Tag: Colin McPhillamy

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Acting

Books and Tomatoes

Books and Tomatoes.

The two nouns in the title may not usually associate, but to me this season they represent success. I’ll explain.

Last Christmas I was given a plant incubator, a device where you can plant seed pods and stand back. I have lived a peripatetic life (so far). In my earlier youth I lived in 33 places in London for example – I only counted those where I stayed more than a month – and lots of briefer stops when on the road. I’ve always hankered for a plot of land in which to grow my own organic vegetables and an equal hankering has been for stable bookshelves that stay in one place.

At the time of writing I have access to both these goods. The combination makes me happy.

The tomato plant is the gift that keeps on giving. See picture below with all kinds of small green globes ready to ripen, and this after two months of bumper crops already. I pruned this plant before it began to bear fruit. That was according to the best advice available online so as to bring light and air to all parts.

A move had to be made with the books. By which I mean I did something I have never done before which is … I culled the books. At first I took only those with broken spines,  or with titles and pages so faded to be illegible, or with the old-library-mildew-scent that comes from having spent too much time in a cardboard box in some storage facility. But later I was more decisively surgical. 

At first it was a wrench. And I thought I would feel as if I had undergone surgery myself, nipping and tucking internal organs. But no. See below, now arranged alphabetically by author.

The sensation of a purged collection is more akin to having had a long overdue haircut.

And I do admit to being a kindle convert. So there’s that. To condense cubic feet of physical books into, as one friend calls it, “an expensive little glass slab”, well … at first the concept appalled me; that singular experience of a book with tangible pages, possibly paired with a cup of tea, a glass of something, or just its own silence transmitting knowledge or entertainment, was this to be lost? But you’ve got to hand it to the geniuses who gave us these tablets. To have at hand the complete works of: you name it: the scriptures of all faiths; P G Wodehouse, the antidote to depression; and Franz Kafka, the antidote to optimism. And all convenient in a glass slab, handily accessible on any journey in plane, train, or if you happen to be traveling by auto, there’s the audible version.

I mean where else would you get that? Not in previous centuries.

Categories
Acting

Retrospective

As the old year comes to a close it seems appropriate to post some early work. I’m grateful to an old friend from college who spotted this eclectic collection.

This little piece is from way back in the last millennium. It is the result of two days work (one per character). They played it like it was a matter of national importance (i.e. a lot) and it remains, thirty five years on, the highest hourly rate I’ve ever been paid for acting.

If it doesn’t load where we want it, the bit with me begins at 5:27.

Other than that:

New Perspective

I’ve taken the unusual step of asking my agent not to submit me for anything outside of certain secret select categories.

I have finally realized the wisdom as expressed by another old chum from college, “I long ago gave up the idea of being a big star, now I just want to be fabulously wealthy!“

“How many of your clients tell you they don’t want to work?” I asked my agent.

“None of them.” He said.

Fair enough. The corollary to an answer given by a doctor to a friend when he asked, “How many of your patients die?”

“All of them.” Said the doctor.

So I’m taking the next year to write, barring something irresistible from the two select categories mentioned above.

I’ve read Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing.

It took about 10 minutes to read, another 10xn to appreciate and I guess it’ll be multiples of 10 hours, months or years (if I live that long) to apply them.

Meanwhile here is attempt at what not to do when writing books, as Elmore has it:

Prologue

There had been rain. Rain that was deeply and meaningfully wet. But now it was snowing moodily. The flakes drifted down like celestial dandruff. She put the kettle on for tea and scant minutes later the jolly whistle announced water at a rolling boil. “Do you want some honey in your tea?” she enquired abruptly. “How long have we been married?” he rejoined, sarcastically. “Too long!” was her unspoken thought. “Didn’t you oughter know bai now!?” he continued, lapsing into the twang of his rural vernacular, flipping the pages of his newspaper in a huff with a noisome grunt that annihilated any residual sweetness in the room. She sniffed, blew her nose, coughed, dried her hands handily and poured the angry water onto the placid tealeaves.

Forward to 2023

So now that I am finished with acting for the time being (except for the S.S.C. – secret select categories), what to do? I know! … I’ll be a writer.

I’ve read Annie Lammot’s book, Bird By Bird, and Stephen King’s book, On Writing, I’ve thumbed through Strunk and White’s, The Elements of Style, I’ve watched masterclasses on Masterclass from Aaron Sorkin to Walter Mosely. I’ve taken to heart the maxims:

Don’t get it right, get it written.

Don’t make it good, make it by Tuesday.

Any fool can write, it takes a man to re-write.

Tricky one that, in these gender-sensitive days. Phases sometimes used in legal contracts to indicate inclusion might help. Is it better rendered: Any fool can write, it takes a woman/man/human/person/sentient being/humanoid native of planet Earth to re-write?

I have no answer.

This comes late for Hanukkah, early for Christmas, but bang on for the Solstice and for Yule.

You could say “Season’s Greetings”. For a comedic take, see Alan Aybourn’s play of that title and my retrospective blog post about touring in it with the late great Marti Caine

Whichever way you celebrate, best wishes to you, and have a fantastic New Year!

Categories
Acting

In An Uncertain World …

Rehearsals for Heisenberg continue, and include that strange experience that no matter how many shows you may have done, no matter how many theaters you have worked in, by day 3 you feel like you have never done any other play.

On this one that particular illusion (in this, what some parts of physics tells us is no more than a grandly illusory world) is more than usually convincing. Here’s why: Heisenberg is an elusive, absorbing, consuming, stimulating, challenging, unexpected, fascinating, quirky, amusing, esoteric, contradictory, intriguing, connective, disjointing, revealing, romantic, and more, 2-hander of a play which takes in themes from the cosmic to the commonplace and references the use of too many adjectives in journaling.

Marjorie Lowe and Me
Photo by Magnus Stark

It tells the story of a May to December romance passed through the mind-challenge that is quantum physics. So here and there in the text one or other of the two characters delves into the universe with non-usual awareness of space-time, dimensionality and … well … the word is … uncertainty.

As you may remember, the Uncertainty Principle says something to this effect: if you know where something is, you cannot know where it’s going or at what speed it’s getting there … and vice versa. And this was discovered and formulated by Werner Heisenberg when investigating particle physics.

Astronomers and yes, astrologers too sometimes ponder what the implications might be if we think of a planet as a particle and scale up the contexts of dimensions of time and speed and magnitudes of distance.

If, like me, you get quickly baffled when confronted with advanced physics, a lovely visual introduction to solar systemic geography and geometry is available here: … I like this because when the trail function is enabled the orbital movement of the planets round the sun looks like a complicated weave, reminiscent of the fates and their loom. And as with everything when astro meets logos, it depends upon your perspective and point of view and speed of perception.

The playwright (interview with Simon Stevens here) has extrapolated this principle into the realm of human relations. The play is a theatrical riff on the Uncertainty Principle. Werner Heisenberg himself does not appear.

Photo by Magnus Stark

You wouldn’t want to get involved in a project like this without expert help, and it is a truly lucky circumstance to be working with the amazing Marjorie Lowe, a very fine actress. And the incredible Bari Newport as director, someone who can float three or more ideas in one sentence. Bari is the successor to Joe Adler as the producing artistic director at Gable Stage.

Heisenberg opens at Gable Stage in Miami on October 29th and plays until November 20th. Tickets available here.

Categories
Acting

On

Hangmen delayed two years by the pandemic did finally open on Broadway to rave reviews just over a week ago. But the virus still lurks and the knock-on effect is that at this writing two of our actors are off.

Me as Harry Wade in Hangmen, photo by Anna Fleischle

Also meaning that two of our actors are on.

I am one of them.

Virus allowing I will be playing all next week Monday May 2nd thru Saturday May 7th 2022. Details and tickets here.

Categories
Acting

Hangmen – Third Time is the Charm

The image above says it all.

Or does it…?

This represents the third attempt to open this spectacular play on Broadway. I am not on a percentage, let me make that clear, but I urge you to snap up tickets at covid-induced discounts asap. After all, capital punishment – what could be funnier?

Go here for full details.

Following a hugely successful run at The Atlantic Theatre in 2018 a transfer to Broadway was mooted. Some of the cast had availability issues and the transfer never happened.

Then in 2020 the transfer was finally placed and with some new cast members the project got as far as a week and a half of previews (but no opening) and then … well we all know what happened on March 13th of that year.

So now in 2022 – wish us luck.

I am engaged to cover several roles including ‘Harry’ one of the hangmen of the title, Hangmen. I was in the company when the shutdown hit, and at that time my wife (the amazing Patricia Conolly) was appearing as Mrs Dubose in To Kill A Mockingbird in a theatre around the corner. So it seemed not only obviously sensible for me to take the gig but also practical as Patricia had Manhattan housing supplied.

So I was delighted when this came around again, not least because it was a 5 block walk to work.

But then …

Mockingbird closed at two days notice and the Manhattan apartment evaporated.

Mockingbird is slated to return in June of this year. (We all hope).

Talking of Mockingbird and the cover gig (see here for my previous take). In the weeks after Christmas last year the virus went through the company meaning that covering actors were deployed, not only those current, but those from previous casts.

Such is the challenge of keeping a show open in the present situation that public praise has been lavished on the many several covers and swings that have kept Broadway and West End shows going – this was unthinkable back in the day when Noel Langley wrote the backstage novel “There’s a Porpoise Close Behind Us.” In that novel he details in one sentence the disdain verging on contempt in which understudies were held in 1936.

So in 2022 it is heartening to note that on so mighty an organ as NPR I heard a conversation explaining that while the job is more artisanal than directly artistic, it requires skill, courage, more than a little nerve, and the firm management of one’s ego.

I understand that given the virus and what it’s doing to the world at large and actors in particular, my own and my colleagues’ odds of ‘going on’ have risen and bookies in New York midtown are laying bets at better than even chances: who knows? But if you live in NYC don’t be surprised if I ask you for a sofa for the night!

In other McPhillamy news allow me to direct your attention to a charming little radio series by Collin Johnson under the umbrella title, Capital Gains. The BBC plans to re-broadcast this amusing piece beginning February 10th of this year. You can access it at BBC Radio 4 Extra.

Oddly enough, the chap who wrote this, one Collin Johnson was also an actor (like me). He is on record as repeating a phrase first uttered by William Makepeace Thackeray who, when asked why he wrote Vanity Fair, (the 19th century novel, not the hi-glamour magazine), answered, “Bread and cheese.”

Apparently Johnson, soon after he became a young father, motivated by this very same imperative, took on a succession of cover jobs in the West End. I understand that he used to regard the income from these engagements as a writing bursary. This may be apocryphal but I have heard that Capital Gains was written in a broom cupboard adjacent to a dressing room at the Duchess Theatre in London using a large upturned photographic placard of a certain television star balanced on two trestles as a desk.

Colin McPhillamy
Collin Johnson

Are these men related? I think we should be told.

Full disclosure, Collin Johnson is known to me personally.