Tice Allison, Jenifer Hastings Coté,
Kate Brickley
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The Thursday night performance of the final week of a show, plus every Sunday matinee except for the concluding one, are the times I nudge my character into small patches of unpracticed territory, trying out bits of new business as they occur to me organically on stage.
I do this so that my performances don't get stuck in the mud of routine. You risk going up on your lines if you push rather than nudge your character into new creative waters, because memorized lines tend to fuse themselves with -- well -- routine. But this is rarely an issue if you're solidly off book and you don't take your character so far off shore that he loses his way back in front of the audience.
With only four more shows to go, and the final Thursday just concluded, now is the time I allow the character of Gooper to gel, to settle into whatever theatrical algorithm that will have been derived from me just leaving him be from this point forward.
If Gooper wants to nestle into a comfortable routine at this point, why that's just fine by me. He has earned it. Or if he is so inclined, he is now at liberty to make interesting choices of his own with me, his beaming papa, observing from the wings of a submerged psyche, still holding onto the reins perhaps, but only as a mere formality. He has become a character I am proud of, and has earned the right to do whatever he pleases -- all for patiently allowing his actor host to tug him out of his comfort zone once a week, with neither protest nor flubbing of lines.
Gooper, Brother Man, you may be the despised first born of Big Daddy, but you are my favorite son, ya big, dopey conniving lug!
