A very good place to start

As an actor, winning a role usually follows the same process whether the work is on stage or screen. Typically a casting director working with the production company sends out a brief for the characters they’re casting. These can vary in length and detail depending on the role, but mostly they will have at least an age range and a physical description of the character.

Agents then submit suggestions to the casting director from the actors they represent that they think would be appropriate for the roles. The casting director will narrow down the list of submissions to a manageable number of candidates that they will offer auditions to.

Material is sent out – either a monologue or a scene, or multiple pieces if the role is large enough to warrant seeing many sides of the character – and, to coin a phrase, an actor prepares. They arrive at an appointed time and place and do their best in a limited space of time with limited material to display the entirety of their skill and potential.

It often encourages me to remember that all along the chain – from writer to production company to director, casting director, agent and actor – every single person hopes that the when you walk into the audition room you are instantly recognisable as the perfect choice for the role.

Despite what we can learn from Entourage, and despite the voices in our heads that will sometimes whisper ‘They’re all against you...’, nobody in our industry wants you to fail. It makes everyone’s job much simpler when the choices are obvious and perfect and brilliant. This knowledge should make it easier to relax in an audition, and often does. If your audition is expected.

However.

If you happen to be sipping coffee in the middle of Melbourne on a mild winter afternoon, struggling to keep ahead of the hangover brought on by excessive enjoyment of the company of friends in theatre, and you get a phone call from a director who had forgotten to let you know about your audition slot two hours earlier but would still like you to come out to the suburbs, yes, now if possible...relaxing becomes a touch harder.

This was my Saturday, hangover and all, when my only thought had been to crawl home and catch up on DVDs I hadn’t watched since Christmas I found myself on a train to the suburbs desperately trying to appear as actorly as possible.

While waiting for the forgotten phone call that would have informed me of the audition I had read the script, but in the absence of a confirmed time had not done any specific preparation. As I swallowed mints and resisted the vomit-inducing sway of Melbourne’s trains I swam through my mind in search of a monologue.

My swag of Shakespeare* was inadvisable here – onc piece of the audition was a reading of Poe’s The Raven, so verse was already covered, and the nature of the text called for something contemporary.

It wasn’t until I met the director and producer at the station – an awkward, blind date type moment, but without the red carnation – that I remembered a monologue I discovered in my 3^rd year of study and had last performed for an audition at the beginning of 2010.

It was a longish storytelling piece with a touch of darkness and inner turmoil, a story that always struck me as beautiful and simple. A decent choice when compared to the script I was auditioning for, but the last time I read through it was 8 months ago, and that was just to remember the words.

So what does an actor do in this situation? Get out of the way.

Even in the most difficult (or unexpected) of circumstances there is a certain amount of our craft that, practiced long enough, becomes innate, almost subconscious in its execution. Things like standing simply and breathing, focussing on the world that your words create, conveying the clear sense of the monologue without excessive adornment. Even remembering thoughts from 8 months ago.

And if you can stop your mind from spinning, from worrying about the pants you wore or what the director is thinking about your hairstyle (or possibly if the panel can smell lager on your breath), and get out of the way, the text will speak for itself.

That’s usually what it wants to do.

So how did I do? Honestly, I’m not sure. I got out of the way for the most part, remembered the words and felt the sense of the monologue, read the poetry piece well** and communicated as humanly as possible. The reception was friendly and positive, but possibly they were better actors than I?

Whatever the outcome of this episode, it’s always a comfort to know that when I’m on the ropes the training kicks in. The skills are there, even the material if I dig deep enough.

I just have to get out of my own way. 

*Shakespeare is one of my greatest loves, I learn monologues in iambic pentameter for fun. Seriously. At last count I have 18 Shakespearean monologues that I could perform at a moment’s notice. And about a dozen sonnets.

**I’m damn good with verse

Anything you can do...

An open letter to Simon Phillips 

Dear Simon 

It may have come to your attention that you are directing The Importance of Being Earnest at the end of the year. I am of the understanding that you are yet to cast the role of Algernon, younger brother to Jack, confirmed Bunburyist and part-time Ernest.

What with your Broadway commitments and care-free musical theatre lifestyle, I realise you must be a busy man. The time it takes to run auditions and select a cast, even with the army of magical woodland creatures that I assume assist you in running the MTC, must create an annoying imposition on your exotic social schedule. 

As a personal favour, I would like to save you the effort. You see I am the perfect candidate for Algernon. He is me, I am him. It is the part I was born to play. You need only hear a few facts of my existence to come to the same conclusion.

For instance, I taught myself to play piano while at drama school. The pride I feel in having achieved such skill coupled with my complete lack of formal technique means I may not play accurately, but I do play with wonderful expression.
 

Also, as Lady Bracknell states, Algernon has only his debts to rely on. As a young and unemployed actor in a cutthroat industry, debt is about the one constant in my life. I should add that the debt is most usually incurred at one of this city’s many fine theatrical institutions – quite often yours.

I know that you are already convinced, wise and all-knowing as you are, and are probably scrambling for the phone right now to call my agent. But let me continue for the sake of those who might question my validity as Algernon. 

Like Algernon, I am unaware that I have a brother. For the sake of character research, I expect to learn quite soon that I do in fact have a brother. Long lost, if that works best for you.

Quite possibly my favourite food is muffins. I could, if interrogated, name five distinct flavours of muffin that I enjoy. With enough variety in flavouring, I believe muffins could become the sole food requirement of the world. Like rice, but tastier. That’s how much I freaking love muffins. 

I spend much of my time pretending to be other people, for reasons of personal entertainment and financial gain. I usually call it acting but it is, in essence and in practice, the same as Bunburying!

On a professional note, I have been following Toby Schmitz on Twitter for some time now and I feel we have an excellent rapport that would translate into instant chemistry and brilliant humour. 

And finally I have been told that, in a dim light, from an oblique angle, if you’re squinting, I bear a moderate resemblance to a possible nephew of Geoffrey Rush. If he were a woman. The lengths I have gone to to be genetically similar to an actor for a single production are truly remarkable!

So you see in word, deed and daily life I am the very epitome of an Algernon, and I feel I would be accepted in many circles of higher society as an appropriate candidate for an Ernest. 

I look forward to hearing from you and taking the first step in what will no doubt become a legendary professional relationship and lifelong friendship.

Kind Regards and Heartfelt Thanks 

David Lamb

PS – If you believe you have other candidates who are more suited to the role, I will happily audition to prove you wrong.

We must have new forms

While my experiences as a theatre audience member encompass an eclectic range of forms, styles and themes, my personal preferences for entertainment – and the work I want to be involved in – are surprisingly traditional and mainstream.

I’ve watched a 150 minute one act Hamlet entirely in German and been enthralled. I’ve enjoyed the intense existential experience of a one man minimalist Beckett. I’ve been riveted by abstractly devised student works exploring death and romantic relationships through soundscape. And I would happily return to any of these experiences for a second taste. 

But if asked to name my perfect evening of entertainment I would likely admit to a straightforward narrative in a traditional proscenium arch theatre, probably with glitzy music and jazz hands and a romantic plot that resolves neatly into a happy ending.

In a recent conversation with a friend I mentioned playing the guitar and piano, which elicited from him a slightly patronising sigh and the comment ‘of course you do’, as if it explained everything about my artistic sensibilities that I played the most accessible instruments. And perhaps it does. 

The point being that I will often choose some easily digestible entertainment over something more difficult – a blockbuster film over something with subtitles perhaps. It’s not always true, and sometimes I reject the entire mainstream culture out of left-wing artistic guilt, but I definitely appreciate the place of a simple linear narrative in our stage culture.

With this in mind you may better understand me saying I have absolutely no idea what to think following Tuesday night’s preview of David Finnigan’s 22 Short Plays at MKA – it’s not that it doesn’t have a place in our theatrical landscape, just that I don’t personally understand what that place is. 

The format is literally 22 short plays varying in length from around twelve seconds to twelve minutes, with no common theme or narrative connecting them. Some had me choking from laughter, others just left me scratching my head for their lack of point. Some were among the worst pieces of theatre I’ve seen on the Melbourne stage.

This is not to say the acting or writing or direction was bad in any sense, but the difference between the vignettes in style and content was so great that just as I was getting into the swing of one, another would appear at random to throw me completely off balance. It’s an unsettling experience if you’re not expecting it. 

The three performers – Paul Blenheim, Conor Gallacher and Ellen Grimshaw – each tackle a range of characters of varying clarity with great invention, energy and charisma, and the intense intimacy of MKA’s new Prahran space creates an electric communication between the actors and audience that verges on invasive in the less obviously defined moments of the text.

I have to assume that Tobias Manderson-Galvin – both the director of the piece and MKA’s artistic director – had a reason for choosing this work in the first season of the ‘”Theatre of New Writing”, but I can only guess that the rationale was to present something entirely different to an audience. 

There is no thematic link, there is no greater social point, it truly seems to be about trying as many different things as possible on an audience to see what fits. Mostly I felt as though it was one big theatre experiment and I was the test subject, which is both exciting and insulting in equal measure.

It’s not easy or simple and I don’t know if it’s intended to be entirely liked or understood. I left amused, disgusted and thoroughly confused – which really isn’t a bad thing for theatre when you think about it.

**This is a REACTION to 22 Short Plays @ MKA.

**Running until June 18, 8pm Tues-Sat, Level 1, 211 Chapel St Prahran