Coaching the theatre student | Get the most out of your drama program

A play makes it to Broadway. Out of the woodwork come the critics. Should you see it? Is it worth your time and money? Why you should, why you shouldn’t. What it all means to our educated and thinking society.

I read reviews and once in a while I something comes along that grabs me and makes me want to board my cat and head for New York City to see it. This is true of the current revival of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. And this time it is the reviews, not just the play that is getting my attention.

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller has been revived on Broadway with the excellent Philip Seymour Hoffman as Willy Loman and directed by the estimable Mike Nichols.

What is startling to me is that the two reviews I read go way beyond the usual notes about how it was to be there, what the play means to us, what it looked like, how it was acted and directed, and whatever is noteworthy. This time, the reviews were on a different plane. We all see things, probably movies and television shows that we feel like we’ve been entertained and taken away for an hour or two. But when I read these two reviews, I couldn’t help thinking this production did way more than entertain. They became a life experience.

John Lahr, senior drama critic writing for The New Yorker, ends his criticism with “this staging of “Death of a Salesman” is the best I expect to see in my lifetime.”

I don’t believe I’ve ever read anything so direct and definitive. John Lahr is probably the best of the theatre critics writing today and has seen everything.

Read the review of Death of a Salesman, “Lives in Limbo” by John Lahr in The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/theatre/2012/03/26/120326crth_theatre_lahr

I also read a review in a blog I follow, Extra Criticum, written by John Yearley about his experience at this production of Death of a Salesman. While he is not a recognized critic, he was very articulate at reporting what he saw at the play.

He wrote “However great most theatrical experiences are – thrilling or funny or heartbreaking – they usually are, for me, aesthetic experiences. I have an amazing time, leave the theatre elated, and relish it for days afterward. This production of Death of a Salesman, however, felt qualitatively different. It wasn’t like I’d seen something. It was like something had happened to me.”

Yearley goes on to talk about a “phenomenon” that went beyond the usual superlatives.

They weren’t able in this production to just sit back letting it all wash over them as we do when we watch most things on television or at the movies. These guys, one a respected critic, one an articulate observer, had an experience that was beyond them and yet grabbed them by their throats and included them in it. Visceral, I’d call it if I were writing a review. In spite of what they had for dinner, who they talked to, or whatever was happening in their lives that was interrupted by having to see a play, they got drawn in to it.

Read Yearley’s observations for yourself at :

http://www.extracriticum.com/extra_criticum/2012/05/an-experience.html

From all accounts, it is a marvelous production and one you should get to see if you live in New York or are planning to go soon. But you have to do it now. It’s playing through June 2, 2012.

You are driving your parents, teachers, and other adults in your life crazy. You have latched on to a few words and phrases that no longer mean what they once did and because you and your friends just have to be accepted into some secret club that we old folks cannot see the value of for the life of us, you are driving us to distraction with, “like” as every third word, “whatever” when you can’t come up with a good argument or you want to dismiss the argument as not worthy of your attention. Everything is “amazing” even when you are not amazed.

So you ignore your English teacher or whoever is trying to drum a few communications “rules” down your throat. He has you write an essay about what you think these words mean when kids use them all the time and why they overuse them.

So what? you say. You use “like” to distraction as do all of your friends. You understand what each other is saying. You communicate. You get along just fine. No need to change a thing. Besides, change is just plain tedious.

But. And this is a big but. You want a career in the theatre. You want this now, not when you are old, like 25. So you go to an audition. This could be your big break. They are looking for someone just like you. You are absolutely perfect for the part. So you bring it.

Here’s the thing. At the other end of things, you have me, a theatre person in my 40s. I have been around the block and I have had an especially trying day listening to auditions from people who have not yet had any experience and most of them are awful or just not what I am looking for. I look at my watch. I need to get to the airport to pick up my boyfriend at 7:00. We will have dinner at the airport and then he will fly out again for another gig. We have been together for five years. Why aren’t we married? Why isn’t he ever home? This situation is getting on my last nerve. He is an actor and out of town a lot. I am a director and in town a lot. This situation is getting so old.

Now you come along late in the afternoon with your prepared monologue and you aren’t bad. Next, I need to find out if I can actually work with you. So I do an interview, ask you open-ended questions about your life and what you want out of it. You answer, “I, like, wanna be, you know, like, an actor, or whatever. I, like think, like this is, like soooo amazing….”

You think you are right on your game but I have tuned you out. I want to say: “What the heck are you talking about? but I no longer have the energy to listen to one more “like.”

I need to leave for the airport. You are dismissed. We do not connect. You don’t get the part. I don’t get to discover the next bright young talent.

This is what you don’t yet realize. You are not a regular person, no matter how hard you try to be. You are going into a very competitive field where only the extraordinary need apply. Most of your friends are just regular folk. Nothing wrong with that. It’s what most people are. You may fit right in, but what you want out of life demands you do better than just mimic what is going on around you. You need to be able to talk to someone out of your circle and connect with them. “Like” and “whatever” and the like (haha) just doesn’t cut it.