Rubber Room #2: Reprise

February 9, 2011 9:30pm show

Larissa:     Cooper Shaw
Alan:        Tommy Day Carey
Sinclair:     Dan Patrick Brady
Daytona:    Sheila Stasack
Patti:        Blair Goldberg

Second show.  Same script.  Different actors.

Overall, the second group of actors was more mobile than the first.  There was more moving around the stage.  Voice levels seemed higher.  Also humorous lines -- both casts were just as funny as each other -- but the second group sometimes drew the laugh by a gesture that accompanied the words.

General observations:  the first performance you learn the action.  The second performance you know the action and hear some lines that you may not have heard the first time.  Different actors give different lines more emphasis so you hear them in a different way.

I need a phrase or word for the "reality dimension" of the performance.  For example, the character is entering the room for the first time and so is the actor.  The characters are meeting each other for the first time and so are the actors.  You can only do things for the first time once, but that doesn't mean that it's easy to get across to the audience the newness of the experience just because it's new.

The second performance reminds me that some of the reality dimension will be taken away beginning with the sixth performance.  In that performance the set which is a single room (named in the title) will no longer be new.

I want to see how that changes the performances, particularly the performance of the first actor to enter the room -- an empty room.