Steve Carlisle on life in the theatre part 2

This is the continuation of the interview with Steve Carlisle director of The Foreigner opening November 20 at Tryon Fine Arts Center.

I think there’s something different too about live theatre as opposed to sitting in front of your television.

You know what you are? You’re next to your neighbor. It’s what we have in common. When you sit there next to the writer for the paper, next to the teacher at the school, next to the preacher, next to the fireman, next to…it is community. We all laugh. We all have something in common. We have a shared experience other than us just living in this community. We can look into the face of someone right across here and you’re smiling and I’m smiling and we walk out into the lobby and we’re laughing and we’re talking and we go to the restaurant and you’re sitting at the next table. “Did you see that?” “Oh, yes we were there the other night. Remember the guy when he came out in those funny knickers and all?” You share something in common, that’s what you have when you do something in the theatre. You sit home and watch it by yourself, you’re by yourself. Even though you may laugh at it and get an experience that way, there’s none of your friends there. Remember, theatre started off as a group of people sitting around a fire listening to how Igor just went off and nearly got eaten by a dinosaur. That’s what they did, and that’s why they started telling this stuff.

You’re still teaching up at Western while directing?

I’m an administrator. I’m up there five days a week. I’m on the “dark side.” I do five days a week, 52 weeks a year up there. I’m never off. I have to take vacation time.

You’ve been driving up there?

I drive back and forth every day from Flat Rock where I live. I have a little hybrid car and gas is getting back down to something that’s reasonable now. I’m old, so get up early and go to bed early. That’s what you do when you’re old. I get up and have my coffee and drive up and listen to the radio. I’ve got XM. I get off and I drive home and I put my supper on and I get on the treadmill and do what I do and then I eat and then I fall asleep in the chair and take a really good nap and then I drag myself to bed.

But somewhere in there you’re coming down here now to direct?

I come down here after work and I direct these guys around until I fall asleep and they put me in my car, then I wake up here tomorrow morning and I drive up, so it’s not bad. (laughter) It makes it a little taxing, and I have other things I’m doing too. It works out okay. Some people worry about me and all, but you know as well as I do that being in theatre, poetry slams, or being a musician requires a very unique constitution. You are up strange hours. You work strange hours. You have to sleep in strange places, eat strange foods. You just live a whole different life. This is no different than having to work on a film or be up early to work on a T.V. show or whatever. It’s just that the money’s different. That’s the only thing.

It is community theatre.

Very different, this is something that you do because you love the art. Believe me; you’re not going to make a living doing anything like this. This is something that comes about with friendship with people and enjoying the people you work with. Theatre should be an enjoyable experience. It should not be something that is painful to watch or participate in. Um, it’s called a play. Play, that means something. If you’re not having any fun up on stage, the people that are enduring it in the audience won’t be having any fun. But, if it’s a fun story with fun people laughing, smiling, enjoying being made a fool of in a way, then that audience is going to love going away with it for a couple of hours. It’s will be an enjoyable experience and that’s what it’s all about, is to take you away from what’s out here just for a couple of hours and let you kind of go off in this dream world. Something that doesn’t exist, it’s just a cute little story. It’s a cute little ditty. Something for you to laugh about when you heard they way a guy told a certain joke, they way they fell down the steps, or the way the pie hit the guy in the face. It’s just that. Like your poetry slam. You give them impressions of things that pop in their head and it’s enjoyable. “Ah, I never thought of it that way. I never saw it like that.”

You mentioned in passing that you are taking a different “take” on this production. Can you reveal any of that?

Here’s what happens. A lot of times actors are given a script and they really don’t have a lot of time in the process of community theatre to really get into the meat of what the play is really about. Who are these people? What did you say this line this way? What did you say that first word that way? They don’t have the time to do that. That’s what we’re doing here. I’m making them take the time. They’ll say a line and I’ll go, “Okay, why did you start your line with wow? Why did you say that?” When they go, “uh…” that’s when you’ve caught them. If the actor doesn’t know why they’re saying it, then why are you saying it?

You’re not just a parrot.

No. If we were just going to say the words, why don’t we have a reader’s theatre? We’re supposed to have real people who are being inspired or motivated at that time to say the lines a certain way. I have to say to them. “Why are you coming into this room? Where did you just come from out there? I mean you had a life out there before you made your entrance here. What’s going on outside? Oh, it’s raining? Then you need to bring that environment in here. How do you come in out of the rain? Do you walk in the house the same way when it’s raining or snowing, sleeting, hailing or it’s a beautiful day?” Rather than just acting, that’s being, bringing the truth in. I know that sounds awfully technical or literal or something like that, but that’s what’s different about this play. I am questioning every actor that comes on, “Are you being truthful to this character?” A lot of times a director has to do more than move people around on stage, he or she will give direction to where they want this play to go.

If I have two characters up there who are reading the lines like, “Well I want to go see this play.” “Well let’s not go see this play, why don’t we see this play?” If those two characters are in love with each other that’s not much of a scene. I have to get those two actors to give me a little bit of friction. Who wants to see a play of people sitting around agreeing with each other? It’s kind of like going to Thanksgiving dinner and everyone is sitting around being pleasant. It’s never happened anywhere I’ve been unless you maybe go out to a restaurant and eat. This is what we have up here on stage with these characters. I say to them, “I don’t want to see you two guys in just a love fest going on. I need the friction of the scene. What’s upsetting you here?” It could be that they are pleasant with each other, but the intentions of the characters are in contrast. Maybe the guy is putting a move on the girl and maybe she’s not responding to that, but they’re talking about putting sugar in the coffee.

There’s another layer there.

You have to do that with people. We’re making these actors search for that and the process for them is different because they’ve never had a director come to them and say “I didn’t just give you this script to learn the lines. I want you also to find out who the character is and bring me this character. I don’t want you to just read it one time or watch the movie or something. There’s a process here that is a little deeper than what they’ve been used to. It’s not a fault of theirs. Experiences that I’ve had doing film like “Dead Man Walking” I played Susan Sarandon’s brother. I don’t know who Susan’s brother is, but I know the script that I have and she’s my sister. That whole process I have to do on my own, I can’t go to Susan and say “So how did we do it?” I have to bring something to the table literally when I come in to do that part. I know that Susan Sarandon doesn’t want me to give her “Oh I love my sister, she’s very sweet.” I’ve got to give her something that’s got a little bit of meat to it. So I made a choice that I was going to be the brother that was always kidding his kid sister. I was going to…

Pester her?

Pester her, exactly. That’s what he does. We got into the shoot and she said something and I just kind of gave it back to her with the attitude “Well, you’re not so smart. Why do you think you’re doing something like that? What makes you think you’re the big cheese and everything?” She took her napkin and wadded it up and threw it at me and I caught it and we laughed. We created a history. It told a story about us without having to be in the lines. That’s what you learn when you have a character that you have to develop and you don’t have time to sit around and talk about it with the other actors. You’ve got to bring something to the table. When you do your poetry slam I’m sure that what you’re saying has to come from somewhere inside of you and there’s a way you say it because there’s a life to it. These lines that are given to these actors out here, it’s the same thing. They have to bring a life to those lines. You can’t just say them. There’s got to be something behind them. That’s what we do.

Well cool.

It is cool.

It sounds like fun and reminds me of college where we did take the time to work on the background of the characters with the director.

It is the process. The only difference between community theatre and professional theatre is that professional theatre has a paycheck. That’s the only difference. Everything else is the same. In a professional theatre you may see a little sharper quality of lights and stuff like that because they have a little more money. The same play they do on Broadway called The Foreigner is the same script we’re doing. That’s the only difference. I don’t know if our actors have as much experience as those people, but the intent of the actors is just as intense to please that audience.

These actors know their audience better too than if you were to ship in actors from New York.

This is your community. This is the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the newspaper person, the whatever, who’s up there and says, “You know what? I don’t know if we can bring a Broadway production, because we just can’t afford it, but you know what? Maybe we’ll try to do this and we’re going to do this as best we can.” It is your community that is putting this on. We don’t bring in a professional football team to play on Friday nights. The High Schools play and people go, and you know what, they get just as excited. Who’s to say it’s not just as exciting a game as watching something from the NFL. You go down here and eat at a restaurant and it might not be Spago’s, but it might be pretty good. You’re not going to look out and see Angelina Jolie sitting across from you, but hey. This is our community, people coming in from church, bringing in their kids, it is community. We all have these things in common that we want this play to be good, we want people to laugh. We’re lifting up the community saying “Hey look what we’ve all done, for all of us.” That’s what I like about it and what theatre was started for.

It’s been a great run being an actor, but it’s been extremely hard work. Not to say that being a director is not, but being an actor is tough. You have to love it more than you love money. Some people make a killing at it, some people make a living at it and then some people have the great desire just to act. Kind of like the people that ride these horses down here. I guarantee you they are not making a lot of money at it. They just love to ride those horses.

Take some time out for a bit of laughter to kick off the holiday season in this community. The Foreigner runs November 20-23 at the Tryon Fine Arts Center. Tickets will be available from Tryon Little Theatre Box Office by calling 828-859-2466 or visit tltinfo.org for more information.