THE ROBERT BRUCE LEHMAN ACTORS WORKSHOP

Now enrolling actors (professional and non-professional) for Drama 101.
Fee: $25/actor/class, $35/couple/class, $15/auditor/class.
Come prepared to do your favorite 3-minute monologue, 5-minute scene and/or song.
Studio size limited to 25 actors.
Respond to thedramaisme@sbcglobal.net by Tuesday, July 31.
Mail picture and resume to 17503 Roy Street, Lansing, IL 60438-2018.

I might not tell everyone, but I will tell you

kno me

I kno a ting: drama

I SAW AN OPERA ONCE. . .

"Pagliacci"
by Rugerro Leoncavallo
produced by and at Lyric Opera
Chicago
March 27, 2009

Wooooowwwwww!!!!!!

"Pagliacci" contains the DRAMATIC STRUCTURE--not 100%, but enough to provoke in the audience the Drama Within; and provoke it does. There's the Chief Protagonist, Canio, surrounded by a company of fellow protagonists--actors and other members of the troupe that includes Nedda; and the Arch-Antagonist, Tonia, accompanied by a group of antagonists--audience members, mainly, but also anyone else not associated with the troupe of players, namely, Silvio. Nedda and Silvio bridge the abyss between Protagonist and Antagonist, and take steps to consummate the relationship, which enrages our Arch-Antagonist, Tonio, who was previously rejected by Nedda, and with good reason--he is one, nasty Antagonist, who will intimidate Canio into carrying out a plot of jealous revenge upon Silvio, a plot that unexpectedly devours Nedda, as well. Poor Nedda. Poor Siliva. Poor Canio. We (the real audience) are moved to share the horrors of this tragic drama just as the play's audience (the one on stage) is horrified by the unfolding incidents to which they are not only the audience, but also with which they are unwitting participants in the tragedy.

If you have followed me thus far, then you understand why this play is a "WOW". Leoncavallo, the author, has chosen the setting, the characters and the situations so masterfully that the process of identification and revelation that the audience has that infinite reflection in opposing mirrors. The less than 100% grade that I give to "Pagliacci" is the tragicness of this play. True Drama finds happieness, peace, joy & fullfillment (enlightenment) for the Protagonist, something which, I suppose, Leoncavallo never knew in his own life, which is the real tragedy, is it not? It is. It is. I feel badly for Leoncavallo. I do. I look foreward, however, to see other productions of this masterful opera

I SAW A PLAY, ONCE. . .

"Three Sisters"
by Anton Chekhov
produced by and at The Gift Theatre Company
Chicago
Sept 6, 2007

Six months? This company rehearsed this play for six months?

OK. Uh. . well, let's see. . . Chekhov was pretty, darn good. I think I see for the first time since I became a dramaturg that he was a saint, that is, his writing reflects that subjective experience.

Six months? Really?

OK, what else. . .uh. . . I liked the longing of the Antagonists: their thirst. A thirst that never gets quenched (the actors may very well have felt this way by the end of reheasals). The two peasants, the old man and the old woman, would be the Protagonists. I liked the fulfillment expressed by the old woman: "My own room! I'm so happy!"

So, basically, we have here an heroic drama of monumental proportions: after a lifetime of struggle (and six months of rehearsal) and abuse from Antagonists,* a Protagonist finds personal fulfillment and happiness.

I like it! I like it!

And now for the Audience: Well, they were pretty darn good, too. To attend a production of a play written in. . .when? 1905? Written by a saint. With a most perfect Protagonist. A culture far removed from 4800 North Milwaukee. A very, very small theater. Yes, the play and its production accurately reflected this perfect Audience. This Audience. I like this audience. I want to return to this theatre, soon. I want to sit with the members of this audience, again and again. I do. I do. Sometime well before six more months elapse.

The actors. Yes, there were actors. I was pretty much taken by them all, especially the ones who captured that longing. These sparkling artists were the perfect compliment for this sparkling audience

The Director. Yes, there was a director. Since it was you, Michael Patrick Thornton, that made out the rehearsal schedule, please, tell me *whom it is in the audience that so cowers you into postponing presenting your work to them for so long a period of time? That person would be your personal Antagonist whom you bring to the theatre each day. Your work is not all that bad! The level of your work does not reflect any more accomplishment than if you had opened it with a three-week rehearsal. Length of rehearsal is not what this company needs, here; rather you, sir, need to go search for a teacher of some sort for your own personal growth, which would help you to face and deal with that personal Antagonist, who seems to keep you from expressing yourself now, today, this moment. Comprende?

THERE IS ONLY ONE DRAMA. . .

. . . the likes of which is that real, live phenomena within the human being! The production of a well constructed play evokes this phenomena, so that you and I can say, "Ahh! That's good!"

Hey!
That "Ahh! . . . good!" is not up there on the stage! That "Ahh! . . . good!" is within you! Something has been awakened in you!

A well crafted play has all of those elements that are absolutely essential for awakening the drama within, so that. . . you. . . and. . . I. . . will. . . feel. . . rocked!

The first notice I have that something is going right up there on the stage is a feeling (a feeling! not an idea!) in my torso that. . . I. . . am. . . being. . . ROCKED!

Those pleasant, little, pedestrian, drawing room dramas! That's not drama! The awakening of all the attendant feelings and sensations and thoughts that populate the soul of the viewer is only possible with a well made, well crafted, well designed, well staged production, the main ingredient of which is Right!
Right in an absolute sense! None of this mish-mash of half-right & half-wrong! None of this snivelling, "Oh, it's more complicated than that"! None of this, "We'd better do what the paying audience wants. . . Give the customer what it wants. . ."!

There is only one Right! And there is only one Drama! And there is only one Me!

When the Protagonist struggles to do what is right. . . when he tries (just tries, that's all I ask) to do what is right, then does the drama stir inside the hearts of the men and women in the audience. "Yes," they whisper. "Try. . . try to do what is right. . . ."

Then comes the Antagonist, who, with all his cunning, smolders, "I shall destroy you!"

This clash is a terrible, awful thing to behold. A spectacle so searing that I shield my eyes. The words pour from their mouths: Oaths! Vindictives! Vulgar expressions! Lies! Traitorous stumblings! The tears, the gnashing of teeth! They are my tears! My teeth! Yet cling I to hope as my hero climbs yet higher on his assension to the final summit with that damnable, diabolical villian grasping at his ankles to pull him down.

"Climb higher!" I shout, oblivious of those sitting next to me in the audience.

I hear a woman twenty rows back in the upper balcony gasp, "He falls!" The rest of us pick up her terror and choke our breath.

"He falls," I manage to sqeeze out. "My hero falls," as I grasp the armrests of my seat. The audience, as one, strains foreward as if we could catch him, yet knowing that we are in the hands of a master dramatist who will not let us have our way, this evening.

The curtain falls. The end of Act I. Or is it Act II? I don't know! I sit there stunned. I cannot, I will not applaud. I cannot move. I despise this playwrite! I hate him! I. . . have. . . been. . . . . R O C K E D

Do you hear me, Lehman! Infidel that ye are? What are ye writing, now? A play so full of filth and dispicable characters. A play swimming in lusts and greed and slovenly hatred. Is murder and rape, betrayal and snitching, unrequited love, a drunken lout of a father, adultary and lurid seduction, broken promises to a son, a daughter, the best you can throw at my hero! Then do so, and let's have at the last Act! I'll watch you smile, you blaggard you, as you breathe new life into your protagonist, raise him from the depth of his dispair, envelope him in light and storm and then launch him into the light that's brighter than ten-thousand suns, into the music of the spheres playing up, into the Word that no one can or should ever utter here on earth!

You let her down, your mother, that is. You were her hero, you know. Go ahead, I dare you. I will you to be a bold player upon that stage!

Drama! That's for me! That is me!

I SAW A PLAY, ONCE. . .

"The Crucible"
by Arthur Miller
produced by and at Steppenwolf
Chicago
seen Sept 16, 2007

Well, here goes. This will not be pleasant. I'm not sure that I'm up to the task, as they say, but with the gathering momentum of a dozen or so entries in this blog over the past several months, I will find the courage to deliver one more volley at a particularly loathsome and vile Antagonist. Oh, I know that it's my personal Antagonist against which I rail, so don't you, dear reader, think I'm just picking on some poor, little theatre production. 'nuf said, on that point.

Now, to this production of Arthur Miller's classic and timeless masterpiece. Superb in its power and humility, this play awakens in all of us fear and trembling for our fragile existence in a society gone mad, a society of vultures, parasites and leeches now infesting the lobbies, aisles and seats of 1650 North Halsted: yes, the audiences of Steppenwolf.

I defer to the practiced articulation of John McWhorter, who, equally superb, has identified the modern day, witch hunt as being shrouded in the garb of civil rights, which, here, is represented by, none other than, one James Vincent Meredith, an actor so intimidated by his own personal Antagonist that he can barely walk across the stage without stumbling over his own feet, a man so filled with fear that he can do nothing but smirk and grimace whenever the faintest flurry of an emotion surfaces, a man so puppetted by this Separatist invested audience that he fawns and bows and buckles, apologizes and defers and whines, grovels and begs and pleads. There was no John Proctor of manly proportions at the Steppenwolf, last Sunday, the 16th of September, because the audience that runs the institution over there at 1650 North Halsted demanded that Kinny, Perry and Sinise cast a black man in this white role, euphamise it as "non-traditional" casting, get on with the show and never mind authentic and obvious role requirements as written by the author, thereby forcing Meredith into a role which he is neither historically right for nor skillfully prepared to do: He's in over his head! A world gone mad!

Tells us, Meredith, how feels you to be the oxymoron of theatre: Steppenwolf, having felt the heat from their audiences that are on a modern-day, witch hunt looking for white racists, has offered them you as appeasement in a classic drama that decries appeasement in the face of intimidation. I say, God is dead on North Halsted!

The Chief Protagonist is Deputy Governor Danforth, acted with remarkable personal strength and courage by one Francis Guinan (three minutes holding the audience spellbound with the reading of a letter, silently to himself! A master, who fears no Antagonist beyond the footlights!).

The Arch-Antagonist is Abigale, played so boldly, so unhesitatingly, so believably by one Kelly O'Sullivan. Bravo!!

Once again, as in all of the Steppenwolf productions that I have seen in the last four years, cast members (other than O'Sullivan and Guinan) were spotted day dreaming on stage during highly dramatic moments of the play, proving, once again, that without a connection to the audience, there is no drama, imitated or living. Well, that connection in itself needs to be identified, so let us digress.

I must say, to mount this timeless classic in Chicago's 2007 social-political environment with black actors not cast as the adolescent girls nor as any of the adult, witch-hunters, is a misreading of the threat that Steppenwolf is faced with by a particulary oneous and diabolical Antagonist of its own that sits night after night in the audience vomiting out its diatribe at the production company: "Witch! Witch! Witch! Witches all!" (Read "Racist" for "Witch.")

It would have been better to leave the casting as Miller originally intended, and let the audience draw their own parallels. As cast by Steppenwolf, however, an oxymoron was created in Meredith doing the role of John Proctor, who should be, by all accounts, the 2007, modern-day, white man, who is wrongfully accused of racism by a conspiracy of Black Victimologist and Separatists, which would be the obvious parallel of 21st Century Chicago to 17th century New England.

I'd love to set my foot on that Steppenwolf stage, stick my finger into the audience's eye and cry, "get out of my cathedral!"

Steppenwolf, thy name is sleep.