Here’s a man of jollity!

I’m thinking about important comments on my last entry. I’ll probably share some more of those thoughts soon. But there is big news! Emily called me this afternoon, after MIT callbacks. She offered me, on behalf of MITGASP, the role of Jack Point in the spring 2005 production of Yeomen.

I realize that not all of you understand the significance of being cast as Jack Point. Let me just tell you, then, it’s a big deal. Jack Point is the role I’ve dreamt about for years. This easily represents my greatest acting achievement and challenge ever. Jack Point is complex and funny and in love or maybe just sort of obsessed and tragic and sort of a jerk.

As I wrote in my Buxton Diary: I’ve done very little serious acting. I played a minor character in a dark tragedy (straight play) in high school… I think it was called The Brick and the Rose. And I played Claude in Hair, who does get sort of angsty and does have a tragic ending. That’s it. Other than that, comedy, comedy, straight-man in a comedy, comedy, etc.

Jack Point. The most complex and difficult character I’ve ever attempted. I mean, I know it’s not Hamlet, but then, I’m not a real actor.

I wrote to Savoynet that I hope I can handle this role. Andi replied:

You will be by the time you get to it.
This one will take more thought and study than any other role in
G&S. You and the director will have a lot of decisions to make
in addition to deciding how you will interpret the “falls
senseless” at the end.

Jack is a very mixed character, likeable but seriously flawed.
His idea of “love” is more like “obsession”, because there’s
very little thought of what Elsie feels, wants, needs. Where he
shows the flaws the most seriously is in the Act I Finale.
What’s his reaction? Not “Omigod–sweetheart, we’ll find a
solution to this” but a totally selfish hissy-fit. And, of
course, his Frederic-like cluelessness about what to say in
wooing a girl!

The reason I am satisfied to have Elsie with Fairfax rather than
Point has to do with Elsie’s and Point’s respective moral
positions regarding this marriage she’s stuck in. She stoutly
defends the sanctity of the marriage, whether she loves her
unknown husband or not. Point, in the meantime, is knowingly
plotting a lie that would result in her being a bigamist if she
married him after the faux “shooting”–and isn’t troubled for 2
seconds by the morality of it.

He’s not a totally sympathetic character.

Have fun with him; the complexities make him a particularly
interesting challenge. You’ll do the musical material
brilliantly, of course, with your superb diction; that will be
the easiest part of the role.

All the best for it,
Andi

I am very excited. Emily’s known for days, but couldn’t tell me. And I’m Jack Point!

Ok, yeah, there’s basically no more content to this entry than that. Just some excited babbling.