Rehearsals for the two short Chekhov plays I'm in are set to start this coming Monday night, with our first read-through. The two plays are "The Proposal" and "A Reluctant Tragic Hero," translated by Paul Schmidt.
"The Proposal," frequently anthologized in a different translation titled "The Marriage Proposal," is a raucous scene for three actors. It interestingly alternates between one, two, and three actors on stage at one time. My part is the young landowner, Lomov, who's come to ask for the hand of his neighbor's daughter in marriage, but, well, that's harder to accomplish than you might think.
In contrast, "A Reluctant Tragic Hero," a scene for two actors, is mostly about one character's gripes, so it mostly becomes a single monologue of the one character complaining. That character is who I'll be playing, Tolkachov, a petty bourgeois office manager.
The interesting thing about these plays, to me, is just how much empathy these characters could plausibly get from the audience. Both Lomov and Tolkachov are, well, whiny. And they both have an awful sense of entitlement. The trick, I suppose, is to play on the intensity and urgency that these characters bring with them. They want the things they want, they need the things they need, and they're going to be as reasonable and as clever as they can be in trying to get these things.
Anyhow, I'm looking forward to these rehearsals, and definitely looking forward to the performances themselves. It's going to be an interesting little minimalist (and partly DIY) dramatic ride. Curious? Come see me in March at the Fells Point Corner Theater.
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