Working away

The upcoming performances of 'Like a Sack of Potatoes' will be the fifth time I've put it on its feet. That included two readings (one in NYC and one in Woodstock) one performance at the One Man Talking Festival in NYC and then last fall's performances in Haverstraw. I've learned a lot about the piece along the way, and it has deepened with time . . . each time I think it is as good as it can be and then . . . what do you know . . . when coming back to it, it only gets better.

It is a very good thing I couldn't do it in the fall version of the MITF because of the Equity thing, it would have been right on the heels of the Haverstraw performances and we would have probably just kept it as is. Now, coming back to it after a few months away from it, we're finding a lot of new elements to the play; new colors and textures . .. and the ending, which is pretty devastating when it works . . . is going to be even more powerful now.

The difference isn't in the script. Except for an insignificant trim here and there, it is virtually unchanged. The difference is in the exploration of character and motivation . . . why you're telling this story . . . and why it's hard to tell . . . I don't want to say too much but it is sufficient to say it feels very very good and I can't wait to get it before an audience.

I love this character. He's a tough old bird who loves and is tormented by his wife and two daughters. The big challenge is balancing the love for his family and his irascibility toward them (and in the case of his wife, 'the old lady', her irascibility toward him!). . . but I'm having fun figuring it out.

I'm not doing it alone of course. Bette is an excellent director. Insightful and with exquisite theatrical instincts . . . we have worked on all five of my solo pieces (though Wallace Norman directed the first production of Old Hickory, Bette has seen to subsequent productions). She is very adept at helping me burrow into the pieces and find what is down there, deeper down every time . . . discovery is what makes rehearsal so rewarding . . . and we've been discovering a lot.

We were supposed to go see the theater on Tuesday night but the crap weather made me decide to skip it. It's a pretty small space and you get a good idea of what it's like on the website, so we decided to use the time rehearsing instead. We'll see it soon enough. We have a couple of hours tech time on the afternoon of opening and that should be fine. There isn't much tech involved with the piece, basically lights up and lights down . . . with a little music on both ends. Other than that it's the magic in the words . . . and whatever I can bring to them in performance. Audiences have been very responsive to it at every step of the way, and I'm really excited to get to do multiple performances in the city.

What else is there.

The thick of it

So we're hitting our stride with rehearsals. It's pretty incredible to return to a piece you've done before and work on it as if for the first time. We're finding all kinds of moments that we didn't before, but I guess that's what putting a piece under the microscope of rehearsal can do for it. We've been progressing slowly through the piece moment by moment, beat by beat and really digging into it. It's amazing to look at a clock after rehearsing for what seems like twenty minutes and hour and a half has gone by.

I do have to say I love this piece and am really looking forward to bringing it back into New York. My first experience with long form monologues was doing The Zoo Story all those years ago; the story of Jerry and the dog is the moment when you can feel the audience start to squirm a little bit . . . when you tighten the screw and make people wonder: wait a minute what is this? I think Like a Sack of Potatoes has that element to it, it begins a little lighter and then spirals into a much darker story. It's awesome to be on stage and experience those moments when you feel the audience turn from laughing-happy to 'uh-oh'.

I think all of my pieces have that to some extent, maybe the piece about O'Neil's father less so, but certainly the other four pieces do.

Getting the postcards ready, should have a proof back today. And then we'll see who we can get out for this. It's always nice to have an audience!