I am off to acting class. I’m working on Saint Joan, one of my favorite plays. Like all Shaw’s plays, it is delicious language, beautiful to READ … but a play must be spoken, the words must lift off the page, and that is where actors (myself included) can get into trouble with Shaw. Can you speak the damn thing? And make it sound real? This is my challenge with Joan. I love her. Calling the Dauphin, “Charlie”. “Listen to me, Charlie…”
And then, at the end, when she realizes she has been betrayed, she turns to the group of inquisitors and states, “Light your fire.”
My acting teacher Sam Schacht said once to an actress working on Shaw: “You can do whatever the hell you want to do. Just don’t put a stick up your ass and think you’re playing Shaw.”
