The Y All Bent Up and Dented

One of those times of great busyness interspersed with periods of waiting is upon me again. This includes my performance in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, where I am onstage for 3 scenes of the 11-scene play, and in fact only "onstage" for one of those (in the other two, I am off to the side of the stage, facing away from the audience into a video camera as my face is projected out on "vidphone" screens for the audience/other actors to see -- and one of those is a quick two lines).

I don't mind; it's an enjoyable show to be around, I like my main scene a lot, and it's something to do, though I feel a bit more distant than I'd like from being TD at The Brick right now -- the Target Margin people have needed my help a few times now, and I've had to handle everything by cel, text, and/or proxy, as problems always seem to come up at The Brick during times when I am stuck on Androids, and not in the downtime around it. Luckily, the Brick problems have been handled fine right now, but not without stress.

On shows like Androids where I will have to spend a lot of time offstage (especially as right now when we are in a long LONG stop/start difficult tech period), I try to find a quiet, dim, solitary location somewhere where I can huddle between working moments and concentrate or relax (or both). As with my own Summer shows this year, the set for Androids is so huge and takes over so much of the space that there is not much in the way of "backstage" - there's space, but if you stay in almost any one place, you're going to be in the way of a projector, a camera, or someone's quick change/quick cross.

I could go to the dressing room for the actors between my scenes, but those scenes are a bit clustered together, and I'd rather not leave the space if I can help it while my performance is in progress (also, the dressing room is bright, white, and not very relaxing). So I've staked out an odd location, lying down on the wooden entrance ramp behind the set by the door to the theatre where the audience will enter. It's a little odd, but I'm used to it and don't care -- I've gotten used to cramming myself in whatever space I can backstage to maintain calm and distance during shows (I've spent the downtime during a few shows in coffinlike spaces below the stage platforms). Though, as often, my desired relaxation/meditative state is mistaken for exhaustion/sleepiness by others in the cast & crew -- it's not, usually, I just prefer quiet around the work as much as I can get it. Which isn't often.

While relaxing backstage, I've been studying Mac Wellman's beautiful monologue Terminal Hip, a "spiritual history of America through the medium of Bad Language," which I am hoping to have memorized and be able to perform for this coming August. If I get a page down every two weeks, I should have it memorized by May, which would be essential if I'm going to try and do the 40-minute-or-so thing as my only acting work onstage this coming year, as I'd like.

This might seem not a major memorizing problem, but Mac's monologue is an abstracted form of English (not at all "gibberish" as one annoying reviewer I found online called it), so it's almost 20 pages of lines like these (the opening lines, which I'm copying from memory, I think correctly):

Strange the Y all bent up and dented.
Blew the who to tragic eightball.
Eightball trumpet earwax and so forth.
Pure chew, loud thump, and release pin.
Grabity gotta nail him too sure.

And so on for 20 pages. So it's a difficult learn. I know what most of it means, at least to me (not literally, but emotionally and through-line-ly), so if I keep that in mind and get the rhythms into my muscle memory it seems to stay in there. I have most of the first page down already. Once we start actually running the show with the proper light cues however I probably won't be able to see to read through most of the show, so I'll just lie down and concentrate on what I already know during those times. So this is a nice quiet meditative thing to do as I lie on my itchy wooden ramp.

And, while I'm not regular enough here to continue to make this a "Friday Random Ten," here's the next in a random-day Random Ten, from the "unheard" playlist on the iPod:

1. "Crimson And Clover" - Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - I Love Rock N' Roll
2. "I Get Wild/Wild Gravity" - Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues
3. "Key To My Heart" - The Coasters (as The Robins) - I Must Be Dreamin'
4. "Girl God" - Redd Kross - Show World
5. "Why Do Girls Love Horses" - Adam Ant - B-Side Babies
6. "Un'avventura" - Wilson Pickett - download
7. "Direct Action Briefing" - 999 - 999
8. "Treat Her Right" - Otis Redding - The Soul Album
9. "Friends" - Gary Numan & Tubeway Army - Tubeway Army
10. "North Winds Blowing" - Stranglers - Aural Sculpture

Here's a the full video playlist of the above (minus the Robins track, which you can see if you watch this on YouTube rather than here):

Now, after a long lazy day of getting myself together here, I am late to clean up and get to the theatre. Grrr. On my way . . .