Making the story happen
By Chuck Jaffee
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12:01 a.m. PT Apr 17, 2008
When you go to see "The Philadelphia Story" at the Center for the Arts in Grass Valley you will see the final results. I was privileged to observe some of the dedicated process that leads to those results. I sat in on two days of rehearsal, ten days before Opening Night.
"Line," Drue Mathies would pop, turning to Stage Manager Allison Jones-Pomatto.
"Line?" Rene Sprattling would entreat, turning to Allison, who hovers over the script, noting every spoken word.
Scott Young was the clear winner in adding comical histrionics when he blanked out on the right words to say. Jeff Renard ran a fun second. Everyone seemed to have genuine, laugh-out-loud fun with the struggle-the necessary, committed practice that leads to polished performances April 18 through May 10.
Can you imagine how much time and repetition is spent, alone and in groups plus formal rehearsal, not to mention making all the coordination of lines come alive?
One of my favorites was Thomas Wolfe saying, "I seem to have lost my watch." Elena Powell makes a face that shows her next line makes no sense, "What, is it broken?" Tom turns to the script keeper for help. "Something's happened to my watch." "What, is it broken?"
Everyone, at one time or another, needed prompting. Curiously, each actor almost always needed only a word or two to spark what already had been memorized. Ten days before Opening Night, everyone was still working to convert their lines into something like knowing how to breath in and out.
Toward the end of the evening, director Sands Hall drew impressions from her actors, encouraged them, and inserted clear directives. Wrapping up, Hall mentioned, "I want you to start thinking about costume changes and not just between acts. I don't want you to be surprised about what to do when we get to dress rehearsals.
What I observed that Monday night Hall called an "Italian run-through." She described this as "doing the whole play, fast, with lots of arm waving and no props." The next day, moved from a backwoods vacation home to the Center for the Arts, I witnessed some of the evolution of how and where to move on stage.
With the set half built and some of the props in place and an electrician climbing up and down a 20 foot ladder, actors picked up on a touch that communicated an uncle's affection for his niece and a way to get a prop out of the next actor's way and how to notice that a character needs her glasses and all kinds of ways to show that one character is listening to another....
It was noticeable that all the actors were less in need of prompting for lines. Just one day later, with elements of the setting shaping up around them, the magic of the stage was growing on them. When Megan Sweigart was "on" she was more than energetically in character. She was inventive. She was constructing reality for herself and her fellow actors.
Intentionally, I didn't engage the actors much, but I couldn't leave alone the many yawns I observed from several people during breaks in the practice. I asked Megan if she was tired. "Exhausted," she offered. "With school and everything else, I'm doing 15 hour days."
At the culmination of the process, you get to see the results from a peculiarly committed breed of people. Nevada County has a lot of talented live-theater folks. The entire cast of "The Philadelphia Story" is local. Ain't no one in these shows doing it because of money.
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Chuck Jaffee of Nevada City likes to plug people into the spirit of independent filmmakers. Based on a Broadway play about an upper crust family, "The Philadelphia Story" (1940) is one of the best romantic comedies ever put on film. The local live production nudged Jaffee to check out the independent playmaking. Find his other articles for The Union at www.startlets.com.
