Acting Naturally

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Synopsis of A Christmas Carol in performance

Adding to the previous chapter, I now let the reader share the performance experience, in a variety of ways. Below you have two examples of the facets I explore...

Excerpt from A Christmas Carol in performance

Make-up and preparation: I prefer to be a little hungry when I am to give a performance - I feel it keeps me sharper and perhaps a bit more aggressive - so I had a cup of hot and sour soup after work, and then came on down to the theatre. My make-up takes the longest of any of us, because I'm the only one who is actually trying to change his appearance, so I got down to it right away.

Two illustrations of Friday the 13th influence at work should be noted: the back legs of my chair slipped under and collapsed while Marley was coming through the fireplace (the audience thought it was part of the show). The legs were still attached, just bent under, so I set it back up on the line "Can you sit down?" and Ken as Marley perched precariously on the edge.

The other instance involved John E. (Cratchit): he had been telling folks the night before how he and the Cratchit family of Scrooge's Christmas Carol (1995) had played with a parody of their roles, in which the Cratchits were Appalachian "poor white trash" who lived in a trailer park, never wore shoes, married by shotgun at 13, etc. One of their "new" lines was "I never marvel at how you make a six-pack go so far" ("six-pack" instead of "shilling").

And wouldn't you know it, in live performance his subconscious mind substituted "six-pack" instead of "shilling" and the rest of us struggled to keep the smiles off our faces!

 

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