The Many Faces of Me

Seems like I am making a career of playing multiple characters in a single production.  Not that there's anything wrong with that - in fact, it's a lot of fun!  Going back to my 21 years on the road with The Covenant Players, we would spend every program playing different characters, but it was usually in different short plays.  In an hour, we would perform 3 to 6 short pieces, and I could play up to 6 different people.  But I am talking about something different here.  The chance to be different people in the same play while interacting with the same characters in different scenes. (Did I loose you yet?)

The first in this string was THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF AMERICA (abridged).  3 of us presented the entire history of our country, going from Columbus to President Clinton, in a little over an hour.  I don't think any one of us had less than 12 costume changes.  We did 2 performances in the Park as part of their 4th Of July celebration, then 3 more inside a real theater.  I played Ben Franklin, Betsy Ross, and Humphrey Bogart/Sam Spade, to name a few.

Next came SYLVIA by A. R. Gurney.  To be honest, I only auditioned for it because I DIDN'T get cast in A TUNA CHRISTMAS (another play where 2 actors play 20 plus characters), so when I got the 3 parts in SYLVIA, I started calling the production TUNA LIGHT.  I got to play a macho New York sports fan, a Freudian-slipping society matron, and a "sexually ambiguous" psychologist.  The rest of the cast was a dream to work with and it made for a VERY fun run.  In fact, we sold out every show!

Have you ever seen the Alfred Hitchcock film THE 39 STEPS?  Imagine it on stage, a comedy, and performed by 4 actors.  The lead, Richard Hannay, was played by one man, 4 women were portrayed by a wonderful actress, and "Clown 1" (me) and "Clown 2" played everybody else.  Child, adult, male, female -- whatever.  We were pulling props onto stage from the wings, from the audience, even pulling AUDIENCE onto the stage!  These characters included a traveling salesman, a paper boy, London cop,  Nazi spy, Wife of Scottish hotel keeper, and a baby.  And this is only SOME of the roles.

And finally, THE BOYS NEXT DOOR.  Only 3 characters this time, but a dream cast to work with.  The show is a comedy about 4 developmentally disabled men who share an apartment, and I got to interact with them as a Golf Student, a Theater Manager, and a State Senator.

The next play where I am only doing one character is going to seem rather dull by comparison.