March 11, 1992
It was doomed from the start.
I'm trying to think when I should have seen it coming. When the scene was assigned under Raffaele's direction I should have known. But I didn't really have the insight into Raffaele's ineptness at the time. When my scene partner told me she's also a psychic, I should've known. But that just seems like some weird coincidence (having just reaped the plentiful bounty of Phil Jordan's genius). When I went to her place and had to leave my shoes in the hall, I should've known. But I know that I'm only a step or two below that level of anality, so I couldn't be too judgmental.
Perhaps I should have sensed her inability to do comedy when, as we read the scene, she laughed uncontrollably and repeated lines, adding, "This is funny. Isn't this funny?" But we pressed on. Perhaps I should have sensed our hopelessness as we met again and again without Raffaele present. But I was trying to do my own little directing bit and thought I could pull us through. (I couldn't.) Should I have picked up on the little things, such as her inability to run lines while I was painting the set because the paint fumes made her not remember her lines? Or maybe the big things, such as her inability to internalize a single moment or motivation?
Regardless of the warnings, the results were disastrous. From lights-up to lights-down it was unforgivably bad. Raffaele suffered the majority of the attack. The absence of guidance was painfully obvious. Andrea took all of this very poorly. She whined. She cried. She stomped her feet. She was devastated by the criticism (not the least of which was that she held the phone a foot-and-a-half away from her ear while talking on it.)
I took away a lot from this evening's events, though. First, an appreciation for Steve Beebe, and for good direction in general. You need a competent, attentive, astute 3rd voice guiding you in the right direction. Even directors back at Harvard who couldn't show you how to get there could at least point you in the right direction. And my lack of preparation can be blamed on no one but myself. I carried no previous life onto the stage, I just walked in and spewed lines. All I needed was some time and some effort to create a real character. I did not do that. Not good.
You need the bad ones every once in a while, though. And this was
definitely one of them.