-Ernst Lubitsch
(Act 2 of Room Service)But oh what trouble it gave us! It must have been a combination of us actors underestimating the time it would take to memorize it, as well as the lack of an audience to test the jokes on, plus a mountain of costume issues, costume changes, and just getting used to costumes; however you slice it, our tech rehearsals last week were a hot mess. The script is almost entirely dialogue, with much of it ending in elipses or cutoffs or repetition of previous character's stories, information, and whereabouts. This repetition, we knew, is where the comedy would lie. Eventually. But we had to get there first. And what a rocky road it was . . .
After our ten out of twelve rehearsal day last Tuesday, the entire company was pretty low. The four principle actors were having to call line all the time, and when the prompter gave them the text, the actor felt like an idiot because more often than not it was a line they had already said, or a simple phrase or question, like: "What?" or "you don't say?" or "Wait!" or something. A typical block of text in this play you see, looks like this:
"Wag: Oh, well . . . may as well notify the police.
Mil: I . . . uh . . .is that necessary?
Wag: It's the law.
Mil: But . . . if we could arrange . . . uh . . .
Wag: Arrange what?
Mil: Well, uh . . . if the body wasn't found in the hotel proper . . .
Wag: Mmmmmm . . . naturally it would help us, if we could avoid . . .
Bin: We could dump him in an alley.
Wag: Oh no . . . no . . . that's---"
That's twelve ellipses, three dashes, four 'uh's, two 'oh's and a 'well' in only nine lines.
Not exactly the kind of thing that sticks in your brain. For Jared Delaney, our leading man who is on stage in this show for almost the entirety of three acts (there are three scenes he's not in, none of them more than two minutes long), it became the actor's nightmare: he was stuck on stage, with unbelievably repetitive texts, a phone constantly ringing upstage and an endless host of characters marching on stage asking ridiculous things of him, constantly raising the stakes. At intermission of our runthrough on Wednesday, Jared came backstage pale-faced. When I asked him how the first act, his replied:
"Every scene is a fresh hell."
And went directly back to his script to study act two. Jared was not alone in his constant fear; Bill Van Horn shared the angst, as did Dusty, Paul, Dennis and David the other principles. The six of them could be found during every break, intermission and lunch hour furiously running lines, talking about scenes and trying to keep track of exits, props and gags. I asked Bill during our final rehearsal Thursday afternoon:
"How's the show going Bill?"
"Well, its a narrow road with no guard rails . . ."
Then we had a preview Thursday evening, and we started to find surer ground. The house was small, but they laughed! And we started to get a feel for the pace of things. Many of us started to feel a little more sure of the comedic bits we were running . . . but Bill admitted to having improvised most of act three, and he was not alone. The principles were still sweating bullets.
While they went home that night to study the script and get some sleep, the rest of the company took a much-needed break from Room Service and headed to Augusta for the midnight showing of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 2. It was the final installment of the Harry Potter franchise and we went dressed to impress.
Each of us had chosen a Hogwarts House and we came attired accordingly. Highlights included Sam's Hedwig the Owl costume, Coleman's Hufflepuff Fanboy outfit, and of course, Ian's Dead Dobby (complete with knife stuck in his chest) that was a fittingly ironic attire for the end of an era.
We got to the sold-out theater an hour early, entertained ourselves with insane amounts of popcorn and entertained the other patrons with a wand duel betwixt Steph Garrett and myself. The film was fabulous, the company equally so, and we all said goodbye to HP in fine fashion.
Friday had come and the opening of Room Service was upon us. Backstage before the curtain went up we were all eyeing each other nervously. The pre-show speech concluded, the lights went up, Jared went on stage and we in the dressing room we held our breath and listened to the monitors. A few minutes into the show and there was a hearty laugh from the audience. Then another. Then another! The house was hot, and all through the first act, the jokes were killing==and everyone was remembering their lines.
During the first intermission the dressing room was tense and focused. We were buyoed by the positive response, but we all knew that acts two and three were the hard bits. But sure enough, by the time I got on stage in the middle of act two, the play was rolling along fine. Sure we did not hit every single line, and there were a few delayed entrances, but the play was moving forward and the audience was eating it up. During the second intermission we were all hesitantly optimistic. The principles ran a few more problem-scenes and drilled the dialogue before heading out to close the piece.
Forty minutes later, the play was over, we were bowing and the audience was elated. We could not believe how smooth it had gone! The jubilation in the dressing room was out of control! Backs were clapped, hands were shook, and the entire cast did a round of shots. I genuinely believe everyone was surprised at how well the show went. I overheard Paul and Jared:
"Paul, sorry about that Moose line.
"Its okay! I knew it was one that you usually don't remember, and I saw it in your eyes that it wasn't coming, so I was ready for it. "
It had been a very, very close call but we had managed to get it together. For a glimpse of the action:
Room Service Video
The rest of the weekend went well, though not quite as exuberant as opening. However, we were quite happy to settle in to a more manageable pace for the show. And happy that we had somehow gotten all the words out. Who knows what will happen when it comes back into the repertoire next week! But whatever happens, I know it will be a ton of fun. Speaking of, Blithe Spirit opens tomorrow! More adventures on the way.
Frenziedly Yours,
Brian
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