Out Lines – Episode 10

Episode Transcript

[music]

0:00:01.6 Virginia Baeta: Welcome back to Out Lines, the podcast where we have finally reached our final episode of the season. I’m Virginia Baeta, actor, playwright.

0:00:11.2 Mark Finley: Hi. I’m Mark Finley, actor, playwright, teacher, director, God of all things.

0:00:16.0 Jordan Schildcrout: And I’m Jordan Schildcrout, dramaturg and theater professor.

0:00:21.0 MF: We got together with some of the actors who appeared in Now She Dances! and wanted to get some feedback from them about their experience, etcetera. And we recorded it all, and here are some highlights. Enjoy.

0:00:35.3 MF: Have you all ever heard of this play before we started doing it?

0:00:39.2 Chris Weikel: Pleeease. Pleeease. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

0:00:44.5 Christopher Borg: I’ve played three roles over the years, in this play.

0:00:48.4 CW: Including Lady Herodias, as I recall.

[laughter]

0:00:49.2 CB: That’s right.

0:00:50.7 MF: Yes. Yes, I remember. So having done it now and having experienced at least it on a first-pass level, does it make any sense to you? What’s your response of it? It’s an odd ball, and that’s why I like it.

0:01:07.6 CB: I remember my first impression of the play was I was baffled by it. I couldn’t figure out the world that we were in. Was it the real world? Was it the past, or was it some kind of nightmarish type of world that we were inhabiting? And I feel like over time, I’ve been able to let go some of those questions, so that as an audience member now, I am more at ease not knowing things. I’m more at ease not knowing what the world is, or needing it to be explained to me, or needing a really clear roadmap in order for me to enjoy the experience, to enjoy the poetry of the language, and to enjoy this story with its woven references to Oscar Wilde and to the original Salome story, and to the politics of the 1970s and ’80s.

0:02:05.7 CW: One of the things I’m most drawn to in this play and have been all along, is the comedy of it as well. The quips and the cleverness of the dialogue is something I’ve always rather enjoyed, particularly knowing Doric and knowing where some of that comes from as well, is fun as an actor, to play. But on top of that, there’s something enjoyable about… On some level, because of the nature of the play and a lot of the things that Christopher just described. Ultimately, you find that you’re being yourself on the stage in a way that I don’t often get the opportunity to be. I mean, yes, I’m this character, Lane. But also, ultimately, I’m Chris making a quip, and there’s this wink and nod to the audience that they always know that you’re an actor playing a part. It’s kind of like doing drag. You always know that this isn’t really a woman. This is a man in a dress or a man playing a woman or a man playing a character. So I think that’s one of the things I really enjoy about this play, it gives you the latitude as an actor, to do that.

0:03:15.4 Gayle Dennison: This was my first outing with this play. I enjoyed it. I agree with Borg in terms of, I wondered if it was an alternate universe in a way. But at the same time, it made complete sense in this universe. And when I was reading it, I thought, “This is very timely.” And I thought… Which is kind of good and kind of sad at the same time, that we haven’t moved that much more forward since it was written, if that makes any sense at all. That there’s still these challenges and people having to sort of insinuate things as opposed to just saying them straight out. I was so thrilled to be able to do it and I had so much fun. It’s so much fun doing it. But I do realize that in a way, this character could be walking on the streets of New York right now and just talking exactly that way, and everyone would just go, “Oh, yup, that’s Lady H. She lives in that walk-up on 10th Avenue.”

0:04:22.3 MF: You’re talking about me.

0:04:23.2 GD: So (laughs) that’s my take on it.

0:04:27.6 MF: Cool. Excellent. What about you, Jay?

0:04:28.5 Jay Thomas: I approached it from my experience with Theater of the Absurd, which I have a bit of experience with. I think you touched a little bit on that in the podcast about how this is kind of like on the borderline of… what world are we in, and the absurdity of it. And I think with Theater of the Absurd, and especially from Bill’s… The character I played, Bill, was that sometimes you get these wonderful… Not quite caricatures, but that’s the best way to describe it, caricatures of these characters. And it’s just an explosion of the truth, right? Bill’s character is an explosion of the caricature of the American guy. And that is kind of what, in essence, what Doric Wilson was doing was exploding the truth of it in such a way, at such an absurd level, that it becomes this embodiment of the idea, and the absurdity of it is not only funny, but it hits home in so many ways that only Theater of the Absurd can.

0:05:28.1 MF: What’s the most challenging aspect, and ultimately, what was the most rewarding aspect of tackling something like this, especially in this medium? What do you think?

0:05:38.6 JT: I think when you are tackling characters that are in this world, you come at them with so many ideas. And it’s like spaghetti on the wall and you see what sticks. And when you’re playing a more realistic character, you don’t always have that opportunity. A lot of times, they’re written in such a way where you’re like, “Oh, I see the roadmap.” Where with this, you really have an opportunity to kinda just throw things at the wall, and if it sticks, that’s great, and you can use it and then play. So I really think that an incredible amount of play was involved in this script and then in developing the character.

0:06:12.2 MF: Virginia, you were kind of straddling two worlds with this, because we were, of course, building the podcast and you were the mastermind behind putting the whole thing together really, and yet you’re acting in the play as well. Do you have kind of a different appreciation of the play from being on stage and being off-stage, or do they kinda meet in the middle somewhere or…

0:06:38.4 VB: Yeah, I have a lot of sort of complicated feelings about this play. I was introduced to it years ago, and I really disliked this play. Specifically, I disliked how women are presented in it, their relationships, the way that they interact with other people. And I thought, why are women just so… Reflected so badly. And it was really interesting to me, over time, Borg, like you were saying about maturity, over time, learning a little bit more about our history, in particular, Salome’s statement where she says it, “But you deny my femininity. As a gay man, you are diminishing.” So there was just these kinds of things you didn’t see. Okay, these are perceptions that were real, and these were attitudes and attacks that were real. And then coming to know the play as more about this story, that’s less the story of Salome, and it’s really more the story of Lane and The Prisoner, that then made me more excited about it. So I think that digging into the play using all of the sort of telescoping lenses on it, was great for me. It gave me a lot more respect for Doric. It gave me a lot more respect for the play, and I feel like I learned a lot as an actor.

0:08:00.7 GD: This character… Usually, the characters I play are also kind of stuffy, and she’s not stuffy at all. She’s very progressive in how she thinks, so that’s very different than the kind of characters I’ve played with some of the similar characteristics in the past. So I think my challenge was to be kind of lighter, if that makes any sense, than instead of beating people over the head with this character’s persona and just going with it a little bit more.

0:08:32.0 MF: That’s really interesting that you mention that, because I always kinda see Lady H as the kind of nod to Lady Bracknell in this play. And thinking about Lady Bracknell, she’s not stuffy. She’s rigid in her beliefs, but she’s in no way stuffy. You can’t really be stuffy and that kind of aggressive and obstructing and be stuffy. I think of stuffy as somebody who sits back and doesn’t act.

0:09:01.0 GD: Or is very opinionated and refuses to adapt, that just, “This is the way it is.”

0:09:08.2 MF: Weikel-y, what do you think?

0:09:09.4 CW: What do I think? Well, I actually think the thing that was most challenging ultimately was the thing that’s most rewarding for me, and that is… Well, to go back to a little about what I said earlier, enjoying the fun of it and the comedy of it, but also recognizing that this is me on some level, and to find the truth was kind of a challenge. There are some portions of the play, particularly toward the end, where there’s real tragedy on stage and Lane has to react to it in a very truthful, emotionally truthful way. And to go back to the… This is also Chris saying words on stage, as well as a character saying words on stage, to know that on some level, the role that I’m most right for in this play, is the villain, aka the Closet Queen, aka one of the more despised members of the LGBTQ community within itself. So to recognize that there’s that in me, and to have to then pull that out, I think, was challenging, but also, ultimately sort of something rewarding to confront and to be able to do, whether I was vocally successful in doing that or not. For the podcast, it was a worthy exercise for me, I think.

0:10:33.1 MF: Borg-y, what do you think?

0:10:34.8 CB: Well, for me, Herod is a perfect suiting role for me. I’m a character actor who’s playing a character actor who’s playing a character. And it’s sort of a place that I feel comfortable, and so in that sense, it allows me to kind of free up and I can get this character. I understand him. His motivations are more clear than some of the other characters. He’s not a simpleton, but he’s a simpler creature compared to some of the others. For me, the challenge was working in a way that is different from a typical rehearsal and performance, where we’re not necessarily doing the scenes in order, and sometimes, a lot of time is passing between them, so just remembering each time, the continuity of vocal placement or tone of the piece, for me as an actor, that was more of the challenge, I think.

0:11:38.2 MF: I’m glad that you brought that up, because it’s been on all of our minds, of course, how theater has evolved during this time. What other challenges were kind of unique to this particular production process, and did it affect how you tackled the role? Any thoughts, Virginia, on how you approached it?

0:12:02.4 VB: I think that I had to access a different tool kit. I didn’t have my physicality. I didn’t have volume, so it really was just about trying to focus on making every connection that I possibly could, visually, with the box on the screen that I was talking to. And I was just so appreciative of the generosity of the rest of this cast considering how difficult it was to do this, really without much rehearsal and not doing things in order. But the availability staring into a screen slightly off the camera, I don’t know how everybody did it, but I felt like everyone was there.

0:12:41.5 CB: I became accustomed to reading the script in that way, and I think that’s really conducive to good radio theater, because instead of worrying about what I look like, what I’m wearing, where I’m standing on stage, my attention as an actor is on the script, every line, following along and listening to my fellow actors very closely. And I think that that lends itself to a good radio theater, because I think that that’s where radio theatre lives. Also, jumping off of what Virginia said, not being able to use volume as a way to express changes of emotion is really interesting and it’s a wonderful challenge, especially an actor like myself, perhaps, who can get bigger or more bombastic, to be forced into a narrow range means that you have to find more nuances.

0:13:36.3 MF: Yeah, yeah. From the director’s chair, I would completely agree with that. Gayle, what do you think?

0:13:41.4 GD: Well, I had the advantage because at that time, my internet was sucky, so I would go over to Mark Finley’s and… So I’m sitting right next to the director doing these things, and I don’t think there was one single session that my main note was, “Gayle, can you not be so loud. Gayle, can you move away from the mic a little bit?” ‘Cause it was like,”

[vocalization]

0:14:07.6 GD: Because I am used to using full voice and being heard, like in Alaska. So I had to adapt, which was a really good experience for me. And what Borg was saying about nuance, and you find different ways to communicate these things, because I’m used to taking up a lot of room and doing it vocally as well, and it doesn’t work that way in a radio play.

0:14:37.2 MF: Yeah.

0:14:38.3 GD: But it… So it was an advantage being there, because I learned a lot. But at the same time, I learned what I need to work on, which is nuance and innuendo and subtlety, which are things that I don’t normally do.

0:14:52.8 JT: I think the biggest challenge is connecting to your breath, so that vocally… When you’re on stage, your physicality can sometimes get… You can get away with embodying the character more, than being vocally on. But when you’re doing a radio play, you have to be vocally there, meaning that the emotion comes from your gut, from your breath, all the way down, from your root chakra, I guess, if that’s what you wanna call it. And that can be the most difficult part.

0:15:25.5 MF: Yeah, I would agree with that. Weikel-y, what do you think?

0:15:29.8 CW: So one of the things that I found interesting with this particular play, is that when you don’t have an audience, it feels like there’s a character missing. Because so much of this, the rhythm depends on there being people in the room that you’re performing for, and how to sort of manufacture that and not overthink the vocalese of how you’re saying the line. Because so much of being in front of an audience means living in a moment and sort of rolling with it. How to convey that purely vocally and in short excerpts, that’s a definite challenge.

0:16:10.6 MF: Yeah, especially in a play like this that’s so language-driven and that’s a comedy.

0:16:17.3 CW: Yeah.

0:16:18.0 MF: Comedy, to me, doesn’t really live without an audience. And yet there are so many amazing film comedies, it’s… I just don’t have that much experience on making that happen, and I thought y’all were really genius at that. Yes, Gayle-y.

0:16:30.6 GD: I have a question for Jordan. I know that because you haven’t been with us for a lot of these sessions, what is your experience when you hear them? ‘Cause you’re coming from another aspect of the piece, was it what you expected? What was your experience when you heard all of us reading this?

0:16:54.7 JS: It was honestly wonderful to hear it in the actors’ voices. I feel like when reading a script, one way my mind always works is to imagine the possibilities, the variety of possible interpretations. But of course, as performers, you need to make those choices and it becomes more concrete. And so, things that remained a little bit sort of in the realm of possibility, suddenly became more realized and effective in terms of being funnier, being more moving. Even just the logic of that world, as strange as it is, kind of like somehow making perfect sense, because here you are inhabiting it and giving it voice and making it real, and those relationships. So the nuance, the complexity, all of that, for me, really just came to life in a way, and makes me so glad that in some ways, this has been a podcast discussing a play, but it’s also been a performance of a play. And having these two things intersecting, to me, that’s just made it all the more vibrant, the more just engaging and really rewarding. So, no, I’ve loved it every moment of hearing it.

0:17:54.0 MF: Oh, cool. That’s really great to hear, awesome. Speaking of doing the play, one of the ways that we were talking about approaching this podcast, was to do just a flat out recording, beginning to end. We didn’t wind up doing that for a number of different reasons. But do you feel like that would have been a plus or minus?

0:18:16.1 VB: I definitely felt a lot of frustration playing Salome and The Actress in sort of bits and pieces and scattered. I know, Chris, as Lane, you would express some frustration with that as well. And I feel like Lane as a character would potentially be the hardest one. Salome and Lane are probably the hardest ones to do that in bits.

0:18:38.5 CW: Yeah, yeah. I’m lucky that I’ve been exposed to this play for decades now. And I’ve have had the opportunity to actually play Lane in front of an audience for various readings that we’ve done of it. Gosh, it’ll be 10 or 12 years ago now. So I could draw on that a little bit, and that understanding, to sort of get that arc, but yeah, it was interesting. And then I did come to the realization, sort of halfway through the recordings of it, I was like, “Oh, I think I might be making Lane sound a little too posh.” Just technically, the accent, I’m like, “Oh.” But we kinda went with it. I really enjoyed doing it, I’m not gonna lie. The other challenge, I’ll say, is trying to get into the sort of sacred theater head space when you’re in your living room or your bedroom, and sitting down on a chair. That is another thing that you sort of have to manufacture from whole cloth when you’re doing purely a vocal exercise.

0:19:43.2 VB: And all the technical difficulties. I know for myself, there was one time I had to record in a corner of my bedroom, and I had a computer, a laptop, a blanket for sound baffling, and I was basically hunched, folded over with my knees practically to my chest for 45 minutes while we were recording, and still trying to pull this off. (chuckles)

0:20:06.4 CW: Yeah.

0:20:07.5 VB: It’s just the kinds of things that sometimes you need to do for the podcast sound quality.

0:20:11.8 MF: And I imagine Sarah walked in, saw that, and just walked right back out again, right?

0:20:16.2 VB: She adjusted the blanket.

0:20:18.1 MF: Of course. Yeah.

[laughter]

0:20:20.2 CW: Nice.

0:20:23.1 MF: Cool, I kinda wanna wrap up with this. One, if somebody were to ask you, what’s this play you’re working on, what’s it about? Not the story line, but what do you think it’s about? And two, do you think it’s got any kind of legs in 2021. Do you think it could speak to a modern audience that never knew Doric or never knew anything about the evolution of off-off-Broadway?

0:20:48.9 CB: For me, the play is something of an allegory for the struggle of the queer community, for acceptance against this very powerful moral majority, which is crumbling over time, but struggling to stay relevant and to stay in control and to stay in power. How a modern audience… I think audiences today are in some ways, better suited because they’ve had more experiences with non-traditional structures of plays and non-realism type of production experiences. There’s a lot of question marks and ambiguity in the play itself that it could be an opportunity to create a really interesting stage and audience experience.

0:21:45.7 MF: Cool. Jay, what are you thinking here?

0:21:47.9 JT: I think certainly, it has legs. I would ask you all, and TOSOS, what is your intended audience? If it’s someone like me, I’m 31 years old, I am very unfamiliar with Doric Wilson’s work, very unfamiliar with the references, very unfamiliar. But for a way, I love seeing theatre like that because it’s a teaching opportunity. It is a teaching opportunity to learn about the community and the struggle that people went through, and to bring it back into light and to see and to reflect that on our current struggles and our current political values and everything like that, so I think it certainly has legs as an opportunity to teach people, from my generation, but also for people who grew up with Doric and know Doric to be like, “Oh wow, yeah, this is good. Look how this changed for me.” This is so interesting. And if I had to say what the play was about, for me, it’s really about one man’s creative struggle against his physical existence. He’s existing in a period of time where people seem to hate him just for being alive. And the creative outlet for that was to write this kind of like… I’ll say it again, spaghetti on the wall. It’s just like, “Let’s throw it all out there and see what people would visually respond to,” and that’s what I kinda love about it.

0:23:07.2 MF: Weikel, what do you think?

0:23:09.0 CW: I actually think that this play is even more relevant now than it was when I first encountered it, I guess 10 or 20 years ago. Because when I first read it, when Doric first introduced me to it, it was the idea of encountering protesters on the street, handing out leaflets seemed a quaint throwback to a different era, and now we’re in a moment when that is the reality, that is now. And I think there’s so much that this play can say today that we wouldn’t have really listened to, maybe, or I might not have listened to in a way. And I think it could really benefit from a new production. And as Jordan touched on in one of the episodes about casting, this could really be something very immediate. And what it’s about, I think when Jay asked who our audiences, TOSOS. Our audience is largely the LGBT community, and our allies. But I think that is also something that this play is really about, is how we as LGBTQ+ people need to band together and not turn on one another. I, of course, view the play from Lane’s point of view to a certain extent, and I think that is one of the threads running through this, is how we betray ourselves, and we still do it. We all still do it, I think.

0:24:36.1 GD: What the play means to me, is that it takes a great deal of courage, it takes a great deal of bravery to be who you are. And I think sometimes, living in New York City, I will forget that because New York City is more open and accepting than, like for example, where I’m from, which is Ohio. And so it’s a reminder that there’s a lot of work left to be done, and no one should have to go through all the machinations and clandestine activities, etcetera, simply to be who you are.

0:25:15.9 MF: I also think that’s interesting that you mentioned twisting and turning in order to fit into society’s mold. That’s not limited to the LGBT community at all, and I think that’s another kind of point that this play makes. The construct that it has, is that rigid Importance Of Being Earnest, set of mores. So Virginia, bring it on home. What do you think?

0:25:43.1 VB: I’m a big fan of plays in rep. I would wanna do this production, I would want to do it in rep, but as a triptych.

0:25:50.6 MF: Interesting.

0:25:51.6 VB: As we’d said, some people accuse the play of being a little bit quaint in the post Will and Grace era, and it’s not. But I feel like putting it in that position and saying, where we are now and how relevant it still is now, and Wilde’s Salomé, and the trials of Oscar Wilde, everything is all still relevant today.

0:26:14.0 MF: That’s cool. As you were talking, when you said doing it as a triptych, I was thinking it’d be kind of great to do Salomé and then do Importance Of Being Earnest, and stick this in the middle, and use the Earnest set as the set for this, but have it brought on in bits and pieces.

0:26:31.1 VB: Having the same cast doing all three plays, that would be a lot of fun.

0:26:34.6 MF: It would be really cool. Yeah, and you all could do it because you’re mega talented. And I feel so lucky to have worked with you on this, and hope to see you and work with you again, very, very soon.

0:26:47.4 CW: Thanks for asking us to do this.

0:26:50.5 GD: Thank you. It was a pleasure. Thank you.

0:26:51.2 CW: Thank you, guys.

0:26:52.9 MF: Oh my God, thank you.

0:26:53.4 CB: Bye. Thank you.

0:26:53.5 VB: Thank you.

[music]

0:26:54.9 JS: And that brings us to the end of season one of Out Lines.

0:26:58.2 MF: Yay.

0:27:00.2 JS: Yay.

0:27:00.6 VB: Yay. And sad.

0:27:00.7 MF: Yeah. So yay, we’re happy because we’re at the end, and we finished it and did really well, but boo and sad because it’s done.

0:27:08.9 VB: We like hanging out with each other and we have a few ideas, but we’d love to hear your ideas of what you want for us to hang around with each other to talk about.

0:27:19.1 MF: Especially share it with Jordan, because he knows everything.

0:27:21.3 JS: That’s too intimidating. Who can live up to that? But no, it’s true. I always love hearing from people, like what are the special gems that they hold dear that maybe other folks really don’t know, and that makes it all the more special, and we love those kinds of works and love talking about those kinds of works. So absolutely, share them, please.

0:27:38.1 MF: Yes, yes.

0:27:38.2 VB: You can go to outlinespod.com, that’s our website. There’s a contact form and you could reach out. You could also reach out to us through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. We’ll be listening.

0:27:48.8 MF: And thank you for listening, we will see you next time in Season Two. Bye ya’ll.

0:27:54.1 JS: Bye.

0:27:54.5 VB: Bye.

0:27:56.6 Sarah Wardrop: Thank you for listening to Season One of Out Lines. Subscribe, get lost in our show notes and cat pics, and sign up for updates on Season Two at outlinespod.com. This episode’s conversation was recorded in September 2021, and features members of the Out Line’s virtual production of Now She Dances! Christopher Borg, who played Herod, Gayle Dennison, who played Lady Herodias, Jay Thomas, who played Bill, Chris Weikel, who played Lane, and Virginia Baeta, who played Salome and did a whole lot of offstage work to shape every episode. David Leeper, who played The Prisoner and Karen Stanion, who played Gladys were unable to join. I’m Sarah Wardrop, purveyor of production magic to Out Lines Season One, and food to two cats, Meatball, who seems like a Bill, and Gabby who is definitely a Salome. Thanks to the dastardly Morry Campbell for the theme music, to Free to Use Sounds, to TOSOS. And of course, to Doric Wilson. You are all stars.

0:28:48.6 VB: Out Lines is a production of The Weakest Thing.

0:28:51.1 MF: I love you all very much, hugs and kisses.

0:28:53.0 CB: Bye. See ya’ll.

0:28:55.1 VB: Bye.

0:28:55.2 JS: Bye.

0:28:55.9 MF: Bye bye, ya’ll.

0:28:56.8 JS: Bye, Meatball.