Thursday, May 9, 2013

Yesteryear in Today's City of Tomorrow

Actors have little "secrets" some-times, something they know about the character that isn't overt in the script and won't be made manifest to the audience but that might give depth or power or nuance to their performances. Sometimes these "secrets" arise in back story or character study, and sometimes they occur during the rehearsal circumstances.

Here's one of mine. Actually more than one. These are book-related secrets. Surprise, surprise.

As The Librarian in Middletown, a role I played recently at Heartland Theatre, I lock up the library one evening and head home with my book bag, putting into it two books-in-progress, with bookmarks in them, and keeping out one book that I open and read aloud to the audience. It is, fictionally, Yesteryear in Today's City of Tomorrrow, the story of the history of the settlement of Middletown, back to the Chakmawg Indian days.

This was, in fact, an ex-library book, call number on the spine, and I wrote in the margins "in a bright red pen" the things the script says are written there: "anxiety, sickness, death, spiritual," and, a few pages later, "atmosphere." I also provided the blue barrette used as a bookmark by the imaginary child reader who wrote those words in the book's margins.

The other two books in my book bag were, in fact, books I was in the middle of reading, too intense to continue during the rehearsal and performance process: The Book of Disquiet, by Fernando Pessoa, with a melancholy narrator rather like John Dodge, one of the main characters of Middletown, and When I Was a Child I Read Books, by Marilynne Robinson, chosen by me because it is intelligent, rigorous, has "child" and "books" in the title, and relates to my attempt to remind a smart, writerly guy, The Mechanic, who he is, was, and will be if he can figure out how to live "in the middle of all of our different ideas about life."

The book bag was my AWP Chicago 2012 book bag with red handles that matched my red Converse high tops. Yes, my entire costume was from my own closet, a sort of goofy outfit I have, I hate to confess it, actually worn in real life: blue flower print, um, "clown" pants; pale beige button-down shirt; navy blue sweater with beige and brown embroidered fall leaves, plus gold stitching at the edges and random shiny beads; and said red high tops.

Costumer secret: The Everyman, Earthmother, and Essential Child characters in the play all wore Converse high tops: black, red, and gray. So now you know.


P.S. Sunglasses were almost invented in Middletown.

13 comments:

Dale said...

Well, that is as charming as could possibly be! :-)

Kathleen said...

Thank you, Dale! I love the play and highly recommend it. Reading or seeing it.

Ponyboy Garfunkel said...

I would like to see you, very cool and all, in shades and red high tops.

Kathleen said...

Thanks, Ponyboy. (I have boring but wonderful clip-on shades.)

Sandy Longhorn said...

That red AWP 2012 book bag is my favorite, along with the very similar blue one from DC in 2011. FYI: this year's bag was a loser for me for many reasons: 1) the texture was nearly plastic and really scratchy 2) it was oblong and the handles were on the short end 3) not enough room between handles and top of bag, couldn't get it comfortably over shoulder.

Yep, I'm an AWP bookbag snob! :)

Kathleen said...

Oh, I agree, Sandy. Hanging it over the shoulder is crucial!

Cathy said...

How cool that you got to manufacture your character from little pieces of you! I wish I could have seen the play.

Kathleen said...

Great way to state that, Cathy. I was sort of like a Joseph Cornell assemblage.

seana graham said...

VERY tangentially related to any of this, I was at work today and a woman asked me for the book Overdressed: the Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion. When I couldn't find our copies, she ordered one, saying that she really needed to read a book that would tell her to just stop.

I didn't want to tell her that I have pretty much the opposite problem, which is that my wardrobe needs a major overhaul. Having lived out of my suitcase for the last month, I realized that these were really the best clothes I had and they really aren't all that good, for the most part. But I'm sure the two problems are actually related.

Kathleen said...

Ah, Seana, you know I love the tangential. I lived with a much reduced closet after a house fire, during the renovation. (No clothes were lost, but they were inaccessible and busy being fumigated.) My daughter stills frowns upon a crazy pink sweater I bought during this period.

seana graham said...

I bought some plaid rain boots in the event it would rain sometime this month for the same reason. Probably fortunate that I don't have a daughter in this instance.

Mom said...

Why does none of this information surprise me? I recognized some of the clothes, of course, and the book bag. I thought the barrette was probably one of yours or Ave's. I wasn't sure what was inside the bag. Sorry more of your internet friends couldn't have seen the production.

Kathleen said...

Thanks, Mom. Yes, it was one of Ave's, which she handed over in a fine eye-rolling way. Of course, she wore my jewelry to prom.