Vietnam. Sweaty palms.
By MARY ANNE LEWIS
Auditions for Saint Mary's play 'A Piece of My Heart' give actors chance to scratch performing itch early in school year
Through Saint Mary's and into Regina Hall, down the stairs and through several white, empty corridors into room 16 — there sit more than 30 aspiring actresses and fewer than five of their male counterparts. Amidst the old furniture and pastel yellow walls are the many nervous students ready to audition. They all have one simple goal in common, "A Piece of My Heart." Based on a book by Keith Walker, "A Piece of My Heart" presents the stories of six American women and their experiences in Vietnam.
In the hallway outside room 16 stand sparse groups of two to three people, each practicing for the first stage of the audition. Director Mark Abram-Copenhaver tells them they must express the character's need to tell her story.
"Answer the questions that the audience asks," he told the actors. "Why did you go to Vietnam? You didn't have to. What happened to you while you were there?"
Abram-Copenhaver emphasizes such a strategy because of the play's structure; rather than a continuous plot, the audience will see individual characters tell their stories separately.
Meanwhile, back in the hallway outside room 16, students experiment with different methods of portraying certain characters.
Cady Flannery, a Saint Mary's senior, began acting at the age of four and has loved the craft ever since. When asked to evaluate the theater department at the College, she praised the intimacy of the small-college atmosphere.
"It's the same BA that you would get anywhere, but with much more individualized attention" she said.
She has especially enjoyed her work in John Dryden's "Secret Love," a Restoration piece complete with the wigs and the exquisite costuming of the 1700s. Her theatrical background shines through her work because she uses subtle and realistic paralinguistics rather than the melodramatics commonly associated with the amateur actor.
In contrast, Saint Mary's freshmen Afrika Green and Holy Cross students Brian Gallo and Vini DeDario have had little stage experience. Despite this uncertain theatrical foundation, Green has found a definite motive to be a part of this play.
"I want to portray to the audience what the Negro woman felt about the wars at that time period, because the part reminds me a lot of my grandmother," she said. "She had to deal with all of her kids going to the armed forces."
DeDario's reasoning for auditioning was more social.
"I want to meet some more people, get my foot in the door over here and eventually go to Notre Dame," he said. "So if they do anything I'm sure I'll try out for that, too."
Similarly, Gallo sees the value of theater in his life.
"I used to be more the athlete, but now I have built more character from it," he said.
Of the more than 50 auditions, Mark can choose only eight, but the talent shown by these participants might very well earn them a role in "A Piece of My Heart."
Saint Mary's junior Beth Gervain suggested this play to a committee that works in the Department of Communications, Dance and Theatre. The play includes six female roles and either one or two male roles. The first half of the play presents a series of stories told by the women of their preparation for Vietnam, training, the trip, the experience and leaving. The second half shows the women back in America, trying to put their lives back together from where they left off, their difficulties with American reactionism, their feelings about work, their self-images and their relationships.
Because the play recounts strong, contemporary issues, much interest has arisen. Some nurses who live in the South Bend community and who served in Vietnam have volunteered to talk with the actors and even to host a talkback session at one of the performances. Moreover, the Moving Wall, part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, will soon arrive in Berrien Springs, and the cast will have a chance to see it. Because "A Piece of My Heart" begins and ends with the wall, it has great symbolic significance for the play, and this chance to see the wall is a priceless one.
After preliminary auditions had concluded, Abram-Copenhaver seemed pleased.
"I saw several strong performances. I saw many competent performances," he said. "I saw very few weak performances, and that is what was so nice."
Callbacks were distinctly different from the first round of audtions. While the preliminaries were structured, the second round would rely much more heavily on the actors' imaginations, to see the agility and improvisational skills of the actors.
Friday evening the actors divided into groups of about six people, while Abram-Copenhaver called each person up individually to re-enact a traumatic experience. The exercise ranged from asking Notre Dame leprechaun Mike Brown for his phone number to finding out that a family member had died. Some chose to present humorous situations while others presented tragic scenes. All were true.
Finally, they sang. Groups of four gathered together and sang Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" to capture the spirit of the times:
How many times must a cannon ball fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
Most people don't realize the amount of stress and work that actors and directors put into the casting process. Still, the most important part of it all is the excitement. When an actor walks into room 16 for the first time, he has no idea just how tough the competition will be. When walking on to the stage, an actor does not know exactly what the director hopes to see. And when an actor waits for the call that will tell him that the director wants to see more of what the actor can do, he can only hope that the call will indeed come.
All Scene Stories for Wednesday, September 22, 1999
