A conversation with Rupert

One of the highlights of my experiences in theatre will always be actually talking to Rupert Holmes, the writer of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” It’s a story I’ll always be able to tell, and here’s the long version…

The show, “Drood” is very unique and different in many ways. One way, is that it is a show within a show, so I was playing Clive Pagett, an actor playing the role of John Jasper.

 The way I was finding it different was how to build the character I was playing. I’m big on character development. It’s something I focus heavily on, because I notice when I do, I feel the most confident in myself and my performance. By finding out who your character is, what they want, and what they would do in any situation gives me a strong compass for my performance. . Normally, it’s pretty straight forward, because you’re playing a real person with real problems, but in this, I was having a harder time because I had to know who the actor was and how good he is at playing Jasper, and what to focus on... This is what I had come up with when I wrote to Rupert, and what I had asked…

“What I'm trying to figure out right now is who this person (Clive) is, and how do I balance the "melodrama acting" with the moments when the audience should really be pulled into the story and forget I'm acting. What I've come up with so far is as Clive, I'm trying to impress the audience with how talented I am. I'm showing them how incredible I am onstage (because that's how I view myself, and nothing less than that). Every time I sing, I sing with my absolute best technique, I am as expressive and bold and everything that sort of goes along with that style of acting. Basically, a peacock strutting and showing his feathers. "You want to see acting? I'll show you acting!" When playing Jasper, I thought I'd figure out what he wants in each scene, and truly go for that, but with more gusto/less realism of modern day style.”

I was just looking for a jumping off point, and to get reassurance that I was at least on the right track..I wasn't expecting much from him; maybe a quick email in a few weeks...instead he, and he offered to call me right then…of course I took the call!

I was at work, and ran from my desk to the staff lounge with a pad of paper and pen, and took notes as fast as I could. Rupert was on a train, so had some time to talk. He said he was fascinated by the question, was happy to help, and really took an interest in our production. I was so inspired and impressed by how open and thoughtful he was about his explanation of his vision of a show he wrote 30 years ago. He made it very clear that these thoughts were just his thoughts, and if the director wanted to go a different direction, nothing was set in stone. 

He explained to me that Clive was the type of person that loves “Big acting”. He loves the pointless pauses. The type of actor that says the lines up, and out, because they know that those in the balcony were so lucky to hear them…

This description resonated with me in the first scene of the show. It had to be established in the first line, “Why there’s the lad now!” and when Edwin walked in and we started our conversation. I imagined we were in a huge theatre and I had to make every gesture, every word large and clear enough that those in the “cheap seats" could see what I was doing. In Clive's mind, bigger is better.

We also discussed some of Clive's offstage personality. I got from my observations at that point in rehearsal that he is a vain person, and wanted to talk about that, so it wasn’t something that was surface level.

My assumption was that he was someone who was always looking in the mirror, hated to be upstaged, maybe a diva, maybe overall difficult to work with.  When I asked about it, Rupert talked about a “Benevolent vanity. It’s not nastiness. Clive loves being an actor, women pay money to see him play these haunted, troubled, brooding men that MUST have a good heart underneath it all. He loves the drama of these characters. He loves being the star. He has a swagger of knowing the audience came to see him. That is a completely different way of looking at it. I had a much easier time humanizing a person that is like-able, nice to most people, just knows how well liked he is and enjoys that.  

That assumption of love, acceptance and adoration from everyone whether it's true or not was a challenge for me. It's not at all how my mind works, so I remember having to kind of trick my brain to think like that. I remember rehearsing the song “A Man Could Go Quite Mad”, and imagining each seat filled with an audience member who just loves me and loves what I do. When it came to performances, and the audience actually being there, that way of thinking had to be there in order for me, a kind of shy person to “turn it on” and be able to walk into the audience with that gusto, let alone be able to talk and flirt with them before the show started.

We also talked about the “over the top” acting. I knew the style of the time was melodrama, but my question was, even if Clive isn't a great actor, do I just play Jasper over the top the whole time? That didn't feel right,as I'm playing Jasper for most of the performance. His way of explaining how to do that is for it not to be “bad acting” because you can’t do that for 2 hours and have it still be entertaining. I was relieved to hear that. He talked about it still being “real”, but with more gusto, so I sort of gave myself permission to still go figure out what “John Jasper” wants, and go after those objectives in a more heightened way. The way I made sense of this while performing was making sure I had subtext the whole show (the character’s inner thoughts), except they were screaming most of the time, and much more urgent. So the audience could see the wheels turning in my head, but bigger. #LouderFasterFunnier.

This conversation did so much for my confidence, and I had much of a better idea in what I was doing now that I had the information from the source. He was so kind and gracious giving me the time out of his day to talk to me. He even responded back several times when I updated him during the run. I’ve heard from others he’s very accessible. I’m so glad I took the chance to reach out, knowing I might not get a response. It will always make for a great story.