The Numbers
Posted by Randall Newsome on 1/28/2009When you’re working on a role, sometimes you begin to take on traits and habits of the character you’re playing. At least that’s the excuse I’m going to use to explain why I’m a lousy card player. (Recent acquaintances may also claim this could be the reason why I’m an obnoxious social boor, but my long-time friends will assure you that I’ve always been that way.) I realize that it takes a certain kind of confidence and an ability to bluff to play poker well. I’m an actor and I hope that I can at least fake those skills, but that’s not the real issue…it’s the numbers. In this play, anyway.
There is some serious card-playing in The Seafarer, and at one moment, my character Nicky Giblin looks at a hand that one of the guys puts on the table and exclaims “What are the chances?!” Well, let me just put it this way - the chances are really slim. I could get on the Google and find out the exact odds of that particular hand occurring in that situation, but it still wouldn’t help me understand how to apply the numbers in practice. When I was a kid, I always used to think that the odds of anything happening (or not) were always 50/50… either the thing would happen or it wouldn’t. I now clearly understand (sort of) that that’s just not the case. I know that the odds of getting dealt a pair of threes are much better than getting a royal flush, but what are the odds that the other guy has nothing? What are the odds that he has twos? Or what are the odds that I could beat the odds? This is when numbers start to have some kind of enigmatic, arcane value to me.
It’s one of the many things that I love about this play we’re doing. It didn’t strike me until late in the rehearsal period, but Conor McPherson uses the mysterious property of numbers all throughout The Seafarer. In Act 1, Ivan (Alan Wilder) tells a story of a fellow who narrowly escapes death only to buy the farm in another freak accident later in the day.
“His number was up! His number was just up and he was going to have to go, one way or the other, you know what I mean, mad!”
The story is hilarious; Alan is hilarious; and eventually we begin to understand that the concepts of odds and numbers and chance are going to take a toll before this day is over. To these guys, the numerical significance of cards themselves have weight, not just as face value, but as powerful metaphors.
Lockhart: Ah, a ten is like a shining tower. It’s like the Twentieth Century. It’s solid. It towers, yeah? . . .
Nicky: Well I also like to see an eight. Give me a pair of eights for starters and I’m-
Richard: Ah eight! Eight is sneaky…Look at it! What is it? Eight! It’s not a ten, it’s almost as bad as a nine…
Nicky: Oh, Three threes is a lovely little hand. It’s like a little grenade.
Richard: And seven…
Lockhart: Oh seven is deep.
Nicky: We’re talking about numbers. . .
Ivan: Ah, seven is only my hole. Give me a four. . .Four is where you build your house.
These numbers will have a serious impact by the end of the night. In fact, if just one of these guys didn’t play a hand, or if one more or less shuffle had occurred, or if Mr. Lockhart hadn’t been invited to “…make up the old numbers for a game of cards…” (as Nicky puts it) this would have been a very different story. The notion of odds and chance and how these concepts relate to fate can become as much a brain-blower as the Brigid Blake’s famous Antrim poteen that Richard (John Mahoney) introduces to the mix. The hands of cards that these guys are dealt are crucial to the fate of the characters, and yet while there appears to be some kind of paranormal intervention, it just may really be the luck of the draw.
Maybe someday I’ll have a chance to portray a better card player onstage…along the lines of a Maverick, or James Bond. In my real life, however, I’ll just have to pretend that I’m a better-than-lousy card player and try to beat the numbers.