Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Stage Reading of Andromache

Stage Reading of Andromache

When I wrote my stage pay “Andromache” I was a member of the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis. I arranged for a stage reading, took my recording gear and with my wife went there for the reading.

The casting director met me and the scripts had been distributed and the actors were highlighting their parts. There were about twelve seated in a line on the stage while the audience sat below. It was a pretty good turn out with about fifty (50) spectators.

I am not encouraging anyone to read it but the play is in my port for anyone who is interested. Anyway here is a synopsis of what happened.

Prior to start one of the more experienced Actors commented that the monologues were extremely well written and he spoke with the casting director a bit disappointed that he had not been given a larger part the. His reading was exceptionally well rendered which having seen it for the first time that night amazed me….However the skill of several of the other actors was also very impressive.

The leading actress was an attractive girl of Asian American heritage, however all the cast were extremely talented. Now in a staged reading I had been led to expect it to be simply that…It is not an enactment or any such attempt but rather a clear and lucid reading to find out what the play sounds like. However, that is not what happened.

As the Central character began to read her part she became extremely emotional and instead of settling down the state continued with an intensity that only grew. The other actors looked at her and sort of scratched their head but for reasons that escape me to this day I can’t attribute what fostered her reaction….At times it bordered on hysteria. My sense was that she wasn’t acting as much as she was reacting to the script….Maybe she had some emotional baggage that the monologues triggered but it got to the point that she struggled to get through it.

Most of these readings I had heard at the Center were One Acts and Andromache was a full length play. When the reading was over there was a period where the audience was encouraged to comment.

One Woman, a playwright ,heavily involved in drama there, commented that the whole reading would have been worthwhile, if only for the monologue where Bresis describes her ideal man. She asked if she could keep that page to use in auditioning female actresses.

Several commented that they felt like they had just witnessed the actual play. This was a valid comment because as the reading progressed the actors became more and more animated in their reading and it was almost like the play was trying to come to life.

One gentleman, apparently well versed in Greek Drama spoke harshly that the play sugar coated with poetry that which was basically an ugly rape scene. He also pointed out and correctly that Aggememnon and not Menelaus was the key figure in the war. I knew that but bumped him up in importance anyway. The man was both agitated and sincere in his comments…

Another said the play was too long and needed to be pared back…That the palace battle scene needed to be shown and not told of second hand and that it really needed the heck scrubbed on it to make it shorter.

Now my readers will have to take my word that the play had a powerful effect for a staged reading which are usually little more than a clinical rendering of the lines and suggested to me the potential of the drama. Actually it was the first full length I had written and I wish I had known when I wrote it everything I do now about drama…yet even so it exceeded all my expectations. In the end I still weep when I read it.

Following the reading I further refined it and submitted it to a number of contests and it took third in the reading at a major University however was not selected for a staged production. So here it sits gathering dust, but what a hoot it was bringing it to life and through the process.

I am now thinking about rewriting act 1 scene 2 for reasons I will talk about tomorrow.