48 - Impressions from Backstage

Impressions from Backstage
By Polly Holliday

"There is something going on in theatre-the acting and watching of a play-that is like something else that we know…. When God spoke, the world came into being. It was beautiful-a beautiful stage. God decided to tell a wonderful story. When man and woman entered, time began, and the play started."

I am an actress, not a theologian, but I hope that after twenty-five years of acting I've learned something worthwhile to pass along; something deeper than "character motivation," or how I'll wear my hair for my next role, or what I think my next career-move should be. I hope that what I'm relating is not wrongheaded; if it is naive, I don't care. I encourage all who read this to do as I try to do in my own reading, keep what seems true and helpful and discard the rest.

I will try to describe three impressions concerning an actor's life backstage. You would think my most vivid memories would be of my time onstage, but I would say that more hours of an actor's life are spent backstage than on, what with preparation, rehearsals, and the fact that many roles an actor plays are not leads, but smaller roles that entail less actual time onstage. These impressions are of myself backstage, observing what is going on. When I think of them, I see them through my eyes as if I were, at this moment, backstage. The three impressions are these:

(1) Standing in the wings watching an audience watch a play.
(2) Standing in the wings watching a play begin.
(3) Standing in the wings as an actor myself, about to enter a play.

And now you should recall for yourself the basic structure of a theatre. There is the audience where the watchers sit; there is the stage itself where the action occurs; and there is the area which "wraps around" the stage-a crescent that includes the area behind the stage and the area on each side of the stage. This crescent, usually hidden from the audience by curtains, drapes, and pieces of scenery, is the

Polly Holliday is a professional actress. She spent seven years with the Asolo Theatre repertory company in Sarasota, Florida. Her Broadway credits include All Over Town (1975) and the revival of Arsenic and Old Lace (1986). She has appeared in the films All the President's Men, The One and Only, and Gremlins. For four years, she played the part of "Flo" on the television comedy Alice. In 1988, she played Amanda in The Glass Menagerie at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. While there, she gave an address, reprinted here, at the Westminster Presbyterian Church as part of an adult education series an the Arts and Creativity.

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backstage. The side areas are called "wings," left and right. The stage and the backstage plus the vast area over the stage, where lights and scenery can be "flown" by ropes and cables, are all sheltered by the "stage house."

I've always liked the terms "right and left wings" and "waiting in the wings." I know that "wing" is an architectural term, but I can't help thinking of real wings on either side of the stage suspending it in space, a suspended place where something takes place.

I

The first time I really watched an audience watch a play, I was appalled and fascinated. I watched from the stage right wing, peeping through a crack in the scenery. The audience was in the dark, the lights from the stage illuminating their faces which, of course, were all facing the stage. But what they were doing looked crazy. Their eyes were darting all over the place all the time. They traveled all over the scenery, top to bottom, back and forth across the stage; they even took in the ceiling of the theatre at times and the stage boxes on either side of the stage, and the traveling never stopped. At first, I was outraged. "Why, they aren't even watching us (the actors) at all!" I had always assumed every eye was always glued to the actor who was speaking, especially when I spoke. Or I thought at least the audience would watch the dialogue go back and forth between two actors. But they don't. An audience is constantly re-orienting itself to the whole picture and seems to take everything in at once, in big sweeping arcs, as they listen to the words. But more especially, the audience seems to "re-locate" itself every few seconds, staying or trying to stay in the realm of watcher.

My second impression, that of standing in the wings watching a play begin, is a most happy one. I was once a part of an excellent production of As You Like It, and this impression involves the beginning of that beautiful, romantic play.

Shakespeare knows how to begin a play. His beginnings are very exciting. He just starts. As You Like It has a very complex plot with many characters; all the characters are interesting and have a developing story. All their story lines get entangled in the middle of the play, and then each thread is straightened out, tied up neatly in the end, and everyone lives happily ever after. But to tell you the plot would take a good twenty minutes, and then you might not think too much of it. But Shakespeare doesn't worry, he just begins with one character's situation and starts piling on all the others, leaving the audience to fend for themselves, to listen and catch on to the story.

The play involves, among many other plots, three brothers: Oliver, Orlando, and Jaques. Their father, in his will, has charged Oliver, the eldest, with the responsibility of dividing the inheritance and caring for the two younger brothers. But Oliver has kept the inheritance for himself, sent Jaques away to school, and reduced Orlando to being a stable boy. The play begins with two actors, Orlando and Adam, his

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former manservant, stepping onstage. The dialogue begins mid-conversation, with Orlando speaking. The mood is strong and tingling with the character's feeling of outrage and frustration:

As I remember it, Adam, it was on this fashion: bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayst, charged my brother, on his blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my sadness. My brother, Jaques, he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you that keeping, for a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling of an ox?

This speech begins a wonderful story where all sorts of exiles end up in the magical forest of Arden and find there, after much travail, forgiveness, justice, and their heart's desire.

Because I loved the play, I watched the beginning every night. I would stand in the stage right wing and look across the stage to the stage left wing where the two actors stood ready to begin the play with their entrance. It was a lovely and moving sight. The houselights would go out, the audience would be in darkness as was the stage-everything dark and silent after the audience settled down. There would be a few seconds of nothingness, then the lights slowly came up on a bare stage-warm roses, amber, and lavenders. There ensued a waiting period of maybe seven to ten seconds. Then, at just the right moment, on stepped two actors, in full stride, talking with passion and energy and like a crack of lightning, the play began!

I noticed that once the blackout occurred and the lights came up onstage, the "waiting period" could extend for any number of seconds, at the stage manager's discretion, and nothing existed except a feeling of expectancy. But once the actor entered and began the words, time began. The clock of the story began to tick. And the stage world was immediately put in movement, in forward motion. The story had begun and would not stop until it had been told. The audience had to stay attuned and the actors had to be ready when their time came to enter, for the story would not wait.

Of my third impression, that of standing in the wings as an actor myself about to enter a play, I will digress a little to say something of what it takes to "make an entrance." First of all, it takes four to six weeks of rehearsals. You must read the play and understand the story; you must learn your lines; you must try to figure out what the playwright meant by what he wrote-what the playwright wants the play to say; you, the actor, must figure out how best to show to an audience what the playwright meant, by your physical behavior and by interpreting the lines for the audience by the way you deliver them.

I feel that when an actor, through his special gifts, his charisma and power of concentration, really begins to "act," to really "tell the story" in performance, something takes place that engulfs both him and the audience. The play "comes to life" and the world of the play expands and, for periods of time, "takes in" the audience. They slip from the

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reality of the audience into the reality of the play. This "coming to life" of the play affects the actor, too, and for periods of time he "becomes" the character-his will and the character's will seem to meld. Both the audience and actor believe the play, experience it. This is not a constant phenomenon but an "in and out" sort of thing, a slipping out of one reality into another for a moment and sometimes for many moments at a time. We say, "we lost ourselves in the play"; we were "taken in" or "taken up" with the action.

II

To say something more about what happens when an actor "acts," from 1976 until 1981 I played a character named "Flo" in a television series called Alice. People saw the character in new situations every Sunday night and many became fond of "Flo."

Sometimes children would ask me, "Where does Flo live when she's not on the show?" I was amused by this. I would say, "Why, Flo doesn't live anywhere; Flo is me." The children would look puzzled and even worried. I began to have questions from adults, such as "Are you really Flo?" "Is Flo really you?" "What part of you is Flo?" "What part of Flo is you?" "How do you 'become' Flo?" I could explain my disguise-my wig, makeup, etc., but that didn't seem to satisfy some people. They still wanted to know what was "involved," how it could be-because I didn't seem like Flo. I would say, "It's all me. Everything that Flo is, is me. There are parts of me in reserve that aren't Flo, but whatever is Flo, is me."

After thinking about this, I began to understand it this way: I take what is me, myself, and I "place it over there." I sort of empty my self into another being or another place-a sort of "person" appears in that it is the Flo character who acts and speaks, but I am doing it and I am also still me in the midst of it and in the background. I think of the character as real, and she becomes real to me, too. I liked "Flo" very much; I thought if I really knew someone like her that I would like that person. She seemed related to me-a part of me. Like a good friend or even like a relative-a sister.

This feeling of the character's reality makes actors protective of their character. I was invited several times to appear on talk shows and variety shows dressed as Flo, but I said, "No, Flo lives in Mel's Diner; she wouldn't be on a talk show; she's a waitress." I felt I couldn't exploit the character and take advantage of her. I wanted to keep her true to herself.

Now back to my impression of "standing in the wings as an actor about to enter a play." The backstage area is dark, cool, and peaceful, a neutral zone. It is not a part of the world of the audience watching the play; it is not part of the outside world where people are going to and from work, going to the grocery store, going to the laundromat. And it's not really a part of the world of the play that is progressing on stage moving forward and creating its own time. The backstage area seems to

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represent no real place or time. The actors step out of this neutral zone into the play-the story that is moving forward. The closest I can come to describing it is to suggest it is like stepping from a still train platform onto a slowly moving train that is already pulling out of the station. You leave the station and enter the world of the moving train.

This brings us to the real preparation for entering a play. You flash forward in your mind. You see the whole play, the beginning, the middle, and the end, and you think ahead as best you can to what is going to be required of you in the next two hours-the ups and downs of emotion, the different speeds that will be needed, the pacing of your energy and stamina. You then return to the present moment and trusting all you've learned, explored, and rehearsed, you relax your mind and body, center your focus on the first few lines coming up and then at the right time, when the time arrives, you make the smallest movement of will, and that puts you in motion and takes you onto the stage. It's only a matter of one step, from the dark into the light. It's a matter of will. The smallest bit of effort, the least inclination, begins the whole process. You decide to do it. In effect, you give yourself up to the play-you might say you give up and enter the story. It is said that Ralph Richardson's last words to himself before he made an entrance were, "Oh, the hell with it!" Once you're onstage you just do the work you are there to do. You tell your part of the story.

III

These thoughts have arisen from twenty-five years as a professional actor. It's my personal view, and it's a learned view, but not so much a studied view. Learned in the sense of realization through action-learned by doing it, not just by studying it.

I didn't study acting in a formal situation very much. I was in an acting class probably a total of a year doing one class a week. But I have spent literally thousands of hours onstage and backstage being part of a play. I began acting in a repertory company called the Asolo Theatre in Sarasota, Florida. I was a member of the company for seven years, working about nine months a year, eight performances a week, each performance involving at least four hours of preparation and acting. This doesn't include hours spent rehearsing, usually three to five hours a day. During these years I covered over fifty different plays. I lost count. If you reckon it as only six years, due to breaks and schedule irregularities, it still amounts to more than 4,500 hours.

This time spent onstage performing means constantly watching and analyzing yourself-as you do it. Adjusting timing, varying the reading of lines, thinking and planning ahead, listening to the other actors and to the audience, moving quickly, moving slowly-many tasks which, when put together, hopefully produce an effortless telling of a story to an audience and making them believe it.

I have wondered from the very beginning what all this means. Why is there theatre? Why are there actors? Why are people meant to be

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actors? How am I able to sense what to do? Why did I feel, the first time I saw a professional play (at age seventeen), that not only was it strange and exciting, but natural and familiar-that I knew what was going on? What is this thing we all do together: you watch and I act?

I believe there is something much more profound at the heart of theatre than the audience's entertainment or the artist's self-expression: the playwright's expression, the designer's expression, the actor's expression. And, no matter how well-reviewed and well-received and understood and appreciated by the audience these efforts are, the goal is not how high we can elevate the quality of the art-how excellent we can be. Excellence is only a gateway-the more excellent the artistry, the wider the gate opens. The play is not the goal, the self-expresion of the artist is not the goal, the excellence of the artistry is not the goal. These are human creations and creativity-small imitations of something far greater. There is something going on in theatre-the acting and watching of a play-that is like something else that we know.

God lives outside time. When God spoke, the world came into being. It was beautiful-a beautiful stage. God decided to tell a wonderful story. When man and woman entered, time began, and the play started. As author, God knew the beginning and the end. As author, God could send on any characters at any time. God could even enter the play and assume an identity recognizable to the other actors. And when God entered as Jesus Christ, God's self emptied into a human form. God still remained, unchanged and whole, but the self of God (that beautiful self) emptied into another. That other was all God and it was all human-real, existing-like a relative, a brother, or a son-begotten of the Father, of the same being with the Father.

We live in this wonderful play that God has written, making, as Shakespeare understood, "our exits and our entrances." But when we are taken over by God's love a wonderful thing happens. As Christians, as believers in Christ, we become like Christ in the sense that, while we may not know fully the whole script, we, too, know the beginning and the end. We become good actors who have in mind, not just their own part, but a vision of the whole play and desire to act out the story-to see it through to the end. And like good actors, we must study the play, try to understand what the playwright meant, solve our problems and weaknesses, and provide a pure and honest ground for our character to grow.

We prepare for each day's entrance onto the stage through prayer. We try to quieten and center ourselves; we remember those little places where we failed in yesterday's performance and think ahead to how we can remedy them; we try to envision the whole play-the beginning, the middle, and the end. And then, we take a deep breath, relax, and begin that small step forward and give ourselves up to the play, trusting in the playwright to tell the story.

When we do this, when we try as hard as we can to do this, the mystery of Christ takes place, something that only God could have conceived. We don't then step onstage as wonderful, excellent actors

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having achieved this excellence with our own technique, preparation, and practice. Christ enters our being-God's son, God's very self, empties again. And it is Christ who steps onstage and acts our part. When we love, it is He who is loving; when we restrain an evil act or thought, it is Christ acting in us-changing us and showing us the way-being the way, being our action, dwelling in us.

And the reward? The greatest joy an actor can have: the feeling of doing it right, doing it naturally-when everything works beautifully when hitting the home run is a happy, graceful, and natural swing that connects.

I may be off the beam theologically-if so, I trust in others to help me out. But one thing I know-God is not perverse. God doesn't deceive us. God's revelation is provided in ways that we can understand. We are spoken to in our own language. And I can understand something of God through what God has allowed me to do in this world.

Summing up what G. K. Chesterton said in a book called The Everlasting Man, I believe by the grace of God and I am strengthened in that belief by my reason-by the most reasonable of reasons-that the story of God's creation and entrance into this world as Jesus Christ is like something that we already know-we can see it all around us if we look-it is like life.

"For all that may be known of God by men and women lies plain before their eyes; indeed God has disclosed it to them. God's invisible attributes, that is to say God's everlasting power and deity, have been visible, ever since the world began, to the eye of reason, in the things that God has made" (Rom. 1:19-20, NEB adapted).

Thanks be to God.