Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Acting (But Were Afraid To Ask, Dear) (20 page)
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Authors: West End Producer
When backstage you should always do your best to get on with the crew. These people are easily identifiable as the
ones permanently dressed in funeral attire. They are mostly very nice people, and will be the ones who hand you your props and make sure the set is working correctly. It is a very courageous person who angers the crew, as it can result in serious implications to your health. Things could be dropped on you, wrong props could be given to you, and worst of all – you could be badly lit.
On many occasions you will find a dresser is assigned to you. A dresser plays an important role in the function of your day-to-day theatre life. They dress you, iron your clothes, talk to you, and on special occasions will play with you. Many dressers are resting actors – and should be treated with respect. Other dressers are not resting actors – and should be ignored. It is always advisable to get on with your dresser, otherwise you could find yourself on stage with no trousers, no bra, or simply naked. I will never forget the performance of
Les Misérables
where ‘Bring Him Home’ was performed entirely in the nude. It served him right for not getting his dresser a birthday present, dear.
If you are not in the theatre by the half-hour call then you are in trouble, unless you are the star – in which case we will make an exception to any rule you wish. The half-hour call is there so we can get the understudies ready if there is an emergency. To be honest, we never want an understudy to go on, but should the worst happen and we are forced to put one on, then it is essential they are prepared. An understudy must know all the lines of the person they are covering, and preferably in the right order. They must also know the moves, and be able to copy the original actor’s performance. There is a misconception that an understudy can make the performance their own – they can, as long as they don’t do anything differently. To be honest, we just want understudies to stand in the right place, say the right line, and get offstage so the audience don’t notice.
I always advise actors to remember when they’re wearing a radio microphone. A radio mic picks up everything you say and, although sound operators aren’t meant to listen to your
personal conversations, they often do. Be careful what you say and who you’re saying it to. It’s a very big mistake to discuss the protruding waist of sound operator number two. This can result in your mic being muted, your song being cut, and premature death.
So basically – be nice, be tidy, be careful what you say, and always smile at important people. Follow these rules, and you will never have a problem backstage.
Actors – if you are in a show that you hate, think of the money. Failing that, think of the credit. Failing that, think of the pub, dear.
Keeping It Fresh
The term ‘keep it fresh’ haunts actors from the second they are born until the moment they do their last small-scale tour. As an actor, when you sign the contract my PA sends you, you are legally obliged to keep your performance ‘fresh’ and ‘new’ during every single performance. This is very easy for the resident director to say in a notes session – but the resident director is not the person who has to perform eight shows a week. Invariably, acting can, like any other job, become tiresome, monotonous and boring. After all, you are being paid to say the same lines and move the same way night after night after night. Hamlet said ‘words, words, words’ – and that is exactly what dialogue feels like after six months of saying it on a daily basis.
So you auditioned, got the job, rehearsed, had your opening night, and are now in week four of a fifteen-month run. And already you are
bored
! This is inevitable, particularly if you stand at the back dressed as a guard with one line of dialogue. After eight performances even a theatrical genius like Les Dennis would get bored. Many tutors say there are numerous ways to keep a performance fresh – ranging from saying the
lines differently, using a different energy, a different intention, and sucking on a sweet. But in truth, every actor gets bored of a show. There is only so much you can do, particularly if you only have one line – and on the one occasion when you alter it slightly you get told off by the company manager for looking like you’re having an epileptic fit.
One of the best ways of keeping your performance fresh is the ‘no-pants technique’. This is a remarkable little secret that Shakespeare wrote about in
Hamlet
: ‘O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew!’ – the ‘flesh’ being Hamlet’s Y-fronts. The no-pants method works on many levels. Firstly, it keeps your pants fresh. Secondly, it allows easy access to your naughty region. But most importantly – it will give you a little ‘secret’, which makes you more watchable on stage.
This no-pants technique has another name in the industry: charisma. Many actors are described as having charisma – that indefinable magnetism which makes someone very watchable – but it is simply because they aren’t wearing any underwear. They know it, the audience subconsciously knows it, and the wardrobe mistress definitely knows it. Try it yourself – the next time you’re doing something boring and repetitious, slip off your pants and see what happens.
My casting director used this method regularly during auditions in the eighties, but he was rather naughty – in fact, he didn’t wear
anything
from his waist down. This was fine until he stood up during the boys’ recalls for
Oliver!
Bless. Some of those kids have never been the same since, dear.
Actor friends have informed me that the no-pants technique is also very useful when you’re feeling nervous about auditions. However, when using it for this reason you reverse it – and imagine that the audition panel are the ones without underwear. In fact, one of my friends always finds it useful to imagine that the panel are completely naked. It apparently gives him a rather empowering sensation – particularly when he imagines their kinky parts are all petite and mangled (mine are neither petite
or
mangled, I might add, dear).
| Boredom Games I often talk to actors when they are in after-show detention about why they decided to be naughty. The most common answer is because they were bored. I have also learnt from these same actors that they play games on stage to relieve their boredom. Of course, I am not a fan of actors playing games of any sort on stage, but since I want to cover all areas in this book I feel I should include them – as they are rather amusing. Obviously, I never want actors in my shows to partake in any of the games listed below. However, if you’re in a show produced by Kenwright or Lloyd Webber then feel free. | |
| Pass the Button I’m told this game is very easy to participate in – and is frequently used by members of the RSC – particularly during the History Plays (the long and dull ones). One member of the cast holds a button – or similar small object – on stage and passes it to someone else in the company. The button has to be accepted by the actor who is ‘tagged’ with it, and then that person holding it must pass it on. If you have the button at the end of Act One you have to buy crisps and salty snacks in the pub afterwards. If you possess it at the end of the second half you have to buy the first round of drinks. If you possess the button at the end of the show for more than three consecutive nights you have to donate your entire week’s wages to the ASM. | |
| As you get braver with this game, the size of the object you pass around increases, until it is too obvious and becomes distracting to the audience. I remember seeing a production of Getting Ready at the Last Possible Minute | |
| As you settle into the run you will find the routine of getting into costume a lot easier. Another little game that has been reported to me is ‘getting ready at the last possible minute’ – i.e. after the five-minute call (which is very naughty indeed). Obviously, if your role requires the application of huge prosthetics you should start getting ready at the quarter, but if it’s just a costume, parting of the hair and simple make-up, then apparently you must attempt it at the five. The worst thing that can happen is you make the show go up late, and get an official warning. But I wouldn’t worry about that. Official warnings don’t mean anything anyway. It’s the unofficial ones you have to worry about, dear (particularly when working for me). Gurning Upstage Pretty self-explanatory. | |
| A word of warning | |
| | |
Long day ahead? Play the jazz-hands game. Do as many cheeky jazz hands during normal conversation as you can without anyone noticing, dear.
Actors’ Detention
I have noticed something quite disturbing happening to actors. Every year they seem to get naughtier, bolder and more creative than the year before. And this worries me – as it is not the actor’s job. An actor, by trade, is legally only entitled to do what the producer and director tells them, and not impose their own ideas on anything. When they do, it complicates things, and directors and casting departments get nervous. An actor is there to do what they are told – not to talk back to those who have told them.
Because of this, and as a result of horrific things I have read on show reports, actors’ detention gets busier every week. Actors’ detention is something I was forced to invent when an overeager performer continually thought it appropriate to get his penis out during the curtain call. I don’t know what possessed him, particularly as he was playing Daddy Warbucks in
Annie
. It was truly shocking. As a result I made this actor go to detention every week so he could learn right from wrong. It was only after the fifth week of writing ten thousand lines of ‘I will not get my penis out in the curtain call’ that he finally understood. And then he started getting his bum out instead. In retrospect, I knew I shouldn’t have employed someone who had just finished three years in
Chicago
. The casts of that show are always far too eager to get their bits out.