A Christmas Carol: The Scrooge Diaries

As of today, Julian & I have blocked out the first 2 staves (or “acts”). There are 5 staves but the remaining ones are a bit shorter so technically, we’re about halfway through the whole show. The counter on the right says 25 days until opening night and that doesn’t seem like nearly enough time to learn all my lines, let alone blocking, dancing (yes, there will be dancing), magic, and other special things in store for audiences. But as they say… “Things all have a way of working out…it’s a mystery…”

I’ve discovered that I really need a few hours of running the material in my head just to prepare for a rehearsal. And even that doesn’t help sometimes. I swear I’ll work a passage for hours and hours, and then I’ll show up for rehearsal a few hours later and I’ll be damned if I can’t remember more than a few words of it! It’s frustrating. Luckily, Julian knows that I’m making progress and I don’t look ill-prepared or unprofessional. I just look really, really stoopid. :/

That being said, the amount of material is so vast, yet specific, that I find myself getting lost in it occasionally. Usually an actor can find moments or lines that are “psychological stimuli” to move their character from beat to beat or remind them of whatever lines are coming up (this is naturally before the lines and character become…well…organic). We rehearsed the scene where Young Scrooge meets his girlfriend Belle. One of her parents has died and she’s become a dowerless girl, something Scrooge never would have chosen. She ends their courtship based on the changes in him and the fact she knows he’ll never truly be able to love her like he did when they first met. It’s a very moving scene and while working on it alone, it really brings one to the brink of tears because everyone knows what it’s like to end a relationship you don’t want to end or to love someone who doesn’t love you back. It’s an emotional true-to-life moment that’s very sad. We see one of the main events that made Scrooge the nasty figure he was. It’s even more clearly understood when his nephew doesn’t choose the path Scrooge took, and gets married in lieu of pursusing his career/financial gain further.

On a happier note, we blocked the biggest scene in the play: Fezziwig’s dance. I really like this scene and I think we’re going to have some more fun with it as we flesh it out with some authentic English Country Dancing and other bits. Fezziwig, is like those people everyone knows who are always happy no matter what. And the jovial occasion of Christmas only makes them even more giddy and infectious. Hilli-ho! Chirrup!

I just love the phrase “Quickly…before a man can say Jack Robinson!” Supposedly Jack Robinson was a man in London who was notorious for making plans and always changing them at the last minute. Rumor got around that you had to be very quick to catch him. Another supposed source for this phrase was the Robinson Umbrella Company in Europe made a fast-opening umbrella. Surely it wasn’t the kind of quick-opening umbrellas we have nowadays, but a nickname for a French servant was “Jacques,” hence the phrase (when it started to pour) “Jacques, Robinson!”

With the crappy weather around here, I definitely need both a “Jack” and a “Robinson” with me at all times!

According to the clock on the left, there’s only 31 more days until opening night. I’m a bit nervous already about learning all my lines. I have no doubt I’ll have them down by opening night, but I just want to get them really perfect.

Julian & I blocked the first stave last night. I think we both came to the realization that scheduling 4-hour rehearsals is a pretty intensive way to work when there’s only one actor. During the course of a rehearsal with a full cast, at least you often get breaks while other actors are working, but not with us. We went beat-by-beat and mapped out everything in one rehearsal, which means would could have 4 more rehearsals and block the entire show. That’s an insane pace!

Since I’m also the producer, I have to divide my time between learning lines and promoting the show. It’d be great to pass that all on to someone else who I could trust, but this is the first time and I need to be involved at every step in other to make sure everything runs well. It’s also a learning process for me. I’ve never done a solo show or produced one and there are aspects which are native to this process. With the advent of the internet, there’s a lot more online promotion and trying to spread the word, hopefully creating some kind of viral buzz about the show. I also spent time designing all the print materials for the show along with this snazzy website.

I’ve had a few other distractions in this period. I just got back from London, where I visited the Dickens house & museum for inspiration. I also went there to complete my Shakespeare Certificate at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Unfortunately, they don’t tell you in person whether or not you passed, so you wait on pins & needles for weeks until you get “the letter” (no email… I asked…damn…). I finally got the notice in the mail the other day…drumroll please…and I passed! Not only did I pass, but I passed “With Distinction” which is the highest level of acknowledgment. Coming from RADA, that’s high praise. I’m happy that the amount of work I put into it showed and was recognized.

Now, off to learn more lines!

One of the topics that came up after the sneek preview on press night was the history of solo shows. In a previous post, I wrote that Hal Holbrook was the Godfather of One-Man Shows and this stirred a bit of conversation. According to Solo Performers: An International Registry, solo shows date back to 1703 in Richmond, Virginia, where Anthony Aston (a soldier in the British Army) presented “Medley,” which consisted of re-enacted bits and pieces of plays he’d seen. It was so successful that he quit the army and moved back to the UK to tour to embark on a successful career as a solo performer. Surely, there are historical traditions in various cultures that date storytelling back to way beyond that, but this is the first recorded evidence of a show that defined, more or less, what a solo show is today.

The Victorian period was also known as the “Speaker Era,” where lecturers and speakers became actors in their own presentations. Leland Powers toured the U.S. performing works from Sheridan and Benjamin Chaplin performed a four-scene monologue as Abraham Lincoln. Charles Dickens was the best speaker of his time, presenting his works in a dramatic reading form to critics who said he had “a whole company of players within him.”

More modern solo shows began in Britain with Emlyn Williams (a Welshman) in 1959 although Sir John Gielgud was doing his Ages of Man, a Shakespeare-based solo performance. The author of the abovementioned book states, “If Emlyn Williams set the example, Hal Holbrook set the trend.” Vincent Price then began performing as Oscar Wilde, James Earl Jones as Paul Robeson, Henry Fonda as Clarence Darrow, and James Whitmore as Will Rogers.

Spalding Gray, called a “New Wave Mark Twain,” always insisted that he was an “oral historian” or an “autobiographer” rather than an actor. He brought audiences into every minute detail of his life, even encouraging audience members to join in during the performance. Julie Harris perfomed William Luce’s The Belle of Amherst, showing the life of Emily Dickenson. Rowan Aktinson has created Mr. Bean but confines him to the TV screen. Ian McKellen enjoyed a great deal of success with his solo show Acting Shakespeare, which gave audiences a tour of the Bard.

In 300 years, the One-Man Show has come a long way in becoming the One-Person Play…

Another small milestone was passed in tonight’s sneak peek for the press and special guests at our publicist’s home. It’s a bit early on in the process to be showing anything, but it was a good way to get a barometer reading on how the audience will react to certain bits. Things actually went very well considering there are 45 more days until opening night (according to the countdown on the right side of this page). Normally, plays are starting their rehearsal process around this time, giving the actors a 4-6 week period to get into dress rehearsals and a performance so we’ve pushed the schedule a bit.

Some actors are auditory learners and some are visual learners. I’m a kinesthetic learner, which means I have to “physicalize” my lines in order to learn them. This gets me into trouble with most shows I’m in and most directors I work with because I’m the last person to be “off book.” This usually ends up being close to a dress rehearsal period, which makes people really nervous if they haven’t worked with me before. It’s why I’ve been working hard and faster than usual to get this thing on its feet as soon as possible…

Well, the first day was relatively painless. Actually, much to the contrary. We accomplished a lot in our tight schedule.

Firstly, we were able to get through all the characters and map out the accents for each. This is a pretty complex task considering there are so many of them. There are over 40 characters in the show (which is a little cut down from the full book), but not all of them have lines. In “full” productions of the play, there are usually extra lines written for these smaller characters to flesh them out, but we haven’t done that here in an attempt to be as faithful as possible to the original. I then got a chance to test out each one of them and figure out how much practice I’ll need to get each up to speed.

Then we worked through Stave 2 and the apearance of the first ghost. We had a bunch of discussions about the fourth wall and trying not to look too schizophrenic while switching characters. I think the whole performance will be like riding on top of the edge of a long razor, balancing each character and exchange with delicate equanimity.

We have a press preview on Monday night at the publicist, Kim Taylor’s house. Since I’m only doing 5 performances, it’s a great way for the press and special invited guests to get a sneak peek (about 10-15 min) of the show. Kim saw the need to assign me the task of bringing a dessert for the evening (I know she’s overwhelmed with preparations, but aren’t we all… ???) and it should be something authentic to the period. So I’m going into a Zen-dessert-making mode on Monday for a few hours. I’ll look at it as a therapeutic session to focus on my lines while I bake…

Well, it’s the morning of the first day of rehearsal. Today Lynne & I are going to go over the whole play and correct my bloody English accent. This is a serious task and lengthy process mainly due to the number of characters and variety of classes among them. Over the last few weeks, my ear has become more “in tune” with RP English—and when I deviate from it. It’s especially difficult when I get more into character development that I start to have problems melding the characer with the accent since my mouth is shaped differently. So those are the rough spots I’ll be working on…

Most audiences can’t tell the difference between Cockney and London accents. But it really irritates me when I see a play set in another country and all the actors each have their own accent (or none at all). It’s distracting and pulls me out of the world the play because it’s less authentic. There are limits on how casual an actors’ (or director’s) approach in the presentation of a role/play, and this is beyond it. It’s just plain laziness on their part. Unfortunately, I’m very picky about this point so that makes me work all the harder on my own accents. It pays off because people come up to me after shows and want to know how I really speak (like my Georgian accent in The Foreigner) or try to speak Russian to me (because of my character Sasha in Room Service). They’re really convinced. Since I speak several languages, I wonder if there’s a correlation among multilingual actors and accent work. Hmm…

When I say “first day of rehearsal” I didn’t mean that I haven’t been rehearsing up until now. It just means that Julian & I haven’t been meeting, primarily because of his hectic schedule doing Ice Glen at the Aurora. We’ve had a bunch of conversations through the editing of the script about the process of “page to stage,” but today we actually do it. It’ll be interesting to get Julian’s take on the work I’ve been doing alone so far. Sometimes… or oftentimes…when I’m working alone I can get stuck inside a “me bubble” that distorts my perspective on my work (that’s why directors exist…duh), so it’s great to have someone (especially someone who knows what they’re talking about) to tell you to stop picking your nose or whatever…

We added some new photos in the press section that are kinda funny. I don’t really care for them too much but people seem to really like them so I guess we’ll use them. I guess I’m just too picky…

Back in 1954, Hal Holbrook began the concept of the modern “solo show” in performing Mark Twain, Tonight!. Though records of solo performances date back to the early 1700s (for practical purposes), it wasn’t until his show that later performers like Spalding Gray, Robert Morse and Garrison Keillor (among MANY others) had achieved widespread popularity. Anyone who has ever performed in or seen a solo show knows that Hal Holbrook is the proverbial Godfather of the medium.

So imagine my excitement when Hal Holbrook came around to the Bay Area with his show Mark Twain, Tonight!. I’d never seen this show (I saw the PBS version on TV about 20+ years ago) so it was great timing to check it out for inspiration for my own solo show now in the works. Hal is older now than Mark Twain is in the show (where for many years, he was far younger) and it was a spot-on job of creating this eccentric character. He created nuances that were spellbinding to watch, though the jokes were dated (the same ones for many years!). He did a great re-enactment of a scene from Huckleberry Finn.

After the show, we got to meet him. I asked him what the best advice he could give a young actor in preparation for doing his own solo show would be. Click here to hear the advice he gave me. He also was surprised at how much my wife looks like his wife’s sister…who lives in San Anselmo.

I think the best thing about his presentation was exactly what he talks about: the presentation style. He speaks directly to the audience most of the time, probably finding the eyes of each and every single audience member throughout the 2-hour show. This is something that Charlie Varon & I were toying around with in the early stages. I don’t think I was totally sold on the idea of eliminating the “fourth wall” (the theatrical term for the imaginary wall between the actor and audience) and the best results of the experimentation seemed to be to break the fourth wall as the narrator character, but not any of the others. This allows the narrator to be “one of them” (an audience member of sorts, watching the same action they are and commenting on it). But makes it more difficult, in my opinion, to “swap” characters between the narrator and anyone else. It’s effective and it works, but now, after seeing Hal do it, it works much smoother and nicer when all the characters break the fourth wall. Each character can have his/her own individual connection with the audience, which is a richer experience for them.

Darn Dickens! The deeper I go into the Christmas Carol text, the more irregularities I find.

When Marley’s ghost tells Scrooge to expect the three ghosts, he says:

“Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls One. Expect the
second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next
night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate.”

But in the next stave, when the Ghost of Christmas Past appears, Scrooge says:

“Twelve? It was past two when I went to bed. Why, it isn’t
possible that I can have slept through a whole day and far into
another night? It isn’t possible that anything has happened to the
sun, and this is twelve at noon. “

The next two ghosts arrive “on time”..but this one was apparently a bit early…

Still jetlagged a bit from my recent trip to London so it’s hard to get back into my lines. I saw a few shows there and met some old friends. One of the most inspirational parts was my visit to the Dickens house.

Charles Dickens lived for a while in this 4-story home (in fact, it’s the only house left standing that he lived in) and now it’s a museum. It was a thrill to check out all the places where he worked and found for inspiration. The best of which was his desk when he himself worked as a clerk, which was also the same style Scrooge & Cratchit had in A Christmas Carol. There’s a photo of me standing next to it in the press section of the website. Just holding on to that desk made me feel all crotchity and cranky like Scrooge.

I just had my first session with dialect coach Lynne Soffer today. I thought that my English accent was further along than it was. Geez, what a mess.

We started with a good foundation of Standard British, which most of the mid-to-upper class people will speak. Then we’ll degrade into the lower classes and more street lingo. Lynne is great (she was the dialect coach on Nicholas Nickleby at Cal Shakes last summer) and she’s very enthusiastic about what she does. She’s very sensitive to her students/actors. It’s encouraging to hear when I’m doing something correct, but I don’t want to hear it because she’s “sugar coating” it when she feels like I need it. I need to get it “straight” from people like her (who know their stuff) so I can be a better actor, not go through the process with my ego intact. I told the same thing to Julian… I expect a vigorous and productive discussion (even to the point of a debate) on various points through the process. It’s not just debate for the sake of debate, but challenging our ideas and concepts in order to really make it the best it can be.

I’ve got my iPod and I’ll be listening to our session over and over to work on my problem areas. It’s going to be really difficult in the beginning but it will come with time.