The Plague Mask Pensive Project

[kitschmekate]

Captain Carbon - Cyrano de Bergerac

I do not speak French. I have not ever taken French. But I think I could speak a Sims version of French. My accent for this character was partially informed by that mindset, but also: what would an actual French person be offended by? An zus zis charuhtear vas bohrn!

Since I wanted this accent to be consistently bad I went through all of my lines and rewrote them as bad French. The problem is, I thought I was playing an very small role. When I converted my script from PDF to Google Docs it stopped about 1 page before intermission. So naturally when the play continued after intermission I was a little bit panicked because I had already removed my pink mustache. (the costume for this character was also born out of what an actual French person might find distasteful or tacky)

The thing is, because I didn’t have the rest of the script beforehand I was suddenly having to come up with my accent on the fly without reading words written in an accent. This was all going SWIMMINGLY until I had to read out the names of the many cadets... I panicked. There were so many names. I started stumbling over the words and then I just... kept stumbling. It is really lovely when you accidentally stumble into a bit! My joey tribbiani inspired French did get me a nomination for best supporting comedic character and I am so grateful for happy accidents.

[kitschmekate]

After the Cherry Orchard

I don’t know that I will ever love a character like I love this old Russian manservant on the verge of death. I am SO SO honored to have received 4 nominations and be award Best Death and Best Supporting Comedic character. My series on Fiers will probably come in multiple parts. I will go into the costuming, how I was able to view this as a comedy, what commentary Chekov was making with Fiers, my choices with this character, and more.

I get emotional when I think about this performance of The Cherry Orchard. I had been in one virtual performance before where I had about 10 lines and even for that I was insanely nervous. Fiers was the first time I had played any sort of substantial role in almost 10 years. I thought I had left theater behind me. Even when I decided to do this virtual performance, I was mostly doing it to support my sister and brother in law. I never ever imagined I would do this again. I will probably make another pensive post on the impact of Plague Mask Players on the lives of so many people. 

For now I will just say, when I logged off the zoom call after the Cherry Orchard was done I cried for about an hour while I felt overwhelmed by the comfort of a part of myself returning. The single consistent outlet I had as a child was back. Without the competition. Without the insecurity. Without all of the baggage ANYONE who has been in theater is familiar with. It was the return of my original path to self love, but purified. It was just about how happy I was. It was just about community. It was just one virtual performance where I played an 87 year old man in front of my future close friends and fellow performers, but that one performance changed my life truly.

If you have performed with me, thank you. If you have watched me, encouraged me, or even been a part of this community without me there, thank you. You are all a part of building this incredibly safe space that I rediscovered my best self in.

[kitschmekate]

Troll Courtier - Peer Gynt

So this character was originally written as many characters, that is where I got started in developing this role. The troll court is supposed to make Peer Gynt feel outnumbered, so it felt a bit strange to just play one troll. Enter: sock puppets.

My costume for this piece was not intended to look like Poppy the troll from the movie Trolls, but I just happened to be going through a time period where my hair was pink and I was wearing it in a top knot. The sock puppets were made maybe 30 minutes before I performed. I still have them so maybe they will reappear at some point. (Note: I did not realize until I was performing that there was no way to turn my camera on or off with sock puppets on both hands)

Although this look was meant to stand in for the “three headed troll” my performance was meant to capture like 20 different trolls. I think this may have been a mistake. Creatively I really liked the idea of switching into many different accents, but on camera you the three troll heads still look the same so I think the accents just came off as inconsistency rather than symbolic of a chamber of trolls echoing scary sentiments.

I was so honored to receive a nomination for this roll! AND my Troll Court troupe won best troupe! I think we all really brought it as far as costumes and accents and there was just a sort of mental synergy amongst all of us. It was extra special because the troll court was made up of me and my sister plus another PMP member and his daughter. 

[kitschmekate]

Julio - Double Falsehood

This character was very fun to play. I think I have realized that although I would like to think every choice I make is very thought out, when it comes down to it I will almost always make the choice that is fun for me. I didn’t have a chance to look at this script until about 3 hours before I performed. Since starting grad school last month I have significantly less time to devote to developing bits etc.

One very specific choice I did make was to play this character honestly. So painfully honest that he cannot even get away with wearing a disguise. Julio stands out as honest, if a bit melodramatic, in contrast with the shenanigans and secrecy the other characters hold in this play. Julio’s goal is always to love and be with Leonora. This character is just good. 

I have always been one to develop a character around flaws. It took a bit of reframing in my mind to create this character, but I also happen to be taking a graduate class on the dark side of relationships this semester. Dishonesty can be a prosocial process. Being stoic has it’s place. Honesty and love may be good morally, but solely focusing on this prevents Julio from being strategic about how to win Leonora.

As far as looks and gender goes, this character is the first that I did not try to do any costume for. To me, this character is a blank slate in which anyone who has ever had a first love could relate to. It was important to me that this character did not have any distinct gender characteristics. I did no makeup and didn’t even brush my hair. I drew inspiration for this look from 80s androgyny of all places, which is kind of hard to notice without the makeup.

Overall, Julio was such a fun and unique character for me! I need to think a little bit more on why within romances it always seems easier for me to play characters written as men rather than women. There is probably lots to analyze there. Thankfully, my counterpart, Leonora, was played by the endlessly talented Kayla Douglas who is truly meant to play the most adorable, genuine, female leads. Once you have been in a few shows with someone you can almost anticipate how they will play a character, and I think this allowed Kayla and I to really stand out in this performance. 

[kitschmekate]

Florinda - The Rover by Aphra Behn

CW: mention of R/SA

When you look up “Florinda in The Rover” her character descriptions include the words modest, innocent, and pure. Florinda is also the character in the show who is frequently in danger of being raped. This was probably the issue that I thought about the most when deciding how to characterize Florinda. I think there is a version of this character that would play up the innocent and pure aspects of her to make rape seem all that much more terrible. A version of her that stands out a bit more distinctly from the other women in the play, the loose, loud, consenting women. This alternate version from the direction I wanted to take is perhaps more in line with Aphra Behn’s original comedic vision, but that isn’t really a story I am interested in telling. It was important to me that Florinda be really normal and relatable, which is not typically a direction I am ever inclined to take characters. She is dorky in love. She is a bit judgy of her sister. She is funny and has a personality beyond her ingenue archetype. This show is a comedy, but I did want to resist playing her so that it would be ironic that out of all the women in the show SHE is the one who gets harassed. Instead I tried to play up the beginning of the scene in the garden between her and Wilmore so that it had a cheesy “don’t go into that haunted house alone” vibe. This sort of situation is familiar to so many people that we can almost find a dark humor in how recognizable the template is.