Playing the King

As usual Shakespeare got there first when in Richard II he said, "For God's sake let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings..."

Usually I try not to read reviews of shows that I am in until the show has closed, but this one was hard to avoid, and as it is spectacularly positive, I post the link to it here: http://www.floridatheateronstage.com/reviews/performances/mortality-is-funny-as-well-as-terrifying-in-superb-absurdist-exit-the-king-at-dramaworks/

When Bill Hayes, producing artistic director at Palm Beach Dramaworks, called me, I wasn’t surprised that he was planning a production of Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist masterpiece Exit the King. After all Palm Beach Dramaworks has a motto: "theatre to think about". I was somewhat surprised that he offered me the title role. Specially as we talked about how taken he was with the recent Broadway production for which Australian actor Geoffrey Rush won a Tony.

“I am not Geoffrey Rush.” I told Bill.

“I know.” he said.

“Not even a little bit,” I went on, wanting to make the point very clear. “I mean we are both Australian, but that’s as far as it goes. Geoffrey has the physique of a q-tip and the metabolism of a credit card. I am a stout character man whose knee-bends are not what they used to be.”

“I know.” said Bill.

“So it will be a comparatively sedentary approach.”

“No problem.” said Bill.

Talking of Geoffrey Rush and his colleague Neil Armfield, their adaptation has done for Exit the King what Stephen Daldry (who directed Billy Elliott) did for J.B. Priestly’s An Inspector Calls. A fresh eye a generation later, has revealed the play in a new and exciting light.

Exit the King remains a light hearted yet poignant romp through some of the issues which surround the great universal leveler—otherwise known as death. But a heightened style and physical vocabulary in the production makes the play freshly accessible. It also has me very active during the 90 minutes of stage time—hmn...I may not be the actual G. Rush, but maybe we are related?

We have an incredible cast: the wonderful Beth Dimon (she and I were in Copenhagen 2010), the splendid Rob Donohoe (he and I were in The Pitmen Painters 2011), the incomparable Angie Radosh, the magnificent Jim Ballard, and the luminous Claire Brownell. All under the inspired direction of Bill Hayes, assisted with panache by Lynette Barclay, the whole thing supported by the outstanding design, management, and technical expertise at Palm Beach Dramaworks!

Does that sound like I want to keep working at Dramaworks? Yes! But it’s also another way to say that, for an actor, the chance to do interesting work with great people is as good as it gets.

Exit The King

Death: really, what could be funnier? This seems to have been Eugene Ionesco's starting point. 

Whether the play really is all that funny, as always with comedy, can only be known in the moment with a living breathing audience...I’ll get back to you.

Meanwhile, my advice to people who read this blog, and even to those who don’t, is: get yourself down the Gym—pronto. Why? Because you never know when you’ll find yourself playing King Berenger the First. I will go further, you never know when, whatever protestations to the contrary the director makes, you'll find yourself hired as a stunt double for Geoffrey Rush. 

Geoffrey Rush who gave a riveting, award-winning performance on Broadway in Exit The King, is, as we all know, an extraordinarily fine actor with the physical facility of an elastic band. One assumes that with an international film career he can comfortably afford any necessary physio.

Personal physique aside. I have a strong fondness for South Florida. The place has been good to me. This is my eighth show in these parts over the past ten years, and always in the winter months when the daytime temperature hovers agreeably in the 50s, 60s, or even 70s with mellow breezes, and flawless blue skies. 

One amazing feature of the locale is the Kennel Club with its Damon Runyon characters disposed around its thirty or so card tables, any one of whom can give you a fine post-hand analysis in poker dialect:

“With sixteen cards to hit to make my straight and the nut flush draw—hey! I’m not going anywhere.”

“Right! But I gotta push in that situation.”

And the guy who took the long chances that paid off when his off-suited 9-7 hit two pairs on the Turn, and filled up on the River, makes a note to watch out for the guy whose A-4 Spades he annihilated and from whom he lifted an easy hundred bucks. In the Mano-a-Mano etiquette of the card room, the two players grimace as comrades. There is silent agreement on the unfairness of life and the futility of existence.

About the ocean: when the rip tides are low, and when there are no Bluebottle Jellyfish around, it’s pleasant to float in a sea the temperature of a warm bath. 

Florida is a touchstone though, for the effects of a changing climate. A hurricane that hit locally the city of Miami a brief six or seven years ago, now might cover the whole state. The new migration of many thousands of sharks off the Florida coast is reported on the TV news, and some of the condo buildings built on the shores have a bad case of sandy gingivitis. 

Talking of decline, decay and death and how amusing it can be—Not. Theatre is dying too, like it always has been. Four established theater companies in these parts have closed within the last two years. Florida Stage, Promethean, Mosaic, and The Caldwell. Sure, there are plenty of new young theater companies springing up, but few of them have much funding. 

In that context, producing a play about death, whose author was one of the masters of the absurd, a man who was obsessed and scared and struggling, a play which challenges its actors and its audience, is deeply life-affirming.

.

Planet Television

I auditioned for a commercial recently and was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement as to the advertising copy and the product. Er...excuse me? I didn't get the job.

But I did do a small gig for a forthcoming TV series last month. And just in case, I’m not going to say which one. The role was, as we say in the trade, a “Telling Cameo”. It was that of a British bio-hazard technician, and I had a two-week beard growth when I did the casting.

I got the hoped-for call from my agent's assistant, Letitia Sideways. This is the call that exposes you as an actor. Inevitably you think to yourself, “They want me...?!” And it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling.

“And they asked if you would mind shaving?” said Letitia.

“No problem.”

So, they didn’t like the beard, huh? I purchased a razor and some shaving cream. I filled the sink with warm water, and as I lifted the razor, some instinct made me put it down and call my agent again just to check. “They do want me to shave, right?”

“No!” she said, mildly surprised. “They don’t want you to shave.”

“They don’t want me to shave?”

“Right.”

“They want me not to shave?”

“Exactly! Don’t shave.”

“On no account am I to shave?”

“That’s what I said.” said Letitia, pleased to get the point across.

So I didn’t shave.

A similar episode had happened once, some twenty years past. This was when I was a young father and sleep was at a premium. I went to an audition for a commercial for cough medicine, and having been too tired to shave for a month or more, was beginning to look like a character from a 19th century Russian novel. And having been confident that they had not liked the look at the audition, had returned home and shaved the whole thing off, only for the phone to go half an hour later with the news that I was the lucky actor that had been selected.

“Great!” I said, “I’ve just shaved off the beard.”

“Oh.” said my agent. “Oh dear.”

“They wanted it? The beard?”

“They loved it. They said specially.”

“How long before the shoot?”

“A month.”

So I didn’t shave for the next month, and I did the commercial for cough medicine. Nobody was coy about disclosure back then.

Anyway, this time just past with the TV gig, having had experience with how a beard can get you work (or lose it), I stayed my barber’s hand. And just as well.

In due course I arrived on set and donned the bio-hazard suit, along with the character. I played a British bio-hazard guy, bearded as required. 

If you happen to see it, look out for the pivotal scene where a menacing shape emerges from a quarantined ship wrapped in plastic, and takes a few steps along a quayside to report the findings to the brace of lead actors figuring out the latest screen quandary. The bio-hazard suit this enigmatic figure wears includes a helmet with a visor. It’s betraying no secrets of the trade to say that the visor was held open by the cunning use of ‘Gaffer’s tape’. 

My face is visible between the upper nostril, and the lower eyebrow. 

That’s how you’ll know it’s me.

Marti Caine

Back in England I was on tour one time with Marti Caine, one of the most popular comics of her generation. Alas, now telling gags at the great microphone in the sky. She was tall and slim, gawky and funny. When she spoke it was a gentle northern drawl, smokey velvet.

Her humor was mildly self-deprecating, but behind it was the steel will that folk mostly conceal when they’ve risen entirely by their own efforts, and then seized that precious moment when preparation meets television exposure to millions, and leads on to fortune. 

In Marti’s case it meant a blue Rolls Royce.

She was beautifully generous both on stage and off. Once I saw her hand over about a couple of thousand quids' worth of scarcely worn designer clothing to a single mother with a teenage daughter, who was in our cast. She did it gracefully, insisting they were doing her a favor by freeing up closet space.

I was a twenty-something actor who’d stumbled into a commercial tour of one of Alan Ayckbourn’s funniest plays, ‘Season’s Greetings’ - that’s the one about a family reunion at Christmas where everything goes horribly, horribly wrong.

The late, great Bill Frazer was in the cast too. A magically funny veteran, built like a Walrus, he could bark a line, and it was like a direct command to the audience - “Laugh! Laugh some more ... now give me a round of applause.”

The show toured up and down the length of England, and Marti let me ride in the Roller with her. She told me stories about the "Workies" - the Working Mens’ Clubs where she’d learnt her craft... "Once I told a joke that offended a table at the front. It was pint pots down, folded arms, and I saw the disapproval ripple across the hall. Someone called out, ‘Right lass, I think we’ve had enough.’ But I stayed out there and I told every joke I knew. To complete silence."

“How did that feel?” I asked.

“I felt skinned” she said.

We were coming down the M1 motorway, heading back to London for the week-end after the Saturday night show in Hull. Somewhere after midnight, somewhere between Sheffield and Coventry, we went into a service station. The place was bleakly lit, empty except for a lone night attendant behind the counter, ready to dispense over-crispy bacon and rubberized eggs that had sat too long under warming lamps.

“Now I’ll let you into a secret,” Marti said, as we went in. “I am Queen of the Universe, and I come from the planet Television. Sometimes they recognize me. If they do, there’s only one thing to do. Look them straight in the eye, and say, ‘Do you sell knicker elastic?’”

Sure enough, as we collected some chemical beverage, laughingly called coffee, the lone guy sputtered, “It’s ... it is, isn’t it ... you are ...?”

Marti turned to me, “You see?” her face the picture of what it’s like to be Queen of the Universe, and have to deal with this recognition from time to time. 

“Do you sell knicker elastic?” said the Queen of the Universe.

It seemed to do the trick. The guy stuttered and spluttered, then he saw the funny side of the question and began laughing. The laughing grew and took hold of him, it shook his frame. Finally he managed to say, “...Er ... no.”

The Queen followed it up. “Would you consider selling it in the future?” she asked mildly.

The guy was a mess.