Thoughts from the Audience

Brian Dudley, Box Office Manager
So have you seen the show yet?

Our production of The Temperamentals has now played four full performances, and things are off to a really great start across the board. Oh, sure, I could tell you what the critics are saying - The Boston Globe called it a "solid production," noting Will McGarrahan's "finely etched character portrait" of Harry Hay in their review today - but really I feel as though it is more important to you what I think.

You may recall that I wrote a few weeks ago about how I was excited to see this play up and running because of how much the script lends itself to being staged. Well, as it turns out, I was right, because everything about this play is nuanced and tempered (excuse the pun - is that a pun?) and it's all pretty great. My confusion was washed away and I found myself sitting and really enjoying the show I was seeing. Of course, I don't want to sit here and just review the play for you, because I am sure you are planning on seeing it. But let me say that I am really excited about how our first four audiences have been responding to this show.

I heard a story recently about a theater professional from out of town who was lamenting and chastising theater audiences these days for only looking for mindless entertainment, for not being interested in  connecting with art, and being afraid to take their engagement with a piece to a deeper level. And I am pretty thrilled to say that The Temperamentals audiences thus far are proving this guy completely wrong. Our audiences have been stopping to talk to us on their way out the door, and I gotta tell you, biased I may be, but all of the conversations I've had with people have been thought-provoking and indicative of a real connection to the play.

Some examples. At our post-performance talkback last Sunday, there was a lot of discourse about how truthful and honest the play was when it came to portraying these real-life characters in a fictional setting, and about how timeless and important this story is, and how moved they were by the show. People who've been using our Virtual Photo Booth (patent pending) have been chatting animatedly about how the characters are the lifeblood of the piece and how talented and invested our actors are. I've observed people fervently reading Nora's excellent dramaturgy - articles in the program and posted in our lobby - and have overheard conversations that range from dissecting the play from all angles, to stories being told about living through the times depicted in the play, to one person musing on the themes of the play and deciding to sum it up with the classic "to thine own self be true."

So to whoever says people only want entertainment, I say, pbbttttttthhhhh to you, sir.

... which is not to say that this show isn't entertaining. I mean, look, this picture contains not only a ukulele, which is statistically proven to be the most entertaining instrument*, but also a turnip with a face on it:

Victor Shopov, Will McGarrahan, and Shelley Bolman. Photo by Mark S. Howard.

So there's that, too.

*Okay, there is no such statistic, but come on! It's a teeny tiny little string instrument!

Who are you?

A. Nora Long, producing associate

Tonight is the final dress rehearsal and there will be LOTS more to say on that soon. BUT, I wanted to take a moment to tell you all about a little experiment we are engaged in.

As you may of heard (or I may have already mentioned) we received a grant from Mass Humanities to produce some supplementary programming for The Temperamentals and audience engagement activities using social media (the blog is part of the idea, for example). One of the other activities centers around a virtual photo booth.

As some of the central themes in the play are identity and self-expression, we thought it might be fun to give the audience a chance to express themselves in our virtual photo booth. You are invited to dress up with some of our props and costumes, write a thought on a white board, or just come as you are into our "booth" (regulars might recognize it as the alcove with a curtain). The photos will then by uploaded to our Facebook page, for you to tag, share, and comment on.

Our hope (besides cleverly luring you to our Facebook page) is that these photos will be a way to continue the conversation from the theatre with us and other audience members. Our front of house staff gave the booth a test-run tonight, and those photos will be up tomorrow, but here's a little teaser for you:

The Lyric Stage Company's fabulous front of house staff!

The Tasty Space Between

Brian Dudley, Box Office Manager

I don’t like reading plays.

But wait! Before you start chasing me out of the box office with torches and pitchforks, please note that this does not mean I don’t like plays. On the contrary! I think plays are great. The play is such a unique narrative form in that the script, the actual words are just the skeleton, and the muscles and veins and lungs and eyes and ears all belong to someone else: an actor, a director, a designer, a member of the audience.

Therein, however, is my problem with just sitting and reading plays. All I know is that more often than not, when I curl up by the fire with a cup of tea to read a play¹, I get a few pages in and then I go all cross eyed because my brain isn’t filling in the blank spaces between the dialogue and I’m unable to process the story being presented to me. When I look at a script, often I’m boggled by the white space between the lines. What the actors will look like. Will they have accents? Is he wearing a suit in this part, or is he dressed more casually? How will they transition from being in a crowded diner to a cramped bedroom? The questions never cease, and my poor fragile brain isn’t able to answer all of them at once. The white space is endless.

There’s so much not being said in The Temperamentals, so I’ll admit it to you here and now that when I first read the play, I closed the script and I didn’t quite know how to react. This was my first verbalized² response, via a text message to a good friend of mine:

The answer to her question was, “yes, I think so.”

Because, see, when I read the script of The Temperamentals, it’s like I’m scanning the list of ingredients for a cookie recipe. I see things like social justice and political awareness and men in suits and chocolate chips³, and it’s like when I read an actual cookie recipe and my mouth fills with drool imagining the plate of baked goods I will eventually be consuming. There are so many interesting, thought-provoking, and exciting things about the play, a lot of which lives in the white space, so as good as the words are, I look forward to hearing them once the whole production has been baking in the oven for a little while, and the smell of intelligent discourse and interpersonal relations waft through the theater.

You know, I think I got lost in the metaphor there. Excuse me while I go find some cookies.

And we’re back. At its core, The Temperamentals is a story about Harry Hay and his relationships, both romantic and platonic, with other men, and how they were created, influenced, and effected by the conception of one of the first successful gay rights organizations in this country. Anytime a playwright dips into history and recreates a real person, the opportunities for distinctive and exciting storytelling are everywhere, and nowhere more than in this script. This is a story I’m glad the Lyric will be telling, because I am so interested to see the way the characters interact with one another in “real life,” instead of on the page. I look forward to gauging their posture and gait and tone of voice; to the story really living and breathing along with these men.

So the short version of this is that I’m really excited to see this play. I’m excited that you’re going to see it too.⁴ And afterwards, you can come to the box office and tell me how well you think we filled in the spaces.

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[1] I do not actually do this.
[2] In a manner of speaking – I was alone in public so I did not actually verbalize anything.
[3] I cannot promise there will actually be chocolate chips at the theater, but I encourage you to bring your own. I know I will.
[4] What do you mean, you don’t have tickets yet? Call 617.585.5678 and talk to one of our charming box office representatives today. Is this a shameless promotion? Yes. Yes it is.