Authenticity or Not

Authenticity or NOT? 

or Am I being too anal about this?  

I've had many jobs in my life and could say a couple careers.  I still divide my time between art and theatre and have been lucky to earn money at both.  As an actor, I can tell you (and most other actors will agree) one of the most annoying and frightening parts of the job is the audition process.

 

 Auditions are kind of a mixed blessing.  You are 'Oh, so glad' you have them, but at the same time, wish you were going to a session of waterboarding instead.  The big problem is that you are usually unsure of what the expectations of the producers and directors of a show will be.  How do you plan for the unknown?  Sometimes, you're lucky and on the mark, everything goes well, there are smiles all around, and you have a good shot at the role.  Other times you get the feeling when you pull out your tap shoes and everyone else in the green room has ballet slippers and ballerina buns that you have totally misinterpreted the concept the production is looking for.  That's when the directors watch your audition with that look of bewilderment and a fixed smile and you know the minute you walk into the room that you're screwed.

I have an audition this weekend for a period piece.  The story takes place in medieval times.  The script is not badly written and in the right hands it could be a very cool project.  (This is actor speak for "I genuinely hope I get the part").  There is one problem.  I'm not sure at the present time whether they will be looking for someone who can do the role with an appropriate dialect or if they are planning to do this in pseudo historic times where everyone talks like they came out of the local Wendy's with a couple of 'thy's and 'm'lord's thrown in.  I could ask them ahead of time via email, but I've already asked a different question and I don't want to appear to be a pain before they even meet me.  Actors hate to be labeled a 'problem actor' before they even show up at an audition.  

So I will have to wait and ask them right before my audition and be prepared for both.  I hope they do want some type of dialect.  One, I know if they do I can nail it.  Two, I really hate to watch films and television where the story takes place in another time or in 'generic fantasy land' and all the characters sound like they came from LA Central Casting.  It really takes away some of the magic.  Maybe I'm being to anal or picky, and I don't expect actors to be too authentic.  In the case of the Renaissance or the Middle Ages, if you were too authentic, everyone would need subtitles to understand what the actors are talking about.  

One example that drives me crazy is the new TV series, "Once Upon A Time".  I basically like the cleverness of the plot and the acting isn't bad, but other than a more dramatic hairstyles and costumes, the characters in fairytale land look and sound like they just stepped out of the Valley Galleria.  It may be intentional, but it really takes away from the story for me.  I know there are other examples in film and TV as well.  

So, I'll be ready with my generic, middle-ages, European dialects -French, Irish, or British (if they ask for German or something else, I'd be astonished and impressed), but will ask first.  Otherwise, I'll see that bewildered, fixed smile on the director's face and I'll know I totally screwed the audition.

The Rule of Three

#3

Omne trium perfectum.  The perfection of the number, 3.  I was asked this week to make a small edit to my script for a play for young audiences that is currently in rehearsal.  The director wanted to make use of the 'rule of three' to carry a joke through the play.

As someone who has been performing comedic pieces for a number of years, I am very familiar with the 'rule of three', but it made me wonder why it is so much a part of literature and especially comedy.  Did it start with the Holy Trinity or does it go back even further than that?  Mother, Father, child?   I looked for a Wikipedia listing and there it was.  An analysis of why the number three is so important not only in comedy, but literature in general.  Analyzing stories the listing mentioned the Three Little Pigs, The Three Bears, Three Billy Goats Gruff.  In comedy there are the Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers (yes, I know there were officially four but let's be honest. How many of us really remember Zeppo?)

Already, in my script (as in many stories) the hero gets three tries to win the contest.  Three nights to discover the wily princess' secret.  Everyone knows if you find a magic lamp you get three wishes - one to test it out, one to be greedy, and usually one to mess up everything you've tried to accomplish and take you back to square one.  

That is pretty much the rule of three's in a nutshell.  A story needs one instance or event to establish something.  The second similar event is to build tension and establish a pattern.  Then the third instance comes along to destroy the entire sequence or take the pattern on a sharp detour.  Unwittingly or deliberately almost every good comedy routine or humorous story follows this pattern.  It must be hard wired into the human brain.  Maybe someday I should write a story where the hero gets four chances or maybe seven.  After all, there were seven dwarfs in Snow White.  I wonder why seven?