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My Time at Temple Studios, Part 5

Show #5

Sunday, September 15: 5 pm

My target for the day was the Fool. After hearing Shawn go on and on about him (almost as much as I had gone on about Romola), I knew I had to devote a loop – especially since he was very nearly a blank slate for me. To this point I had seen only a single scene with him, and it was a brief one at that. Since my time was growing short (only two shows to go!), I did a bit more pre-planning than before, using spoiler group info to try to work out where he would be at the start of the show. My best guess was the birthday tent in Studio 2, so as soon as I was let off in the basement, I made for the stairs.

The benefit of this plan was immediately evident, even disregarding the specific matter of the fool – since the elevator let people off only at the basement and the first floor, the ground floor was almost entirely deserted. My world was, for these few amazing moments, entirely free of fellow white masks.

On entering Studio 2, my plan immediately began to fall apart – someone apparently forgot to tell the fool I was planning to meet him there. Instead, I found Wendy (Sophie Bortolussi) and Marshall (er. . . I don't know why I can never identify the Marshalls) engaged in a dramatic, dance-infused quarrel in front of (and on top of) their trailers, for an audience of no one.

Now, if you read my write-up for the previous show, you know what I think of Sophie. And there she was, playing what is arguably the lead role of the entire show, and no one was watching? THIS SHALL NOT STAND! After only a moment of reluctance to abandon my original plan, I settled in to watch the fight, followed by two magical back-to-back bits in the same room: her angry, backlit dance in the trees and her retrieval (guided by Stanford's voice) of the murder scissors from the pond. If there was ever an argument for not forcing yourself into a preset plan, this is it. Circling through the trees while Wendy climbed them was one of those perfect moments that are impossible to manufacture deliberately.

By the time she pulled the scissors out of the water, a few more spectators had gathered, and lo and behold, one of them wore clown's makeup and carried a brown suitcase – it was the Fool (Paul Zivkovich). I had the right idea, I was just early. Of course, this presented a dilemma – return to the plan, or stay with Wendy? I decided on the Fool, and was pleased to see that I probably made the right decision, as nearly everyone else went with her when we parted ways.

The Fool's story is one of the more bizarre ones, with whiplash-inducing swings from the sinister to the almost quaintly amusing. He's an angry guy (sad, too, but there's a lot of anger) - I saw an incredible rage in him after Lila tried to drown him in the sound room, which he just managed to bottle up. He's also a very aware character, with a sense of the manipulation going on – the rage was not directed at Lila. This is probably because he also seems to be the one who is most under the studio's control, to the point of literal possession at times.

Speaking of the drowning – that was an incredibly horrifying scene from my perspective (that is to say, the Fool's), but I suspect it would be even more so from Lila's. Part of it is that there's just something about the conceit of having Stanford's voice guide the characters – every scene where that happens gives me the same chill down my spine.

That may have been the most horrifying scene in the Fool's loop (although, now that I think about it, the way he directed Marshall to Studio 2 for the murder is a close second) but the most impressive was definitely his collapse in the dressing room. With his legs completely limp, he did an amazing sort of dance, along the way managing to pull himself up into a hand stand, walk around on his hands, and climb a large metal scaffolding (again, without his legs!). As a display of simple strength and athleticism, it easily outstripped anything else I saw at any of my shows.

After he recovered the use of his legs, he sat down at one of the mirrors, had me sit next to him, and guided me in re-applying his makeup. It seemed like all of the anger I had seen in him, which reached its fever pitch around the time that he sent Marshall to his doom, was gone - expelled or consumed. Now there was just tenderness and regret. After the makeup was completed to his satisfaction, he took my hand and led me to Studio 8, nestled in an unseen corner of Studio 2, where the infamously epic 1:1 commenced. That's all I'll say about that, other than to relate my first thought upon leaving it (which, I suspect, is the first thing most people think): “Am I in the basement? How am I in the basement?”

My Fool loop completed, I headed to the Doctor's office, hoping to find – well, the Doctor. At the first four shows he had been consistently played by Francois Testory, who had managed to make a very strong impression on me, even though I had only seen him for about two minutes at a time. He was a scene stealer, and creepy as hell. Frankly, I was a little nervous about approaching him. There was a strongly intimidating air about him, but different from the way the PA or Stanford intimidated me. They felt larger than life, beyond a mere mortal such as myself. The Doctor, on the other hand was just such a mere mortal – but in his presence, I felt like something less than that.

This is all to say that, while a part of me really wanted to see more of Francois's Doctor, there was another part of me that was so afraid of him that it hoped for a different actor. As it turned out, the first part of me got it's way – but only briefly. Francois Testory was indeed the Doctor again, but within moments of my arrival at his exam room, he disappeared into a 1:1. Drat. As I've mentioned before, I don't like waiting around in these situations, especially since you can't always count on people coming back out of 1:1's the way they went in. After what I went though with the Fool, for all I knew the Doctor might re-emerge in the top floor desert, somewhere. So I put my Doctor plans on hold and moved down to the next name on my list of people I wanted to know more about. That name? Badlands Jack.

I found Jack (David Essing) wandering around town, throwing his weight around and reminding people that he owns everything. At one point (this may have been the very first thing I saw him do. . . timeline is fuzzy), he delivered the package to the Gatekeeper (Oliver Hornsby-Sayer). You know, THE package. The one that the Gatekeeper passed on to Romola, who delivered it to Stanford, who turned it into magic orgy juice. It's tremendously satisfying when pieces of the story that you see out of order sync up, like pieces of a puzzle. Someday I might see how Jack gets it in the first place.

Ultimately, though, I didn't manage to learn much about Jack's story because, after chasing Andy (Rob McNeill) around with a knife for a while, he took me into his trailer for a 1:1 and didn't emerge with me afterward. No telling when or where he'd come out, so I took this as a sign that it was time to give the Doctor another try.

Short version of Doctor attempt #2: No. Long version: This time I got to see a full scene (a repeat of the first time I ever saw him, as he gave Dolores (Jane Leaney) an injection), but as soon as Dolores was gone, he took someone in for a 1:1. Drat again.

I didn't have an alternative plan this time, but I found something worthwhile just one room over, in Claude's office, where Faye (Katie Lusby) was preparing to audition for him (River Carmalt) and Stanford (Sam Booth). Earlier, Shawn had told me that there was a second, creepier audition right after this one, so I decided to stick around, even though I had seen Faye's audition twice before, and watch them both. The second audition featured Andrea (Fania Grigoriou) and William (who was played by Omar Gordon and who, to this point, I had never seen within the walls of the studio. .. surprise, surprise). It was everything I expected and more, with interesting echoes of Stanford and Romola's only scene together.

After the auditions, I decided to take one last stab at the Doctor. As before, no sooner had I settled into his examination room area than he took someone in for a 1:1. There was one key difference, though – this time, that someone was me. He leaned back on the table, scanned the room, and his gaze settled on me. He arched an eyebrow, so I arched mine back – and his expression hardened. Trying to envision what I looked like from the outside, I realized that, rather than a kinship or connection, he probably read my expression as something along the lines of “Well? You going to pick me this time, ya jerk?” I felt like quite the asshole. But, like I said, he did indeed pick me, perhaps in the hope that I would stop hanging around and go bother someone else.

This is how belittled I feel around Francois's Doctor. Epic levels of second-guessing and momentary self-loathing. I still feel embarrassed, and I didn't even actually do anything wrong.

Anyhow, I was actually more excited coming out of the 1:1 than going in, because I was finally going to get to see his story. We returned to the exam room, he scribbled a few notes on a clipboard. . . and then he grabbed someone else for a 1:1. Seriously, that man is a 1:1 machine.

So I gave up on the Doctor. Just down the hall, Bulldog was in full swing, and as soon as I heard it, I was unable to resist its siren call. When it ended, I wound up following Faye out again, for three reasons. First, I wanted to revisit the back half of her loop and see how it really ends, since my previous experience concluded with the truncated “happy ending.” Second, I still regretted having to skip out on Katie's Romola during the fourth show, so I wanted to see what she did with Faye. Third, I knew that Harry would be around at the end of the loop, so it would put me in a good position to pick him up from the beginning of the story.

As much as I loved Sonya Cullingford's performance as Faye, I think Katie is a better fit for the role, with a different look that works to her benefit. Where Sonya is beautiful, Katie is cute, and that makes a huge difference. It gives her more of a sense of youth and naivety, like a little girl playing at being a grownup, and makes some of her more questionable actions feel much more sympathetic. A lot of that came from Katie's performance as well, of course – but it does give her a leg up and makes her, if not necessarily a better Faye, at least a more effective one.

As we approached the end of the loop, shortly before the point where the story had ended for me the night before, something amazing happened. Faye took the stage to sing “Walking in the Sand,” and I suddenly became acutely aware of William and Mary on the other side of the bar, even without seeing them. As you may recall, the first time I heard the song, I was watching them. The second time I was with Sonya's Faye, and while I hadn't forgotten that they were over there, I was really buried in Faye's world, and they didn't really register. This time, both halves of the scene – theirs and Faye's, crashed into me, and I was unable to weather the impact. Big, rolling tears welled up in my eyes and began to pour down my face. The harder I tried to contain it, the more violently my shoulders heaved. I was completely exposed, standing in the middle of the room, sobbing like a baby (almost; I did manage to avoid vocalizing). Everyone could see what was happening. Faye could DEFINITELY see what was happening.

I want to be clear about one thing: This. Does. Not. Happen. To. Me. I've cried at movies before, sure – but the count is in the single digits, and it's never been like this. A public emotional and physical reaction of that nature and intensity was completely beyond my experience. And it was magnificent. That emotional release, coupled with the cathartic rush that naturally followed, would have justified every penny I spent flying halfway across the world to see this show, even if everything else I had experienced was of no value to me (which was most certainly not the case).

Afterward, Harry (James Sobol Kelly) showed up and tried to comfort his daughter. This time, without the wrap party, it didn't really work. He took her back to their motel room and put her to bed, but couldn't get her to smile. Then it was reset time. Uncharacteristically, I think I prefer the happy ending.

I was tempted to stick with Faye for a bit longer, since I had not yet seen the very beginning of her loop, but I had already planned on switching to Harry, so I suffered through one of my typical bouts of analysis paralysis for a few moments before following Harry out the door. He headed over to the Drugstore for a brief bit of reset housekeeping, then went. . . . right back to the hotel room, where I rejoined the crowds of people who had stayed with Faye. There's probably a lesson here about wasting time overthinking things.

Faye and Harry's first scene, as they get ready to start their respective days, is a wonderful antidote to the misery I had just witnessed. There's a warmth to their interactions that is unlike anything else I've seen in the show. It makes me smile every time I think back to the way he can't (or won't) stop singing “Codfish Ball,” even though she hates it (but doesn't, really). I love the Greeners, I really do.

Sadly, once Harry left the motel room, I actually only managed two scenes with him before I lost him. Happily, one of them was a 1:1 – but still, when he sent me out of the room alone, I was quite disappointed. I have since been told that he just left out the other door, and if I had merely taken a quick jog around the motel I would have found him again, but a fat lot of good that does me now.

Instead, I wandered back through the studio gates and found Romola (Sonya) familiarizing herself with the office. This is one of the few Romola scenes that I had not seen Sonya do, so why not stick around? To be honest, it really wasn't much different from Katie Mcguinness's version, with the notable exception that Sonya actually typed out the entire Grandmother's Story and gave it to a white mask.

When Romola left to deliver the package to Stanford, I refrained from following her (somehow) and headed back outside for some quality time with the Gatekeeper (Oliver Hornsby-Sayer). Oliver's Gatekeeper was similar to Francois's Doctor, in that he had already made a very strong impression on me through very limited contact. He's a creepy, creepy dude, and quite imposing – as Oliver is kind of a giant beast of a man. He's probably got a good six inches on me. This provides me with much amusement anytime I look at the cast photos on the spoiler group, which make him look like some tiny, elfin thing.

Unfortunately, while the Gatekeeper is very cool in small doses, there's not much to him in in the long-term. He reads a lot. That's about it. I never really got much of a sense of him as a person, beyond “creepy, doesn't talk,” but perhaps that's by design. It also didn't help that I had already seen nearly every interaction with other characters that came up – perhaps my experience with him at the earlier shows was not as limited as it felt. By the time we got to the point where he recruited Harry for the studio, I was more than ready to move on - so I hitched my wagon back on to Harry. Only for a moment, though, as I knew he was heading back to that strange, unnatural place where people talk and don't wear masks. I just let him lead me downstairs, then took off in search of something new and exciting, even though we were but a few short minutes from the end of the show.

Unfortunately, all I could find on the ground floor were things that I had already seen – this was well-trodden ground for me. It would probably have been best if I had managed to work past my odd hangups about Studio 3 and stuck with Harry, but c'est la vie. I wound up back in the company of the Fool, but hey - there are far worse things to repeat than his outburst and (possibly) possession in Studio 4. A few more minutes after that, and it was finale time.

My night may have hit a bit of a snag toward the end, but that was all forgotten shortly after the show, when I had the opportunity to speak at length with Sophie, Paul, and David – an ideal trio, given my close encounters with two of them earlier in the night, and the extensive time spent with the third the night before. They were all very friendly and generous with their time, and while I won't recount everything they had to say, there was one thing that struck me as particularly notable. You know that whole idea of masked anonymity? Uh-uh. Nope. Not even a little bit. The actors know EVERYTHING.

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