” I can’t believe it’s been four months.

Director: Does anyone else have any notes for me?
SM: Is now when we can discuss changing the name of the show to Tartuffie?

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directing, OSF, tartuffe, theater

From the Rehearsal-Before-First-Preview-Dept.

Director: The fourth wall is a very tender membrane, and if you punch through it too abruptly, it’s not going to feel good from the other side.

Lazzi #784: Pulling on someone’s cape string makes them burp. Doesn’t make it into the production, but it has a remarkable tenacity in my head. This and the banana.

Dramaturg: This is the big entrance.
Actor: Just from an actor’s point of view, it doesn’t help to know that this is the big entrance. All I can do is walk on stage. That’s all I signed up to do.

Discussion about if Tartuffe sees Dorine at his entrance, and if so, how he reacts. Moliere has “apercevant Dorine.” We’re trying to get a window into his pre-seeing-Dorine psyche.

Lots of talk about what Moliere would have done.

A: We’re getting Stanley dressed.
B: You’re giving Stanley a rest?
A: We’re getting Stanley dressed.
C: Stanley’s under arrest?

It’s never too late (although this is rather eleventh-hour) to discover word choices, weights, motivations…

Who will believe thee, Isabelle?

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