that I was present onstage. And because the reviews singled me out, much of the audience was coming to see my work. Like it or not, I was now a celebrity, and in a couple of ways this put me under new pressures, onstage as well as off.
For the most part I had become an actor so as to hide, to find my identity through pretending to be other people. Now there was no getting around the fact that it was me up there in front of an audience. When I made my first entrance the audience applauded, but they were applauding the actor playing the role, stopping the show with this generous acknowledgment, a tradition in the theater but confusing and uncomfortable for me, and from that moment on I could not help feeling caught between myself and the character; I couldn’t find any balance, or my way back.
In addition, I was an improvisatory actor, and not only because of the two years I’d just completed at Second City; improvisation seemed to be central to my nature. Anything else felt boring and rigid. Where was the creativity in doing a part exactly the same way every night? I know it makes sense for the playwright to have a performance set in stone; it gives the writer a feeling of security. It also makes sense and is good business for the producer—this coming Tuesday people will see the same performance they saw a year ago last September. I could see the logic in it, but I didn’t want to do it.
In Enter Laughing , as the months went by, and as my anxieties about being present mounted, I also felt inhibited by the rigidity of the form. I found myself getting stale in certain parts of the play. I’d try to change the blocking just a bit, to get my juices flowing, and found that other actors onstage would actually look for me at the spot I had been the night before, where I was “supposed to be”! Then afterward
there would be the inevitable notes from the stage manager, admonishing me for not sticking to the blocking.
This is a terrible confession to make; I’m aware of it. Actors are supposed to know that the play happens over and over again until the audience stops showing up. That’s a given. But I can’t help but ask, “Why?” Some actors are fed by the reactions of the audience, by the tiny nuances that they can add to a show over the years, by the hope of catching fire once in a while and disappearing completely into the role, by the passion generated by another actor’s catching fire, by the hope that someone important will be in the house that night. Others are made secure by having someplace tangible and safe to go to instead of facing the anxieties of a random and fragmented day. None of this worked for me. Well, some of it did, for a while, in Second City, where we knew that in three months’ time we’d be doing a whole new show. And yet as happy as I was at Second City, working at the top of my abilities, I was driven to explore outside that arena in the supposed magic of “Broadway.” I wanted a bigger success. The irony is that I found it, and all it did was make me unhappy.
Offstage, this new identity as a known actor took some adjusting. And I didn’t have much time. It began immediately after the opening-night performance of Enter Laughing .
After the show, since there were no newspaper reviews to wait for at Sardi’s, a group of us—friends, family, and a few cast members—went across the street to a bar and had a couple of drinks while waiting for the television reviews.
The bartender flipped channels for us, and a split second after the reviews were broadcast, nearly all of them embarrassingly glowing, about eight people in the bar came rushing over with programs of the play for me to sign. Since they had programs, they had obviously been part of the audience, but they were waiting to see if I was someone whose signature was going to have any value!
It was my first view of the strange world of fandom, and with it came a moment of crystal-clear understanding. I realized that this sudden
For the most part I had become an actor so as to hide, to find my identity through pretending to be other people. Now there was no getting around the fact that it was me up there in front of an audience. When I made my first entrance the audience applauded, but they were applauding the actor playing the role, stopping the show with this generous acknowledgment, a tradition in the theater but confusing and uncomfortable for me, and from that moment on I could not help feeling caught between myself and the character; I couldn’t find any balance, or my way back.
In addition, I was an improvisatory actor, and not only because of the two years I’d just completed at Second City; improvisation seemed to be central to my nature. Anything else felt boring and rigid. Where was the creativity in doing a part exactly the same way every night? I know it makes sense for the playwright to have a performance set in stone; it gives the writer a feeling of security. It also makes sense and is good business for the producer—this coming Tuesday people will see the same performance they saw a year ago last September. I could see the logic in it, but I didn’t want to do it.
In Enter Laughing , as the months went by, and as my anxieties about being present mounted, I also felt inhibited by the rigidity of the form. I found myself getting stale in certain parts of the play. I’d try to change the blocking just a bit, to get my juices flowing, and found that other actors onstage would actually look for me at the spot I had been the night before, where I was “supposed to be”! Then afterward
there would be the inevitable notes from the stage manager, admonishing me for not sticking to the blocking.
This is a terrible confession to make; I’m aware of it. Actors are supposed to know that the play happens over and over again until the audience stops showing up. That’s a given. But I can’t help but ask, “Why?” Some actors are fed by the reactions of the audience, by the tiny nuances that they can add to a show over the years, by the hope of catching fire once in a while and disappearing completely into the role, by the passion generated by another actor’s catching fire, by the hope that someone important will be in the house that night. Others are made secure by having someplace tangible and safe to go to instead of facing the anxieties of a random and fragmented day. None of this worked for me. Well, some of it did, for a while, in Second City, where we knew that in three months’ time we’d be doing a whole new show. And yet as happy as I was at Second City, working at the top of my abilities, I was driven to explore outside that arena in the supposed magic of “Broadway.” I wanted a bigger success. The irony is that I found it, and all it did was make me unhappy.
Offstage, this new identity as a known actor took some adjusting. And I didn’t have much time. It began immediately after the opening-night performance of Enter Laughing .
After the show, since there were no newspaper reviews to wait for at Sardi’s, a group of us—friends, family, and a few cast members—went across the street to a bar and had a couple of drinks while waiting for the television reviews.
The bartender flipped channels for us, and a split second after the reviews were broadcast, nearly all of them embarrassingly glowing, about eight people in the bar came rushing over with programs of the play for me to sign. Since they had programs, they had obviously been part of the audience, but they were waiting to see if I was someone whose signature was going to have any value!
It was my first view of the strange world of fandom, and with it came a moment of crystal-clear understanding. I realized that this sudden
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