As is appropriate, today’s blog post by our voice and dialect coach, Chuck Richie, is an audio file. Happy listening!
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In Our Country’s Good, I play two characters, Captain David Collins and Robert Sideway. Both characters are based on real life people, and it has been intriguing to dig into their stories through history as well as through the world of the play. Where do these two versions of Collins and Sideway overlap and when do they not? Today, I would like to share a bit about Robert Sideway.
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In the spirit of exploring process, let’s dig a little deeper into exactly how I put together the new poster for Our Country’s Good. This post will be a bit technical, but that’s what this blog is for.
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It’s always interesting playing a real life character. In Our Country’s Good, I play Lt. Ralph Clark, a British officer in the Royal Marines. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1755 or 1762 (there is some disagreement), he enlisted in the Royal Marines and fought in the American Revolutionary War and was part of the “First Fleet”, which transported convicts to a penal colony in what is now known as Australia.
Additionally, he kept detailed diaries of his experiences of the early days of the British colonization of Australia. Included in his diaries are accounts of his homesickness for his wife, Betsey Alicia; his despair at the conditions and lack of food and other provisions in the new land in which he finds himself; and his pleasure witnessing the punishment of the convicts.
While all of this information is helpful, I am not tasked with playing Lt. Ralph Clark in a historical reenactment of British colonization. Instead, I am creating the character of Lt. Ralph Clark that lives on the pages of Our Country’s Good, as imagined by the playwright.
The main character I get to explore is Dabby Bryant. One of the things that interests me about this play is that many of the characters we portray were pulled from actual officers or convicts in the "First Fleet" of convict ships to Australia. However, while the characters are pulled from historical fact, the play takes many liberties in changing details, omitting details, or fabricating histories about these characters. It's been fascinating to dig in and find what was historical truth, and what is only true in the world of our play.
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My introduction to the Michael Chekhov technique was in my first year of grad school in 2018 at Kent State University with Fabio Polanco. Over the course of two years, we learned and applied various exercises, from Crossing the Threshold to the Four Brothers, Qualities of Movement, and Psychological Gesture. Because the MFA program was for Returning Professionals, many of us were attempting to break down, untangle, and perhaps even define our unique approaches to acting, so that in theory, we could share that pedagogy with others. While digging into my past process, I was also being offered a whole new set of tools that could lead to inspired performance.
In summer of 2021 I attended the Great Lakes Michael Chekhov Consortium. After a year of pandemic life and teaching theatre history online, spending a week in play and joyful connection with other artists was a gift. The intensive reinforced my enthusiasm and curiosity.
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The rehearsal process for Our Country’s Good has been unlike any other project that I’ve been involved with previously. Many times, the preparation before and even during rehearsals can feel like a very solitary endeavor. You spend countless hours locked in a room memorizing lines or conducting research about your character or the play in its totality. There’s only so much time to actually play because there’s inevitably an emphasis placed on shaping a show, finding the beats, and capitalizing on the major focal points of the production.
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I used to perform in educational outreach tours, for years, and almost every-time I played multiple characters. It was a strong suit of mine; it was easy. However, I was younger, and have learned new things since; also the process was different and expedited. I used to put on the characters like masks, off and on, switch and play, a new voice and a new oversized physicality to show the kids a clean and clear difference. It's acting, but the rules and application are slightly different than how I approach things now. Now, I search for an honesty that comes from inside of me as opposed to an honesty that will be easily understood based off of audience expectations. I want to avoid creating an archetypal caricature - which is isn’t bad - but it doesn’t feel right to me anymore. I want to be grounded, and I want voices to feel real, inside out, not outside in. And to achieve that for this show, I knew i’d have to go about it differently.
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Lighting is an interesting design element because it can serve so many different functions within a show but normally it feels relegated to a support role. Often time it is used simply to direct focus or emphasize a particular element of the show. More nuanced applications include setting mood, time of day, or weather.
During rehearsal several weeks ago, I was discussing my initial lighting thoughts when Craig mentioned that it is not often that lighting is thought of as a storytelling technique……