00:02
hello how are you sir good oh there we
00:18
go
00:19
wonderful um yes everything seems to be
00:23
working fine now does I had to reboot
00:27
and I think it reloaded the software and
00:30
I had to tell it my age for some reason
00:32
hmm strange social security number as
00:35
well that sort of thing strangely it did
00:38
not want that okay phew yeah okay um if
00:43
you don’t mind we’ll just jump straight
00:44
into this is that is that all right no
00:46
problem okay could you just tell me a
00:49
little bit about your background as a
00:52
writer and a performer and what led you
00:55
to Moliere for I’ve been acting since
00:59
high school I continued in college got
01:03
my honors in acting and directing went
01:07
on to apprentice, or intern, at the
01:11
Alabama Shakespeare Festival got my
01:13
Master of Fine Arts and directing out of
01:15
the University of Nebraska continued to
01:18
intern on a directing literary River the
01:23
Milwaukee rep and the Seattle rep and I
01:28
talked for a couple of years I taught
01:30
stage movement for a while at Northern
01:34
Illinois University nice nice okay and
01:39
so from that background how did you end
01:42
up heading towards Moliere? yeah there
01:45
was a there was a brief interim in which
01:47
I was doing just odd jobs, as director, actor and I landed
01:58
as a director at the Stage Two
02:01
Theatre company in Waukegan Illinois.
02:02
okay and we did mostly original work and
02:06
from that we we discovered that the
02:14
the audience out we decided to do
02:16
something with this title that people
02:18
would recognize so we landed on Tartuffe.
02:20
I was familiar with Tartuffe from working
02:23
on it at the Seattle Repertory Theatre,
02:25
got it and I was very curious about the
02:29
process of writing at that time and
02:30
especially I remembered the translation
02:33
which was in rhyme. And I wrote a
02:41
translation of Tartuffe and it came out
02:44
far better than I imagined it would and
02:47
I quit running the theater company and
02:49
started writing new variations of the
02:51
place of Moliere in rhymed iambic
02:53
pentameter. oh nice nice okay so now I’ve
03:00
got Moliere’s period of his main period
03:03
of work started at 1645 right? maybe a
03:08
few years earlier than that I think ’41?
03:11
’42? that he had a failed attempt opening
03:16
a Theatre in Paris. he told his father
03:20
that he no longer had an interest in
03:22
being upholsterer to the King. Left that
03:26
job which had been purchased for him by
03:29
his father and began acting with an
03:35
actress that he had fallen in love with
03:37
he traded in his inheritance from his
03:40
mother to open their own theater company.
03:42
they failed miserably they are… I’m losing
03:54
his light either okay
03:57
well they got he got thrown into debtors
03:59
prison, and I uh and his father bailed
04:03
him out probably saying I told you so
04:05
and eventually probably one step ahead
04:09
of the creditors he and his company took
04:12
off into the wilds…as opposed to in
04:22
their own theatrical space right okay I
04:27
sorry sir just that last piece again
04:29
they they didn’t have their own
04:31
theatrical space all they did I sort of
04:33
missed that they did he blew his
04:36
inheritance on a theater space and they
04:40
he he actually dreamed of being a great
04:44
heroic, dramatic actor (right) and saw himself as a
04:49
great tragedian rather than a comic
04:52
player right people didn’t buy him as a
04:58
great tragedian has it he was too short
05:01
in the torso to actually sell as Hero
05:05
okay
05:07
and that seems that seems like a pattern
05:09
i i’ve noticed with you know other comic
05:11
actors there was a one there was comic
05:13
actor in the in England back in the sort
05:16
of mid 20th century, Kenneth Williams, he
05:17
saw himself as a great Shakespearean
05:19
actor but he was sort of stuck with this
05:21
voice… and it’s one of them missing a
05:24
sort of… (weak Kenneth Williams impression)… I’m not very good
05:26
impressionist, but there’s this really
05:29
stuck nasally voice but a brilliant
05:32
comic actor and so you know you have to
05:35
you have to go with what you’ve got
05:36
right? yeah and given Molière’s (inaudible) as
05:49
someone who would see her in heroic and
05:51
pursuing a great virtuous objective.
05:55
right okay so so this is probably then
06:00
1641 ish, where more than 20 plus years
06:06
or 20 plus years after the death of
06:09
Shakespeare right he was born about six
06:12
years after Shakespeare got it okay and
06:16
the King of England at the time was
06:18
Charles the First and in France it was
06:23
Louis XIV is that right?
06:26
uh it was look it was Louis XIII
06:29
transitioning into Louis XIV. Got it. okay
06:32
His father was the upholsterer to Louis
06:36
XIII going
06:39
Moliere would have inherited that job
06:41
with (Inaudible) (okay)… so for, people
06:53
discovering Moliere for the first time
06:56
are there any would you say there were
06:58
any modern comedies or comedians that
07:00
you could sort of roughly compare to his
07:03
work I would you know what I often tell
07:07
people is that you cannot watch a half
07:09
an hour of situation comedy upon
07:13
television today without Molière’s
07:14
fingerprints being all over it
07:16
right I would say the most brazen
07:21
example that I’ve seen has been on
07:23
Saturday Night Live (okay) Steve Martin
07:26
especially where there was a scene just
07:30
ripped off from Moliere that’s
07:33
hysterical in which Steve Martin was
07:35
playing a he was he was doing a drug
07:39
test on Tom Hanks to see if Tom Hanks I
07:44
think was actually eligible to perform the
07:50
Saturday Night Live for (inaudible) so that
07:54
they did the urine test they bring out
07:57
the the the urine sample and they’re
07:59
about to put it through some wacky
08:00
machinery to examine it and Steve Martin
08:03
just drinks it instead. Right out of
08:06
Moliere. Okay, okay great.
08:12
Now for what I what I’ve been reading
08:16
his plays were influenced by the Italian
08:20
theatrical movement Commedia dell’arte
08:23
was this a typical thing for playwrights
08:26
of his era to be influenced by this
08:29
movement? It wasn’t stuff that was
08:40
written out and rehearsed they would
08:43
work from scenarios and was more of
08:47
something that you would do on the road
08:49
when you were performing out
08:52
doors, in a wide-open courtyard or tennis
08:58
court, or whatever they might perform in
09:00
it was designed to get the attention of
09:03
the audience to hold that attention as
09:05
long as they possibly could so that the
09:08
audience would still be around when it
09:10
came time to pass the Hat at the end. Got it.
09:12
whereas a playwright might write out
09:16
an elaborate script to be performed
09:19
indoors on which how Moliere started out
09:23
but when they went on the road he
09:25
learned a ton about the whole Commedia
09:27
impulse. Okay, and so, with that in mind
09:34
are there any archetypes that he either
09:38
borrowed from the comedia movement or
09:41
that he would have all that he came up
09:43
with himself uh
09:45
yes certainly he I think the the obvious
09:49
one is probably Doctore or the Doctor he
09:53
would I think it was safe for him more
09:57
than anything to make fun of Doctors and
10:00
so he would squeeze them in I think
10:02
there’s at least five plays that I can
10:04
think of off the top of my head in which
10:07
he will include a doctor such as the
10:10
Doctor In Spite Of Himself
10:12
The Imaginary Invalid, The Flying Doctor, there’s a
10:15
doctor who shows up in Don Juan and
10:18
several other plays. got it okay. And of
10:22
course the doctor is an idiot, he has no idea about
10:31
what what the disease might be or how you
10:33
might actually cure it. right
10:36
famously they they figured out that but
10:39
blood actually circulates in I think
10:42
1623. Wow. And the doctors in the 1670s
10:47
still hadn’t 100% bought into that and
10:50
Moliere would would mock that
10:53
relentlessly. Going to interesting so he
10:59
here say you were saying that he
11:01
essentially mocked the doctors as being
11:02
idiots and it’s interesting that you say
11:06
that even though they figure that out
11:08
men of the doctors essentially men of
11:11
science not still buying into that you
11:14
know that scientific evidence. it’s
11:18
interesting so he say that again
11:24
I said you froze up on me there for a
11:28
moment. I and I didn’t hear if there was
11:30
actually a question oh I’m sorry I was
11:32
just I was just saying that it was
11:34
interesting to me that he he mocks
11:36
doctors as being idiots and they didn’t
11:40
seem convinced that blood circulated
11:45
even though they’re men of science. right
11:49
right they essentially um they had they
11:52
had I think I think three main methods
11:55
of doctoring; which would be injections,
11:59
right they yeah and you will see the
12:01
word injections in Moliere quite often
12:03
they’re not the injections that we know
12:06
of they’re not intravenous injections
12:08
that’s usually the nice word for enemas
12:12
okay
12:14
(inaudible)
12:32
if yeah you know I didn’t get that last
12:38
one you froze up on me a little bit
12:39
there okay so what I said was they had
12:42
three basic methods of healing; yeah
12:46
would have been purging
12:49
(yeah) that is to vomit something up right
12:52
bleeding’s, (yup) to open a vein and let
12:56
all the bad humors escape
12:57
yeah and injections which were
12:59
essentially enemas.
13:00
got it okay. Yes. And do you think actors
13:05
today need to have a certain skill set
13:08
to perform his plays? a good physicality
13:19
a good pliable body in which they can is
13:24
because sometimes, there’s what whereas
13:26
what what we received from Moliere is
13:28
the words and the language that he
13:30
originally used yeah what we know is
13:33
that these were broad physical comedies.
13:36
needs to be both very fully into
13:41
whatever acrobatics or tumbling or sword
13:44
fighting or or… just general mischief
13:48
those characters would have been up to.
13:50
oh wow okay. However, however these
13:57
style (inaudible)
14:00
they could go on their entire career only
14:04
playing a single character throughout so
14:08
I might I might specialize as a commedia
14:11
performer has the done right yeah and I play
14:15
that through my entire career yeah in
14:18
different scenarios and I think you’ll
14:21
see that in a lot of Moliere plays
14:23
there’s always the the Parental
14:25
characters the Young Lovers, the Doctors
14:30
the Lawyers, the Priests. and and quite
14:34
often you know if you can nail that one
14:37
character you can play that one
14:39
character for quite a long time through
14:41
the course of your career right and that
14:43
was the same with Moliere
14:45
yes and he, I believe he played himself
14:50
the mischievous servant a lot got it ah
14:55
actually he played a variety of
14:57
characters but mostly he wrote for
15:00
himself the most challenging comic roles
15:04
and so he would have been he would have
15:06
had to play quite a different different
15:08
set of characters himself. So, okay
15:10
so you you mentioned having a actors
15:13
should have a pliable body, good
15:15
physicality, and because they were,
15:17
essentially, broad physical comedies. yes
15:20
okay great now he was I think this sort
15:25
of ties back to what we were talking
15:26
about at the beginning, he was part of a
15:31
theatrical troupe and how did how do
15:34
they make their money was it just
15:36
through box-office receipts or do they
15:38
have some sort of patronage? well you
15:42
kind of have to look at three phases;
15:43
there was the first first one they were
15:44
trying to run their own theater then he
15:46
they were reliant on the box-office receipts
15:48
which did not work out for them. then
15:51
they went on the road for about 13 years
15:53
and so at that point, for a long time,
15:58
they would be performing outdoors and
16:00
they would be reliant on passing the hat
16:03
at the end of the show. Then they came
16:08
back to Paris
16:09
they kind of did an audition performance
16:12
for the King and his brother and
16:15
actually there was a brief period while
16:17
they were still on the road they had a
16:18
patron who was Prince Conte and,
16:23
apparently, Prince Conte got religion at
16:27
some point and decided theatre was bad
16:30
and pulled out withdrew his patronage from
16:34
Molière’s troupe, which Molière’s troupe
16:37
resented. And a rumor has it that he
16:42
might have based the character of
16:44
Tartuffe on Prince Conte. okay but
16:49
October 24th 1658
16:53
he performed for the King and the
16:55
King’s brother, and the the they want to
17:01
(inaudible) they tried to produce play
17:03
again I believe it was one of the works
17:05
of (inaudible) a that they wanted to present
17:07
thinking that this was their big chance
17:09
to make it as the great, heroic
17:11
Tragedians that they always wanted to be
17:14
It bombed miserably and they said
17:19
well and they Molière knowing the king
17:21
and how to behave in court from his
17:24
upbringing came out before the curtain
17:26
and said we’ve got another show we would
17:28
like to perform for you, God bless your
17:30
Majesty, and if you if you like we it’s
17:34
this little divert a small and so they
17:40
say sure fine go ahead and perform it
17:41
and I believe it was either The Love
17:44
Doctor, or Loves The Best Doctor. They
17:48
were probably in it little a piece that
17:53
went over extremely well as the King’s
17:58
brother what was at that time known as
18:00
Monsieur and they became The Troupe de
18:05
Monsieur, which was to say the troupe
18:08
performing at the patronage of the
18:10
King’s brother. got it and then was there
18:13
was an there was a period of several
18:15
years there that they would perform at
18:17
the King’s brothers castle in repertory
18:21
with another… (inaudible) was Scaramouche we all
18:31
recall from the the song by Queen
18:34
Scaramouche, Scaramouche will you do the
18:36
Fandango? Right. who is actually I believe
18:42
the name was to bury Oh
18:44
or Tiberio Fiorilli or something to
18:47
that effect he was great commedia troupe
18:49
and they would perform alternate nights
18:51
(inaudible) for a while eventually they
18:56
became they came under the patronage of
18:59
the king himself and so they became the
19:02
Troupe du Roi for
19:05
they’re essentially the remainder of
19:08
Molière’s life.
19:09
right okay. And if if someone wanted a an
19:16
introduction to Molière’s work would
19:19
there be maybe one play or a couple of
19:21
plays that you would suggest sort of
19:24
really encapsulates, you know, his I guess
19:27
his whole body of work really is it you
19:29
know maybe one or two because I know he
19:31
wrote a vast amount. yeah I think he
19:35
wrote about 30, 32 plays some of them
19:38
just very short one acts half hour, 20
19:42
minutes scripts but there was there was
19:44
a period of time essentially from 1662
19:48
to 1673, when he died, that he performed
19:53
he wrote some of the great classic
19:55
comedies of French theatre and in the
19:59
center of that period there were three I
20:01
would say that I would isolate where he
20:03
was really at the height of his powers
20:05
and that would include Tartuffe,
20:08
The Misanthrope, and Don Juan.
20:12
Don Juan doesn’t get a lot of play these
20:14
days, at least in America, I think because
20:17
it’s got a huge cast and five different
20:19
sets. But I think that if you were
20:21
Looking for two – yeah that was his life
20:26
and his is vision, I would look at Tartuffe.
20:29
and The Misanthrope. got it okay
20:32
great now you perform well you perform a
20:37
number of different one person one-man
20:40
shows as that’s your that’s your main
20:44
thing but one of them one of the early
20:47
ones at least was Moliere than Thou
20:49
could you could you this just briefly
20:52
tell me a little bit about the show, and
20:55
how it came to be? okay so I had written
21:05
which I directed back in that would have
21:08
been 1997 I
21:11
I quit running the theatre company
21:12
starting to write new versions of the
21:14
plays of Moliere. And I wrote about 12
21:18
different adaptations in the course of about four
21:21
years. And I directed The Miser and then
21:24
I started auditioning for those plays
21:26
myself, rather than doing all the
21:29
production work on them I wanted to kind
21:31
of embody the performance aspect
21:41
lot of the roles of Moliere himself
21:43
originally portrayed in Scapin, in
21:46
The Misanthrope, in The Doctor In Spite of Himself and in
21:54
And in Sganarelle, or the Imaginary Cuckold
21:59
and so I had built up this repertory in
22:02
which I was playing the roles Moliere originally
22:05
played. got it. and I round the “Animal” circuit to
22:10
promote those plays as they were coming
22:12
up. So I would talk to the Eagles and the
22:15
Rotary Club and the… I’ve forgotten all
22:22
those clubs that are out there. But one
22:23
on one occasion I brought to address
22:27
that exactly to address the Canadian
22:31
Women’s Guild. Okay, and I was going to
22:35
talk about Moliere which was usually my
22:38
thing but they didn’t want a lecture
22:40
they wanted a performance. And since they
22:43
were actually paying me to make the
22:45
appearance I had to come up with
22:47
something. So knowing that Moliere had
22:50
this company of fifteen, seventeen actors
22:55
working with him at all times, I had to
22:56
come up with a reason that might leave
22:59
Moliere performing by himself
23:01
and how he would handle that. And so
23:06
sometimes creating an event or a
23:08
one-person show is just asking the right
23:10
questions. and so I had to ask why would
23:13
Moliere be performing alone? Well um
23:15
what if his ensemble all got sick with
23:20
something and he couldn’t rely on them
23:23
to perform but they had all already sold
23:26
out the house. He won’t refund that money
23:29
so it would do whatever it was he could
23:32
do
23:32
to collect that box-office money without
23:37
having a refund it. Right. and so he
23:40
comes up with the notion having
23:42
memorized all these plays and having had
23:46
to keep them in his head because you
23:48
never know when the King is gonna ask
23:50
for School For Wives again, he calls out
23:56
his favorite monologues introduces each
23:59
one and leads the audience through a
24:02
kind of an overview of his career and
24:04
performances. got it nice. okay and and
24:09
you’ve you’ve basically been performing
24:11
that ever since performing it that way.
24:13
right yeah I first performed it in March
24:16
of 2000 okay and I have probably
24:20
performed it well over 500 times since
24:23
then. Wow, Wow and then you then obviously
24:26
I mean I don’t want to expand too much
24:28
into the other areas but you’ve gone
24:30
into other one-person shows you’ve got
24:33
some Shakespeare in there? yeah it was
24:37
Breakneck Julius Caesar, right? where you
24:39
perform…
24:39
yes well just to give you a quick get
24:42
overview
24:44
amongst the I’m up I’m up over ten
24:47
one-man plays at this point right but
24:49
just just a state was in our realm here I
24:52
did one called Lot O’ Shakespeare in
24:55
which I do one monologue from every
24:58
Shakespeare play determine entirely at
25:00
random by the spin of a bingo cage fight
25:04
from that one I realized that the
25:07
history plays make better sense when you
25:09
do them in chronological order and so I
25:12
created a new one-man show called
25:15
Shakespeare’s History’s: 10 Epic Plays at
25:18
a Breakneck Pace. right right. All ten
25:21
history plays in order in the course of
25:24
a single evening. Then I got the idea from (inaudible)
25:31
sorry you’re sorry you froze up briefly
25:34
there you the we got to the the
25:38
Breakneck Pace where you perform all of
25:40
the history plays in one evening, is that
25:41
right correct? perfect okay so from there
25:44
a
25:46
An adjudicator from Denmark saw me do
25:49
Shakespeare’s histories and really
25:52
wanted me to focus on just one play and
25:54
i said well what what play do you think
25:56
i ought to do and he said well i’m from
25:59
Denmark suggesting that he thought I
26:02
should be doing Hamlet, yeah, so I created…
26:04
I and I’d always you know had a special
26:08
fascination with Hamlet and when
26:10
somebody from Denmark’s says you really
26:11
ought to do Hamlet I think that’s that’s
26:14
justification enough yeah and so I
26:16
created Breakneck Hamlet in which I do
26:19
all of Hamlet in a single hour and from
26:22
there one of my most popular monologues
26:25
has always been Mark Antony’s “Friends
26:28
Romans, Countrymen”. Okay. and so I wanted
26:31
to see how that monologue, that speech in
26:36
comes out in the course of that play and how the
26:39
fallout from that speech plays out
26:42
through the rest of that play so I
26:43
created it Breakneck Julius Caesar.
26:44
got it. So those have been kind of my most
26:48
popular one-man shows over the years,
26:50
have been the those those four
26:52
Shakespeare one-man shows and the one
26:55
Moliere show. got it okay I want to ask
26:59
you next have you directed any
27:03
Moliere plays since you’ve been
27:05
performing the the one-man play version
27:09
of it? yes yeah I think I’ve done I keep
27:15
getting called back to do Tartuffe again.
27:17
I’ve performed that I’ve directed that
27:20
two more times and I’ve also directed
27:23
The Misanthrope one further time so yes
27:28
I come back to that well every now and
27:32
again. got it because the reason why I
27:34
was asking was I’m interested to know
27:36
having performed as Moliere and done you
27:41
know significant speeches if your
27:44
experience doing that has now affected
27:47
how you see the plays and and altered
27:50
anything, altered your directing of them?
27:53
I’m in the in the intervening years
27:57
especially having observed a lot of
28:01
companies attempting to perform this the (inaudible)
28:07
will hang on come to do and I watching
28:15
other companies perform my scripts yeah
28:17
has informed me a lot about how much
28:21
stylized performance actors need to
28:25
understand in order to be fully present
28:29
for the audience, to handle the language,
28:32
to handle the physicality and so as I
28:35
come back to directing again yeah I’m a
28:37
lot more secure in what I want to see. so
28:43
rather than kind of feeling our way
28:46
through it, emotionally I have a lot of
28:49
blocking that I know that I want people
28:51
to execute in the in the course of the
28:54
performance. right I have knowledge of
28:57
the rhythm of the iambic pentameter, that
29:01
informs the delivery, and so I guess
29:05
over the years I’ve gotten a lot more
29:07
technical, as opposed to internal. okay
29:11
got it
29:11
I just just briefly this wasn’t a
29:14
question that I sent you it’s just
29:15
coming to me now I’ve seen some of
29:18
Molière’s plays when they’ve been
29:21
translated in verse and sometimes that I
29:24
see them as prose, now… yes. is that do you
29:28
think is there a is there a does it work
29:31
better if it’s in verse do you think?
29:33
well here’s the thing Moliere wrote half
29:36
of the time in verse and half of the
29:39
time in prose. ah okay. I don’t think we
29:43
actually know why. my best guess is that
29:50
Moliere wrote in prose when he was
29:54
writing under a deadline when when he
29:58
knew that the King needed this
30:00
performance on Thursday he wrote in
30:03
prose just to crank it out and got it down
30:06
on paper but when he had the time to
30:09
really think about it and develop it I
30:11
think that was when he wrote in verse.
30:14
they what I do it is I take whether he
30:18
wrote a prose or verse I write in verse
30:20
because it it feels like Moliere to me
30:24
more than the prose does. it elevates the
30:28
speech and it we have the it gives you
30:33
the feeling of the kind of the God
30:35
figure of the playwright, manipulating
30:39
the characters in such a way that you’re
30:42
very conscious of the influence of the
30:45
playwright. And you know that the
30:47
playwright has an intent to take you
30:49
somewhere okay if only because you’re
30:53
waiting to hear the rhyme that comes at
30:56
the end of the the second line, of each
30:58
couplet. and so there’s there’s a way
31:01
that you pay somewhat better attention
31:04
when the line is in verse then when it
31:07
is prose. Got it. okay and then you can
31:11
also in you can also undercut the
31:14
audience and and deny them that in
31:17
theory right? you could deny them the
31:20
rhyme that they think they’re gonna have.
31:21
yes I have… I did The Bourgeois Gentleman,
31:27
The Bourgeois Gentleman is famous for
31:30
several lines, but one in particular is
31:33
the character of Monsieur Jourdain
31:38
doesn’t doesn’t, isn’t, very
31:41
intelligence oh go ahead
31:44
he is asking the philosophy master to
31:48
help him understand how to write this
31:51
note to this woman that he wants to
31:53
write to. and he’s asking if it should be
31:56
in prose or in verse. or no I’m sorry the
32:00
philosophy master asks him if he wants
32:03
it written in prose or in verse, ok.
32:05
the poor gentleman does not understand
32:07
the difference between the two and he
32:10
says he says well the way that I speak
32:12
now what is that well that’s definitely
32:14
prose the and and The Bourgeois Gentleman
32:19
is thrilled to under
32:20
and that he’s been speaking in prose all
32:23
his life and didn’t even know it so in
32:27
writing my adaptation of the The Bourgeois Gentleman
32:30
I wrote everything in verse
32:35
except for Monsieur Jourdain who cannot
32:41
rhyme if his life depended on it. (inaudible)
32:44
and so (inaudible) the word glove
32:54
or of or above comes up the audience
32:58
knows that the rhyme they are waiting
33:00
for is love, but Monsieur Jourdain comes
33:05
up with affection and right. and and it
33:10
and so it’s a running joke through the
33:12
course of that particular translation of
33:15
The Bourgeois Gentleman is that I’m
33:17
setting you up for a rhyme, and then
33:18
denying you that rhyme. got it. or quite
33:21
often I set you up for a rhyme in my
33:23
other adaptations and provide you with a
33:27
rhyme that you’re not expecting because
33:30
I’ve combined a series of words that
33:33
don’t usually read as a single word. um
33:37
for instantly just give you an example
33:39
in The Misanthrope which is the first
33:42
speech that I do in Moliere Than Thou. “I
33:46
have the honour with which you endear me
33:51
thusly
33:52
is one which I would take quite
33:55
serio-US-ly. Okay. So I tried yeah I try to
34:01
elevate the rhyme itself above, kind of,
34:05
the pedestrian rhymes that we hear all
34:07
the time. right got it like it. just a
34:11
couple more Tim
34:15
knowing what you know about Moliere are
34:17
there, and your experiences, you know, up
34:21
until now are there any lessons that you
34:24
feel modern comedy or modern comedians
34:27
could learn from his work? or do you feel
34:30
those lessons have all been learned?
34:33
oh I think um I think modern comedians
34:41
ah… oh hang on froze up…
34:50
okay yeah there we go
34:52
now you four other okay so I think
34:56
modern comedians need to learn about
34:58
presence and need to learn about
35:01
articulation. okay
35:04
and the it’s what we lost in the interim
35:09
they would since the 1950s
35:11
um actors have grown up valuing internal
35:16
work and this Marlon Brando School of
35:19
muttering and mumbling their way through
35:21
the speech and we have this notion that
35:26
realistic performance demands that we
35:29
never never acknowledge or look out at
35:31
the audience. And and what the audience
35:36
is dying for is to see the eyes of the
35:39
performer and to look into those eyes
35:42
and understand the emotional life that’s
35:45
going on behind them. got it okay and
35:48
that’s really interesting that’s very
35:49
it’s a very if you don’t mind me saying
35:51
this is a very English outlook that you
35:53
have there yeah I I understand that. But
35:58
the fact is that the most nuanced
36:03
detailed informative muscles in our
36:06
bodies are those muscles that surround
36:09
the mouth and the eye. And every every
36:13
aspect of the story can be told in
36:16
what’s happening in those muscles and
36:19
… the American actor likes to
36:23
shut out the audience and deny them that
36:26
access and you can just see the audience
36:30
lighting up when they get included in
36:33
the world of the performer, as opposed to
36:36
when they get when they get shut out. so
36:39
yes I think I’ve written a book by the
36:41
way on this topic okay call called
36:44
Acting At The Speed Of Life:
36:47
Conquering Theatrical Style. okay and in
36:51
which I go but in some depth hopefully
36:57
if only to create a generation of actors
37:00
who are capable of interpreting the
37:08
froze up again… wait here… so that
37:13
because often I have jokes now don’t
37:16
watch cable form the words that I’ve
37:19
written to the works of Moliere so that
37:21
the audience can get not only the jokes
37:24
that are resting on the surface
37:25
and the physical interaction but also
37:28
those subsurface jokes that are the
37:32
innuendo, and the double entendre, to… in
37:36
which they can enjoy the the play on
37:38
several levels it acting it Acting At
37:45
The Speed Of Life. that’s correct.
37:47
and where can we learn more about you
37:50
Tim what’s your website my website is
37:53
Tim Mooney rev.com my ongoing joke is
38:02
that I perform as the Timothy Mooney
38:04
Repertory Theater uh which is accurate
38:07
in that I Timothy Mooney and performing
38:11
a repertory of plays right all featuring
38:14
Timothy Mooney the one-man show so so
38:20
and the show the shortened access to
38:23
that on the on the web is Tim Mooney rep
38:25
calm go ahead and if anyone wants to
38:29
pick up your copy of your book that’s
38:31
the best play that yeah join it if you
38:33
know the words that’s the best place to
38:35
do it as well yeah you can do it there
38:37
you can get you can find it on Amazon or
38:39
probably any place that I think I’ve
38:42
seen it on Barnes & Noble as well and so
38:47
so I don’t I don’t want to just
38:50
automatically send everyone over to
38:52
Amazon because they’ve they’ve got
38:54
enough money and they’ve they’ve wasted
38:56
enough cardboard already right but if
38:59
they want to come by
39:01
my website and pick up a copy so much
39:03
the better great okay always better get
39:05
it directly from the source and so you
39:09
know we could also enables go ahead I
39:12
can also cite as well uh when they buy
39:15
it that perfect okay Tim Mooney rep to
39:19
learn more about you and to hire you as
39:22
well to bring you in because you tour
39:23
around schools right that’s correct
39:26
i I I lay out a course every semester
39:29
that will bring me potentially to all 48
39:34
contiguous states in the u.s. nice and
39:37
quite often I cross over into Canada as
39:40
well so hiring me is a matter of finding
39:45
the date that I’m gonna be in your
39:47
neighborhood and and booking me to do a
39:50
show nice nice Tim Mooney rep we can
39:54
find out more about your show there and
39:56
hopefully hire you and also your book
39:59
acting at the speed of life that would
40:01
be awesome
40:02
wonderful Tim thank you so much for your
40:05
time I really do appreciate it my
40:10
pleasure Jason I’m glad we were able to
40:12
do this yeah well thanks for having me
40:14
sure with all of this thank you very
40:21
much thanks I said thanks and good luck
40:25
thank you Tim thanks yes all right speak
40:28
soon see you too
