Patrick Wenk-Wolff, Gregory Itzin, Gigi Bermingham, Jules Willcox, James Sutorius and Avery Clyde in "The Seagull"; Photo by Alexandra Goodman
Crammed together in a tiny rehearsal space, a dozen punctilious actors, a stage manager and director Andrew Traister are collectively concentrating on an infinitesimal moment of business from Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull.
As Antaeus Company tradition dictates, the production is double cast, and all are assembled for this rehearsal which, following several days of table work and blocking, is the beginning of meticulous shaping and polishing.
These highly trained classical performers are all focused on the behavior of actor Gregory Itzin in the role of aging patriarch Sorin, who falls asleep and snores to the amusement of gathered family and friends. Fine points of objectives, tactics and style are debated by Traister and cast members both on and off stage — a meticulous process that will move painstakingly through the entire four acts of the Chekhov masterpiece.
Bill Brochtrup, Micheal McShane, Laura Wernette and Abby Wilde; Photo by Karianne Flaathen
The artists involved all work in television, film and better-paying theater in larger venues. That’s why Antaeus originally adopted double casting — to allow performers to take paying work without leaving the rest of the cast hanging. But the device has become much more than a convenience.
These successful actors choose to ply their craft in this extremely limited space with nearly no financial support because the intensity of the work is something they never get in camera work. The added obstacle of sharing a role has, for Antaeus members, become an opportunity to develop an artistic partnership with a fellow actor and the director in creating a role. In this production Traister has cast pairs who are dissimilar in physical type and acting style, which creates an even more interesting dimension to the shared creativity. Also, the company goes beyond simply having two separate casts, mixing up casts for several performances.
Traister’s rehearsal process is time-intensive, but he and the actors say it’s worth the extra time. Traister explains, “When I direct I think of myself as the uber-audience. It’s my responsibility to make sure that everything that happens on stage is understood. I am going to work and work on a moment until I understand it so the audience will understand it. That’s what we’re doing now in rehearsal — making sure every moment is clear, whether visual or textual or emotional. The play is about the audience understanding it, not about making great pictures. It’s about telling that story.”
Andrew J. Traister
With a directing career ranging from the Old Globe to Oregon Shakespeare Festival to A Noise Within to a late ’80s stint as artistic director of Alaska Repertory Theatre (among others), Traister is used to working with fine actors. But working in a mini-rehearsal hall and diminutive theater — with twice the number of actors called for in the cast — has been a bit daunting as well as inspiring.
“The tiny theater was interesting,” he laughs. “The first night trying to stage a big crowd scene, I went home banging my head against the wall, because I didn’t realize the space was so thin and long. It took me a while to get used to how to work in that space.”
But now? “I love it in a lot of ways. I am a collaborator. I love having actors’ input. I get varied actors’ ideas. As you bat them around, it is nice to get even a bigger consensus that this is the right or wrong answer. What’s difficult is finding a way that everybody gets enough rehearsal. It works best if everybody is moving at the same pace. But if somebody falls behind or misses a day you have to stop and start, so you lose a little momentum. It is fun, it is exhausting. I love being in rehearsal. I don’t know what else I’d rather do. Even better than sex!”
As with most productions of Chekhov, the director needs to make sure the humor is allowed to breathe. Traister finds this vital. “It is a very funny play. Hopefully we can show people that Chekhov is indeed comedy until the fourth act.”
James Sutorius, Reba Waters, John Achorn, Avery Clyde, Gigi Bermingham and Adrian LaTourelle; Photo by Alexandra Goodman
A great part of that task is finding the right translation. “I went to Samuel French and sat for an hour and a half trying to figure out which one I was going to use. I was trying to find something that had a rhythm and poetry. I read the Jean-Claude van Itallie adaptation, and I found it very cold. The thing that convinced me to use the Paul Schmidt is that he captured the sense of boredom and loneliness and unhappiness in a way that I thought was not arch, not hitting you over the head — he let the characters grow.”
Even with a great translation, staging Chekhov can be dangerous. Traister frowns and raises his voice. “Because people misinterpret it! Some people don’t want to see the humor of other people’s foibles. I have done Waiting for Godot four times [one of these was at A Noise Within]. Chekhov is like that. I think he was the first absurdist playwright. He took city people and put them in the country with nothing to do and they end up eating themselves. That premise to me is funny.
The character of Madam Arkadina has a line, Traister says, that is “right out of Beckett – ‘Oh this glorious country living, we sit here, we talk, we do nothing.’ It’s funny that they don’t know what to do. It’s an immensely complicated show. There are so many layers. Chekhov was seminal in changing the whole style of acting. We were declamatory until then. Now it’s all become super-naturalistic. It’s done turgidly because there are bad directors who misunderstand it.”
Antonio Jamarillo and Laura Wernette, Photo by karianne Flaathen; Gigi Bermingham and Joe Delafield, Photo by Alexandra Goodman
That role of Arkadina is being shared by Gigi Bermingham and Laura Wernette. They collaborate on the work along with Traister, yet the two versions are remarkably different. Bermingham (recent LADCC award nominee for Hermetically Sealed at Katselas Theatre’s Skylight Theatre) is working on a gloriously brittle, porcelain performance of the famous but aging actress, while her counterpart Wernette offers a much earthier variation.
Bermingham shares personal details of her approach. “Acting feels like I am in the zone. I love to pretend to be other people. I am rarely completely comfortable as myself unless I am in communion with someone, like having a conversation or an intimate moment of some kind. I’m in the zone when I am figuring out someone else’s psychology and motivation. Even if I am playing someone highly stressed like Arkadina, at least I am somebody else. This is a wonderfully fun character to play. I love myself as Arkadina.”
Arkadina herself is a veteran actress. Playing her, Bermingham says, “I know my place in the world. I am recognized and appreciated. I have no apology to make. I have had my rough moments and life has not been easy. But I feel a wonderful confidence in her.”
Adrian LaTourelle and Gigi Berminghaml; Photo by Alexandra Goodman
She also loves working with Wernette. “What is great about being part of a company is that you know each other, you’ve seen each other’s work, you have worked off of each other. Laura is a great actress. I admire her, I appreciate her, and I like her as a human being. So I feel no distrust with her or competition because we each bring something. When I watch her I go, ‘Oh my God, that is exactly what to do with that moment. I steal it. We are very supportive and encouraging. We’re eager to get whatever we can from each other. It’s also very odd, but it works, especially with Andrew. In my experience, it is very rare to feel this safe with a director. If given the opportunity I will opine. However, I am used to not doing so, because I’m not given the opportunity. Andrew welcomes our participation. He also has very strong ideas and a very innate sense of what is working and not working.”
Wernette, who has recently appeared on episodes of Up All Night, agrees, “The double casting is always odd but also wonderful. I worked with Kitty Swink on Tonight at 8:30 in ‘Fumed Oak’. We would watch each other and just relish whatever the other was doing. It sort of melds. Obviously you personalize it so it’s yours. It is just a blast…It takes a slight skewed turn in certain places because of the energy of the other actor. It depends on the actor you are doubling with. In The Malcontent, I doubled with Jules Willcox, who is playing one of our Ninas [in The Seagull], and she is much younger than I. That was the funny part. The character was supposed to be older than the love interest. She was so young and pretty that she didn’t get the exact same humor that I got.”
Micheal McShane and Antonio Jamarillo; Photo by Karianne Flaathen
The role of aging family patriarch Sorin is shared by Itzin and Micheal McShane, two vastly different men. Itzin, who has become familiar through his Emmy-nominated role as the smarmy President Logan on 24, is creating a highly cerebral, ironic and inward Sorin, while McShane’s persona tends to support a much more gregarious version.
Itzin was a founding member of Antaeus two decades ago at the Mark Taper Forum. He recalls that the Taper’s artistic director “Gordon Davidson had a notion we would be an acting company to do the classics. We were invited to go on Monday nights and do what we wanted — exercises and scenes. But we didn’t produce much. We did one show, [Chekhov's] The Wood Demon, at the Taper. I left because I really wanted to do something on stage. So I went to the Matrix, where they also double cast. I came back to Antaeus because the people in the company, more and more, were my friends. We did King Lear. I was originally slated to double with [Antaeus co-founder] Dakin Matthews as Lear, but fortunately I went off to do Enron in New York. When that closed and I became available, [Lear director] Bart DeLorenzo invited me to play Kent.”
Regarding the role of Sorin, the 24 star says, “He’s my age, but back then 60 was a lot older. Plus they didn’t do anything. We just keep busy and exercising, but Sorin is retired and letting go — it has been daunting to want to go there. Everybody is bored. A bunch of city people intermingling with country people — they long to be in the country, then they can’t stand it.”
Gregory Itzin and Joe Delafield; Photo by Alexandra Goodman
Itzin is also a fan of the double casting system. “I always thought it was good to steal. I am learning from Mike. Some people don’t take to this — they want to own the part…It’s grueling because it makes the rehearsals twice as long, but with two people and a director working on a part you can learn exponentially. It’s a good exercise to sublimate your ego — not only sharing the role, but being able to play with other people in the other roles creating a variety of different ways to get it done.”
He loves acting but admits it’s not always comfortable. “You show yourself on stage. Like saying, ‘go ahead and take a pot shot at me.’… A lot of actors don’t like to do theater because it is the same thing every night, but that’s a challenge — to make it the first time every night. The challenge is to stay intent and aware of everything that happens. It is a study in concentration. That’s what the joy of it is. It diverts you if you have problems outside. With TV you have to learn it and deliver it. You don’t get rehearsal time to figure out. The nuances may be gone, and depending on the director you may get one or two takes, maybe five. Sometimes you hit it and quit it. It’s a fascinating game. I don’t know which one I like better. But I wanted to do this because I needed to get back on the stage.”
Micheal McShane and Abby Wilde; Photo by Karianne Flaathen
McShane is also enjoying the process. “We strenuously avoid anything that looks like role and understudy. The talent is huge. It makes it stimulating. We’re all striving to link all the moments together. I love it all. For every actor there is one point in rehearsal where you think, ‘it’s not going to work, I am wrong for it. I’m screwed.’ Then next day you come back and throw it against the wall again and it sticks. I can get frustrated because my process is different from Greg’s. I see him make a result and I try to see how rhythmically it can fit in, yet make sure it is coming from me, not just being imitative… It really teaches you ensemble.”
McShane has worked in major theaters across the world, including Broadway and London’s West End. He is also a seasoned improviser, who spent several years as a regular on the British comedy Whose Line is it Anyway? But he is less at home with the classics. “This is my first Chekhov. What I like about his plays is it’s modern psychological realism without psychological explanation.” Traister compares The Seagull to Godot, McShane notes. “It’s a lot of sitting and letting time pass.”
The actor himself compares Sorin’s life in the country to memories of his own from Kansas. “My mother’s family is all farm folk,” McShane says. “My summers were spent out on the farm sitting with Uncle Dale and Aunt Margie and Gramma. A lot of just shooting the breeze. Calling each other ‘cuz’ and eating watermelon and drinking iced tea and watching the wheat move. That’s Sorin’s life. He has spent all his pension and is stuck. Beautiful country but he can’t leave. Here is a person ill-suited for farm life out in the middle of the country.”
No wonder it’s so important to get Sorin’s snores just right. For these artists, it’s personal.
The Seagull is presented by the Antaeus Company. Opens March 1. Plays Thur-Sat, 8 p.m.; Sun, 2 p.m. through April 15. Tickets: $30-$34. The Deaf West Theatre, 5112 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. 818-506-1983. www.Antaeus.org for tickets and cast dates.
