“Now this is what’s so wonderful about the theater: Carmen Argenziano is playing a math genius instead of a hood or a cop.” Lounging in the Open Fist Theatre audience area before rehearsal begins, the thoroughly amused stage, TV and film vet admits to luxuriating in the opportunity to inhabit the persona of Robert, a brilliant mathematician who is combating the ravages of deepening mental illness in the Open Fist Theatre Company/Aquila Morong Studio co-production of David Auburn’s Proof, staged by John C. Hindman.
Carmen Argenziano
As a sought-after character actor, appearing in over 200 TV shows and films and a plethora of stage roles, Argenziano has certainly established a persona as an intimidating figure since making his 1971 film debut in Punishment Park. He played the bodyguard of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) in Godfather II (1974). In 1982, he garnered a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for his portrayal of drug-addicted police detective Jack Delasante in Thomas Babe’s A Prayer for My Daughter at the Richmond Shepard Theater in Hollywood. Today, he feels quite at home portraying Robert the mathematician.
“I’m certainly not a math genius,” Argenziano affirms. “But I understand that quest, when a man is committed to his work and totally enveloped by it. There is a kind of universal sense of the pain of living, desperately trying to hold on to what he has achieved and wants to achieve again. It is a very personal, poignant journey as a human being that I understand and can empathize with. I just want to bring it to life. If I can make his journey my journey in a very personal, internal way, I feel the universality of it will come through to the audience.”
Argenziano, who was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, hasn’t done a play in the last couple of years. He expresses great joy in the process of constructing the framework of this four-character play with fellow ensemble members Nicole Stuart, Tessa Ferrer (granddaughter of Jose Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney) and Matt Marquez, under the directorial guidance of Hindman.
Proof has proven to be popular since it won the Tony Award for Best Play as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2001. Auburn subsequently adapted it into the screenplay for the 2005 feature film, which starred Anthony Hopkins as Robert. The central focus of the work is the character of Catherine (Ferrer), Robert’s mid-20s daughter and caretaker, who is trying to come to grips with her possible inheritance: his insanity. Complicating matters are one of her father’s ex-students Hal (Marquez) who wants to search through Robert’s papers, and her estranged older sister Claire (Stuart) who now wants to be involved in Catherine’s life.
Tessa Ferrer, Matt Marquez and Carmen Argenziano All production photography by Tom Burruss
“This has been a very positive working relationship for me,” Argenziano avows. “John is very cerebral and intuitive in his directing. I’m kind of an emotionally based visceral actor. A lot of the stuff he’s giving me is just clicking. This play is like a composition. John has been so helpful to me in understanding the beats, the nuances, the rhythms, the transitions and the changes. It is like composing a performance out of the written words.
“Anthony Hopkins said he reads a script two to three hundred times. I understand that. Each time you read it, there is another nuance, something you didn’t see before, something you can incorporate into the performance. Under John’s guidance, the four of us have been progressing in sync to build the foundation to follow the blueprint of where the work is supposed to go. It is a great process.”
Argenziano also expresses a great fascination with Robert — how he is perceived by himself and by the other characters. “I can only use my actor’s imagination to invent what is going on within his tremendously facile mind, while following the guidelines the playwright has provided. I am also so aware of the frailty of this man, the human fears he is going though on a personal level. What happens to a person when he is not only suffering from dementia but he is aware he is suffering? He is a witness to his own demise as a functioning human being. This is terrifying stuff.
“I also have to play the man postmortem as a figment of his youngest daughter’s imagination. I have taken the tack that he is there for her to give her some level of comfort and relief and encouragement. He is at peace now and not fighting the demons of his life.”
Carmen Argenziano and Tessa Ferrer
Argenziano is quite practical about his profession, knowing that many of the characters he is paid to play have nowhere near the dimensional complexity of Robert. That is why he never strays too far from the stage. He is a Lifetime Member of the Actors Studio. “I still participate in a lot of scene study there. The last play I did at the Studio was an Arthur Miller one-act called Some Kind of Love Story.
“Prior to that I understudied Len Cariou in All My Sons at the Geffen. I was able to do four performances during the run. I will always do plays if given the opportunity. And right now, I can truthfully say, I am a math genius.”
Proof , co-produced by Open Fist Theatre Company and The Aquila Morong Studio, opens Feb. 15; plays Tue.-Thur., 8 pm; through March 10. Tickets: $20. Open Fist Theatre, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood; 323.882.6912 or openfist.org.
