Categories
Acting

President McPhillamy

PLANT MORE TREES! DON'T BE A DRONGO! MCPHILLAMY THANKS YOU FOR NOT VOTING FOR HIM!
PLANT MORE TREES! DON’T BE A DRONGO!
MCPHILLAMY THANKS YOU FOR NOT VOTING FOR HIM!

Having played the odd monarch and occasional deep thinker, a natural next step might be … politics?

I want to thank the two or three people who might have considered voting for me if I had actually run for president – they know who they are and I thank them. In the end I am happy to say, not one single person ticked my box on the ballot. For the excellent reason that my name was not on it. However, to those few who might conceivably in some alternate universe, have voted for me, to them and to the hundreds of millions who actively did not vote for me, I am grateful.

As you may (or may not) remember, my campaign was predicated on a single policy:

 

Don’t be a drongo *
* (Drongo: Australian colloquialism meaning “Silly fellow”, “Idiot”, “Waste of space”)

Here are a few policy suggestions in lieu of an actual McPhillamy Presidency:
Personal:
1. Plant more trees.
2. Meditate now and then.
3. Never watch cable news. (If you are unsure how to kick the habit. The following one-step process will help. Step one: disconnect your television and throw it through the {open} window)

National: (USA specific)
1. Explain to the characters who run Big Oil, they could make just as much money with wind, wave and solar power, and they would get a lot of good karma for saving the planet instead of destroying it. Use some of dough in the Big Oil offshore savings accounts & some of the war chest billions to support those workers who would be out of a job.

2. Commission the design of a water-powered motor car. Repair all the bridges and roads nationwide, with the possible exception of Manhattan in New York City, where hazardous sidewalks, streets and avenues give an added theme-park excitement to a taxi ride.

3. Require all national leaders to demonstrate accomplishment in one or several of the following: yoga, calculus, ability to listen, yearly detox, t’ai chi, flower arranging, chess, non-violence, fluency in at least one foreign language, organic gardening, ability to name countries and capitals worldwide, courtesy, self-control, above high-school use of English, demonstrated refusal to accept a high degree of inequitable privilege (e.g.: waiving the government healthcare plan until all citizens are similarly insured), recycling, cycling, thorough acquaintance with “The Republic” by Plato (which explains to the letter how what has just happened, happened, and should therefore be no surprise to anyone with any developed political understanding and least of all to the “Liberal left-wing media”).

Personal/National/International:
Assist all efforts foreign and domestic to desist from poisoning the air, the earth, and the seas. Implement clean, green, lean technology at every level. Talk to Dolphins and to Whales, listen to the messages carried on the wind. Plant more trees.

I am Colin McPhillamy and I approved this message.

Categories
Acting Plays Theatre

Lots of Prime Ministers: One Queen.

Reading this post you’d be forgiven for thinking the play I’m working on is called, ‘Churchill’ … actually it’s called ‘The Audience’.

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Here is a diary excerpt:

October 4th 2016.

It’s the first day of rehearsal at The Maltz Theatre, Jupiter, Florida. We, the cast, arrived yesterday, Most of us from out of town. Just shy of three hours on the plane from New York. I was in a window seat with a young mother and a one-year-old baby in her arms next to me. The baby was as good as gold except he did persistently kick me in the ribs, presumably unintentionally. I pretended not to notice and when the mother apologized I pretended not to mind. I was returning to British mode (from expat mode). We British would rather suffer in dignified silence than inconvenience a stranger. I used the time to go over my lines as Sir Winston Churchill.

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One scene only. Where he encounters the young Queen Elizabeth II. The scene is the occasion of their first private audience together with she as monarch of the United kingdom and Dominions. It took place in 1954. Sir Winston was then 78 years old.

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For research I visited the Cabinet War Rooms in London, and I’ve watched in no particular order Robert Hardy, Albert Finney, Timothy Spall, Brendon Gleeson and Michael Gambon as Churchill. Oh, and the great man himself of course in all the available speeches.

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All very fine actors, none of them actually impersonate the great man, but all of them copy some of his vocal characteristics, the well known rhythms and cadences, Gambon uses the lightest touch. Finney is my favorite for character.

th-4On the morning of the first day of rehearsals we have the meet and greet. As ever, it is astonishing how many people a theatre employs. The Maltz is a theatre under speed. By which I mean they put up plays and musicals in two and a half weeks, run them for 17 performances and that’s it. Get in; get out. I like it.
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The Audience is a big play and by far the biggest challenge falls to Karen MacDonald who is playing the Queen and is onstage the entire show with some astonishingly quick costume changes as she moves from Elizabeth R in her 8os to her 20s to her 60s and back and forth in this non-linear telling of the story of Britain’s Prime Ministers and their constitutionally un-mandated, but constitutionally effective weekly meetings with the monarch.

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Photo by Alicia Donelan Karen MacDonald as Queen Elizabeth II

We read through the text and you can feel confidence in the room as everyone, without saying so, agrees that it’s a fine cast and that the play has indeed been well-cast and with a bit of luck we’ll have a fine production. Of course this is the first time we’ve heard each other read and at this point none of us can do more than sketch an indication of where our performances might arrive. But everybody approves of everybody, everybody hopes everybody will come up with more, and everybody understands that on day one everybody is both confident and insecure. We all know that many things can go wrong in a rehearsal period. It’s a bit of a miracle that anything ever gets produced anywhere. But it’s a good start and baring acts of God we should have an excellent production on our hands.

In the afternoon we begin to pick the play apart and an amusing discussion follows on the cultural, social and political differences between our two great nations. Lou Jacob is directing and he seems to know more about British Constitution than I do. Hardly surprising, because no-one can really claim to be an expert, least of all anyone from Britain. Why so? Because there isn’t one. A British Constitution that is. At least not one that anyone has written down.

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Photo by Alicia Donelan with Peter Simon Hilton, Colin McPhillamy, Henny Russell, Karen MacDonald, Rod McLachlan, Skye Allysa Friedman, Mark Dold, Paul DeBoy, Peter Galman

Oddly, well it seems odd given the themes of the play, tonight is the U.S. vice-presidential debate. Getting back to the digs from rehearsal I turn on the telly. One of the cable news anchors is interviewing a couple of talking heads, “Is he gonna go offense or defense tonight?” the anchor asks. Before the talking head can answer, the anchor asks two other questions, answers the first question, then answers it again with a contradiction and then opines that it shouldn’t be left too long before one of the candidates “throws the first punch”. Then, in a further melange of sporting metaphors he announces a commercial break and we cut to a picture perfect family having a barbecue amid gently rolling hills and a mellow voice-over artist is telling us to soothing, mildly optimistic music, that spingo-dingo-mingo is not right for everyone and that side effects can include halitosis, bankruptcy and allergy to popular culture. I deploy the only sanction I can and turn the telly off, taking note that five years ago I could still have played the Dad in the commercial, now I’m the right age for the foxy Grandpa. Time flies in entertainment. Still it’s fun to be back in Florida.

Assorted production pix & trailer here

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Photo by Alicia Donelan Mark Dold, Gabriel Zenone, Karen MacDonald

And then there was a hurricane …

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Photo by Peter Simon Hilton. Colin McPhillamy as Winston Churchill