As an out-of-work actor, that means I have day job. I work as technical support for a software company and I'm pretty good at my job. I'm one of the subject matter experts for the underlying software and in addition to responding to user issues, I do trainings, develop new business functionalty, etc.
But what this means is that I am often asked to go on business trips to conduct large-scale trainings of our software for the users. This can cause problems when I actually get into a show. My schedule suddenly becomes strange: Well, if you want me to do the training, then if it's during this month, I can leave on a Wednesday, train on Thursday, and return on Friday so that I'll only miss the Wednesday rehearsal. But during these two weeks, I can't go at all because we're rehearsing every day. Once the show opens, I can fly on Monday, train on Tuesday, and come back on Wednesday so I can make the Thursday performance.
At which point, the project manager looks at me with that look of, "You're trouble."
In this particular case, I've got it happening twice. There's a show coming up that I'm hoping to get into. However, work has got a potential training situation they want me to do. I have a colleague who can also do trainings, but he's currently overseas for two weeks doing them so it would be inappropriate to send him immediately after he comes back. Auditions are next week, but I don't have a solid schedule for when the training they'd want me to do is.
Fortunately, it's early enough in the rehearsal run that I should be able to do it without too much trouble, but there's always the issue of the director preferring to have someone without schedule conflicts.
And then, later in the year, there's another show that a director has asked me to do, we've been planning it for about a year, and it's all set...except work is gunning for a new contract that will involve sending a tech person out to guide the new clients in how to use the software.
Oh, and did I mention that this would be in Hawaii?
Now, we don't have the contract yet and therefore I am in clearly counting my chickens before they have hatched. But man do I have to hope that everything works out so that I can do my shows and be able to do the Hawaii job.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Third Midnight Gone
So Into the Woods is over. We had a good run. I had the hardest time feeling the flow of the show, and this is one of my favorites. I saw it when it was on its original tour in Los Angeles with Cleo Laine as the Witch and Charlotte Rae as Jack's Mother. I've been trying to get into a production of this show ever since.
But I was playing the Narrator (without also being the Mysterious Man...a mistake, in my opinion) and all of his lines are the same: "And so the Baker, having adverbly verbed the noun, went after the object. As for the other character...." His lines are the connecting glue between the scenes and thus there isn't any real flow to help me remember which one is which. He doesn't have very many lines, but trying to remember that this time it's "continued his search for the cape as red as blood" as opposed to "went after the red cape" and that the next scene I'm introducing is about Rapunzel and not Jack just kept on eluding me.
So I had to do what I've never done: I wrote down all of my lines on index cards with my cue line. Now, this is hardly a bad method of dealing with your lines. Lots of actors do it and I'm not saying anything against it. It's just that my own method of working a script is to get a handle on the flow of the show such that everything seems to naturally come from what happened before. It makes me feel better internally to have that in my head. This doesn't mean that I've "memorized the whole show," as such. It's not like I can pull any line from any point at any time. But it does mean that so long as I know what just happened, I know what's coming next.
But because of the somewhat disjointed nature of Into the Woods, what comes next often has nothing to do with what just happened and the Narrator is the one charged with keeping the continuity between scenes. So throughout the run of the show, I'm pulling out my cards just before I walk on stage to remind myself of which "gazinta" this is, to borrow a term from Tommy Tune (the "gazinta" is the transition between scenes...this scene "goes into"..."gazintas"...the next.)
But even then, there were times where I was wondering what on earth was coming out of my mouth: "Jack and his wife." His wife? When did Jack marry his mother? I mean, I know it's Sondheim and he's not above such bizarre scenarios, but really.
"After having cast out Rapunzel to a remote desert, the Prince returned to take the Prince by surprise...er...the Witch returned to take the Prince by surprise."
All sorts of instances of what I call the "five foot phenomenon" happened. The "five foot phenomenon" is that ability to have your lines down perfectly when you're standing in the wings but when you move five feet so that you're now on stage, they all seem to vanish. But if you were to immediately step off stage, they call come back. There's something about breaking the sight line that makes you brain go crazy.
But in the end, the audiences loved the show.
But my plans for what I'm doing for the summer have all fallen through. I was originally set to be playing one of the aunts in Arsenic and Old Lace. This was an idea the artistic director for the theatre had: To have me and another male actor friend play the aunts. Not so much as a gimmick (though there is some of that) but rather to have a new take on the performance.
But alas, despite having planned this for about a year, the other actor had to bow out. We scrambled around to find another actor to replace him, but we were looking for one with whom I had a good rapport. We didn't want this to be a gimmick of "It's two guys!" but rather to have a good pair of men who can work together in those roles. The director didn't want to have to worry about having a bad fit through an open audition process (since we don't have the time to search for the perfect counterpart to me), so they're going ahead with women in the roles.
So I'm somewhat sad: When I do drag roles, I win awards. Hmm...maybe that should tell me something about my career path. Anybody up for Where's Charley? or Hairspray?
So I move on to audition for The Importance of Being Earnest. I had just won Best Actor for my performance as Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes' Excellent Adventure at the theatre company putting on Earnest literally the day before the audition. Earnest is being directed by the vocal coach we had for Sherlock and while I never expect connections to get me a job, it's good not to go in as a complete unknown. The flip side of that is that directors often wind up stereotyping you. A director who I was in grad school with was auditioning for Pippin and had me up for Leading Player. He was having us sing "Simple Joys" and after I was done, he blurts out, "Wow! I really didn't think you had the chops for that." He had a vision of me from our past and I had to work through that preconception. I didn't get the part, but it was good to show him that I am more versatile than he thought.
But, as was the case then, I didn't get the part in Earnest either. There was a lot of depth in the talent that showed up, so I expect it'll be a good show. Wish I could have been in it.
But, this means I'm open for Arsenic and Old Lace to audition for Mortimer. Maybe I'll be in that show after all.
But I was playing the Narrator (without also being the Mysterious Man...a mistake, in my opinion) and all of his lines are the same: "And so the Baker, having adverbly verbed the noun, went after the object. As for the other character...." His lines are the connecting glue between the scenes and thus there isn't any real flow to help me remember which one is which. He doesn't have very many lines, but trying to remember that this time it's "continued his search for the cape as red as blood" as opposed to "went after the red cape" and that the next scene I'm introducing is about Rapunzel and not Jack just kept on eluding me.
So I had to do what I've never done: I wrote down all of my lines on index cards with my cue line. Now, this is hardly a bad method of dealing with your lines. Lots of actors do it and I'm not saying anything against it. It's just that my own method of working a script is to get a handle on the flow of the show such that everything seems to naturally come from what happened before. It makes me feel better internally to have that in my head. This doesn't mean that I've "memorized the whole show," as such. It's not like I can pull any line from any point at any time. But it does mean that so long as I know what just happened, I know what's coming next.
But because of the somewhat disjointed nature of Into the Woods, what comes next often has nothing to do with what just happened and the Narrator is the one charged with keeping the continuity between scenes. So throughout the run of the show, I'm pulling out my cards just before I walk on stage to remind myself of which "gazinta" this is, to borrow a term from Tommy Tune (the "gazinta" is the transition between scenes...this scene "goes into"..."gazintas"...the next.)
But even then, there were times where I was wondering what on earth was coming out of my mouth: "Jack and his wife." His wife? When did Jack marry his mother? I mean, I know it's Sondheim and he's not above such bizarre scenarios, but really.
"After having cast out Rapunzel to a remote desert, the Prince returned to take the Prince by surprise...er...the Witch returned to take the Prince by surprise."
All sorts of instances of what I call the "five foot phenomenon" happened. The "five foot phenomenon" is that ability to have your lines down perfectly when you're standing in the wings but when you move five feet so that you're now on stage, they all seem to vanish. But if you were to immediately step off stage, they call come back. There's something about breaking the sight line that makes you brain go crazy.
But in the end, the audiences loved the show.
But my plans for what I'm doing for the summer have all fallen through. I was originally set to be playing one of the aunts in Arsenic and Old Lace. This was an idea the artistic director for the theatre had: To have me and another male actor friend play the aunts. Not so much as a gimmick (though there is some of that) but rather to have a new take on the performance.
But alas, despite having planned this for about a year, the other actor had to bow out. We scrambled around to find another actor to replace him, but we were looking for one with whom I had a good rapport. We didn't want this to be a gimmick of "It's two guys!" but rather to have a good pair of men who can work together in those roles. The director didn't want to have to worry about having a bad fit through an open audition process (since we don't have the time to search for the perfect counterpart to me), so they're going ahead with women in the roles.
So I'm somewhat sad: When I do drag roles, I win awards. Hmm...maybe that should tell me something about my career path. Anybody up for Where's Charley? or Hairspray?
So I move on to audition for The Importance of Being Earnest. I had just won Best Actor for my performance as Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes' Excellent Adventure at the theatre company putting on Earnest literally the day before the audition. Earnest is being directed by the vocal coach we had for Sherlock and while I never expect connections to get me a job, it's good not to go in as a complete unknown. The flip side of that is that directors often wind up stereotyping you. A director who I was in grad school with was auditioning for Pippin and had me up for Leading Player. He was having us sing "Simple Joys" and after I was done, he blurts out, "Wow! I really didn't think you had the chops for that." He had a vision of me from our past and I had to work through that preconception. I didn't get the part, but it was good to show him that I am more versatile than he thought.
But, as was the case then, I didn't get the part in Earnest either. There was a lot of depth in the talent that showed up, so I expect it'll be a good show. Wish I could have been in it.
But, this means I'm open for Arsenic and Old Lace to audition for Mortimer. Maybe I'll be in that show after all.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Too Young to Play 50
So auditions for To Kill a Mockingbird just came and went. The director had asked me to come out for Atticus and I was feeling good. Now, I never think I actually have a part until I have a script in my hand at the read-through, but I was feeling optimistic.
At least, I did until I got there. I then realized that even though I'm in my 40s, I'm still too young to play Atticus. The text says he's pushing 50 but it seems that the Dick Clark genes aren't on my side this time. It's generally a good thing to look younger than you are in this profession, but this wasn't one of those times. Another actor was there in the light suit who was doing a good job, too, and while I thought I might have edged him out with regard to the performance part, he looked the part more and thus, he landed the role.
I get to concentrate on work now. I've been teaching myself JavaScript and I've been working on creating a clock script. Not that hard, I know, but the issue has to do with where the scripts are going to run. Our software allows the users to create customized pages and it will recognize scripting, but it doesn't provide access to the HEAD tag. Thus, all scripting has to be capable of being run in-line. Thus, the script is triggered by a window.onload function. But, the users will want to have multiple clocks so I had to develop a method that would allow multiple clocks (for whatever time zones they choose) be loaded.
And on top of that, the designer where the users will build the page will actually run the script that's on the page. Thus, since the clock is continually updating, leaving the page will always trigger the, "Your page changed. If you leave without saving, you'll lose your changes," message...even if you just saved the page. So, I developed a method to detect where you are in the system so that if you're in the design section, the clock doesn't run. Anywhere else, it does.
But after a few days of going through JavaScript references (while continuing to support the users and do the trainings), I've managed to get them to work. The users will still need to do a bit of coding to load the script and put in the correct DIV reference, but it's mostly plug-and-play and they'll be able to have a clock that isn't a third-party solution.
At least, I did until I got there. I then realized that even though I'm in my 40s, I'm still too young to play Atticus. The text says he's pushing 50 but it seems that the Dick Clark genes aren't on my side this time. It's generally a good thing to look younger than you are in this profession, but this wasn't one of those times. Another actor was there in the light suit who was doing a good job, too, and while I thought I might have edged him out with regard to the performance part, he looked the part more and thus, he landed the role.
I get to concentrate on work now. I've been teaching myself JavaScript and I've been working on creating a clock script. Not that hard, I know, but the issue has to do with where the scripts are going to run. Our software allows the users to create customized pages and it will recognize scripting, but it doesn't provide access to the HEAD tag. Thus, all scripting has to be capable of being run in-line. Thus, the script is triggered by a window.onload function. But, the users will want to have multiple clocks so I had to develop a method that would allow multiple clocks (for whatever time zones they choose) be loaded.
And on top of that, the designer where the users will build the page will actually run the script that's on the page. Thus, since the clock is continually updating, leaving the page will always trigger the, "Your page changed. If you leave without saving, you'll lose your changes," message...even if you just saved the page. So, I developed a method to detect where you are in the system so that if you're in the design section, the clock doesn't run. Anywhere else, it does.
But after a few days of going through JavaScript references (while continuing to support the users and do the trainings), I've managed to get them to work. The users will still need to do a bit of coding to load the script and put in the correct DIV reference, but it's mostly plug-and-play and they'll be able to have a clock that isn't a third-party solution.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
The Ultimate Special Effect
There was a significant earthquake Easter Sunday, April 4, about 3:40 pm Pacific time in Baja California. We were just getting ready to start the second act of Into the Woods at OnStage Playhouse. Now, for those who don't know Woods, it's an amalgamation of various fairy tales: Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and includes a story of a Baker and his Wife. At the end of the first act, everything seems to have been wrapped up: Cinderella and Rapunzel have their Princes, Little Red is saved from the Wolf, and Jack has survived his trip to the land of the Giants in the sky. The "happy ever after" is so complete that during the original run of the show, many people never came back for Act II because they thought the show was over. They added a line to let people know that the show as "to be continued."
Alas, one of the magic beans is still around and another stalk grows into the sky. At the top of Act II, the characters are expounding on how happy they are (despite some minor inconveniences) when there is a huge rumbling and what seems to an earthquake tosses everyone around. It's the wife of the giant whom Jack killed coming down the second stalk and looking for the lad who killed her husband.
So we're walking on stage to start Act II...when an actual earthquake hits. Now, we're all Southern Californians. Earthquakes happen. And there hasn't been a big earthquake in the San Diego area for quite some time. So it started off as usual...people looking at each other thinking, "Was that an earthquake?" And then it kept on going. And going. "Um, I don't think we want to be underneath the lights," and we all evacuate the theatre. After about 15 minutes, it's clear that it's over, there's no damage, and we all go back in and start Act II.
Now, the timing was either just off or absolutely perfect, dpeending on how you look at it. If it had happened about five minutes later (and we did need to hold both opening and intermission a bit longer because of slow patrons), it would have struck exactly when the giant was supposed to be attacking. But if it had, we would have had to have evacuated in the middle of performing and then restart somehow in the middle. As it was, since it happened right when intermission was over, we were able to start up Act II without any interruptions. And when the characters experience the giants attack, thinking it was an earthquake, the audience got a good laugh...though there was one child in the house who got scared, thinking that another earthquake was happening, this time much more violent as the actors are thrown to the ground.
This was better than the last intermission interruption I had. I was doing The Fantasticks at the Coronado Playhouse. It was July. Independence Day weekend. So Act II is starting up, the audience is coming back in, when BOOM! What the...? BOOM! CRACKLE! Ah, yes, the fireworks display. The Coronado Playhouse is on the bay and the city's fireworks display has just started. Everybody leaves the theatre to watch the show. Well, we're not going to start the show without the audience and even if we did, it's so loud that we really couldn't perform. So the cast goes out the back to watch, too.
This is why I love live theatre.
Alas, one of the magic beans is still around and another stalk grows into the sky. At the top of Act II, the characters are expounding on how happy they are (despite some minor inconveniences) when there is a huge rumbling and what seems to an earthquake tosses everyone around. It's the wife of the giant whom Jack killed coming down the second stalk and looking for the lad who killed her husband.
So we're walking on stage to start Act II...when an actual earthquake hits. Now, we're all Southern Californians. Earthquakes happen. And there hasn't been a big earthquake in the San Diego area for quite some time. So it started off as usual...people looking at each other thinking, "Was that an earthquake?" And then it kept on going. And going. "Um, I don't think we want to be underneath the lights," and we all evacuate the theatre. After about 15 minutes, it's clear that it's over, there's no damage, and we all go back in and start Act II.
Now, the timing was either just off or absolutely perfect, dpeending on how you look at it. If it had happened about five minutes later (and we did need to hold both opening and intermission a bit longer because of slow patrons), it would have struck exactly when the giant was supposed to be attacking. But if it had, we would have had to have evacuated in the middle of performing and then restart somehow in the middle. As it was, since it happened right when intermission was over, we were able to start up Act II without any interruptions. And when the characters experience the giants attack, thinking it was an earthquake, the audience got a good laugh...though there was one child in the house who got scared, thinking that another earthquake was happening, this time much more violent as the actors are thrown to the ground.
This was better than the last intermission interruption I had. I was doing The Fantasticks at the Coronado Playhouse. It was July. Independence Day weekend. So Act II is starting up, the audience is coming back in, when BOOM! What the...? BOOM! CRACKLE! Ah, yes, the fireworks display. The Coronado Playhouse is on the bay and the city's fireworks display has just started. Everybody leaves the theatre to watch the show. Well, we're not going to start the show without the audience and even if we did, it's so loud that we really couldn't perform. So the cast goes out the back to watch, too.
This is why I love live theatre.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Putting the Service in UPS
Up front: I hate UPS. Of all the methods of shipping something somewhere, I detest UPS. They seem to think that the only people who receive packages are shut-ins and businesses. How else to explain their decision to deliver only between 8 am and 6 pm? So how do I, who have a day job and thus am not home to receive the package, supposed to sign for it?
"But just pick it up at the UPS facility." Um, did you not hear that they're only open from 8 to 6? I'm at work then.
"You can't pick it up at lunch?" I ride a motorcycle to work. Where am I going to put it when I pick it up?
"But they have late pickup from 8 to 8:30." And I'm in rehearsal then.
"Anybody else to pick it up?" No. Just me.
And they aren't open on Saturdays for me to get it. And to have them deliver to a separate address is considered a "separate charge" unless the original shipper agrees to it.
Now, I fortunately have Friday off so I can go get my package, but I shouldn't have to. When you work in a service industry, you should keep customer hours, not business hours. That means opening before people get to work in the morning and staying open after they go home. Open Saturday, too.
"But just pick it up at the UPS facility." Um, did you not hear that they're only open from 8 to 6? I'm at work then.
"You can't pick it up at lunch?" I ride a motorcycle to work. Where am I going to put it when I pick it up?
"But they have late pickup from 8 to 8:30." And I'm in rehearsal then.
"Anybody else to pick it up?" No. Just me.
And they aren't open on Saturdays for me to get it. And to have them deliver to a separate address is considered a "separate charge" unless the original shipper agrees to it.
Now, I fortunately have Friday off so I can go get my package, but I shouldn't have to. When you work in a service industry, you should keep customer hours, not business hours. That means opening before people get to work in the morning and staying open after they go home. Open Saturday, too.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Tweetstalked by a Theatre
So I went to see Monsieur Chopin at the the Laguna Playhouse over the weekend. On a whim, I tweeted that I was. I did not tweet this to the LP, just mentioned it.
They tweeted me back, hoping I had a good time. Apparently they monitor the Twitterverse for tweets that mention them. That's certainly an interesting marketing method. It was nice, but now I don't know what to do in response. Say thank you? I did audition for the Laguna Playhouse once a long time ago. I doubt they would remember it.
By the way: Monsieur Chopin was wonderful. Hershey Felder is a brilliant pianist and has clearly studied his subject, being able to take questions from the audience while staying in character. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to see Gershwin Alone, one of the three parts of his "Composer Sonata," but I'm definitely going to try and see Beethoven, As I Knew Him when it opens in May.
During the QA period, he had made some disparaging comments about Beethoven (as part of the character), saying that it was banging and noise. We'll have to go back and see if we can get the other side: "Herr Beethoven, it seems Monsieur Chopin has made some comments that might be considered, well, less than favorable regarding your music. What might you say in response?"
They tweeted me back, hoping I had a good time. Apparently they monitor the Twitterverse for tweets that mention them. That's certainly an interesting marketing method. It was nice, but now I don't know what to do in response. Say thank you? I did audition for the Laguna Playhouse once a long time ago. I doubt they would remember it.
By the way: Monsieur Chopin was wonderful. Hershey Felder is a brilliant pianist and has clearly studied his subject, being able to take questions from the audience while staying in character. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to see Gershwin Alone, one of the three parts of his "Composer Sonata," but I'm definitely going to try and see Beethoven, As I Knew Him when it opens in May.
During the QA period, he had made some disparaging comments about Beethoven (as part of the character), saying that it was banging and noise. We'll have to go back and see if we can get the other side: "Herr Beethoven, it seems Monsieur Chopin has made some comments that might be considered, well, less than favorable regarding your music. What might you say in response?"
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Reading Done, Time to Narrate
So Copenhagen has come and gone. I saw this show when it was on tour some years ago and I must say that I think our reading was much better than that show. Copenhagen is a difficult piece: It's only three characters constantly talking at each other. On top of that, they go over the same point multiple times. And then, of course, there is the subject matter: Nuclear physics.
Copenhagen is about the meeting between Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr in September of 1941. World War II was in full swing, and Denmark was occupied by Germany. German Heisenberg went to Denmark to visit his old, Danish mentor, Bohr. Both were theoretical physicists, working on the internals of the atom. In the 20s, the two had worked together to come up with what is called the "Copenhagen Interpreation" of Quantum Mechanics.
In the late 30s, nuclear fission had been discovered. When a neutron is fired at an atom of uranium, it splits and releases energy and in the process, a couple more neutrons. Could this process be used to create a weapon? Thus, the meeting between Heisenberg and Bohr is so fraught. Bohr had been working with the Americans on nuclear physics previously and had done work in the fission of uranium. Bohr's contention was that it was impossible at the time to build a weapon out of uranium.
Natural uranium comes in two different types: 235U and 238U (the number refers to the number of neutrons in the nucleus of the atom). In naturally-occurring uranium, most of it is made of the 238U type which requires extremely fast neutrons in order to split. In 235U, the neutrons don't need to be so fast. If you were going to make a bomb, you'd need mostly 235U, but it is extremely difficult to separate out the two types. Given the processes at the time, Bohr figured it would take about 26,000 years to get enough to make a bomb.
Had Heisenberg figured out a way to make a bomb out of uranium? What exactly did the two talk about? While visiting, it seems the conversation failed miserably with the visit cut short. However, the two were talking outside and alone and thus there are no records of what happened. In later years, Heisenberg would talk about what happened but the story varied over the various tellings.
And this is part of what makes the play so difficult. Not only do you have to explain the workings of nuclear physics in such a way that people who don't know anything about it can at least follow what it is the two scientists are talking about and do so in an entertaining way, but also there is the fact that the story keeps changing. Now, this is dramatically and metaphorically appropriate. Heisenberg developed the Uncertainty Principle which states you cannot know both the position and momentum of a particle with unlimited precision. There will always be a little bit of uncertainty. This is because the act of measuring one of those properties changes the other. Thus, in the context of the play, trying to measure what it was that happened back in 1941 will change our vision of what happened. Thus, the repeated attempts to understand what happened.
But from an audience's point of view, it can become repetitive. In the production that I saw, it seems the direction had the actors being somewhat wooden, as if the heaviness of the physics was considered too important. And yet, my experience as a scientist was that the stodginess and seriousness protrayed in the show was nothing like the way scientists work when they have a disagreement. When it is a fundamental point of contention, you get into knock-down, drag-out fights. Thus, the play needs to get more agitated when there are conflicts between the characters.
The playhouse uses their readings as a way to get some feedback from the community regarding what kinds of shows they would like to see in the future, possibly to mount a full production of the play. Reaction was a bit to be expected: Many liked it but found it a bit difficult to follow, and a few complained about the repetitivesness, but the overall response was quite positive.
But, that's over and now I'm off to the next production: Into the Woods. I've been cast as the Narrator, but the production has decided to split it from the Mysterious Man. I'm a bit saddened by this because there are some very important plot points that depend upon the two being the same person. The show opens with the lines, "Once upon a time, in a far off kingdom, there lived a fair maiden; a sad, young lad; and a childless baker with his wife." These lines are spoken by the Narrator. At the end of the show, the Baker tells his son, "Once upon a time, in a far off kingdom, there lived a fair maiden; a sad, young lad; and a childless baker with his wife."
We learn through the course of the show that the Mysterious Man is the Baker's father. And thus, if the Narrator is the Mysterious Man, the show is not just a whimsical, "Let's see what happens if all the fairy tales were mashed together," but rather is the Narrator's story, told to his son, the Baker; told to the Baker's son, and thus the creation of a new fairy tale is born.
Plus, there is a recurrent theme of the past returning when you thought it was dead. The Baker thought his father died in a "baking accident," but it turns out that he didn't. The other characters feed the Narrator to the Giant who kills him, or so they think, but the Mysterious Man returns. In the song, "No More," the Mysterious Man sings, "We disappoint, we disappear, we die, but we don't."
That said, the script itself seems to understand that companies might want to split the characters. But despite my misgivings, I'm going to do it as I love the show and I'd rather be in it than not.
Copenhagen is about the meeting between Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr in September of 1941. World War II was in full swing, and Denmark was occupied by Germany. German Heisenberg went to Denmark to visit his old, Danish mentor, Bohr. Both were theoretical physicists, working on the internals of the atom. In the 20s, the two had worked together to come up with what is called the "Copenhagen Interpreation" of Quantum Mechanics.
In the late 30s, nuclear fission had been discovered. When a neutron is fired at an atom of uranium, it splits and releases energy and in the process, a couple more neutrons. Could this process be used to create a weapon? Thus, the meeting between Heisenberg and Bohr is so fraught. Bohr had been working with the Americans on nuclear physics previously and had done work in the fission of uranium. Bohr's contention was that it was impossible at the time to build a weapon out of uranium.
Natural uranium comes in two different types: 235U and 238U (the number refers to the number of neutrons in the nucleus of the atom). In naturally-occurring uranium, most of it is made of the 238U type which requires extremely fast neutrons in order to split. In 235U, the neutrons don't need to be so fast. If you were going to make a bomb, you'd need mostly 235U, but it is extremely difficult to separate out the two types. Given the processes at the time, Bohr figured it would take about 26,000 years to get enough to make a bomb.
Had Heisenberg figured out a way to make a bomb out of uranium? What exactly did the two talk about? While visiting, it seems the conversation failed miserably with the visit cut short. However, the two were talking outside and alone and thus there are no records of what happened. In later years, Heisenberg would talk about what happened but the story varied over the various tellings.
And this is part of what makes the play so difficult. Not only do you have to explain the workings of nuclear physics in such a way that people who don't know anything about it can at least follow what it is the two scientists are talking about and do so in an entertaining way, but also there is the fact that the story keeps changing. Now, this is dramatically and metaphorically appropriate. Heisenberg developed the Uncertainty Principle which states you cannot know both the position and momentum of a particle with unlimited precision. There will always be a little bit of uncertainty. This is because the act of measuring one of those properties changes the other. Thus, in the context of the play, trying to measure what it was that happened back in 1941 will change our vision of what happened. Thus, the repeated attempts to understand what happened.
But from an audience's point of view, it can become repetitive. In the production that I saw, it seems the direction had the actors being somewhat wooden, as if the heaviness of the physics was considered too important. And yet, my experience as a scientist was that the stodginess and seriousness protrayed in the show was nothing like the way scientists work when they have a disagreement. When it is a fundamental point of contention, you get into knock-down, drag-out fights. Thus, the play needs to get more agitated when there are conflicts between the characters.
The playhouse uses their readings as a way to get some feedback from the community regarding what kinds of shows they would like to see in the future, possibly to mount a full production of the play. Reaction was a bit to be expected: Many liked it but found it a bit difficult to follow, and a few complained about the repetitivesness, but the overall response was quite positive.
But, that's over and now I'm off to the next production: Into the Woods. I've been cast as the Narrator, but the production has decided to split it from the Mysterious Man. I'm a bit saddened by this because there are some very important plot points that depend upon the two being the same person. The show opens with the lines, "Once upon a time, in a far off kingdom, there lived a fair maiden; a sad, young lad; and a childless baker with his wife." These lines are spoken by the Narrator. At the end of the show, the Baker tells his son, "Once upon a time, in a far off kingdom, there lived a fair maiden; a sad, young lad; and a childless baker with his wife."
We learn through the course of the show that the Mysterious Man is the Baker's father. And thus, if the Narrator is the Mysterious Man, the show is not just a whimsical, "Let's see what happens if all the fairy tales were mashed together," but rather is the Narrator's story, told to his son, the Baker; told to the Baker's son, and thus the creation of a new fairy tale is born.
Plus, there is a recurrent theme of the past returning when you thought it was dead. The Baker thought his father died in a "baking accident," but it turns out that he didn't. The other characters feed the Narrator to the Giant who kills him, or so they think, but the Mysterious Man returns. In the song, "No More," the Mysterious Man sings, "We disappoint, we disappear, we die, but we don't."
That said, the script itself seems to understand that companies might want to split the characters. But despite my misgivings, I'm going to do it as I love the show and I'd rather be in it than not.
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