Guthrie Theater

The Third Woman - Super-Heroes and Dead People

When you start to run scenes off-book (without the script in hand) things get hairy. Your brain does funny things to get the lines out in some sort of semblance of natural or dynamic dialogue. It doesn't work. You end up saying far too many words for a thought, you get stuck on one word that doesn't sound right, you substitute completely inane ideas for the correct ones, you mix names, you panic and you burn out.

During this time there is a lot of heavy sighing, breath holding and self-hatred. In reality, nothing sounds that bad from the outside. The scenes run perfectly fine and we get through it with the full knowledge that 2 or 3 more runs at it and we'll have it. And yet, we love to panic and beat our selves up. To push forward you have to take deep breaths and laugh full and hard at the mistakes.

I've been doing my bit for the inane substitutions department. The best part is that I just say them right out loud as if they make perfect sense. Here are some pearls from this week:

Real Line: I've sort of had it with smart people.

Inane Line: I've sort of had it with dead people.

Real Line: That anti-war folk-singer, daddy likes who hung himself.

Inane Line: That anti-war super-hero, daddy likes who hung himself.

What a goon! Where, oh where does it come from? What reaches of my brain decided that smart = dead and folk-singer = super-hero? God knows. At least, we can refer to them just before the panic and save each other from the burn out through full, hard laughter.