9 years ago
Monday, September 29, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Origin of an Actor
So I am hip-deep in rehearsals for Frankenstein, which is my excuse for not blogging sooner. It is going quite well, we finally have a full cast, after a week and a half of searching frantically for a guy who wasn't too overbooked to play Henry Clerval, Victor's boyhood friend and lab assistant.
I wanted to share a story told by Mike, the guy playing the Creature. He's a large, burly fellow who works as a building contractor, and has been doing theatre work all over the Midwest before moving to GA.
He spent some time in the U.S. Virgin Islands as a young man in his 20s, living in St. Croix for a couple years, where he met a girl to whom he proposed. Things were going well until she got really heavily into cocaine and ended up leaving him for a Rastafarian coke dealer.
And then the DEA came on the scene in a huge drug bust all over the islands, rounding up dealers by the score.
Mike, who had gotten the ring back from this girl and written her off completely, catches wind that she made an offhand comment to her dreadlocked feller that "Mike probably ratted because he was jealous that I'm with you." So now Mike, this long-haired (at the time), hawaiian shirt-wearing, easy-going surfer guy, now has a hit out on him by Rastafarian drug dealers.
Of course his first stop is the airline ticket counter, where he's told he has to wait two weeks to get a flight out due to the red tape, and probably added security because of the DEA bust. At this point he's freaking out, scared to go home because they know his name and where he lives.
A week after picking up a few things quickly at his place and getting a hotel room, he goes to the store to replenish the liquor and food supplies for his hobbit hole. While there, he spies a can of brown shoe polish. In a bit of inspired lunacy, he buys the polish and a Rastafarian dreadlock wig. He covers his face neck, arms, with the stuff, puts on the wig and goes outside longer than 30 minutes for the first time in a week.
Having spent so much time in the islands, and discovering a talent for mimicry and voice which he didnt know he had, he falls easily into the Rastafarian walk and accent. While out, and mightily impressed with his own cleverness, he spied one of the guys who ran around with the drug dealer crowd and goes up to him and starts a conversation. he knew this guy, and had spoken with him many times. So he says, "Hey mon, you know dat Mike Smith guy?"
The guy responds, "Yeah mon, I hope we get dat sanoofabeech" and they commiserate for a good five minutes about the desire to snuff out the dirty rat.
Three days later he gets rid of the blackface, dyes his hair black, puts on a cheap black suit and walks around talking in a heavy Brooklyn accent, showing everyone a picture of himself before his transformation with long hair and surfer. "You know dis guy?" When he runs across one of the Rastafarians and asks the question, and gets an afffirmative, he advises, "This is my brother Mike. You tell anybody else that's lookin for him, you mess wit my brother, the entire Jersey mafia is gonne come down on this place and kill every last one of youse!"
For the rest of his last week in St. Croix, he went completely unmolested.
Once back home, he took to carrrying his balls around in a wheelbarrow.
I wanted to share a story told by Mike, the guy playing the Creature. He's a large, burly fellow who works as a building contractor, and has been doing theatre work all over the Midwest before moving to GA.
He spent some time in the U.S. Virgin Islands as a young man in his 20s, living in St. Croix for a couple years, where he met a girl to whom he proposed. Things were going well until she got really heavily into cocaine and ended up leaving him for a Rastafarian coke dealer.
And then the DEA came on the scene in a huge drug bust all over the islands, rounding up dealers by the score.
Mike, who had gotten the ring back from this girl and written her off completely, catches wind that she made an offhand comment to her dreadlocked feller that "Mike probably ratted because he was jealous that I'm with you." So now Mike, this long-haired (at the time), hawaiian shirt-wearing, easy-going surfer guy, now has a hit out on him by Rastafarian drug dealers.
Of course his first stop is the airline ticket counter, where he's told he has to wait two weeks to get a flight out due to the red tape, and probably added security because of the DEA bust. At this point he's freaking out, scared to go home because they know his name and where he lives.
A week after picking up a few things quickly at his place and getting a hotel room, he goes to the store to replenish the liquor and food supplies for his hobbit hole. While there, he spies a can of brown shoe polish. In a bit of inspired lunacy, he buys the polish and a Rastafarian dreadlock wig. He covers his face neck, arms, with the stuff, puts on the wig and goes outside longer than 30 minutes for the first time in a week.
Having spent so much time in the islands, and discovering a talent for mimicry and voice which he didnt know he had, he falls easily into the Rastafarian walk and accent. While out, and mightily impressed with his own cleverness, he spied one of the guys who ran around with the drug dealer crowd and goes up to him and starts a conversation. he knew this guy, and had spoken with him many times. So he says, "Hey mon, you know dat Mike Smith guy?"
The guy responds, "Yeah mon, I hope we get dat sanoofabeech" and they commiserate for a good five minutes about the desire to snuff out the dirty rat.
Three days later he gets rid of the blackface, dyes his hair black, puts on a cheap black suit and walks around talking in a heavy Brooklyn accent, showing everyone a picture of himself before his transformation with long hair and surfer. "You know dis guy?" When he runs across one of the Rastafarians and asks the question, and gets an afffirmative, he advises, "This is my brother Mike. You tell anybody else that's lookin for him, you mess wit my brother, the entire Jersey mafia is gonne come down on this place and kill every last one of youse!"
For the rest of his last week in St. Croix, he went completely unmolested.
Once back home, he took to carrrying his balls around in a wheelbarrow.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
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