I am in awe of actors. Spencer Tracey said it was all a matter of remembering lines and not bumping into furniture. But memorization alone is a formidable challenge. And literally becoming the person one is portraying to bring a rapt audience to tears and laughter is a rare gift.
Perhaps actors synapses work overtime between the brain’s Hippocampus and Neocortex, giving them extraordinary powers of memorization and creativity. My friend David H. Foster, who has played dozens of roles over the years with amazing skill, says one memorizes a page at a time, then focuses on character development. He makes it sound so simple. Admirers know it is not.
The late Jim Peyton, a frequent performer with local theatre groups for many years, personified an actor’s determination to “get in character.” He often performed, “Lepers Without Lesions,” a monologue on the life of Frank Spillman, a Vietnam veteran who still suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He met Frank, and they talked for hours. Frank sometimes accompanied him to performances to respond to questions from the audience. They did not resemble each other physically. But on stage, Jim was Frank. Eric Mihan has performed the role with equal conviction since Jim’s passing.
Bob Chauncey, executive director, the Hugh Gregory Gallagher Motivational Theatre, Inc., is a strong believer in educating the public through dramatizations of real life experiences. But performances must be convincing as well as entertaining, he says. Chauncey often performs, “My Black Bird Has Flown Away,” on Gallagher’s life. He studied films of Gallagher’s presentations, read his books, and had long discussions with Gallagher’s friends and family before he premiered the play.
Actors bring stories alive, and make us believe the characters they portray live once again. It is enormously hard work. The best actors make it look easy. The shrug of a shoulder, the raised eyebrow, the movement of a hand, the change of tone, or the pregnant pause add meaning to the words.
Washington, D.C. actor Jabari Exum performed my monologue on Frederick Bailey (Douglass) June 17 as part of the Frederick Douglass gala weekend, culminating in the unveiling of a statue of Douglass on the Talbot Courthouse green. Exum was to have performed from a small stage. Lighting was arranged accordingly. But when the moment came, musicians had failed to remove band instruments from the stage. Sizing up the situation as he entered the back of the Tidewater Inn’s Gold Room, Exum chanted slave songs as he made his way to the front of the room, casually placed a chair in front of the stage he used as a prop, and interacted with the audience for the next twenty minutes as if it had all been arranged that way.
Not only did the versatile actor give a brilliant performance, but adjusted so smoothly to the unexpected circumstance that no one but the two masters of ceremonies and myself knew. Synapses in Exum’s extraordinary brain work overtime. No doubt about it. Little wonder I’m in awe of accomplished actors.
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Carlton E. Spitzer
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