The more time I spend in rehearsal, and with the Of Mice and
Men crew, the more I think about friendship, and what that really means inside
the walls of the theater and beyond. In particular, Jud (who plays George) and
I have a scene together that I've been thinking about quite a bit. In the
scene, Slim asks George about the nature of his relationship with Lennie.
George slowly opens up to Slim, and towards the end of the conversation, he
gives a harrowing account of hiding from an angry lynch mob, with Lennie,
half-submerged in an irrigation ditch.
I mention this scene in particular because I'm struggling
with it. Slim doesn't appear to do much after a certain point in the
conversation, and a cynical person could say that he is just there to move the
story along, to give George a reason to divulge the escalating concern that he
is having about Lennie. But that would be a terribly self-defeating angle for
me to do the scene from as an actor, so I mentioned my problem to Jud in
passing after a recent rehearsal. To paraphrase, he responded by asking me to
think about the way that my character would be affected, just hearing and
considering George's perspective -- that this guy would be willing to suffer
through something horrible for a true friend that he probably wouldn't suffer
for a blood relative on a good day.
What is it that might make us shiver sopping wet with a
friend in an irrigation ditch? Something like love? I don't know that there's a
truly accurate word for it, but I think we all understand it. I think Slim
understands it, and I like to think that it drives most of his action in the
play -- as I'm learning about him, he seems to act in order to serve these
unspoken understandings in the ways he best sees fit. Even when he agrees that
the elderly Candy should let his beloved and decrepit old dog be shot, it seems
to be with the understanding that letting go would be the best thing Candy
could do for his friend. He seems to understand the idea that to have
something, you must eventually lose that something.
On the very first night of rehearsal, as a relative
outsider, I was immediately struck by the obvious bonds of friendship that the
members of our cast have with each other (and maybe more than a little jealous
that they all get to study and work together at CSI most days). It's a really nice
feeling -- the feeling of being part of something special, and the best part of
this production for me so far has been having the opportunity to get to know
the other cast members and to spend time with the ones I already know. I know
I'm not the first to say it, and I surely won't be the last, but it really is a
talented group of people, with a lot of natural chemistry onstage and off. In
my mind, it's still very early in the process, and we've already made some cool
discoveries. I'm excited thinking about what the finished product might look
like.
This is my second RAT show (I also played Jedediah and a
slew of other characters in The Laramie Project, in 2008? 2009?...I think), and
I hope it's not my last. Ultimately, every show will close, and I'll have these
weird pangs of regret and longing as I walk out of the fine arts building for
the last time in January to not see all of these cool people nearly as much as
I'd like, but that's theatre, yeah? Moment to moment. Very much like the lives
of the characters in Of Mice and Men. Very much like our lives today, all of
the time. To have something, you must eventually lose that something.
It's not a sad thing. It's just a thing. And in this moment,
it's awesome.
-Patrick Rexroat - Playing Slim
No comments:
Post a Comment