Scenes with Friends and Plato's Symposium

So I'm still acting, or trying to. In this regard, I was recently polishing a phrase I might use if asked the right question. I guess I just wasn't asked the right question yet. The phrase was something along the lines of "They sent a clown to do an actor's work" or vice-versa. Well, maybe I wouldn't be fair to myself if I called myself a clown, whether in the pejorative sense or in the casual sense, even the artistic sense -- and I'm certainly not that capable a clown, not in terms of technique at least.

Lately, I was involved in two performances that have been testing my relationship with ... being a clown. I guess that's one way to say it. The first of these, a casual, one-time home performance which was titled by the joint directors-performers "Scenes with Friends," pitted me in two scenes where I sort of had to resist my usual clowning style in favor of, in one scene, a totally deadpan british-esque kind of comedic acting (it was a Pinter scene), and in the other, I was Time, the Czech prostitute, in a short verse play I'd written in grad school and included in my MFA these (which is free and searchable online, to all those who are curious). The second performance is in Jeffrey Gangwisch and Stephanie Joyal's rendition of Plato's Symposium, where I play Eryximachus, a doctor so clinical that he's basically a clown too.

At any rate, the first, "Scenes with Friends," was a more-or-less private show. It went exceedingly well, but I'd rather not say more about it. If you were there, you were there, and you probably enjoyed yourself. But if you weren't, then whatever. There might be more of these kinds of things happening (so keep your eyes peeled).

The second, Plato's Symposium, is currently going on. It actually officially opens this Saturday and runs this weekend and next. And, for this one, I'll let the first reviewer of the show, Mandy Gunther, say all that needs to be said about the play, and my part of it.

Here's a link to Mandy's review:
http://www.theatrebloom.com/2015/02/review-the-symposium-at-sudden-satyrs/.

And if you'd like to skip ahead to the parts about me, here you go:

Stellar performances of note include Ishai Barnoy as the loquaciously pedantic Eryximachus, and Nicholas Parlato as Aristophanes. Dithering and bickering in a jovial nature these two take up a great deal of the conversation, particularly Barnoy’s character who takes on the laborious task of being an annoying and pontificating swot. There comes a point in Barnoy’s unending speech where the other characters begin pleading, albeit with humor, for his discourse to meet its end. Both Barnoy and Parlato are engaging and give compelling arguments that entreat the mind open for debate. They understand how to address their peers and make the conversation pit burble with good vibrations.

Pausanius, played by the fluid-tongued Jeff Teleger, has a flavored favoritism for what some might call polyamorous tastes. Teleger, with his burgundy open-chested shirt, has a fleeting flirtation with the notions of love, which makes for a delicious opposition against the way Barnoy’s character meticulously dissects the ideology of the god and its worth of praise. These three men, Parlato and his charm, Barnoy and his clinicality, and Teleger with his poeticism make for intriguing counterpoints throughout the performance that keep the conversation moving at an endurable and enjoyable pace.

And here's a picture that was taken of me, during my long speech:

That's me on the right, standing up
by the reclining Jeff Tegeler, in a photo
taken by Shaelyn Jae for Mandy's review.