Meet the artists:
Big book, big insight
Interview with Rich Roode
Rich Roode '00 is both an emergency medical technician (EMT) and an actor. These dual roles reflect the interests he pursued as an undergraduate at Clark. As a freshman, he planned to major in biology and continue on to medical school. But while becoming involved in Clark theater as an extracurricular activity, he was bitten by the theater bug and added theater as a second major. After graduation he started a Boston-based theater group, The Boiler Company, with another Clark alum, John Macey '99. Together they produced several plays by Absurdist playwrights Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, and Sam Shepard. Click here to read a Boston Herald review of their production of "The Dumb Waiter."
Now Rich is back at Clark, co-teaching Creative Acting and working with his former theater professor Ray Munro in a production of Samuel Beckett's Endgame. Rich plays the part of Clov, a man whose sole purpose in life seems to be serving--caring for--his physically immobilized father and grandparents.
Rich talked about how he has used Ray Munro's Big Book exercise to gain insight into the characters he plays.
Describe for us the purpose of the Big Book Exercise.
The famous Russian director Constantin Stanislavsky said that you can stand on stage and say the words that are in front of you, or you can think about what your saying-the emotion behind it. Stanislavsky realized that an actor's lines are only going to come through true on stage if the actor explores the thoughts that drive those lines.
So the Big Book is a place where you, the actor, can break down your lines into thoughts. It's a first step to try to get into your character. What I do in the Big Book is lay out my lines as sequence of thoughts and write them out like that.
When I start to work on a play, I want to make sure that I'm constantly thinking, not just worrying about how to say a line. I don't want to remember that, 'oh, last time I said it this way.' It's more important to understand the thought process that brought this line to life. For every line there has to be a reason why I'm saying it. So when I'm on stage saying my lines, there's a lot behind it.
I go through the whole play like this, breaking sentences into thoughts. This is the very beginning. I would usually go by instinct at first-when is there a change in thought. Later I might find that they could even be broken down more.
So you might actually try breaking sentences up in different ways.
Exactly. I take my time. There's no right or wrong way--you go by how you feel.
When you think about it that way it becomes clear that a multitude of interpretations are possible. The words create images and ideas in your own mind that may or may not have been there for the playwright, but that allow you to add a fresh dimension to the role.
Yes. You keep an open mind when you look at what's written.
So it's not just a question of memorizing lines.
Right. You want to give it life. You're shooting for making it as real as it possibly could be.
It seems like the process of physically writing out the lines and deconstructing them into thoughts forces you to focus.
I always want to be trying something different, letting different things happen. I don't want to get too comfortable. I want to make sure that I'm always thinking. Writing out your lines as thoughts gets you to start that process. It makes you realize that there always is another way to interpret something.
I also have space in the Big Book next to my lines where I can fill in other information--director's notes, stage directions, my own thoughts, etc. You leave space to write a character biography and an ideal future for your character. I had a question posed to me for my role as Clov: 'what does it mean to serve?' He's serving his family. I can address that in the Big Book. You don't take your lines at face value, you delve as deep as you can. You use your own memories a lot to help understand your character, and you can write about those in your Big Book. For example, as an EMT I go into nursing homes a lot, and I see people who need a lot of care. So I can draw on those experiences in understanding the part of Clov.
I've done a Big Book for every play that I've been in and it really has helped me to know what I'm saying.
The Big Book exercise sounds like an opening up process. Then, when you come to a performance, you're narrowing in.
Yes, and you trust that all the work that you did will come through in a performance. People will enjoy it, remember it. You don't know what's going to happen. But that's what's important about theater. People think that they know what to do to make a good production. But you really don't know. You have to work on it and hope that comes through. It's the work that makes the actor.