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AND IT GOES LIKE THIS
Mar. 6th, 2015 05:25 pmI've been playing a lot of Drawception again.
More importantly, this last summer, I directed a play (as I often do) and cast this one dude who we'll call Farkus, as in Scott Farkus from A Christmas Story. He's not so much a bully as he is something else, but we'll get to that.
This dude graduated from the school I work at the first year I was here. He always seemed a bit like a loner or outcast and I tend to gravitate towards those students.
So, Farkus has had a troubled life. He can't seem to get anything going. He's full of rage and resentment. Damn good actor though. I've made a point during the last bunch of years to go out of my way to do nice things for him - like take him out to lunch, lend him books, invite him running. I figured he could use somebody in his life who did him favors with nothing asked in return. Everyone could use somebody like that, right?
Anyhow, I cast him as the male lead in this play and went through my normal working process getting the show up and going. I believe in giving the actors a lot of freedom to discover their roles. He didn't seem comfortable with this at all, but I kept asking him what he needed from me and he would say stuff like 'I just need to work harder.'
Whatever dude - I can't read minds.
So four weeks out, he defriends me from Facebook. During this time, I later learned, he was badmouthing both me and the production on Facebook. Oh shit man, there's no better way to murder attendance for a show than to get it out in the world that you're in a show and you think it shitty. You just can't recover from that. Every other show I've directed for this theatre sold out 100%. This one couldn't find an audience. I'm not saying it was his fault - correlation isn't causation and there's other reasons it might not have sold - but surely that didn't help.
Anyhoo, I don't know about this yet. I just know he seems stressed and has defriended me, so I'm treating him a little with kid gloves.
Show opens to huge laughs and great response. He's great in it.
Second weekend, after the Wednesday show, The Wife and I offer to give him a ride home.
On the ride, he says he still doesn't think he has a grasp on the character. I ask him if there's anything we can do to get there before the show closes. He says "no." (Why bring it up then?) I asked him what we could have done earlier to help him get there (something I asked him after every single rehearsal) and the guy just lets me have it, both barrels, in front of The Wife (who is also in the show).
Holy shit! The guy has an itemized grievance list. Every single thing he brings up falls into one of two categories:
1. Stuff about my working method he doesn't like. Ok, that's totally fine. Not every working method is compatible, but I can't even begin to do anything about these issues if he doesn't tell me about them.
2. Stuff that is completely out of my control and maybe a little insane. Like how I didn't count the syllables of the text and how that means I'm an incompetent director. What the what? This stuff puts me in my head - should I have counted the syllables? Does it really matter that I didn't know what a certain word meant one night but corrected myself the next night? The obvious answer was almost always "wait, no, that is crazy," but its always worth thinking about.
Anyhow, we drop him off, The Wife is furious because we were doing him a favor and because I've been so good to him, I'm thinking "oh shit, I should have realized he needed this and this and this (because now I'm thinking I should have read his mind) and I'm beside myself.
He barely makes eye contact with me the rest of the run - though I also try to be as cordial as I can be to him.
Then I find out that all this stuff he wouldn't tell me back when I could do something about it is stuff he's been spewing all over Facebook and I'm like "well, I'm done with this prick."
Jeeberz Crabz, though, Farkus can say this to EVERY SINGLE PERSON HE KNOWS including the rest of the cast - who are still on Facebook - but he can't say it to me? He said it to the stage manager who told him to come talk to me, but he can't say it to me? (Lord knows why the stage manager didn't bring any of it to me, but he didn't) The rest of the members of the cast felt empowered enough to speak up when there's an issue but this dude who has worked himself to the point of fury can't move himself to take action when there's a possibility that I might address the issues?
Yeah, so basically, fuck that guy.
He's been on my mind this last week.
He sort of blacklisted himself by doing this - other directors in town literally saw him acting like this on Facebook and my reputation is pretty sterling. They've told him "you did that to Joey, how do I know you won't do that to me?" I feel shitty about this, but they're just looking out for their own shows and he sort of brought it on himself.
More importantly, this last summer, I directed a play (as I often do) and cast this one dude who we'll call Farkus, as in Scott Farkus from A Christmas Story. He's not so much a bully as he is something else, but we'll get to that.
This dude graduated from the school I work at the first year I was here. He always seemed a bit like a loner or outcast and I tend to gravitate towards those students.
So, Farkus has had a troubled life. He can't seem to get anything going. He's full of rage and resentment. Damn good actor though. I've made a point during the last bunch of years to go out of my way to do nice things for him - like take him out to lunch, lend him books, invite him running. I figured he could use somebody in his life who did him favors with nothing asked in return. Everyone could use somebody like that, right?
Anyhow, I cast him as the male lead in this play and went through my normal working process getting the show up and going. I believe in giving the actors a lot of freedom to discover their roles. He didn't seem comfortable with this at all, but I kept asking him what he needed from me and he would say stuff like 'I just need to work harder.'
Whatever dude - I can't read minds.
So four weeks out, he defriends me from Facebook. During this time, I later learned, he was badmouthing both me and the production on Facebook. Oh shit man, there's no better way to murder attendance for a show than to get it out in the world that you're in a show and you think it shitty. You just can't recover from that. Every other show I've directed for this theatre sold out 100%. This one couldn't find an audience. I'm not saying it was his fault - correlation isn't causation and there's other reasons it might not have sold - but surely that didn't help.
Anyhoo, I don't know about this yet. I just know he seems stressed and has defriended me, so I'm treating him a little with kid gloves.
Show opens to huge laughs and great response. He's great in it.
Second weekend, after the Wednesday show, The Wife and I offer to give him a ride home.
On the ride, he says he still doesn't think he has a grasp on the character. I ask him if there's anything we can do to get there before the show closes. He says "no." (Why bring it up then?) I asked him what we could have done earlier to help him get there (something I asked him after every single rehearsal) and the guy just lets me have it, both barrels, in front of The Wife (who is also in the show).
Holy shit! The guy has an itemized grievance list. Every single thing he brings up falls into one of two categories:
1. Stuff about my working method he doesn't like. Ok, that's totally fine. Not every working method is compatible, but I can't even begin to do anything about these issues if he doesn't tell me about them.
2. Stuff that is completely out of my control and maybe a little insane. Like how I didn't count the syllables of the text and how that means I'm an incompetent director. What the what? This stuff puts me in my head - should I have counted the syllables? Does it really matter that I didn't know what a certain word meant one night but corrected myself the next night? The obvious answer was almost always "wait, no, that is crazy," but its always worth thinking about.
Anyhow, we drop him off, The Wife is furious because we were doing him a favor and because I've been so good to him, I'm thinking "oh shit, I should have realized he needed this and this and this (because now I'm thinking I should have read his mind) and I'm beside myself.
He barely makes eye contact with me the rest of the run - though I also try to be as cordial as I can be to him.
Then I find out that all this stuff he wouldn't tell me back when I could do something about it is stuff he's been spewing all over Facebook and I'm like "well, I'm done with this prick."
Jeeberz Crabz, though, Farkus can say this to EVERY SINGLE PERSON HE KNOWS including the rest of the cast - who are still on Facebook - but he can't say it to me? He said it to the stage manager who told him to come talk to me, but he can't say it to me? (Lord knows why the stage manager didn't bring any of it to me, but he didn't) The rest of the members of the cast felt empowered enough to speak up when there's an issue but this dude who has worked himself to the point of fury can't move himself to take action when there's a possibility that I might address the issues?
Yeah, so basically, fuck that guy.
He's been on my mind this last week.
He sort of blacklisted himself by doing this - other directors in town literally saw him acting like this on Facebook and my reputation is pretty sterling. They've told him "you did that to Joey, how do I know you won't do that to me?" I feel shitty about this, but they're just looking out for their own shows and he sort of brought it on himself.
