By Sultana Ali
Contributing Writer
I didn’t know I was attending the play until my boyfriend told me the night before that there was a ticket for me. Suddenly I was going to an opening night of a play Friday; a play of which I knew nothing about. Lordy, what if I ran into someone I knew in the lobby of Mad Cow Theatre and they asked me for my thoughts on the playwright?! I calmed my nerves and reassured myself that the artsy side of my brain would kick in at some point. The lights dimmed and a stage with bodies across the floor came to life slowly performing what I would find out later was an acting exercise; actors close their eyes and “feel” the count until they don’t stumble over one another when they chime in. The exercise is about being present and connected with one another, a technique I found useful in watching the play as well.
The play setting is a six week acting class, a familiar scene to many around me. I confess I was lost for the first ten minutes as much of the audience chuckled and laughed through a myriad of exercises the cast moved through; my acting-trained boyfriend sensed my curiosity and whispered into my ear, “they are acting exercises.” Ahhh. I relaxed in my seat knowing that I was in fact not the target audience for the play, but would finally be able to get an acting lesson from Marty, the acting teacher played empathetically and skillfully by the talented Marty Stonerock, without ever signing up for a class. Annie Baker’s play came off without a hitch that opening night, though a few line stumbles are expected on opening night in front of an audience full of, well, actors. Mark Edward Smith is dynamic in his role as Marty’s emotionally perplexed husband, James; and Jay T. Becker is positively hard to stop watching as the divorced carpenter named Schultz during his emotional pleas to fellow classmate, Theresa, played by the lovely Rebekah Lane. UCF theater student Jolie Hart is complex and endearing as Lauren, the youngest of the group – a high school student who longs to play Maria in West Side Story and absorb as much knowledge as she can from the class.
As the players draw closer to the end of the acting class, their characters become more authentic and raw as the initial barriers drop. Art imitates life as they utilize real situations from their lives to incorporate into exercises. As the lights dim and return under Michael Marinaccio’s direction, the audience is left with a greater lesson. William Shakespeare said it best, “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Actor or not, you will want to see this fantastic, original work at the Mad Cow Theater (madcowtheatre.com). It runs through April 17, 2011.