COMMENTARY: All Acting, Little Play For Performers In Community Theater

“Applause! Applause! Applause!” Marshall Prettyman quipped when asked why he performs.

Prettyman plays the leading role of Sidney Bruhl in the upcoming performance of “Deathtrap” at the Arts Center of the Ozarks in Springdale. Performances of the murder mystery are Feb. 7-9 and Feb. 14-15.

The unpaid actors in community theater must enjoy what they do because preparing a show requires nightly rehearsals — at least 90 minutes each — over a solid month. “I can usually mount a show with 17 to 24 rehearsals,” said Harry Blundell, director of the play and director of theater for the center. “It’s a rigorous schedule they’re held to. Most of them have heard of my reputation as a hard worker.”

“Harry says this is a job, and you’ve committed yourself to do it,” said Ali Carter, an ACO newcomer, who plays Myra Bruhl, Sidney’s wife. Prettyman has acted in Northwest Arkansas community theater for more than 20 years, he said.

Auditions for “Deathtrap” ran Dec. 16-17. The first rehearsal was canceled because of weather. The cast first got together Jan. 7 — exactly one month before opening night, Carter noted.

This cast enjoyed the Christmas holidays as extra time to learn their lines — which literally are a book. For Prettyman’s role, it’s a 68-page book to memorize. “I grabbed the script as soon as I was cast and started working on my lines,” he said.

Prettyman said he spends a couple of weeks not trying to memorize the script, but reading it — “what the character means to me, how I feel about a character. And I never underline my lines, I underline my cues,” depending on another to prompt his lines.

“I spent a lot of time sitting in my car reading the parts — in the parking lot at my apartment and at work,” Carter said. “It’s so soundproof to me.”

All actors have points at which the lines stick, Carter said. “It’s hard to go where you are supposed to go, say what you’re supposed to say and still be looking at the audience.”

“There are a lot of different ways to remember lines in the short term — word association, visualizing, actually seeing the word on the page. If you’re real astute, you can see some actors flipping the pages with their eyes,” Blundell said. “If you’re on stage and forget a line, you can go to the next place you are supposed to be, and it’s usually remembered in a nanosecond.”

Carter finds it hard to learn lines that weren’t written as she, personally, would say them. “It might not be comfortable, but you have to say it the way the playwright wrote it.” She noted this is especially important in “Deathtrap,” as clues are hidden in small things the characters say and do.

Prettyman reported one word in the “Deathtrap” script with which he had trouble: concatenation. He couldn’t say it.

“(Blundell) agrees because he has the same problem,” Prettyman said. “We changed it to ‘confluence,’ which means the same thing. That’s another good $25 word that comes out of my mouth.”

“You can fudge, within reason,” Prettyman continued. “But not if fudging changes the meaning. If it doesn’t, (Blundell is) good with it.”

Blundell said a performance should stay true to how the writer wrote the play, especially in this case because Ira Levin was such a successful author and playwright.

“A play condenses and intensifies the action,” Blundell said. “There are no words that don’t belong. There are only enough to express and build the character.

“I say the script is the Bible. We always go back to the script to find the answer.”

Directing at the center for more than 30 years, Blundell has turned rehearsals into a science.

The very first rehearsal sits the actors down to just read the play aloud. “We make sure we get the right voice with the right character,” Blundell said. “We talk about what it means, and where the character is going, which is indicated in the script.”

The cast blocks the action during the next couple of rehearsals — determining if a character is sitting or standing, where he goes, what he picks up, what he puts down, how he enters and exits the stage.

A week into rehearsals, lines are due, Blundell said. This is when actors go “off book” — they no longer hold the script in front of them, so the lines must be memorized. Blundell said he finds it much less stressful if he doesn’t attend line nights; his assistant director leads these sessions.

Next, one scene or one act will be “worked” a night, with those not in the scene getting a night off, Blundell continued. Two rehearsals are used to “polish” the show. Next, the technology — lights, sound, props — is added. Finally, two dress rehearsals complete the cycle.

How do actors commit to this schedule in addition to their busy daily lives? Prettyman is director of litigation for Legal Aid of Arkansas and an adjunct professor at the University of Arkansas law school, and Carter works as an editorial assistant at Northwest Arkansas Newspapers, which publishes the Springdale Morning News.

“I won’t try out for the next play,” Prettyman said.

LAURINDA JOENKS IS A FEATURES REPORTER AT THE MORNING NEWS AND HAS LIVED IN SPRINGDALE SINCE 1990.

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