Actor's Diary: God's Country

Bryce Pinkham plays the roles of Brother Vaughn, Pete Davenport and Felix Barclay in The Orphans' Home Cycle

Bryce Pinkham, Maggie Lacey and Bill Heck on the porch swing at the Vaughn (Brooks) family home (Courtship and The Death of Papa)

“Well son, how do ya’ll like God’s country?” The man addressing me is Harry Goudeau. He is a hay farmer from Hungerford, Texas. He wears a weathered khaki shirt, brown work pants, and carries a loaded 20-gauge shotgun. Down here, where people are ‘tough as boots,’ Harry is steel-toed. Secretly shaking in my city shoes, I reply “We like it… We like it real well.” Shortly after dispatching, with military precision, numerous clay pigeons to their maker, Harry concedes, “I’m glad y’all had a chance to come down here and see how the real people live.” Harry Goudeau is not a man to disagree with; luckily I concur- I’m glad we’ve come too.

It is our week off from the plays and alongside Bill Heck and Maggie Lacey, our Cycle’s leading duo, I have made a pilgrimage to Horton Foote’s hometown, the place that nurtured the real life versions of his characters from cradle to grave. We arrive well past midnight in Wharton on the nimble heels of a temperate breeze, a friendly ‘heads up’ from the Gulf. The town is quiet and dark as we search North Houston Street for the Foote family guesthouse. “It’s the one with the red door,” we’ve been told, probably built before the need for an address. As we settle in for the night I am confronted by the simple calm of this place, a far cry from the city atmosphere we have inhabited for the past four months. I am beckoned to sleep by the somnolent holler of the late night train whistle and the early patter of Texas-size rain drops slapping high fives with the Pecan trees in the yard. For the first time since we started rehearsals in June, I feel myself relax.

Our first stop the next morning is thirty steps away. Other than a modest plaque outside, Horton Foote’s childhood home is as simple and humble as any other on the street. I feel an odd sense of déjà vu entering the house whose onstage avatar we inhabit in the plays 1918 and The Death of Papa. Across the threshold, we are immediately drawn to the mantelpiece. Having recently toured the Connecticut home of another treasured American voice, Mark Twain, I can’t help but draw immediate parallels and note particular contrasts between the two houses. It is said that Mark Twain used to tell stories to his children every night, inventing characters and situations based on the various bric-a-brac and bagatelles that resided on his famously ornate mantle. Horton’s mantle, like the rest of his house, politely declines such Twainian ostentation, but indeed has stories of its own to tell. Home to more than precious curios, it shelves the very people who inspired so many of Horton’s plays, particularly his Orphans’ Home Cycle. Among pictures of Horton with Presidents, movie stars and grandchildren are family portraits of generations past. One of my favorite moments of the entire trip is watching Bill and Maggie discover and comprehend a framed picture of “themselves” (they play Horton’s parents.) As we explore the rest of the house in silent reverence, I can just imagine the sounds of children scampering down the hallway, around the sunlit kitchen and out through the backyard. It strikes me as the perfect family home: the living spaces are open and connected, and yet there remain plenty of places to disappear to, plenty of spots to curl up with a good book.

My boon discovery for the day is Horton’s study, the room where he would retire to read and write. The entire length of the room on one side is home to a collection of books and plays that would make any theatrical bookworm jealous. Kitty corner to Horton’s personal library, among a flotilla of awards, medals and memorabilia, I discover a pair of unassuming relics. The first is a bible that appears to have belonged to Albert Horton Foote, Horton’s grandfather and the patriarch whose death occurs in the first act of The Orphans’ Home Cycle. Right beside it is another bible that once belonged to Tom Brooks, my character’s father, and the patriarch whose death ends the cycle. It is easy to imagine Horton in his chair, cloaked in the afternoon sun, leafing through the worn pages of the two books and contemplating the next family story to resurrect for the stage. It won’t be the last time on the trip I am reminded that these people we have done our best to bring to life were not just characters to our playwright, they were his flesh and blood.

Our gracious hosts on this visit, the proud Whartonians Charles Davis and Betty Joyce, are friends of the Foote family and, thankfully, everybody else in town. It only takes a quick spin around the block for them to prove themselves vast repositories of knowledge for everything Wharton. Over the next few days we will be treated to a whirlwind tour of the town and the many landmarks that bear relevance to the plays and our playwright. We will see Horace Sr.’s dry goods store, The Vaughn family home, the courthouse square, the convict farm, the train station, and the boarding house. One of our first stops, in between diagonal blankets of cozy gulf rain, is the Wharton graveyard. Amid strong gusts of wind, rebel shafts of sunlight occasionally sneak past their storm cloud captors to warm a few lucky headstones. Sleuth-like in our search, we eventually find Albert Horton’s actual tombstone, the one that Horace spends the entire cycle saving money to buy. At its base it reads ‘erected by his son’. We visit everyone from Mrs. Cookenboo to Bobby Pate to the entire Vaughn (or rather Brooks) family lot. With the help of our erudite guides we discuss the various characters, the odd web that connects them all, and how each met his or her demise. Someone asks if it is odd to stand in front of our own character’s graves. Admittedly, the feeling is somewhere between macabre admiration and shuddersome pride. We can only hope that what we have been able to do with the plays is a fitting homage to the group of eternally reposed beings couched at our feet. Finally, we stop in front of the graves of Horton and Lillian Foote and are silent. It is in this moment that the whole experience becomes entirely real. Within minutes of us standing there, the wind resumes its previous bluster and the sky releases squadrons of grape-size pugilists, pelting us back to the cars.

It seems to me that the opportunity is rare for an actor in our country’s predominant theatrical model to conduct what I would call primary research. Our trip to Wharton is a chance for us to talk to real people, visit real places and tap the literal source of our playwright’s inspiration. It has added an entirely new dimension to our work, one that will make itself known in obvious ways (nothing helps dialect work like talking to a native), but also in ways that are untraceable, but nevertheless perceived. While our opportunity has indeed been unique, it has further convinced me that as actors we must take responsibility and ownership of our roles as creative detectives if we aspire to obtain the artistic agency that our current model sometimes seems to deny.

On our final day in Wharton we enjoy a picnic by the river, (I now know what Barbeque is supposed to taste like), a skeet shoot (I think my shoulder is still bruised from an exhilarating first experience with a firearm), and a Texas sized bonfire under the stars. In five short days we have been welcomed into this place in a way that feels like family. It’s true what they say, everything is bigger here, even the mosquito bites (which I have managed to limit to under one hundred). As our return flight circles New York, the city’s neurotic rush waiting for us below, I feel fuller, better equipped, dare I say- prepared for rehearsal the next day. I anticipate the return from Wharton’s profoundly spacious landscape to the cramped and crowded streets of the city may prove to be a bit of an adjustment. Nevertheless we are all looking forward to bringing a little Wharton to the Signature Theater Company, our hearts, minds and sleep schedules full of Texas.

Click here for more photos from Bryce, Bill and Maggie's Trip

Actor's Diary: Family Business

Bryce Pinkham will be playing the roles of Brother Vaughn, Pete Davenport and Felix Barclay in The Orphans' Home Cycle

I’ve been thinking a lot about families lately. I guess it should come as no surprise considering our playwright and the content of these plays. I find a delightful irony in our situation here: twenty-two actors who, for the most part, have left their permanent homes and in many cases their own loved ones to bring to life this incredible story about family and the journey to find a home. Furthermore, the entire experience, onstage and off, is having the effect of bringing us all together as a theatrical family. This is not unique to our production of course, it’s part of what we get to do in the theater- form little families for a few months at a time. We eat and drink together, take trips to the movies, play poker, celebrate birthdays, talk politics, grocery shop, bake cookies, ride bikes, take yoga, and sometimes even talk about the plays. Our dressing areas become living rooms where we share stories of our own families, seek professional and personal advice, and build the companionship and camaraderie that we otherwise lack being away from home. For many of us, even pursuing a career in this profession has meant some amount of personal sacrifice to our own families. During one of the many hours of technical rehearsals, I listen as two of the men in our group discuss missing their sons’ recent tours of prospective colleges. I figure it must be hard being absent from family trips such as these and I ask what it’s like having to be away from home so much. “It’s hard,” one concedes, “especially when the kids are young. You want to be able to pull your weight and send money home, but it also hurts to miss things like family summer vacations.” Father number two chimes in “One thing working on these plays makes you realize is that family is the most important thing.” “Did you ever consider doing something else professionally once you had kids?” I inquire. “Yeah, I tried for a year, but I realized acting was the best chance I had to make money for my family.” Father number two is surprised when I tell him I hope to have a family some day. He says he doesn’t run into too many actors my age who are looking forward to that already. He surprises me by asking how many children I want. “It’s important to think about,” he rejoins in response to what must have been a wide-eyed expression of terror on my face, “especially if you are going to be an actor and do this.” His gentle interrogation strikes at the heart of what I find most terrifying about starting a professional stage career.

Considering the difference in earning potential, I find it no wonder that the theater loses many of its finest talents to its younger, more popular artistic siblings, film and television. To be sure, the financial allure of those media is hard to ignore, especially for the domestically inclined actors among us. However, it seems to me as well that what the process of doing a stage play may lack in fiscal incentives it makes up for in espirit de corps. It seems to me that there has always been something inherently familial about the theater. I am reminded of the Italian Commedia families who not only made their living traveling the countryside in search of their next stage, but who literally passed down the portrayal of certain characters to their children. Likewise, it surely must have felt like joining a family to be admitted into Shakespeare’s The Lord Chamberlain’s Men or Moliere’s Troupe du Roi. Be it literal or fostered, the bond forged between actors on the stage often has the strength one associates with family; out there under the lights, we depend entirely on one another, and I find this dependence usually makes its way offstage as well.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on your take,) theater and the process that brings it about mirror life in many ways. Change, both expected and otherwise, is simply always part of the equation. Our families, both biological and artistic, are inevitably affected and transformed by that unapologetic plodder, time. Having recently been caught unawares by this unalterable truth, I have found comfort in the words of none other than our playwright. In the penultimate play of his cycle Horton writes, “A family is a remarkable thing, isn’t it? You belong. And then you don’t. It passes you by.” I believe Horton’s words certainly speak to the families we all come from, but also the ones we form in and around the theater. The transient nature of rehearsing and performing a play (or 9), each night a little different than the next, each moment passed in due time, is part of what appeals to me about the theater. It is this impermanence that television and film will never be able to offer. It is this mortality that calls for us to enjoy every fleeting moment with the plays and with those around us that in turn forms such lasting kinship among us. I am truly beginning to cherish our ad hoc family here and am constantly reminded why I have chosen to be a part of this crazy caste (pun intended). And yet, as Horton reminds me, like an actor’s work in a theater, this family will not always be. That’s just the way it goes. You belong. And then you don’t. I think there’s something beautiful in that.

Actor's Diary: Passion and Patience

Bryce Pinkham will be playing the roles of Brother Vaughn, Pete Davenport and Felix Barclay in The Orphans' Home Cycle

Constantly abandoning his chair to cavort around the rehearsal hall and joke with the company, Michael Wilson has an infectious energy that helps to drain any inherent tension out of the room. With seemingly unending patience he fields all questions and conducts rehearsal with a balance of tender admiration and boyish irreverence. Throughout each day, Michael somehow manages a ‘hey darlin’ or ‘hello sweetheart’ for everyone and succeeds in making every last one of us feel important to this project. In an effort to further understand Michael’s skillful métier as a director, I stir up a discussion among my peers about the inherently delicate relationship between actors and directors. In turn I am treated to several horror stories about directors who failed to win the admiration of their respective casts: “I had this one director tell me I was speaking like a movie extra, and then he asked me if I wouldn’t mind talking like a human being... ”

Pause.

At our best, we actors are empathetic, generous and emotionally sensitive; at our worst we are temperamental, irascible and, well, emotionally sensitive. Direction like that provided in the above anecdote is sure to affect even the steeliest of our kind.

Play.

“…I took the note and walked away because you never questioned this guy. Your goal was just to get onstage and off without getting caught.” It seems to me that a successful director’s efficacy is closely related to his ability to set his or her actors at ease to fearlessly explore ideas and choices. To be sure, a certain amount of actors’ creative forays in our rehearsal room turn out to be dead ends, but an equal number of interpretive risks reward our director, and in turn our company, with a greater illumination of character and story. Recently, one actor is searching for a definitive sound for his character. By his own admission, his first attempt in rehearsal comes off as a bad Colonel Sanders imitation. But Michael is patient. He allows everyone to laugh about it, but then rather than immediately place the kibosh on this actor’s bold interpretation, he encourages further exploration of the idea about the character that lead to this particular vocal choice. Sure enough, within a few rehearsals this actor has honed and specified his vocal proposal and in doing so has opened up a whole new interpretation of his character that is delightfully revelatory. This instance is just one example of Michael’s ability to disarm the tentative actor in all of us for the benefit of our entire endeavor.

Fast Forward.

It is two days before we enter the theater to begin technical rehearsals for our first three acts and we are about to begin our final run-through of Part One in the rehearsal room. Naturally, we are all a bit anxious about moving to the theater in two days; the previously distant specter of a paying audience is suddenly beginning to take shape and loom on the horizon. Anticipating this swell of nerves that inevitably runs through any company at this point in the rehearsal process, Michael gathers us together.

Pause.

A good director knows when to give a good speech.

Play.

“I love marathons. I think they are thrilling events in our theater that remind us what the theater does differently than television and film. They represent the pinnacle of the communal experience between artist and audience. I am deeply proud, honored and thrilled to make this distinctly American marathon happen with you all.” Michael’s rehearsal room valedictory is the perfect example of emotional and practical leadership. He reminds us that we are literally building our strength and endurance for a marathon and that individually we must remain focused, determined and supportive of each other. He also succeeds in unifying us as a company: “We are a family now, and there is not one day I regret being in this room or regret sharing this journey with you all.”

Pause.

I believe we are all extremely excited to get into the theater, though we know not what challenges lie in wait. Regardless, we are comforted in knowing that our leader could not be more committed to us and our endeavor and at the very least, there is one thing he will always allow…

Play.

Actor's Diary: Off the Page

Bryce Pinkham will be playing the roles of Brother Vaughn, Pete Davenport and Felix Barclay in The Orphans' Home Cycle

“Well that was a cluster$^@&!” quips Michael Wilson, our director, after an initial pass at a particular scene in the first play. So far, we have more questions than answers. The first two of our nine plays have never been given a stage production. As a result we have been spending the majority of rehearsals helping these plays take their first steps off the page. For Michael Wilson and many others in our company, this rehearsal process sadly marks the first time that Horton Foote has not been in the room to lend his insight and clarity to the work. We halt often to interpret and clarify the subtleties in his writing. The majority of this interpretive responsibility lands on our director as well as Horton’s daughter, Hallie. Every few minutes in rehearsal these two huddle to discuss what Horton’s intentions were with a particular scene or storyline. They often consult the book containing Horton’s full-length plays, which we have affectionately begun to refer to as “the Bible,” as well as the Foote family photo albums and scrapbooks that now live in our rehearsal room.

Michael Wilson and Hallie Foote consult the script in rehearsals for Orphans' Home Cycle

As an actor, it is easy to feel intimidated at this point in the process. Respect and reverence for our playwright’s words can easily turn into a fear of “getting it wrong.” It is easy to forget that at this early stage there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, and that any choice is better than none at all. I am told that when Horton was in the room he was always encouraged by what each particular actor brought to his plays. “It felt like he was in the trenches with us,” one actress tells me, “and he loved nothing better than watching a group of actors take a scene above and beyond where he ever imagined it in his head.” Originally an actor himself, Horton surely would have enjoyed, as I have, watching the veteran actors in our present company begin to take responsibility for more than just their parts.

In a recent rehearsal, one actor stops a scene to raise a question about a particular line: “Our best friend is dying, why am I talking about the weather?” Twenty minutes later, the entire room is engaged in a heated discussion about the subtext of a particular scene that involves two feuding families. As actors begin to side with their characters, the feuding Thornton and Robedaux families of Roots in a Parched Ground suddenly come to life: “Everything is going to shit for us! We’re talking about a quaint veneer over total chaos and panic!” I am fascinated as actors not even involved in this particular scene begin to chime in as well: “There is nothing more boring than general bullshit- the stakes are so high in these people’s lives!” Soon, the discussion of our trilogy’s first act has given way to an even greater examination of human truths: “How many people get to the end of their lives and are happy with the way things went?” Audible exhales escape from several around me. I think we all realize we’ve tapped into something essential about Horton’s plays- and all from an initial question about the weather.

Upon reflection, I am reminded of the importance of “speaking up.” Too often I think actors, especially of my generation, are afraid of what one of my teachers would call “disturbing the air” in the room. Yes, our playwright’s words are sacred, but as I learned from watching my more experienced peers today, we as a company must take ownership of what we are saying and not be fearful of disagreement. At the end of our lengthy deliberation, Michael Wilson assures us that we have not wasted our precious rehearsal time: “These are the discussions we must have- they make the play get to the center of your soul.” It’s nice to be reminded that we are not just here to say the words, but that our agency as actors is not only real, but in fact necessary.

Actor's Diary: A Marathon Reading...And Yogurt

Bryce Pinkham will be playing the roles of Brother Vaughn, Pete Davenport and Felix Barclay in The Orphans' Home Cycle

Of all things...yogurt. I can’t help but feel at the center of some cosmic joke as I extract my script from my bag, covered in peaches and cream. Meanwhile, a cadre of theater folk are filing into the room and taking their seats. As I desperately mop the edges of my script, I watch the collective administrative and creative strengths of Signature Theater Company and Hartford Stage file into the room, and my heart suddenly shifts into a new gear. I don’t think anyone in our twenty-two-person cast is ready for what is about to happen. We are gathered to read a preliminary version of Horton Foote’s massive Orphans’ Home Cycle, a three-part behemoth that is nearly airborne after months of preparation, auditions and planning. It was the late playwright’s dream to have his epic cycle fully realized and our director, Michael Wilson, assures everyone in the room that “Horton is with us today as we prepare to hear all nine plays read out loud, in succession, for the first time, ever.” Yes, my nerves are also in attendance.

My name is Bryce Pinkham. I am a fledgling actor recently released into the world of professional theater and thrilled to be a part of this historic production. What you are reading is the first installment of an actor diary, the goal of which will be to provide a unique perspective, to report from the inside the everyday happenings of rehearsal and performance from a young actor’s point of view. I submit these entries as nothing more than my observations. However, my goal will be to use this extended rehearsal and performance process as a backdrop to highlight the creative agency of the actor in our American theater.

Though it is only the first day of rehearsal, it is hard not to feel like we are giving a performance. As I watch my fellow actors read, it becomes clear that everyone has already done his or her fair share of homework. Every three acts we stop to feed and mingle and the discussion begins: “People are really bringing it today!” a fellow actor opines. That does it. I decide today is the day they’re going to find out they made a big mistake casting me. Second-guessing and self-doubt sort of come with the territory I am finding, and I suspect I am not the only actor in the room experiencing some version of this imposter complex.

Miraculously though, as we continue to read, the story itself seems to take over and the feelings of awe and humility that come with speaking the words of a master far eclipse any self-indulgent actor worries. The plays clock in a little over nine hours and after our official release the appropriate number or brow raises take place as we all realize that we have some serious work ahead of us. We are tired, but overall, the mood is positive. I think every actor here feels incredibly lucky to be a part of this project, but that does not preclude anyone from expressing his or her concerns. “How in the HELL are we going to do this?” one actor says to me once we exit the building. “I’m not really sure,” I respond, “but it’s going to be one hell of a ride.”