Actor Speak (or, how I learned to stop sucking and love Betty Buckley..)

It doesn’t make me happy to struggle in rehearsals, no matter what show I’m doing – But it sure makes me happy to realize I’m breaking through the struggle and figuring things out. Which is my current situation at The Skriker.

I play The Hag, who is a character I love, love, love, but have been having a hard time with. Caryl Churchill is not an easy writer, and I’ve been having a hard time with the singing but not singing/screaming without screaming aspect of the big Hag scene.

So I delved deeper – and tried to find music that I thought fit the character. A lot of us are doing this with our characters. However, everyone else is using cool music and movie references.

Me? I choose a bleepin’ musical.

And it’s Cats. Le sigh.

BUT “Memory” is the perfect song for this character – and as such, I think I’m breaking through to the other side of this wall I’ve been slamming my theatrical face into for a few weeks now.

To that effect, Bob shared with me a story about Tony award winner Betty Buckley struggling in rehearsals for the original cast of Cats, where she played Grizabella (an eerily similar character to Skriker’s Hag…) –>

“Betty said her only job assignment was to “stop the show.” Does the word “pressure” mean anything to you? “Your only job is to achieve world peace. And ‘places’.” Of course, she couldn’t do it at first. She’d sing “Memory” and literally get tepid applause. Ouch. One day she said she saw a homeless woman walk by her apartment on 79th Street, who was dressed crazily with streaked lipstick, but walked with a fashion-plate attitude. She realized that was the key! She had been playing Grizabella as pathetic and self-pitying, but she instead decided to play it like she had something beautiful to share. This was near the end of previews, and she doesn’t feel she finally got the hang of the role until a while after opening night, but thankfully she got it in time to win the Tony Award. ” – Seth Rudetsky

Clearly, there are just times a girl has to channel Buckley.

Even if she is bat shit crazy.

And if she is, it might be even better.