Reflecting on Pines

Now that Whispering Pines has been closed for a couple of weeks, I think it’s fair to do a little reflection on my experience with the run of the play. I’ve read all of the reviews for the show that I could find, and they really run the gamut. On average, people found the work inaccessible and detached. Some loved it; some loathed it. So be it.

Many actors I know don’t read reviews until after a show has closed. I don’t have such hang-ups, now, but I used to. I still remember a review of my performance in a 1999 community theatre production of Fiddler On The Roof, which I foolishly read two nights after we opened the show. In it, The Critic To Impress stated that the three suitors (I played Perchik) were “more retiring than their roles required”. We three actors tried to blow this off, and joked that her turn of phrase was code for “gay”… but the review got under my skin! I spent the rest of that run re-evaluating and altering my work to address the critique. Bad actor!

As I’ve grown in experience and confidence, I’ve worried less and less about what observers — especially critics — think of my work. It’s not that I don’t care; it’s that opinions, like the art upon which those opinions are based, are subjective. I can’t waste time trying to meet the objective approval of everyone who sees me on stage, and I don’t need that approval to validate my work. And so I have no qualms about reading reviews of my work before the end of a run.

I look back on the performances of Whispering Pines with no sense of regret. I am proud of what we achieved. Most importantly, I take the expressed satisfaction of our director, our playwright, and my cast-mates at face value. With that said, however, I did read most of our reviews before we closed, and some of the writing about my work in the play haunted me. Unlike my 1999 adventure, though, I didn’t allow anything that was written affect my performance.

One critic called the play gripping, and another called it flat and lifeless. The thing that haunted me about this varied opinion is that both of those critics saw the same performance, on the same night. Now, what do I make of that? 

Under its surface, the engine of Whispering Pines is Chekhovian. The plot seems simple, but the inner life experienced by the characters is real and deep. My character, in particular, makes no apparent evolution during the course of the play’s action — and yet his turmoil is intended to be deep and affecting. Like the work of Chekhov, Whispering Pines is a play that could be seen as dull by many — but in the hands of gifted actors and directors it surely can be a powerful, resonant piece of tectonic theatre. 

I did several weeks of Chekhov scene study work while training in Banff this year. Brenda Bazinet referred to Chekhov as an instant “bullshit detector”: a litmus test for actors that exposed fakery. Through that experience I fell in love (finally) with Chekhov. Coincidentally, it was while I was in Banff that I was asked to be part of the premiere of Whispering Pines.  I sensed that the blood of Pines was very much in line with the work of Chekhov, and so I aimed to invest my portrayal of Thomas with as much inner life as possible. 

I went at the task with fervor, and was eager to share the work with an audience. The range of views on the work, however, tell me that the emotional life of the characters is actually created in the minds of the individual audience members during the performance — not in the rehearsal hall, and perhaps not even on stage. In this respect, it is completely out of the hands of the actor, and David Mamet’s heretical ratings in “True and False” are more astute than I’d previously imagined.  

Sobering.

On the other hand, I know I still have so much more work to do to be a better male actor. I know this because I shared the stage every night with Paul Rainville, and I never stopped watching his work with absolute awe. Everything I fought to achieve, he handled with finesse and sprezzatura.

Some day, I may achieve it. There’s time.

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