Fraud! Fraud!
Last night, I brought Don and Danielle out to my apartment to read through Staring Contest purely as a diagnostic of sorts, to see what needed to be worked on in terms of “voice and character” stuff, as opposed to “moving and doing” stuff. Realized a few hours beforehand that by giving Don the role I’d given him, I’d managed to typecast him in the same sort of role that I’d given him back in 1999–that of a normal shlub taking a real event and extrapolating it into a paranoid fantasy beyond his control. He does it well, mind you. And I suspect that when you’re getting back into the game after so long, it’s not the best thing to start stretching. Or something. My point, though.
I haven’t directed a play in four years, and it’s been a bit longer since I’ve directed one of my own. I sat there with the two of them wondering if at some point one of them was going to look at me and say, “My God. You have no idea what you’re doing here, do you.”
It would be highly unlikely for Don and Danielle, friends of mine for some time now, to be so blunt about such a statement, but I worry that as they drove home the seeds of such thought were planted in their heads, slowly worming their way to a fear center that will manifest in mid-July. But now who’s being paranoid, I wonder?
The show is going to be fine. They’re already most of the way where they need to be, and I can, I can, I can bring them the rest of the way. Deep breaths. You’re not a fraud.
Maybe I shouldn’t listen to Radiohead when I have confidence issues.
Current music: Radiohead, Hail to the Thief
Creative Control 