Steppenwolf Theatre Company Blog – Chicago Theater, World-Class Ensemble

Talk about your yin and yang.

I’ve just spent 3 months rehearsing Eugene O’Neill’s 6 hour epic Strange Interlude, a Neo-Futurists production for Goodman’s O’Neill Festival. We rehearsed for 2.5 months in a freezing cold theatre for 3 performances. And now I have to step into Art at the ‘Wolf and run it for 3 months. I started working on lines by my lonesome about a month ago, knocking off a few pages every day and trying to see the show about once a week. I wasn’t sure I had the brain space but it’s looking like I do…I think.

It’s an interesting challenge/dilemma to step into a role midway thru a run. Normally, as a group working on a play, you put the car together, push it out of the garage, watch it sputter to a halt, work on it some more and hopefully, eventually get it up to speed. In this scenario, the car is running in top form at 70 mph, you see it coming towards you on the horizon and somehow you have to hop on as it races by.

This means working a lot by yourself - the opposite of the rehearsal process. Just by yourself, going over your lines again and again. And again. Then making acting choices based on what you imagine went on in the rehearsal room judging from the show you watch at night. This kind of isolation has its upside in that you are free to make your own choices, sort of. But the most rewarding part of putting up a show for me is the rehearsal process and the sense of community that comes with working so hard and closely with a small group of people. Absent that, you just hope you’ve done your work. As you jump into a car passing by you at 70 mph.

Here we go…

This entry was posted by Joe Dempsey on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 4:36 pm and is filed under Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.