The Official Raúl E. Esparza "Spread the Love" Thread, Part 3- Page 55

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 11:19am

I love that part -- and when Ned is reading the letter on the phone, too. I remember Raul was saying that on paper, it can get kind of dense and read a bit like a newspaper, but then when it comes to life, it just WORKS. Granted, he was saying that and in my head, it was like "partly thanks to YOUR timing," heh.

[misschung]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 11:32am

I love when Felix is like, "Hey, I just called you weird" and he's like "You're not the first..."

I know, I was thinking that while he was saying that too

At first I disagreed, I didn't think it read like a newspaper at all on paper. Then I realized that I had seen Raul's performance BEFORE I read it, which is probably why

Updated On: 7/6/07 at 11:32 AM

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 11:39am

I read the play before seeing the revival, and I still didn't think that there's as much fault as other people find it to have.

[misschung]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 11:47am

I actually think that there is so much weight in a lot of the longer dialogue sections that can even be missed during live performances - just bc it goes by so quickly. It helps to read it

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 12:53pm

Oh, I totally agree; it really helped me to read the play after I'd seen it, because there's just SO much heavy dialogue that a lot of it gets by you too quickly when you first see it. But then.. I find the play a little bit of a paradox, in that sense. I feel like when you read it, you have pages of dense, heady dialogue about which I agree with what Raul said -- although, of course, if you believe that plays were meant to be performed and not read on the page, it's second nature that they are much more gripping when actors breathe life into them. At the same time, though, skittles and I were having a discussion once about the way that some of those passages need an actor who will just let the words speak for themselves. Like, take Bruce's monologue about Albert's death -- the words themselves are so powerful that they're great approached not forcefully, but from a very quiet, subtle standpoint. Of course, in that case, an actor is still definitely "breathing life into" the role, but just in a very certain, specific, text-mindful way, I guess. So maybe it's not that contradictory. I don't know. I'm thinking out loud and articulating this poorly, but do you guys know what I mean?

Updated On: 7/6/07 at 12:53 PM

[misschung]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 1:22pm

Yes, I know what you mean. If we are to assume that plays aren't meant to be read as a solitary activity, then we are in a way, reading it to ourselves with the expectation that it will be performed anyway. You're right - a good actor will allow the text to come through without their own interpretation weighing over it.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 1:23pm

Don't get my wrong -- ownership and interpretation are SO important. I think a good actor just knows when to let the text speak for itself and not be like "LOOK AT ME I'M ACTING." There was a lot of that going on in the Company revival, and look at the result. Stunning.

[misschung]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 1:28pm

Wait - you're saying the Company revival had a lot of the "look at me I'm acting" or the allowing of the text to speak for itself?

And yeah, you have to have interpretation. I kind of feel like the key is to make the audience unaware that there's any of it going on...almost. You know?

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 1:30pm

No, a lot of subtlety. Some friends and I had a really great conversation with Raul about that, which seemed to tie in so well with the discussion skittles and I had about TNH.

[misschung]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 1:33pm

Now I kind of want to see Raul in a play. I'm sure he will do one again sometime in the future, but still. Maybe it's because I'm reading Destiny of Me

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 1:41pm

I WANT HIM TO DO THAT PLAY. So so so so so badly.

Also, yay Angel!

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/109371.html

[jenna2]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 2:30pm

Wow... there were, like, six pages that I had to read through from the last time I was on here. Way to be, you guys!

My contribution:

Voluntaries/Involuntaries = CREEPY
Mullets = WRONG
Raul doing a play = YAY! (But only if it's while I'm in NYC!)


Anyone read this week's ActorQuest yet? This one's by far my favourite. "It's too late for him to fire you at this point." She is just too damned cute!

Updated On: 7/6/07 at 02:30 PM

[misschung]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 2:35pm

I loved what Barbara Walsh said - "if he doesn't like the show, he will blame John, not us" lol


From TDF:
http://www.tdf.org/TDF_Article.aspx?id=72&do=v

Updated On: 7/6/07 at 02:35 PM

[jenna2]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 2:59pm

That's great that TDF does that! I had no idea... (And I'm more than a little proud that one of the interpreters is from my province. )


Quick question about the ActorQuest -- has the Company logo always been incorporated in the graphic? I've never noticed it before now.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 3:57pm

I read the play before seeing the revival, and I still didn't think that there's as much fault as other people find it to have.

I agree. I'd read it multiple times before I'd even seen it and each time had just as much an emotional reaction (if not more so, since it was the first time) than I did finally seeing it- like the scene with Bruce Em mentioned above. Maybe I have a more vivid imagination than most, but I don't need to SEE a lot of these words said to be upset about the conditions and ignorance they were facing that we take for granted.

Last December on World AIDS Day, there was an insert in the NYTimes that highlighted their "great" contribution to reporting about AIDS and listed the 15 whole articles they've written over the past 20 years. Including that buried-in-the-middle paragraph one mentioned in the play. It angered me enough that I considered writing an angry letter, but I figured "Letters to the Editor" are only really read by some lackey fact-checking intern and a letter that basically attacks their paper certainly wasn't going to be published. It was infuriating that so many people want to shove the decades of discrimination and neglect under the rug, now that history and science are on the side of the disenfranchised.

[misschung]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 4:07pm

15 articles? And they have the gall to even admit that number in an article saying how great their contribution was?

[Sondheim Geek]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 6:58pm

On The Normal Heart (the discussion from a bit ago) – I also think that the reason it didn’t seem newspapery is that specific revival. I was listening to the 1993 BC/EFA recording of the show (the one with Stockard Channing and Kevin Bacon…not sure if that’s legal or not, so sue me…literally), and it was so damn… well, it felt like propaganda, which is exactly the last thing that piece needs.

I guess... that article really shows how not-propaganda-y that The Normal Heart is. There is a lot in the show that is definately manipulative, but the fact that the Times… even 20 years later, has not acknowledged how little they did… well, it speaks for itself.

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 7:27pm

That recording is legal, Sondheim Geek, but it's out of print these days. The Ned on that recording is HORRIBLE. PAINFUL. Monotone and humorless. Most of the actors in that performance do the piece no justice, but I actually think that Stockard's Dr. Brookner rivals Joanna's.

skittles, I had the same reaction to reading the play. I know that it's too preachy for some, but the knowledge that it was real and concrete and those horrible things actually happened to people makes it tremendously moving. I was in tears from the scene where Bruce talks about Albert's death through the end of the play. I guess I sort of give it a pass for being angry and relentless and fact-heavy, because it has every right to be, and still manages to be extremely poignant in spite of that.

[Sondheim Geek]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 7:39pm

UGG I AGREE ABOUT THAT NED. He's just reading it off the page, there's no charisma... which you sort of need a little bit of to listen to this guy rant for two hours. Raul reading the frigging phonebook would be 100% more interesting... although I agree with you about Stockard... I can deal with that Felix... I don't love him, but I can deal with hi,.

It's very difficult for me to connect or 'get' a play from the text, but (I guess because it is extremely fact-heavy) The Normal Heart just clicked for me. I guess it's because it seems almost like a history text, but written down in a different way... of course it's better spoken, but eh… I’m terrible verbalizing anything with this play..

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 9:15pm

Yeah, I don't like what I've heard of that recording at all.

I think one of the most fascinating things about this revival -- which Raul alluded to in a couple of interviews, I believe -- is the idea of historical hindsight in a play like that. What it meant to produce that now is so interesting, politically, for obvious reasons -- but I also love the dramatic irony it adds. We know so much that the characters do not.

I had a drama teacher who railed on the play when he brought it up in class. He mentioned it briefly when we were doing Angels in America. I was curious as to why he thought it was SUCH a bad play, and so I e-mailed him to ask if he had seen the revival and just to say that even though it's one of my favorite plays, I was really interested in elaboration of his opinion. He had seen a workshop in the 80s, which he admitted made him a bit teary-eyed, but not the revival. he asked what I thought of it, and we got to chatting a little bit. In the end, I think that... for me, yes, it's ranty and dense, but because of the history and the impact, it's still hugely effective.

[circusliz]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 10:19pm

Not be jump off topic, but I just wanted to add that I am ready to spread the Raul love. My sister and I caught the matinee of Company last Saturday -- my first time seeing Raul perform live -- and he was fantastic! His performance was gut wrenching. I can't imagine what the last show was like.

We waited around at the stage door for almost an hour for Raul to come out, and it was absolutely worth it. He was so nice, and we got the gorgeous picture you see here!

PS. There was a really really obnoxious guy at the stage door that day. An older man, with a thick NY/NJ accent, alone....he kept hassling people to find out what was keeping Raul. When some of the staff told the guy they thought Raul was napping (which was understandable considering he'd been at the theater since 9am for the PBS run through), he got pretty hostile and starting demanding that Raul come out. Was this guy a regular? If so I feel very sorry for the cast for having to deal with him.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 10:21pm

We can't see your picture.

[circusliz]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 10:26pm

Ugh, I can't get it to work. I'll make another attempt later.

Updated On: 7/6/07 at 10:26 PM

[Sondheim Geek]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 11:33pm

Did your teacher end up seeing the revival, Em?

Circus - I haven't seen that guy at the stagedoor, but fantastic that you had such a great time at the show! Hopefully some pain in the a$$ didn't ruin your stagedoor experience :)

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 7/6/07 at 11:35pm

Nope, he hadn't seen it. But when I told him about it, he was certainly sorry he didn't!