What does it take to be an actor in a Charles Mee play?
I will be blunt; it is not easy to be an actor in Mee’s plays. You have to bring A LOT of outside work to the table and once you have gone through all of it (and you most certainly will) you then have to bring more. Mee gives beautiful fragments of a character and it is the actor’s responsibility to explore all possible configurations of these pieces. Not only does the actor need to find a “final” shape, but to examine all sides and angles of each fragment. That means being willing and unafraid to take a line and scream it in the face of your director and then, on another pass, say it with the softest tone you can summon. And of course, trying ALL those options in-between.
There is also the task of reading between the lines in Mee’s plays. His language is heavy stylized (almost no clear indication among the dialogue, stage direction, scene layout, etc.) which generates a list of challenges for not only the actors, but creative team as well. His writing calls you to be flexible, open, and daring. You have to trust what he has written and collaborate with the words and moods Mee creates.
What does being in this world premiere of soot and spit mean to you?
I have a twelve-year-old brother who was diagnosis with autism when he was three. He has very limited communication skills and almost no interest in using the ones he has. His world is playing a variety of video games on the Nintendo Wii or in front of the computer monitor watching YouTube videos of people playing video games. When I call home my parents have to prompt him of what to say to me. I’ll come home for a visit after being gone for months and he looks at me like he just realized I’ve been away. Then he turns back to his video game and I have to wait until he finishes before I can interact with him.
I cannot communicate with my brother the way I want or expect to. I do not have typical conversations with him, I cannot tell him how I feel about him in a way he would understand, and I do not know how he feels or thinks about me.
Like James Castle, my brother lives and engages in a world all his own. They both observe the world in a light I may never be able to see. For me, this world premiere has been a chance to understand and, in a sense, communicate with my brother. In this play I have to submerge myself in the world of James Castle and find a level of cohesiveness for the audience and myself. It is a process I would like to one day undertake with my brother’s world.
Thomas Strawser – The Art Dealer
