I Think I'm Sick, part 6 (No, Really I Am Sick)

Funny think about trying use mind over matter when battling a cold is that it doesn't work so well when you spend 2 hours a night saying over and over how sick you are. I started the run of The Hypochondriac feeling sluggish with a head cold. Second week was fine. I felt invincible. Suddenly, two nights ago this flu grabbed me by my foundation and shook me. A little nasal drip moved into an itch in the throat. This became an oozy flushed feeling around my head and an ache in my back.

I really tried to say it was in my head but then I sneezed. A real sneeze. Then thinking became labored. By the time I got to the theater that night, I was loopy. I lay on the floor for half an hour wondering how I was going to stand. The show went by without any real hitches, though I do lay under a sheet twice near the end of the show, pretending to be dead. As I felt my heart beat in my jugular, I thought about how Moliere died after giving his last performance of this play and how the superstition that yellow brings bad luck to actors originated from the color of the clothing he wore at the time of his death. I don't wear yellow in this show.

I'm back to just mildly crappy for the final two performances tonight and tomorrow.

This is, of course, the time when you think, "ok, now I know how to play this thing." You have really warm, loving audiences who respond consistently. You have quiet, smiling audiences that appreciate it in their own way. You have vaguely annoyed audiences rife with jealous or animosity or self-loathing dripping from their pores. Some nights are a Whitman Sampler of all the above.

More than getting a feel for playing the piece, you come to find this collection of people you're suddenly thrust together with becoming a new dysfunctional family in your life. Actually, it's a couple of families stacked on top of each other-onstage, backstage, and with the audience-so the attachments can be intense. Then it all goes away. Like serial monogamy.

I know I'll keep in touch with some of these fine folk and others will go to the four winds. Not out of malice or anything, just because. It's like that week right after high school meets Groundhog's Day.

I don't know what my next project will be. I have several that moved to the back burner when I jumped on this train. I think I'm going to sit quietly and figure a few things out. In spite of several difficulties, The Hypochondriac is in my all-time top ten for favorite shows and tomorrow night will be like giving up my dog for adoption.

I Think I'm Sick, part 5 (Remission)

Tomorrow begins week 2 of The Hypochondriac. I am looking forward to doing the final weeks of performances. I lost track of the days leading up to opening. We had a day off the Sunday prior but it was eaten up with work so I've been running on fumes for awhile now. My brain hit a wall first exactly one week before opening night. I was saying all the lines, doing all the blocking and looking people in the eyes but it was coming from someplace else, like a concert film simulcast in HD. Like being live, only not.

I'm for running the whole play as many times as you can before you face the audience. Some people like to wait to the last minute to get every moment. I like to work on things at speed to know what that really is, especially when there's a lot of ground to cover. The big lesson I'm getting out of this show is conservation. I was anxious about elements coming together at the last minute but not really nervous about my performance. I burn things down to the point where there isn't much energy left for nerves.

As the World Series played, I listened to the announcers talk about the pitchers and what they would need in terms of rest, focus, stamina, and chutzpah to get through a game. I did not advocate very well for myself on this project in speaking up about what I needed to get to the next level. Rather, I let it be dictated by the situation and the people around me. Since my character is onstage all but 3 or 4 pages of the play, I was at 99% of the rehearsals and working pretty much the whole time.

It's been good to have 2 days off in a row. It feels like the cold I was dragging behind me like cans on a string tied my ankle is almost gone. The thoughts in my head are moving at a comfortable pace. The bags under my eyes are down to a reasonable, nearly human-looking swell. The bruises on my back, arms, foot, left butt cheek, and middle toe are vanishing. I miss the cast like I've been out of the country an entire summer vacation.

Best of all, the pajamas I wear the entire show have been washed.

I Think I'm Sick, part 4 (The Messy Place)

We have our first preview performance in 10 days. Things are moving along but we're in that place where they get worse before they get better. Actors getting off-book invert, confuse, drop, and muddy lines. Truthful energy from people's eyes are replaced with a vague sheen of terror because the training wheels have been taken off. Rhythms are kind of sloppy overall. Moments that were getting laughs a week ago meet silence. Cackling instead at ad-libs and flubs signal either boredom or fear of a BIG HURDLE. A main actor was recently replaced. Some great moments come out of nowhere and then float off to the ether.

Tech coming up around the corner. Basically, we're in The Messy Place.

I've started doing one of the things I despise most in actors, which is being defensive during notes. I have a friend who always would do a good job of saying, "ah, I see what you're saying. I was trying this so maybe..." This would disarm the situation and progress would be made. I know of others who say things back in their own words to prove they understand the note to the director. Some smile and nod and appear to be writing the note down but instead scribble, "this prick doesn't know what he's talking about. I hate everyone. Why are they all trying to ruin my performance." I just need to listen and roll the note around in my head and see if I can try to come close to it. Usually, I take a note and come back with something in a new place. The trick is doing this with grace when you feel hurt, annoyed, insulted, stupid, embarrassed, or confused by the note. I hate it when I'm a small person. It's tricky though when I come out of hours of playing a small person who lets it all fly to be a polite note-taker. Sometimes getting lots of notes means you're giving lots of stuff. Sometimes it means you're terrible.

There are about 15 moments in the show I've yet to get underneath. I think I just need to break them down even more. I realized today I need to let go of one of the models I was using to create Argan. Because this is a realistic farce, I have to dare to not be funny. That's what makes it funny.

I think when I dig further under what bothers me about certain things not working, it comes from an expectation that they will work. Everything 100%. No question. And that's not how things happen. Sometimes I think I've done more than my share on something but am finding that I need to go even further to a place I haven't been before now. I have moments of thinking this will be my swan song to acting altogether. I'm kind of a perfectionist so when something isn't working I think, "I shouldn't really playing this part anyway. I'm so wrong for it."

I think I want a little audience to come see what's going on so I can confirm some stuff. At this point I can't go off anyone's reaction in the room because they're so over it. I don't know how I feel about any of it anymore. I think I'm just getting sick of playing someone who thinks he's sick but really isn't. I think it's just a 24-hour bug. It'll pass.

I Think I'm Sick, part 3

We've started working our way through Act 1 of The Hypochondriac. It's been an intuitive hunt to figure out the style and the world of this piece. I don't have all the answers yet and don't want to lock into something too soon. 2 big questions brought up today: how did Argan make his money and how did his hypochondria begin? Other things came up about the relationship with his wife and the basis of that relationship.

Matt, the director, feels my Argan isn't stupid. This makes it difficult to get away with some of the trickier sections. I've developed a pretty sharp b.s. detector in real life so playing the opposite is tough. It goes against my instincts and comes off as being put on. Argan is being kept closer to my real age, which also doesn't allow me to be dottering or foolish from having lost it upstairs. I believe he is addicted to the medications, the enemas and, above all, the attention. His world would fall apart without that. It's what he uses to control a world he can't.

What I've come up with for his back story is pretty sad. In the way that Malvolio's story is sad if you think he is going off to kill himself at the end of Twelfth Night. As I was going through and analyzing Act 1, the obvious dawned on me. He's getting his affairs in order. He's paying off his medical bills, he's arranging a marriage to a doctor for his only daughter and he's writing his second wife into his will so she gets everything. He wants to have a child with his second wife but that's not working out. His personal assistant keeps agitating him, making him think he'll die more quickly.

He thinks he's going to die soon from some mysterious illness no one has been able to identify. His time is limited.

Something about the hypochondria is being used to protect him and the people he loves. It's a way of warding off something really bad happening. I don't really get that either. I try to slog through any illnesses until I hit the wall. But then I did take a Zyrtec yesterday when I felt a scratch in my throat. I think Argan's hypochondria came out of a depression when his first wife went away. Some think she died. I wonder if she had enough of him and left. But that choice might make him more suspicious of others.

Bottom line is I don't know what I'm doing right now but I do know that this can't be played for laughs or it won't have legs. On the other hand, it isn't Strindberg. For it to work I think he needs to genuinely care about his daughter and his second wife. When he feels betrayed by them, it should cut to the core.