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ALONE ON STAGE: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ACTING
CONSIDERATIONS, CONCERNS, PROBLEMS AND TECHNIQUES
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ALONE ON STAGE: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ACTING
CONSIDERATIONS, CONCERNS, PROBLEMS AND TECHNIQUES INHERENT TO

THE PERFORMANCE OF ONE-PERSON SHOWS

BY

James Dale Ryan

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Theatre

1992

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ABSTRACT
ALONE ON STAGE: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ACTING

CONSIDERATIONS, CONCERNS, PROBLEMS AND TECHNIQUES INHERENT TO
THE PERFORMANCE OF ONE-PERSON SHOWS

BY

James Dale Ryan

Actors are turning to the one-person show in ever-
increasing numbers. The lure of added financial stability
and creative autonomy are but two of the principal reasons.
While this performance genre reaches back to antiquity,
little research has been done into the performance
methodology employed by the solo actor. It is the aim of
this study to illuminate considerations, concerns, problems
and techniques which may be viewed as inherent to the acting
of a one-person show. For the purposes of the investigation,
gna;pezagn_shgn is defined as a theatrical presentation that
is scripted and spoken, and that has character, form, a
unifying theme or subject and is performed by one person.
Terms such as Ming, mm, W
and mgngdrama are used synonymously. Stand—up comedy,

performance art, variety acts and strictly musical

productions are excluded, as are largely unscripted,
personal-reflection, autobiographical monologues.

Through a series of in-depth interviews, noted actors
including Brian Bedford, Pat Carroll, the late Colleen
Dewhurst, Julie Harris, Hal Holbrook, Madeleine Sherwood,
Silvia Miles and Robert Vaughn, as well as directors,
teachers and theorists such as Charles Nelson Reilly, Robert
Benedetti, Robert Cohen and Michael Kahn offer unique
insights into the demands of solo performing. Related
considerations, concerns and problems revealed by the
interview respondents have been grouped into inclusive Focus
Areas which are examined in the analysis of the data. The
Focus Areas are: FOCUS AREA I: ESTABLISHING RELATIONSHIPS,
FOCUS AREA II: GENERATING AND MAINTAINING ENERGY AND
CONCENTRATION, FOCUS AREA III: ACHIEVING VARIETY, FOCUS AREA
IV: BEING ALONE ON STAGE, FOCUS AREA V: MONITORING THE
PERFORMANCE/MAINTAINING A 'THIRD EYE', FOCUS AREA VI:
IDIOSYNCRATIC CONCERNS.

The study discloses those considerations, concerns and
problems central to solo performance and describes techniques
to address them. The one-person show is a significant
element in the fabric of American theatre. It is, therefore,

important to understand what is distinctive to it.

Copyright by
JAMES DALE RYAN

1992

To Grandma, In Loving Memory

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The completion of this dissertation could not have been
realized without the considerable support, guidance, and
contributions of many people. My sincerest gratitude is
extended to each of my committee members: Dr. John Baldwin,
Professor Frank Rutledge, and Dr. Elaine Cherney. Their
encouragement and assistance is deeply appreciated. It is
difficult to adequately express the esteem and affection with
which Dr. Jon Baisch, the director of my research, is held.
His belief in this project and faith in my abilities were a
constant source of strength during those moments of greatest
self-doubt. Beyond a trusted advisor and admired mentor, Jon
has become a cherished and beloved friend. I will carry his
example and spirit with me the rest of my days.

I am grateful to the actors and theorists who
volunteered their time during extensive interviews. Their
candor and insight constitute the heart of this study.

Fond thoughts go to Dr. Joseph Barley of Loyola
Marymount University for his friendship, council, and
immeasurable assistance. And to all the Pacers, my thanks
for their help in teaching me the meaning of endurance. Long

may they run.

Finally, with deepest sincerity and appreciation I
acknowledge my mother, my late father, my brother and his

family, and my aunt for their love and support.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION .................................... 1
CHAPTER II
METHODOLOGY ..................................... 19
CHAPTER III
ANALYSIS OF THE DATA ............................ 4O
FOCUS AREA ONE: ESTABLISHING RELATIONSHIPS....4O
FOCUS AREA TWO: GENERATING AND MAINTAINING
ENERGY AND CONCENTRATION ................. 94
FOCUS AREA THREE: ACHIEVING VARIETY ........... 106
FOCUS AREA FOUR: BEING ALONE ON STAGE ......... 121

FOCUS AREA FIVE: MONITORING THE
PERFORMANCE/MAINTAING A 'THIRD

EYE' ..................................... 136
FOCUS AREA SIX: IDIOSYNCRATIC CONCERNS ........ 145
CHAPTER IV
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION ........................... 167
APPENDIX
REGIONAL THEATRE SURVEY QUESTIONAIRE
and HYPOTHESIS TESTING RESULTS ................... 181
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................. 185

viii

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 1

CONSIDERATIONS, CONCERNS and PROBLEMS MATRIX ...... 36
TABLE 1

(cont'd) .......................................... 37

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE 1
FOCUS AREA DESIGNATION ............................ 38

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

...you have to have a talented person who brings all the
ocean of their experience with other actors to this, because
the one-person play is definitive, what the theatre is
about...what is possible for that which is known as an actor
to do. It is what an actor is supposed to do and any actor
can grow in this form...if you just believe it...if you
really take your soul and heart and put it out there and sell

what you're selling.1

Charles Nelson Reilly

An actor, standing alone, attempting to interest,
entertain, educate or inspire an audience, is a theatrical
tradition which pre-dates the dawn of tragedy. He or she
ventures forth with nothing save a passionate belief in the
material, a fervent desire to communicate it, faith in his or
her abilities, and the courage to face such a challenge. In
the seventh century BC, long before Aeschylus added a second
actor to dramatic presentations, Solon, in the guise of a
foreign traveller, burst into an Athenian market place and
delivered an impassioned performance of his elegiac poem,
Salamis, to a startled citizenry, warning them of the

impending Persian threat. This was indeed a one-man

2
performance--solo recitation blended with impersonation--
involving interplay between performer and spectators. The
rhapsodes of the sixth century BC were individual performers:
lone oral readers of Homeric poetry. It may also be safe to
surmise that due to the absence of a second actor with whom
to relate, Thespis, the first actor, the first hypokrites or
'answerer,‘ incorporated a considerable amount of
presentational, direct-address interaction with the audience
in his primitive dramas as well as the reactive, responsorial
interplay between himself and the chorus.

The lineage of the one-person show continued with
Rome's emphasis upon and appreciation for an oral tradition
which included storytelling as well as the display of
rhetorical skill. As John S. Gentile indicates in Cast_gfi
Qne,2 throughout northern and western Europe, following the
fall of the Empire, another type of solo performer thrived:
the saga singer. In Germanic territories, the scop wove his
tales of heros from Teutonic lore and by so doing won an
honored place in society. In France, that itinerant medieval
entertainer, the jongleur, proved his worth in juggling,
acrobatics, music and recitation. And yet another
troubadour, the trouvére, flourished from the eleventh
century to the fourteenth, composing and presenting primarily
narrative works.

The tradition of solo performance has been carried forth

unbroken to the present. In the eighteenth century Samuel

3
Foote presented Iha_Dixaraiana_afi_nhe_Maning, George Stevens
offered the immensely popular Legtn;e_npon_neads, and Charles

Mathews toured with his humorous AL_HQmes series of character
portrayals. While Charles Dickens presented the most
acclaimed one-person show of the nineteenth century, The
W, many other performers,
including Edgar Allan Poe, Anna Cora Mowatt, Fanny Kemble,
Charlotte Cushman, and Mark Twain were extremely successful
with solo tours, thus contributing to an era which has been
referred to as The Golden Age of Platform Performances.3
Many of these one-person shows were readings or lecture-style
presentations involving little acting as such. However,
their link in the evolutionary chain of this genre is
undeniable. The early twentieth century saw the rise and
eventual collapse of the Lyceum and Tent Chautauqua circuits,
forums used primarily for the presentation of touring one—
person shows, and the emergence of solo performing as a
legitimate form of theatre. In the second quarter of the
century, such performers as Cissie Loftus, Ruth Draper,
Cornelia Otis Skinner and Charles Laughton brought increased
critical acclaim to and public acceptance of the genre. It
has continued to proliferate in varying forms. Emlyn
Williams, Hal Holbrook, James Whitmore and Robert Morse
performed biographical one-person shows. John Gielgud, Ian
McKellen and Brian Bedford paid homage to Shakespeare in solo

presentations. Spalding Gray has laid bare his personal life

4
in autobiographical confessions. Julie Harris, Pat Carroll
and Eileen Atkins have provided insights into the private
thoughts of well known women of letters. And Lily Tomlin and
Whoopi Goldberg are skilled monologuists in the tradition of
Draper and Skinner.4 The monodrama is indeed becoming an
increasingly evident thread in the fabric of theatrical
expression.5
Why has the one-person show become such a popular
vehicle for actors? One obvious answer is an increased
opportunity for financial stability. As Jordon Young states:
Actors are especially conscious of being numbers.
The Screen Actors Guild and Actors Equity, the
stage actors' union, have a combined membership of
approximately 100,000 members. With 85-90% of
their number out of work, the one-man show has

become a hedge against unemployment, a do-it-
yourself pension plan and a ticket out of the rut.6

.___Jordon Young
Hal Holbrook would seem to agree, as the following
statement indicates:
I just worked on this solo thing because I thought
it was potentially a good idea and I thought I

could get some bookings and I thought it could help
me earn a living. I mean, you know, the need to

earn a living is a tremendous motivating factor.7
___Hal Holbrook
Beyond the financial considerations, however, actors
find that in a profession where they rarely ever completely
gain control over the direction of their careers, the one-
person show affords them artistic autonomy. It provides the

opportunity to create something that is uniquely their own,

5
that is reflective of their sensibilities and talents and is
consequently immensely rewarding. As Hal Holbrook relates:
[the show] is a direct connection with my brain...I
know exactly what I need, or I think I know what I
need. It is not somebody else who will say to

himself as he is researching for me, I think what
he wants is this, or maybe this is a good. You

know, you cut the middleman out.8
Hal Holbrook
Canadian director Clarke Rogers states, "Actors are the labor
corps of the theatre. But more and more people want their
own personal input, and unless you're a director, you don't
really feel that you have much control."9 William Windom,
who toured with a one-person show based on the life of
humorist James Thurber, offers the following observation:
[the one-person show] is more efficient and quick.
The job gets done more efficiently, and you don't
have to worry if Sally has a runny nose or if
someone's made the dinner reservations. In fact,
the addition of human beings, whether they're
playing tennis or raising children, brings
additional problems.10
William Windom
But on the road to greater financial security and
artistic control, what are the problems or pitfalls that the
would-be solo performer or even the seasoned veteran might
encounter? What abilities must the actor possess? What
specific considerations should he or she address prior to
stepping onto the stage alone? Which skills will be taxed or
which special demands need to be met during performance?

These are among the questions explored in this examination of

the acting of one-person shows.

 

 

6

The general subject matter of this dissertation is
performance methodology. The specific purpose of the study
is to reveal considerations, concerns, problems and areas of
emphasis in the preparation and the presentation of one-
person shows which are common to the experience and
sensibilities of expert performers and theorists and
consequently may be assumed to be inherent to this type of
presentation. It will also discuss techniques employed by
these noted professionals to address their concerns and
considerations. The study does not, however, presume that
the areas of investigation are found solely in one-person
shows and are not applicable to traditional ensemble
performing, only that different dynamics and dimensions with
respect to these considerations, concerns, problems and
techniques exist within this form of theatre. Uta Hagen
writes in her introduction to Bespegt_fgr_Acting, "I teach
acting as I approach it--from the human and technical
problems which I have experienced through living and
practice.”11 Through the experiences and practices of
acknowledged experts, it is the aim of the current
investigation to shed light on the performance demands and
techniques of this growing entertainment genre.

For the purposes of this study, gnezpersgn_shgu is
defined as: a theatrical presentation that is scripted and
spoken, and that has character, form, a unifying theme or

subject and is performed by one person. Terms such as 5919

7
acting, Wm, salmrfarmance and monodrama refer
to the one-person show. Stand-up comedy, performance art,
variety acts and strictly musical performances are excluded
from consideration. While in no way discounting the immense
creativity, vitality, and spontaneity needed to maintain
audience interest during extended, often unscripted personal
reflection, autobiographical monologuists such as Spalding
Gray (SEW). Paul Links (IimeiliesJihen
Wile), Shane McCabe (WW), Reno (Rena;
W), and Jackie Mason (WW2)
fall outside the focus of the current investigation.

The hypothesis of this dissertation is that there are
considerations, concerns, and problems which seem to be
generic to the preparation and performance of a one-person
show. And that there are specific techniques which may be
used to address these considerations, concerns and problems.
Therefore the two basic questions the study will pose are:

1. What are the considerations, concerns, and
problems which commonly arise when preparing and
performing a one-person show?

2. What are techniques which may be used to address
them?

There is an increasing awareness that actors are
performing one-person shows in escalating numbers. As John
S. Gentile writes, "During the nearly forty-year period

following 1950, the one-person show has enjoyed a popularity

8
reminiscent of the popularity of platform readings during the
Victorian age."12 Jordon Young refers to acting solo as "a
growing trend."13 The more probable reasons for this
proliferation have previously been mentioned. In addition,
theatre managers and/or artistic directors often find the
one-person show an inviting and fiscally sound alternative to

increasingly expensive conventional theatrical productions.

David Richards of the N£n_19zk_Iimas offers the following

observation:

I always assumed the one-person show was the
theater's way of dealing with the shrinking dollar.
You really can't get more basic--a performer, a
platform, a text....Economics, of course, is not to
be discounted....The new penury is upon us. The
city is cutting back on services, department stores
on their inventories, restaurants on the $50
entrees. It follows that the theater would scale

back, too....14

David Richards
William Luce, in discussing the one-person show, states:

...I think it's here to stay. Well, for one reason
it's so economical. The theatre has become so
expensive and producing a play is just astronomical
now. Besides that, I think it's pure theatre. To
me, it's what poetry is. It's to conventional
theatre what poetry is to prose. It's the essence
of drama and if you have a gifted, brilliant...
performer...it can be just as entertaining as a
monster musical. I do think it's here to

stay....15
-__;William Luce
In the fall of 1990, Dr. Joseph Earley, Econometrician
(Economic Statistician) at Loyola Marymount University, an
acknowledged expert in statistical analysis; Dr. Archie

Calise, Higher Education officer at The City University of

9
New York, a specialist in research and analysis of
questionnaire data; and this writer conducted a stratified
sample of Artistic Directors of regional theaters throughout
the United States. One hundred and sixty-one questionnaires
were mailed in which the following questions were asked:
1. Do you present, or have you presented in the
past, one-person shows at your theatre?
2. If you have presented one-person shows, in the
past ten years approximately how many have you
presented?
3. Do you regularly consider one-person shows in
selecting your season's schedule?
4. Do any of your actors perform or have they
performed one-person shows?
5. Are you presenting more one-person shows at your
theatre now than ten years ago? More than five
years ago?
6. In your estimation is the one-person show an
increasingly popular form of theatre? If yes, can
you explain this increase?

The analysis of the survey data consisted of classic
hypothesis-testing procedures involving correlations,
regression analysis (study of the relationship between a
dependent variable and one or more independent variables with
the idea of estimating and forecasting relationships), chi-

square analysis (used to correlate qualitative variables such

10
as geographic areas), and cross-tabulations. This survey,
however, focused on the Z-Test for determining significance
of a proportion when the sample size is more than thirty, as
is the case in this instance. Its pivotal question was: In
your estimation is the one-person show an increasingly
popular fern of theatre? Seventy artistic directors
responded to this question. Twenty-eight answered 'yes' and
forty-two answered 'no'. Of those who replied, forty percent
responded positively. By using the z-Test, which develops a
ninety-five percent interval for the 'true proportion' (in
this case all the LORT artistic directors) it was determined
that a ninety-five percent certainty existed that the 'true
percentage' of LORT artistic directors who believe that the
one-person show is an increasingly popular form of theatre is
between thirty (29.9) and fifty (50.1) percent and is
consequently statistically significant. The test also
revealed that the probability of a forty percent positive
response being statistically insignificant is effectively
zero (p-value for this test is 0.000000000001). (For
complete Hypothesis Testing Results see the Appendix). Thus,
a significantly large group of professionals believe that
this genre is increasingly popular. It can safely be said,
therefore, that solo acting, the one-person show, occupies a
prominent place in theatre today. For this reason it would
seem incumbent upon artists and practitioners interested in

the craft of acting to develop an awareness of what is

11
distinctive to it. This study is an attempt to explore an
area of performance methodology which has largely been
neglected and in so doing provide information to aid
teachers, students, directors and actors in their approach to
the one-person show.

Inquiry into solo presentation has been scant and in—
depth exploration of acting procedures/considerations in this
type of theatrical offering largely ignored. John S. Gentile
has made important contributions toward an understanding of
the history of the one-person show in America. His
dissertation entitled The_Qne;Egrsgn_$hgw_in_Ameriga;_Ergm
WW, written at
Northwestern University in 1984, provides a thorough
examination of the origins, evolution, and outstanding
contributors to this performance genre. It is a
chronological treatise divided into three major periods: the
second half of the nineteenth century, the first half of the
twentieth century, and from 1950 to the present. Reasons for
the growth of the one-person show, such as Victorian
antipathy to commercial theatre (platform performance was
considered a non-theatre form of entertainment with
considerable educational potential) and improvements in
transportation (the railroad) are explained. The
establishment of the Lyceum and Chautauqua Institution, the
rise and fall of the tent Chautauqua circuits, and the

eventual acceptance of the one-person show as a legitimate

12
type of theatrical presentation are discussed. Personalities
profiled and their one-person shows described in detail
include, among others, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe,
Fanny Kemble, Charlotte Cushman, Robert McLean Cumnock (head
of the Chautauqua Institution's Department of Elocution),
Leland Powers, Mark Twain, Carl Sandburg, Ruth Draper,
Cornelia Otis Skinner, Emlyn Williams (given considerable
emphasis, including a reproduction of his personal log book
of solo performances from 25 July 1951 to 16 October 1982),
and Hal Holbrook. In addition, many other performers such as
James Whitmore, Julie Harris and Spalding Gray are mentioned.
The study concludes with implications for further research,
including the observation that a deeper understanding of the
actor's problems in the performance of one-person shows is
warranted.

Gentile's book, Ca§t_gf_Qne, published in 1989,
parallels his dissertation quite closely. It offers,
however, a greater selection of portraits of outstanding solo
performers including Anna Cora Mowatt, Cissie Loftus, Dorothy
Sands, and Charles Laughton. It also provides a more
developed section on the biographical one-person show as well
as a discussion of the autobiographical one—person show such
as that presented by Spalding Gray and Quentin Crisp. There
is an examination of the Shakespearean solo performer in
which John Gielgud and Ian McKellen are profiled and also a

description of Alec McGowen's recital of St. Mark's Gospel.

13
Contemporary monologuists such as Lily Tomlin, Whoopi
Goldberg and Eric Bogosian as well as writer-performers in
the mold of Dylan Thomas are discussed. The book also
includes a brief reference to direct presentation and the
nature of the performer/audience relationship in which
mention is made of Eunice Ruth Eifert's research (description
to follow). Both of Gentile's works are history-based and
history-focused with performance practices and techniques

given minimal emphasis.
Ihfl_AIL_Qf_BflaLIiQE_HEIiQId+_Qififiifi_LQan§+_flnd_DQIQLh¥
W, isa
dissertation written by Linda Sue Long in 1982 at the
University of Texas, Austin. Dr. Long profiles the lives and
works of these three women who were among the most prominent
monodramatists in the early twentieth century. She concludes
that their major contribution to the art of solo performance
was a demand for increased and specific audience/performer
interaction, an objective shared by the majority of later
twentieth-century actors presenting one-person shows.
Acting_Sng by Jordon Young is largely a descriptive
discussion written for popular consumption in which prominent
one-person shows, their origins and evolution are examined.
While not possessing the broad historical sweep of Gentile's
studies, it does provide the reader with an introduction to
and an understanding of the key players, shows and categories

found in this type of theatre. Although performers offer

14
their impressions of the solo format, and some mention of
technique is presented, in the main, acting considerations
and methods, and performance theory are not central to the
subject matter.

The Fourth-Hal] Shattered° a Study Qf the Performer-
Audience Relationship in Selected Bull-Length Mcncdramas, is
a dissertation completed in 1984 at the University of
Minnesota by Eunice Ruth Eifert. In this descriptive
analysis, the author investigates persona and how it relates
to and is influenced by the audience. Persona is defined as
character, realized and projected through word and action--a
combination of the writer's vision and the voice, body,
personality and sensibilities of the actor. It is the living
entity seen and heard by the spectator. The study explores
the role played by the audience in the successful projection
of the actor's stage persona during the monodrama--a single
performer portraying one character for two or more hours.
Shows such as those performed by Ruth Draper and John Gielgud
in which multiple characters or sketches are presented are
excluded from Eifert's consideration. Although limited
discussion concerning techniques employed for the realization
of persona is included, as well as minimal references to
performer problems, the core of the investigation is not
actor-centered or methodological, but rather focuses on the
persona actualized and the audience's experience watching,

listening to and interacting with it.

15

The majority of critical literature concerning the one—
person show has been descriptive not prescriptive. Generic
performance methodology is not revealed. The focus of this
investigation is upon specific acting considerations,
concerns, problems, and techniques of one-person shows as
revealed by noted professionals during extensive interviews.
The study is designed to express the performer's and
performance theorist's perspective and sensibilities.

Because of their notoriety, many of the interviewees
included in this investigation have been the subject of a
myriad of articles and interviews focusing on them as
celebrities or upon productions in which they have appeared.
Few, however, examine or extensively investigate their
theories of solo performance. From a methodological
standpoint, therefore, a great amount of research in the area
of solo performance has not been done. Although many highly
respected theorists and teachers of acting such as Uta Hagen
in W. Stella Adler in W
Acting, and Robert Cohen in Acting_EQuer discuss techniques
for the delivery of monologues and soliloquies, as well as
brief observations concerning the actor/audience
relationship, they do not specifically address the one-person
show. It must, however, be brought to the reader's attention
that as this study unfolds, concerns, considerations,
problems, and techniques of solo performing such as vocal

proficiency, energy, concentration, relaxation and the

16
elimination of tension or fear may also be found to exist in
conventional theatre.

The roots of the one-person show reach back to
antiquity. The popularity of the genre increased
dramatically during the second half of the nineteenth century
and is burgeoning once more as we approach the close of the
twentieth. Because of the proliferation of this performance
genre and the absence of research which addresses it from a
methodological standpoint, it is the aim of this
investigation to illuminate specific acting considerations,
concerns, problems and techniques inherent to it. The study
now continues with a discussion of the methodology which was

employed.

NOTES TO CHAPTER I

 

1Charles Nelson Reilly, telephone interview, 8 August

1990.

2John S. Gentile, Cast_af_Qnei_Qne_2erson_Shnns_frem_the

Chautauaua_ra_rhe_Brnaduar_Sraae (Urbana and Chicago= U of
Illinois P, 1989) 3.

3 Gentile 3.
4 Gentile 169.

5 Much of this brief discussion concerning the history
of the one-person show has been based on Gentile's study.

For a full understanding of the history of the one-person

show, his book, Cast_gf_Qne, is highly recommended.

6Jordon Young, W (Beverly Hills: Moonstone

Press, 1989) 22.
7Hal Holbrook, telephone interview, 31 July 1990.
8Holbrook, telephone interview, '90.

9Quoted in Bruce McDougall, "The Bare Necessity of One-
Man Shows." Perferming_Arts_In_Canada 17 (Summer. 1980): 30.

10Quoted in McDougall, "Bare Necessity," 30.

17

18

 

1lUta Hagen, with Haskel Frankel, W

(New York: Macmillan, 1973) 9.
12Gentile 118.
13Young 22.

14David Richards, "Secret Sharers: Solo Acts in a

Confessional Age," New_Ygrk_Iimes 14 April 1991, sec. 2: 1+.

15William Luce, telephone interview, 24 August 1990.

CHAPTER II

METHODOLOGY

The body of material which revealed those acting
considerations, concerns, and problems deemed, by their
frequency of occurence, to be inherent to the performance of
one-person shows has been gathered through a series of in-
depth, tape-recorded telephone interviews. The interviews
were conducted with noted, highly esteemed actors,
theorists/instructors, writers and directors. Criteria for
the selection of these professionals were: 1) artistic
reputation, 2) an overall respected body of work (which in
several cases has warranted their inclusion in Ihe_Qxfgrd
CQmpanign_tg_American_Iheatre), 3) accessibility (willingness
to be interviewed and quoted), and, in the case of the
actors, 4) the preparation and performance of one or more
one-person shows. Interviewees include:

EBJIUL_JHHMEQBD

Noted Shakespearean actor and director, Mr. Bedford
is a perennial favorite at Canada's Stratford

Shakespeare Festival. His stage roles

19

20

are numerous and varied, including appearances in
the Mike Nichols' production of The_Kneek (for
which he received the Obie and New York Drama Desk
Award) and Seheel_fer_flixee (for which he won the
Tony Award for best actor). He has appeared in
such television shows as Cheere, The_Egnelizer, and
MHId§2L_Sh§_flIQLflo His acclaimed one-man
Shakespeare show W
Pee; has been presented throughout the country.

EBI__CABBQLL
Winner of an Emmy Award for the Sid_Ceeeer_Henr,
Ms. Carroll has appeared in many television shows,
films, Broadway, Off-Broadway and touring
productions. In 1990, her performance as Sir John
Falstaff in Ih§_M£I£¥_flilfifi_9£_flindaar, directed by
Michael Kahn at the Shakespeare Theatre at the
Folger, was critically lauded. Her one-person show
GerLrude_Steinr_Gertrude_Steinr_fiertrude_Stein won
a Grammy Award, Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics
Circle Award in 1980.

QQLLEENE.EEHHQB§I
The late Colleen Dewhurst was among the country's
foremost performing artists, starring in all media
during a professional career which spanned more

than forty years and earned her a place in The

Qxfard_Camnanicn_Tn_American_Iheatre. Winner of

21

two Tony Awards and one Emmy, she was perhaps best
known for her powerful portrayal of the women in
the plays of Eugene O'Neill. Her one-woman show,
My_fiene, in which she played Carlotta O'Neill, was
performed at the New York Shakespeare Festival as
well as the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.

.IHLIE_;EEBBI§
One of America's most acclaimed performers, Ms.
Harris is in the fifth decade of her illustrious
career. She has been the recipient of five Tony
Awards--the highest number ever accumulated by a
performer. She was an Academy Award nominee for
her performance of Frankie in the film version of
Carson McCuller's The_Memher_of_the_fledding and
played Abra, opposite James Dean, in Elia Kazan's
adaptation of the John Steinbeck classic Eeet_ef
Eden. Her one-woman shows include Ihe_Belle_ef
Amhereh (Tony and Grammy Award winning
performance), Brenhe, and Lneiferie_ghild each of
which were written by William Luce. She is
included in WWII
Theatre.

W
Mr. Holbrook has starred in more than twenty films
and is the winner of four Emmy Awards for his

performances in television productions ranging from

22
W, to SandbnmLLLincnln, 2.1.12th and
EQILL31L_Q£_Ama£ica. He is currently a co-star in
the series Exening_fihede. He has appeared in many
theatrical productions including Cemelet, Henry
lyrntil: Bishazd_ll, and King_Lear and is listed in
W. Mr.
Holbrook ranks among the more seminal and
influential of the great solo performers of the
twentieth century. His one-man show, Me;k_Tuein
TehighLT has been acclaimed throughout the world
and has been awarded an Obie, Vernon Rice and Tony
Award as well as being nominated for an Emmy.
fillflfllL.lflUflfl3
A veteran of theatre, films and television, Ms.
Miles was nominated for an Academy Award for her
performance in (Midnighh_geuhey. She received a
similar honor for Eerenell_My_Leyely. Additional
films include Creeeing_nelaney, Well_$treet and
Exil_flnder_the_finn. Among the many television
shows in which she has been featured are Miami_yiee
and The_Egnelizer. On the stage she has appeared
in The_Teemen_QemeLh with Jason Robards, The
Kitchen with Rip Torn. Wm with
Richard Chamberlain, A_SLQn£_£Qr_Dann¥_EiShez with

Zero Mostel as well as many other productions. Her

23
. one-woman show, performed in April, 1981, was
entitled, ILLS_MBL_SYl!ia.1
IMADEIJDJHL_JHEEEHQQD
Ms. Sherwood has starred and been featured in
eighteen original productions on Broadway, many
off-Broadway and showcase plays. She has been
featured in ten movies and countless television
dramas, including a starring role in the series The
Elyihg_nnn with Sally Field. She has worked with
major playwrights during the past three decades
including Arthur Miller (The_aneihTe), Tennessee
Williams (CaL_Qn_a_HQL;Iin_BQQ£), Edward Albee (All
QSLEL), and John Osborne (Inadmissiblejxidence) .
She conducts Master Classes in acting throughout
the country. In her one-woman show, Engine;;5hened
Memeniee, written by Patrick Brawford, she
portrayed Tennessee Williams' mother.
IKHHHEL_JUEHHNI
Perhaps best known as The_Man_Erem_flTNTCTLTE+, Mr.
Vaughn has appeared in over two hundred television
programs including W
for which he received an Emmy Award. His many
feature films include Tenezing_lnferhg, $10.31,
W, and Wuhan: for
which he was nominated for an Academy Award as best

supporting actor. He earned a PhD in Mass

24
Communications from the University of Southern
California in 1972. Mr. Vaughn holds the
distinction of having portrayed four American
presidents: Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Harry
S. Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt who is the
subject of his one-person show, ETDTR..
W
Dr. Beneditti received his PhD from Nothwestern
University. He has served as the Chair of Acting
Programs at the Yale Drama School and the Theatre
Program at York University in Toronto as well as
being a Master Teacher at the National Theatre
School of Canada at Montreal. From 1974 until
1980 he was the Dean of the School of Theatre at
the California Institute of the Arts. He has also
served at Australia's National Institute of
Dramatic Art and the National Theatre Institute at
the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center. His
publications include The_AeLez_eL_flerk, The
Dizectnx_at_flark, and a section in Master_leanhfiza
Qf_TheeLre, "Zen in the Art of Actor Training." He
currently functions as the President of Walkabout
Productions and is now producing feature films and

television.

25

DBu__BQiEEHL_£EHHfll
Dr. Cohen earned his PhD from the Yale School of
Drama. He is currently the Chair of Drama at the
University of California at Irvine. His
publications include: Aeting_1n_$hakeepeere,
W, Theatre and TheatrLBrieLEditien,
W, CreatixLElay—Qirectien,
scrim, Warm, and
Aetihg_2refeeeienally. His essays have appeared in
W, Widen,
The_Drama_Beyiew, Theatre_Jeurnal and many other
literary journals. He has directed throughout the
country including at Yale, UC Irvine, Connecticut
College, the Utah Shakespearean Festival, and the
Image Theatre in Boston.

W
A noted director and teacher of acting, Mr. Epstein
serves as Director of the Conservatory at the
American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.
His Main Stage productions include Tele_ef_Tue
Cities, TheJmmigrant and Wires. He is a
co-founder of the 29th Street Project in New York,
and has directed for the Georgia, Oregon and Utah
Shakespeare Festivals, the San Diego Rep, and the
Skylight Opera in Milwaukee. He has been a guest

director at the University of Washington, Califoria

26

Institute of the Arts, and the New Zeland Drama
School.

.ABIEQB__EBEN£fli
Mr. French teaches acting at the renowned Herbert
Berghof (HB) studio in New York. An original
member of the Negro Ensemble Company, he has
appeared regionally at the Goodman Theatre in
Chicago and Louisville's Actor's Theatre. His
Broadway productions include Ma_BaineyLe_Blaek
Batten, MW, Death_ef_a
Salesman, The_Ieeman_Cemeth, and Wax.
On film, Mr. French can be seen in LBennd_Midhight,
Spleen, Hanky_2enky, and Car_flaeh. He has appeared
in the television shows, Dreee_firay, The_fientleman
Bandit, and Anether.fletld.

was
Mr. Kahn is currently Artistic Director of the
Shakespeare Theatre at the Folger and Coordinator
of Interpretation and Languag/Acting at The
Juilliard School Drama Division. In the summer of
1992 he will assume the position of Director of the
Drama Division at Juilliard. A director of many
productions, he also serves on the faculty of New

York University's Graduate School of the Arts.

27

HIIJJJDL_JJKHE
Mr. Luce is a California writer of one-person
shows: most notably, the acclaimed The_Belle_ef
Amherst, Brehte and Lneiferithild, each of which
starred Julie Harris.

EUL._EEEUUHI_JL__MUJHHWB
Dr. Miller received his PhD from the University of
Iowa. He is Chair of the Department of
Communication at Michigan State University and
author of Betueen_Eeenle;__A_NeH_ABAl¥SiS_Q£
WW. He has also written,
WWI:
WW and is a four-time
recipient of the Speech Communication Association's
(SCA) Golden Anniversary Prize Fund Award for
outstanding scholarship.

W
Mr. Reilly is a well—known actor, director and
television personality who has received critical
acclaim for his direction of several one-person
shows including The_Belle_o.LAmher.st, and Bronte,
starring Julie Harris and Eenl_3eheeen with James
Earl Jones.

.QBABLE§_;EAXBEB§
A playwright and teacher of acting in New York

City, Mr. Waxberg also teaches Text for Actors at

28
the Stella Adler Conservatory as well as New York
University.

Since the purpose of this study is to discover common
considerations, concerns, problems and techniques inherent to
the performance of one-person shows, the initial questions
asked during the interviews were broad and in every case the
same. Modified phrasing which was used for theorists,
writers and directors is found in the parentheses.

1. What specific acting considerations and concerns
did you have and/or problems did you encounter
during (would you perceive to be inherent to) the
preparation and performance of your (a) one—person
show?

2. What technique/s were (can be) employed to
address them?

Follow-up questions derived from the common knowledge of
and experience in ensemble performing were employed to
stimulate and continue the interviews, but in no way to lead
the interviewees. Prerequisites to effective acting in
conventional, multi-character productions which are stressed
to varying degrees in the majority of acting texts, served as
a frame of reference for the selection of these follow-up
questions. The prerequisites include: vocal and physical
control and expressiveness, concentration, energy,
relaxation, the suppression of tension or fear, and the need

for genuine interaction or communion on stage. Therefore,

29
the degree to which these considerations are emphasized when
evaluating traditional acting served as the rationale for
their inclusion in the form of subsequent questions beyond
those of the general opening inquiries.

The interviews were then transcribed and a separate and
thorough examination of each conducted to establish specific
considerations, concerns and problems which arose during the
preparation and performance of the one-person shows or which
were felt by the theorists to be elemental to solo acting.
Following the individual analysis, a standard cross-
tabulation table was employed in which the variables were the
actors/theorists/writers/directors interviewed and the
considerations, concerns, and problems experienced (eyery
major consideration, concern etc. mentioned in the
interviews). The findings were then summarized through the
use of the cross-tabulation table. Considerations, concerns,
and problems which were deemed common or basic (and therefore
inherent to the genre) and also those which may be termed
idiosyncratic were revealed. According to Dr. Joseph Earely,
noted Economic Statistician at Loyola Marymount University,
Los Angeles, the standard 'ideal' or 'significant' number in
a study involving cross-tabulation is five. Thus, for the
purposes of this study, a consideration which appears five or
more times in the cross tabulation has been deemed 'common',
'basic', or 'inherent' and is therefore the focus of the

discussion. A consideration which, although mentioned less

3O
often, can be directly and logically related to another which
qualifies, has likewise been so designated (see discussion of
Focus Areas below). Those appearing less frequently have
been termed 'Idiosyncratic'. No effort was made toward
greater stratification such as acting problems related to
gender variation, race or ethnicity.

Techniques used to address any acting problem are a
question of individuation and hence the attempt here, through
the use of examples furnished by the experts interviewed, is
simply to be suggestive. No cross-tabulation table was
employed to determine inherent techniques. Those techniques
mentioned in the interviews and described in this
investigation are offered as examples of, or possible models
for ways to address the common or inherent considerations,
concerns and problems of solo performing.

Following the cross-tabulation, the categories were
clustered on the basis of their similarities or relatedness
into more inclusive groupings referred to as Focus Areas.
These are discussed in detail in the ensuing chapter,
ANLLX§1&_Q£_THE_DATA, and form the body of the study. The
Focus Areas are:

IIK3HL_JuflHL_Jfi__£§IAELI§nINEL_BELAIIQNfiBIZE

The actor does not operate in a vacuum, but in a world
of stimulus and response--of relationships. Things are done
by the actor because things are done he the actor. It is a

world of connection and communion. In conventional theatre

31

the actor finds this communion, these connections, with his
or her fellow actors. Actions and reactions are, for the
most part, 'other-directed' and 'other-generated.’ In the
absence of fellow actors, however, the stage becomes a world
of self-generated impulse and action. Therefore, the need to
make connections, to establish some form of communion, to
find a catalyst, wherever and whenever possible, which
triggers internal reaction and propels external action is
paramount in the performance of one-person shows. This Focus
Area includes and discusses:

A. Relating to/Selecting Material

B. Relating to the Audience

C. Relating to Imaginary Characters

D. Relating to/ Using Props, Music, Lighting, and

the Physical Environment.
1'0 3‘ :K'; ' ixl'K; \ ;\.. v; s ; s. s. 50'; I\'
EKHEIENIEUMLLQNI

Although an actor must always be energized and focused
while on stage, it is reasonable to assume and generally
acknowledged that in an ensemble production the thrust or
weight of the action is at times carried by different members
of the cast. While there is no doubt or dispute that an
actor will need to concentrate and will expend energy when
playing a member of the Roman crowd, it is also common sense
to assume that the demands are dramatically increased and the

dynamics significantly altered when he is playing Mark

32
Antony. When acting solo, the performer has no one else to
'take center stage', no opportunity to re-energize oneself
backstage, no time when concentration may flag. The actor
must 'hold forth' from opening to final curtain, with only a
brief intermission, in some cases, as a respite. Thus,
energy and concentration are often central concerns to those
who perform one-person shows and hence are topics of
discussion in this investigation. Inasmuch as concentration
involves the focusing and directing of energy, and,
conversely, maintenance of energy may be thought of as a form
of concentration, this Focus Area includes both Generating
and Maintaining Energy and Maintaining Concentration.
ZQQn3_dABEAh_1III—‘AQEIEYINELEZABIEIIZ

In a conventional, ensemble production, vocal and visual
variety is needed to sustain audience interest and,
consequently, is an important consideration during rehearsals
and in performance. Actors with varying physical
characteristics and vocal qualities, wearing different
costumes and forming different groups, create a shifting
stage picture. In bringing flesh and blood to the dramatis
personae they also provide the audience with changing visual
and aural stimulation. In solo acting, on the other hand,
there is but one body, one voice, one presence for the entire
production. The question of variety-—how to hold the
audience's attention, how to avoid becoming tedious when one

is alone on stage for two hours--is consequently a vital

33
consideration to those who would approach this genre. As
color and variation in an actor's performance is achieved
primarily through vocal and emotional shading, subtlety and
control, Focus Area III includes Meeting the Vbcal and
Technical Demands.
IQQn3_JnNUL_IYi_JflEUfli_BLQHE_JnL_£IAGE

The natural state of the actor on stage is to be 'in
relation', to seek connections, to foster and be nourished by
a symbiotic union with his or her fellow performers. This
natural state not only furnishes the give and take,
stimulus/response, transactional exchange needed to propel
the action forward but also provides the actor with a source
of comfort and security. In the one-person show, such a
union does not exist and relationships must be sought in
other ways. Many of the interviewees indicated that a
feeling of isolation, of being alone on stage, was a
principal factor in their experiences with the genre of solo
performance. Germane to being alone on stage and therefore
included in this Focus Area are the cross-tabulation
categories, Dealing With Fears, Avoiding Self-
Consciousness, Maintaining"Vulnerahility, and
Achieving/Maintaining Spontaneity.

'. .‘ i1"; ' v.\ .§ \ :3 '1§'.;v;\ ' v; \ i \ \

The majority of one-person shows are presentational in

style, incorporating direct address to the audience. They do

34
not conform to 'fourth wall' conventions. Accordingly, there
was a recognition on the part of a significant number of
those interviewed that the experience of solo performance was
similar to story telling, lecturing or stand-up comedy.
There existed a tendency to maintain a greater distance
between the performer and his or her material; a
consciousness of technique; an awareness of the performance
in progress more prevalent than that found in
representational, 'fourth wall' productions. It was felt
that in many cases a keen 'third eye' was used to monitor the
presentation to a degree beyond that extant in ensemble
playing.
W

The considerations, concerns and problems indicated
above were shared by many of the interviewees. There were,
however, several areas of concern which were mentioned by
fewer than the required five respondents and which could not
logically be included in a previously established Focus Area.
Nevertheless, as a point of interest and further edification
they are included and briefly discussed in this section of
the study. These concerns are: Preparing and Presenting
Bits and Pieces; Approximating Historical Characters:
Imitation Versus Suggestion; Assessing One's Talent;
and Revealing and Reliving Personal Agonies.

This dissertation has certain limitations. The

interviews.were conducted solely with well-respected

35
professional actors and theorists who are familiar with and
experienced in the area of solo performance. No attempt was
made to study inexperienced actors, students or those
unfamiliar with or newly exposed to one-person shows.

While each actor and theorist was asked the same
questions relating to concerns, considerations, problems and
techniques, due to the diversity of their personalities the
interviews often proceeded in varying directions. Therefore,
it was frequently necessary to re-direct or focus the
conversation with follow-up questions (discussed earlier). It
is impossible to say with complete assurance whether these
Focus Areas would have been emphasized in this particular
manner had such subsequent questions not been asked.

The following chapter will concentrate on an analysis of

the data.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Figure 1

Focus Area Designation

 

 

Establishing Relationships ’

 

Relating to the Audience

 

Relating to Imaginary
Characters

 

Relating TolSelecting
Material

 

Relating TolUslng Props.

 

 

Music, Lighting, ect.

 

 

 

 

EDCULAIIIJI

Generating and Maintaining
Energy and Concentration

 

 

 
  
  

Generating & Maintaining
Energy

Maintaining Concentration I

 

 

 
 
  
 

EocuLAreaJll
Achieving Variety

 

Achieving Variety

 

Meeting Vocal & Technical
Demands

L

 

 

 

EocuLALeaJ!
Being Alone on Stage

 

 

  

EncuLALeaJl

 

Dealing with Fears

 

  

Avoiding Self
Consciousness

 

 

Maintaining Vulnerability

 

Achieving, Maintaining

 

    

 

Spontaneity

 

 
   

Monitoring the Performance
Maintaining a '1th Eye'

 
        
 
 

 

Moniton'ng the Penormance ’
Mahta'nlng a "Thlrd Eye'I

 

 

 

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Idiosyncratic Concerne

 

38

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Approximating Historical
Characters

 

Assessing Ono's Talent

 

Revealing 8. Reliving
Personal Agonlee

 

Blending Conceptwlth

 

 

Performance

NOTES TO CHAPTER II

 

1As the printed publicity material advertising IL;5_MeL
Sylvia, states, it was "written, sung and lived" by Sylvia
Miles. Due to the autobiographical nature of this
presentation, therefore, it would seem to fall outside the
parameters established for this study. However, because of
her performance experience in theatre and media, it was felt
that her insights concerning solo acting contributed to the

investigation.

39

CHAPTER III

ANALYSIS OF THE DATA

Evaluation and cross-tabulation of the interview
responses has revealed common considerations, concerns,
problems, and aspects of performance which, for the purposes
of this investigation, have been organized into related
groups entitled Focus Areas. Using the observations and
opinions of the interviewees, the study will now explore and
illuminate these Focus Areas, as well as describe techniques
employed to address said considerations, concerns and
problems.

W
...I remember thinking I don't think I can continue this. I

don't know whether I can really create anything here. What
am I doing? I'm doing it in a vacuum in some kind of way. I

have no...I have no company.1

___Madeleine Sherwood
Israeli philosopher Martin Buber, in his book, 1_and
Jrizqn, voiced the belief that man's true essence can only be
cijLsscovered in the presence of an 'other', a connection with

c>t:¢t1er objects or beings.2 Robert L. Benedetti concurs with

40

41
this position when he writes in Ihg_AgLQz_aL_flQ;k,
"Personalty on stage, as in life, is rooted in relationship,
in dynamic interaction...within a given situation."3 In the
one-person show there is no 'other' on stage with which to
relate. To what degree does the actor sense this absence?
Is this question of connection a significant consideration,
concern or problem in his or her preparation and presentation
of a solo production? Many of the respondents in this study
felt it was indeed a pivotal factor in their experiences with
this performance genre.

During the interviews, four kinds of relationships, used
to create 'dynamic interaction' in the place of conventional
actor-actor interplay, emerged as important considerations or
concerns in the performance of one-person shows. These
relationships are: 1) Relating to/selecting material, 2)
Relating to the audience, 3) Relating to imaginary characters
and 4) Relating to/using props, music, lighting and the
physical environment. They are examined in this Focus Area.

MW].
Your relationship to the text is essential. There's nothing

else. I mean, the basis of the work is the text and you're
relating to it is absolutely essential. It is the story.

It's what your doing.4
___Julie Harris
The solo performer, in the absence of fellow actors, has
a: 11eightened need to establish relationships, to make
eaJZAEBInental connections. Fourteen of the actors, theorists,

writers and directors surveyed felt that the one-person show

42
demanded a level of interaction with and commitment to the
material exceeding that found in conventional, multi-actor
drama. Arthur French states:

It's just more critical in a one-person show. It's
just more critical because there's no way out of it
if you're not totally immersed in the text, and
know who this person is...I think that will give
you the confidence to come out there and say, I'm
gonna show you, I'm gonna reveal...something about
this person to you. At the end of the evening,
you're really going to know who this is. You're
gonna learn something about me and hopefully, I'll
learn something about you and from you...I think
it's critical. It's critical that you...and the

text have to be one...5
Arthur French
Sabin Epstein is of a similar belief:

I go back again and again and again, the most
important thing is the text. You can be an
extraordinary actor but if the text isn't good,
forget it. Nobody is going to care. You've got to
be intrigued by it enough and so excited by it that
you want other people to know it. They [solo
performers] have to have a passion. I mean, a
biting passion and fascination for that person or
topic. That is what sustains you in doing the work.
The selecting of the material...that's the most

important element.6
___Sabin Epstein
Hal Holbrook, speaking of the task involved in
maintaining audience attention offers the following:

And in the one-person show, you have a bigger load
on you because you are all alone out there. You
don't have much action, the only action you have is
the action that goes on in people's minds. So that
puts you down to material, that's where the
material becomes extraordinarily important in a
one-person show. Because it has to
develop...excitement in the audience's mind,
otherwise you don't have anything. You [don't]
have people fighting each other with swords or
shooting each other or screaming at each other

43

across the stage to divert, all you've got is the
material.7

Hal Holbrook

He is acutely aware of the unique bond which must exist
between the actor and his material in this form of theatre,
as the following indicates:

I think you have to either have immediately or be

able to develop an intense connection with the

material and character you are playing or else you

are going down a dead-end street. It is often said

that shows are successful because there is a

peculiar and special... connection with the magic

or whatever you want to call it. And when you get
to a one-man show, a one-person show, all that

becomes heightened in importance, I think.8
___Hal Holbrook
A common observation among those interviewed was that a
passion and enthusiasm for the material, an intense
relationship with and commitment to the text is essential if
one is to succeed in the field of solo performance. Julie
Harris, in speaking of Ihg_fielle_gf_3mnegst, expressed
vividly the joy of such commitment when she said, "I had the
great advantage of loving my material. I couldn't think that
Emily Dickinson would be boring to anybody. I couldn't wait,
I couldn't wait to tell it to somebody. I was like an
evangelist."9
If a fervency for the subject matter, an intense
:icientification with and relationship to the material is
‘Fpaiiramount in the one-person show, how does the performer

in sure such a connection? One way is to maintain complete

44
control of the production's content, to be its sole artistic
consciousness. Hal Holbrook explains:

And I was just very lucky. I mean there was no way
for me to know when I started doing Twain that I
was going to be able to come up with something as
good as it is. There was no way for me to know
that. That's what is discouraging about trying to
start a project like this and any project in life,
in fact. You know, so many people today feel that
they ought to be able to skip the discouraging
first stages of a career and leap immediately into
prominence and wealth. You know, the theme of the
day is, I want to be a star. And I want to get
rich. And I don't want to start out doing a lot of
dull, sweaty labor for twelve dollars an hour.

But, when you start out with a project, especially
a solo show, you are all alone. Particularly if
you do it in what I consider to be the right way
which is put the material together yourself, do all
the research, do all the work yourself. You are
all alone and you have no idea in the world whether
you are just wasting your time or not...you don't
even know if your effort is going to get a chance
to be shown, that's even more difficult. It makes
you work harder. It deepens your commitment. You
are just, you know, it proves right away that
you've either got the commitment or you don't. It
is just a very, it is very difficult, but doing a
show like this is very difficult. It looks easy
when it works, but it is very difficult, very
discouraging, very lonely and I just feel
that...the commitment is much bigger if you do it
all yourself. Plus, of course, you really get to
know what you are doing better than anyone else...I
mean you've got to know what you are doing. You
are doing it...you are taking on the total
responsibility, and you are doing it. And you are
forced against the wall, you have to learn, you
have to figure out how to make this stuff work.

And I'm sure that it would...take less time if you
get some help, but basically I think everybody
should just start on their own and do their own
work and do their own research. To begin with, you
are just going to learn more about your subject,
you are going to learn more about your man, I mean,
if you do the work yourself. It's difficult to
describe...the mystical insights that you can
receive by doing your own work. I mean when I was
researching Twain...[the research] covered many
years, or quite a few years anyway, it wasn't

45

something, you know, you got up in a year. I would
have times when I was trying to put some material
together, you know, I'd look and I'd find a little
story or a paragraph or two from his autobiography
and then I'd remember a line that was over in
Huckleberry_fiinn, I can pluck out and attach to it.
And another, well infamous speech somewhere or
another little anecdote I could put together and
pretty soon I have a five, six, seven minute number
and...I'd have still gaps in it, I would still know
that it wasn't strong enough. I needed another
good line to create a laugh to release a laugh that
was maybe in the material I couldn't bring out.

And I didn't want to try to write something myself,
I wanted something by Twain. And sometimes I would
pick up a book, maybe I'd wake up in the middle of
the night and I'd pick up a book and I'd open it
and there on the page was what I was looking for.
Well, I don't want to stress too much on that, but
you see, when you have experiences like that you

learn to love what you are doing.10

Hal Holbrook

Pat Carroll, although her show Gertrude.$teinl_fiertrude
fitein+_figxtzndg_fitgin was written by Marty Martin, has a

similar view regarding the performer's involvement in the

creation of the material:

Many

connection

I'll tell you what I feel about the text...I don't
know how an actor doing a one-person show cannot be
involved in the making of the text or at least in
the construction of the text. Because to me it is
like having a dressmaker make you a dress, rather
than going to a rack. You know, that is not
demeaning the rack, some of them are extremely
expensive, but I think if you know this
character...I don't know why anybody would want to
do a one-person show unless they were intrigued by
the character to be displayed...because the work is
too hard. Why would you want to do that unless you
had a feeling about this character that you are

doing?11
Pat Carroll
of those interviewed echoed this belief that a

to the text is enhanced through direct

46
participation in its development and personal research into
its subject matter. Brian Bedford states that...

I did all of this reading and in some cases re-
reading... of the entire works of William
Shakespeare because I didn't know what the evening
was going to be like...So I went into this one-man
show...business and I think in the back of my mind
there was always this idea that I would like to
explore the possible biographical elements of
Shakespeare's work....What I wanted to do,
eventually I realized was, you know, the Droshout
Engraving of Shakespeare. I wanted to put some
blood and soul and heart, in other words some
dimension, to Droshout's Engraving and this is what
evolved from my reading the complete works of
Shakespeare....that I would try and invoke or try
and enhance, shall we say, people's perception of

William Shakespeare, the man...1
___Erian Bedford
The general consensus, then, is that to know one's
subject thoroughly, to be intimately engaged in the research
for and creation of the show is to intensify one's
relationship to the material and, consequently, increase

one's performance efficacy. This was true in the case of

Brian Bedford's production, Ihe_LnnaLiQ+_Iha_LQxe£x_and_Ihe
Beet:

I found it fascinating and I found that it added a
dimension to one's perception of a speech like
Oberon's speech to Puck, "Thou rememb'rest since
once I sat upon a promontory, and heard a mermaid
on a dolphin' 3 back uttering such dulcet and
harmonious breath. " (LMidsumeLHighLLIlream

act 2, scene 1). I find the fact that one could
tie it up with Shakespeare having seen as a child
this wonderful pageant for Queen Elizabeth's
visit...which took place comparatively near to
where Shakespeare was living. And his father being
Mayor of Stratford would obviously have been
invited... and he took the boy to the show and then
over twenty years later the boy remembered the
fireworks in the sky and the mermaid, the

47

mechanical mermaids floating on the lake, you know.
I just found all of that, that it added something
to it, and this is just an example of what I was

trying to do.13
___Brian Bedford

The respondents indicated a belief that should the actor
choose to rely on the talents of a writer, a close,
collaborative working relationship was essential if the same
connection to the material is to be achieved. Pat Carroll,
Madeleine Sherwood, and William Luce spoke of such
collaborative endeavors:

I think it behooves the...actor who is to do a
one-person character to work with the playwright.
It doesn't mean you are going to write for him.
But I think many times, certainly in my working
with Marty Martin, I had many, many years of
professional experience behind me. Marty had
written, but had never been produced
professionally. I felt I could save him time and
effort by saying, 'I don't think that will work,
Marty, because of such and such.' Most of the
time, it was logical. A couple of times it was

simply emotional.14
Pat Carroll

It appeared as though it was going to be easy.

When you get a script handed to you by Patrick
Brawford in this case my director but he was also
the writer of the piece, and when I first got it
and first read it my first impression was, 'hey
this is great, this will be wonderful for me.’ He
wrote it more or less for me, tailored it to me.
The subject matter is Tennessee Williams...but it's
his early life and up until the time when he was
put into a mental hospital by his brother...[But]
when you start writing a show...and you're going to
talk through the mouth of a famous man's mother
you've got a lot of problems right there. I'm a
mother and we all...know very well that mothers
tend to have a different slant on their children
than anyone else in the world. Right? It was also
hard to make it not appear to be just a mother's
love for her son and have some perspective that

48

encompassed more of the problems, the working
habits, the things that his mother may not have
really known too much about. So that required a
lot of digging on Patrick's part certainly and some
adjustment on our part, some presumption on our
part that she did know certain things. He dealt
with it very much the way we feel that Mrs.
Williams would have. I knew Mrs. Williams slightly
because I had met her several times, having been in
Tennessee's original plays. At opening night
parties Mrs.Williams was always there, so I had an
advantage of knowing her personality, public
personality. I didn't know her private personality
and they are two different things. However, it was
very valuable for me obviously to have known her in
that way. I was a friend of his [Patrick's]...I
had great respect for him and he for me. He was a
younger man than I am, didn't have as much
experience. He was beginning to a certain extent.
He had done a lot of work but he was just beginning
in a professional theater and I could get angry
with him and say, 'go fly off,‘ and say, 'this
isn't working,’ and so on and so forth, if I felt
like it and I knew it was okay. But at the same
time that was fine as a director but he had written
the piece and I began to recognize that what he
could take...in a very normal fashion as an actor
and director---having a discussion or even having a
fight---the person behind that person couldn't deal
with. The writer, the writer was defensive and so
therefore it became very difficult and we had some

real fights.15
Madeleine Sherwood

...as far as Julie is concerned, I guess I work
more with her than with others, and she is so
steeped in the subject by the time she calls me in.
For instance on this, [Lucifer;s_ghild] she had
visited London, Denmark. She'd gone to Kenya and
seen Karen Blixen's home there. She had researched
so much. She'd read all the letters. And finally
she asked me if I would write it and she optioned
the material for me and then commissioned me to do
it and has worked very closely with me on it,
telling me things that she'd like to deal with in
the play. And the same was true of Bronte, which
she was very close to, and, of course, Ihe_Belle_Qf
Amherst. In all of those, she had a great input.
The actor who brings it to me is usually fired with

the idea.16
William Luce

49
In working autonomously, the actor can carefully tailor
the material to suit his or her areas of strength or include
selections of particular interest. In collaborating with a
writer, it becomes especially important that the performer be
specific as to what he or she feels capable of or comfortable
doing. Brian Bedford stated that his show...

...was for me and...had to be tailored somewhat to
my capabilities and my talents. The pieces that
were chosen were the ones that in my estimation
increased people's perception of William
Shakespeare. They were chosen because I thought
they had a biographical connection to Shakespeare
himself and also bits [that I could do]. I mean I
couldn't for instance, it's not within my range,
for example, to do Falstaff or something like

that.17
____Brian Bedford
Pat Carroll feels strongly that if the connection to the
material is to be strong, the final decision as to the
content of a one-person show must rest with the person who is
to perform it:

The time that he brought me two pages on Stein's
emotional encounter with Mae Bookstaver and I said,
'Marty, lovely writing, [but] an audience is not
going to sit still for this. Essentially they
won't care because this isn't sharp enough
emotionally.’ I said, 'for those who will
understand that it is a homosexual experience fine,
for those who don't they won't know what all the

broo hah hah is about.’ I said, 'turn this into a
minute.’ He said, 'well I can't,' I said, 'yes you
can or just forget it.‘ He said, 'I can't forget
it, it is very important to her character, it is
important to why she goes to your place.‘ 'Then
do it in a minute and a half at the most.‘ He came

back having distilled two pages into approximately
four sentences that are dynamite because they do
exactly what I asked him to do. I mean it is up to
you....Now maybe that would not have happened if
Marty and I had not been working together....To

50

say, 'this is not going to work, I know this isn't
going to work. Marty, trust me. And I'm going to
trust you as a playwright to come back with
this,'...which he did brilliantly. So with my lack
of knowledge of the one-person theatrical area I
was able to dive in and do something that was full
of effrontery. I don't know, but...the ego of our
profession is so limited now by union restrictions,
by standard operational procedure restrictions.
Instead of people just saying, 'look, I feel this
ain't going to work, now what are we going to do to
correct this? If I'm the person playing it we have
to, because I can't play this. Okay?‘ Many
playwrights are protected so that there is no
rewriting...which is good for the playwright,
because how many times have they been desecrated.
But on the other hand it allows them the ego of
thinking every word is a diamond and a pearl
and...as an actor you say, 'oh really, I have to
say the words, Charlie. Okay? Do you understand
that? And I, as this particular actress, cannot
make that work because it ain't workable, okay?‘ I
know playwrights that don't particularly want to
listen to the actor. I kind of love it because
they are forced to listen to us eventually because
the audience echoes what we are telling them.

There is also the tremendous ego of the actor who
may not be able to accomplish what the playwright
has in mind because of our individual limitations.
We may have more theory than reality in our own
work. So I understand both sides of the fence, but
it seems to me you have got to work more closely
with the person who is writing the material for

one—person theater than you would normally.18
___Pat Carroll
The late Colleen Dewhurst agreed that it is the actor who, on
an intuitive, gut level, is the best judge of material--of
what will or will not work for that performer:

...because as an actor you can come to certain
points and go, 'I tried this every way, I came up
as a blip here, no matter what I'd do.’ That can
be true in any new play where you suddenly, go,
'right in here something is wrong, because I've
tried this every way but standing on my head.‘ And
so something has to intuitively tell me that either

we don't need it or that [we must change it].19

Colleen Dewhurst

51

According to William Luce and Charles Nelson Reilly,
another factor which will intensify one's relationship to the
material is to select a person to portray whose spoken or
written words may be used in the portrayal (notable

exceptions, however. include: WW
Gerrrnds_firgin, in which none of Stein's actual words were

used):

I've dealt with writers. I mean, there's Lillian
Hellman and Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Bronte and
Zelda Fitzgerald because of her writing. They're
characters that have had something to say, that
have journals, diaries, a body of thought, ideas.
And, of course, you get the genuine article then
when you put it up on stage. I was once asked to
write a play on Greta Garbo and there was really
nothing to draw on. What did she say? What did
she think? We would never know what her
personality was really like because there really
was no reservoir of ideas to use. So I think
whether one is a writer writing...a one-person
play, or an actor or actress selecting a subject,
it has to be one that has some kind of resource
material, underlying material. But the playwright
can't depend on language alone to make his play. I
mean, you hear it said that the theater is losing
its beautiful language and we need more language.
But a play has to be a show and it has to be a
visual depiction of ideas....The important thing is
to make it an entertainment. Language is
important, it's a spoken art and plays depend on

words but it has to be ideas made visual.20
William Luce

I think most of them [one-person shows] fail
because they celebrate a person that never was in
any way literary. If you don't have the words
you're in trouble 'cause two hours is a long
time....If you get a lot of diaries, books and all
those things...then you're on third base 'cause you
have all the words. Lillian_nellman, I love that
play only because I never quite could get through
Lillian Hellman's writing, but through this play,
which is all her own words, I became a Lillian

52
Hellman fan. See, you couldn't buy a Dickinson
poetry book, more or less before The_Belle_Qf
Amhfirat, and now you can go into Jupiter, Florida
in the mall or in the smallest town in Connecticut

and buy a book or her poetry. Select material that
[you] can identify with and a person that has

written something.21
Charles Nelson Reilly

One type of relationship which assumes greater
significance in the preparation and performance of a one-
person show is that of the actor to his or her material.
This relationship is deepened when the performer researches,
writes and organizes the text him/herself, or works in close
collaboration with a writer. In both instances the
performer's interests, abilities, and limitations are
constant considerations. According to a number of the
experts interviewed, it is also to the actor's advantage if
the actual written or spoken words of the subject are woven
into the production. The study now moves from a
consideration of the bond between performer and material to a
second, equally important relationship in solo performing---

that which exists between the actor and the audience.

We

...the first time I stood up...at rehearsal, I began talking
to the director. He said, 'Why are you addressing the
audience?’ I said, 'Because they are there....I don't know
why they are there, but they are...and who else am I going to
share it with...who else do I share it with? I'm not going
to talk to myself, I'm not going to pretend I'm going mad.’

I said, 'If you have another idea, give it to me, but right
now it seems to me I'm talking to the audience because they

are there.‘22

___Pat Carroll

53
According to Dr. Gerald Miller, there exists a general notion
that...
...communications is sort of a transactional
process that...involves some kind of a reciprocal
exchange of stimulating responses such that the
responses of one communicator are used as a form of
information by the others--called feedback or some
such term--which would then in turn lead to...all

ranges [of] verbal and nonverbal behavior...to
accommodate the perceived response of the other

communicator...23
___Gerald Miller

Perhaps the principal task facing an actor alone on stage is
the establishment of this transactional or communication
loop. While a strong enthusiasm for and connection to the
material is crucial, it cannot replace the moment-to-moment
interaction between performers which exists in conventional
productions; an interaction missing in the one-person show.
Madeleine Sherwood realized early in rehearsals the
difficulty of her task. She also experienced a sense of
isolation commonly felt in solo performance:

I knew from experience (in other forms of theatre)

it (the one-person show) wasn't going to be easy,

but I didn't think it was going to be quite so

difficult to get into it...and you have to do it
all by yourself. You don't have a feeling that you

have some cooperation, some interplay.24

Madeleine Sherwood

Michael Kahn reduced the one-person show to an elemental
level when he stated, "...you see, an actor is fed by another
actor on stage. By the tone of their voice, by the rhythm
that they give you, by their emotion. So to get fed, [in

solo performance] you have to do it yourselfgnZS Robert

54
Cohen echoes this awareness of the challenges of solo
performance: "You're probably more conscious that you're
creating the whole drama....so the actor has to work harder
at it, I think, than you do in a multi-character play."26
Also in agreement is Robert Benedetti: "Being alone makes it
harder to achieve, in the true Aristotelian sense, being 'in
action'. That's what's hard about it. It's tougher to be
'in action' when you're alone."27
To fill the void created by the absence of fellow
performers, the solo actor must seek interaction elsewhere.
It is imperative that he or she find a way to complete the
transactional process, to build personal relationships. In
the majority of one-person shows the fourth-wall is broken
and the audience is addressed directly. The performer
invites, and indeed urges, the spectator to become the other
actor--the missing link in the vital communication chain.
Michael Kahn feels this approach is logical and effective:
I don't think it is so difficult to do that [direct
address] unless it is the kind of actor who really
has to create a world for themselves in which they
are private. And I don't think that is a very good
one-person show...because it is too insular, we are
not involved. I've never seen one in which the
person just dropped the fourth-wall and we watched

him live in another world. I've never seen that,
nor do I think it would be interesting. Usually we

are the other major character.28
___Michael Kahn

Robert Benedetti concurs with the opinion that relating
directly to the audience is the most effective approach to

solo performing:

55

Far and away I think the most successful form for a
one-person show or for a solo performing situation
to take is...direct address so that the audience
can be related to in the same way as if it were
another character in the scene....The feedback loop
is continuous. It's not just that you get
something and then you respond and then they give
you something back and then you respond. It's not
that kind of digital on-off kind of thing. I think
the in-flow and the out-flow are both simultaneous.
I think that in the very moment that you are acting
towards someone you are also receiving signals from
them that cause subtle adjustments in your
behavior. And the actor has to be in that
continual feedback kind of loop situation. My
preference would be to use the audience as the
other part of the loop whenever possible, whenever
the..material permits. The one-person shows that
I've enjoyed the most had a lot of direct
addressing. There was a tremendous sense of
comradery, of intimacy between the audience and the

created character.29
Robert Benedetti
Having directed a number of one-person shows, Charles Nelson
Reilly has reached a similar opinion concerning the
importance and efficacy of direct address: "...in my
experience as a director, direct address just continually
involves the audience...one has to treat the audience members
as other actors."30 This belief is shared by others
including Charles Waxberg, Robert Vaughn and Julie Harris:
[the actor to the audience]...that's where your
action is gonna come from. Because it won't be
like creating a show of private moments. It's not
a character that we're peering through a fourth-
wall and seeing them alone in their room or in
their office or wherever. They are developing a
relationship with us and everything that you, every

action you play as an actor in a one-person show is
designed to create some kind of effect on the other

character which is the audience.31

Charles Waxberg

56

...you pretty much don't pay that much attention to
the audience when you are acting in a normal drama.
You are involved with the scene and the other actor
more than you are in the one-man show where you are
more involved with paying attention to yourself and
the audience. There is just the two of you
involved--the audience and you. There is no other
entity or other person that you have to work

with.32
Robert Vaughn

I can't figure out how to tell you what it is.
It's just different. You're talking to the
audience in the one-person play and you're not in
the other. You're talking so they can overhear
you. [In the one-person show] You're really

confronting them. It's more confrontational.33
___Julie Harris
There exists a common sensibility among those
interviewed that the establishment of a personal relationship
with the audience is imperative, a central consideration in
the preparation and performance of the one-person show.
Representative comments include:

Well, in a one-person play, there's nobody else on
stage with you so the interaction...has to be
presumed to be someone in the audience....The one
relationship that really exists in a one-person
show is between the actor and the audience and
somehow you have to identify the audience. I would
say, summarizing this, the big question is
identifying the audience. What role does the
audience play in the one—person show and how do you
address the audience? Do you address them directly
and if so, in what guise? Who are they? Are you
addressing them as a modern audience or as a
sixteenth century audience? Does the audience
become a character in the play, such as [the
psychiatrist in Arthur Miller's Afirer_rhe_flall] or
is it the people who happen to arrive at the St.

James Theater on a particular night?34

Robert Cohen

57

So as a general principle when the actor is alone
on stage their great problem is to find a way of
relating their energy outward towards another...the
audience is the easiest solution, and towards a
desired change, towards the future--what do I want
from these people that I do not now have? And I
think that the one-person show, the solo situation
makes it much more difficult to achieve those two

conditions...but they must be met.35
Robert Benedetti

I think you have to define the relationship with
the audience. This is a major concern. Is the
person, the singular actor, the solo player, going
to speak directly to the audience, break a fourth-
wall, be in the same space, or are they going to
maintain a fourth-wall and work completely in
isolation. . .where there is absolutely no
recognition of the audience? And that becomes a
primary concern because everything is based on,
certainly from a directorial and coaching point of
view, everything is based on that, and my own
preference, of course, is to break the fourth—wall.
The audience is involved with or witnessing or

somehow in an exchange with the actor.36
Sabin Epstein

...the audience is the other character. The
audience is a very strong part of it so you must be
open to them. Any one-man play in general is about
intimacy, a chance for these people to get to meet
somebody who they never had or never will meet in
their lifetime. Might possibly be because they're
dead, but here's a chance for you to talk to
Abraham Lincoln or Richard Nixon or Truman Capote
and even though you're not necessarily talking to
them, you are a part of it. Your response to them
is important...I think the critical difference
between doing a one-person show and doing any other
kind of show is that you have to be that much more
in tune to the other characters in the show which
happen to be sitting in the audience. They will not
talk to you and for the most part, you will not be
able to see them so the problem to solve there is,
picking up on that thread. Picking up on that

silent communication between you and them...37

Charles Waxberg

58

And my first problem was one of solving, do you
talk directly to the audience, do you include them

in on your thinkings and I thought yes...38
Pat Carroll
Relating to the audience is a cardinal concern for the

majority of actors who engage in one-person shows. But what
methods are available to the performer to facilitate this
connection? According to the respondents, there are several
which are important. Many seek to give their audience an
identity; to relate to them in the same way they would to
another character in a conventional, multi-actor play. The
'character' which the actor assigns to the audience may in
fact be that of spectators, listeners who have come to the
theatre to hear a noted personality speak or read. Such was
the case in Emlyn Williams' portrayal of Charles Dickens and
is in Hal Holbrook's MBrk_Inain_Tgnighrl. As Holbrook
relates:

I picked a man who was doing something that was

very easy to recreate on the stage. I picked a man

who was talking to an audience. That's what he is

doing. Now, of course, when he wrote all this

material, he wasn't talking to an audience, he was

writing it in a book. So I had to adapt the

material so that it seemed right for him to be

telling it to an audience. That is part of the

adaptation process of putting it on the stage, but
basically I am playing a man who is talking to an

audience.39
Hal Holbrook

Others seek to justify direct address and complete the

communication loop by actually 'casting' the audience in a

59
role apart from that of listeners. Pat Carroll discloses her
thoughts concerning this process:

I make them the other actor, period, there is
nothing else. They become my other actor. And as
an audience takes on that oneness of being I could
always tell, oh within a minute and a half or two
minutes, how that other actor was going to play.

It was fascinating....There is a sense of an
audience as you would sense a new actor playing a
role that had been played before. Like we've had
understudies going on in Merr¥_flixea. Every night,
I was facing an understudy of the original player
and that understudy was a new audience every
evening. Well you find yourself not wary, but you
are on your toes and you are more concentrated with
an understudy because you have fallen into
automatic responses with an actor you've played a
role with for a long time. I mean it just becomes
automatic. You don't even have to think, you don't
have to talk, you just do. But with a new person
there, there is a new presence, there is a new
persona that you don't know that well, you haven't
experienced together that much, so you are dancing,
you are testing, you are watching, you are
sniffing, it is almost animal, but I did the same
thing with an audience every night. It was really,
I suppose like the blind do, the bouncing off the
skins, you just, you sense it, you feel it...I just
think people do this all day long and don't even
think about it. I think we do it in so many areas.
I think we do it at cocktail parties, I think we do
it in families sitting around a table, I think we
do it in so many areas. We feel each other, we
sense each other and we draw away from certain
people--I suppose for many different reasons.

Maybe our auras clang or something. But I think we
do have like ants, you know, we have that stuff,
that antennae that whatever comes out of us that we
recognize we either go around it, we hug it or we
run the other way...And I spoke to them, I mean had
I invited these people here, did they just come to
my place, did I put a sign down at the market, come
to Gertrude's Place tonight? Why are they here, I
don't know why they are here, but they are here so
I'm talking to them. I'm a good hostess, I'm not

going to exclude anybody.40

Pat Carroll

60
Robert Vaughn also used this 'visitor' image for the audience
in his production ErDrBrz "I wanted...to make the audience
feel that this was Roosevelt come to life sitting in his
chair telling them the story of his life as he would if they
had been invited to Hyde Park to sit and chat with him when
he was alive."41 Julie Harris stated, "I use the audience
very definitely in that they're listening to me and I am
addressing them and I am telling them this, giving them this
story. They're important. They become like, really like one
person sitting there listening to me."42 Madeleine Sherwood
felt a similar desire to relate to the audience as she would
to guests:

I wanted it to be directed to the audience which
was the way it was when we did it at the Actor's
Studio. We did a long segment of it at the Actor's
Studio and...I addressed the audience as though
they were, had been invited to my home. I...was
coming home from the hospital and walked in and
apologized to them for keeping them waiting. But
they were all supposed to be in my home. There was
a tremendous sense of, 'oh my goodness I'm not
prepared for all of you people to be here.‘ They
had been let in by someone else, by a neighbor next
door. They were waiting. It was late and I
arrived and I, being a very proper southern woman
always, always polite and, you know, in good form
and never showing anything of family problems, this
was a very dramatic beginning. It was a very good
beginning in that sense. And so what I had to do
was work towards calming myself down, getting my
house in order, putting away the evidence and being
charming to the audience and inviting them to just,
to wait for a moment and in a few minutes we'd have

tea.43

Madeleine Sherwood

61
Charles Nelson Reilly offers the following description of
another one—person show in which the audience is assigned a

role:

Now, in Araarhmus, the play begins where he comes
out of this big trunk which is like a coffin, but
it's really the prop trunk, and he goes to the
Pearly Gates, the gates of Heaven, and he turns to
the audience and he says, 'I'm sorry. I didn't
mean to get ahead of you.’ So right away the
audience is given an identity. They are people who
have...died and are waiting in line and what
happens is he asks them to please decide whether he
should go into heaven or not. That's the
trick...which you've got to do from the beginning.

You've got to give the audience an identity.44
___Charles Nelson Reilly

Playwright William Luce presents a dissenting opinion
when he states, "...I feel that the audiences like peeking
through a window at a character sometimes, and they don't
feel that terrible need to explain their existence or why
they're hearing all of these personal things."45 The
overriding view, however, is that held by Robert Benedetti
and Arthur French:

The trick is to encourage the actor to relate to
the audience just as if they were a character on
stage. That is to expand their available
awareness. To make themselves available to being
present with the audience and allow the audience to
be present with them so that contact is really made
and they play off [each other]....When you're
alone, if you can use the audience, then you have
to receive from the audience in precisely the same
way that you would want to receive from another
character. So that's your motivation, which then
generates through the reaction that you make to

what you're getting, your aspiration.46

Robert Benedetti

62

One of the things I suggest when people have things
to talk to the audience, is to determine who is
that audience. Who are those people? If we're
going to talk directly out, then we can make those
people who we choose to make them. Are they our
peers? Are we, You know, are we a teacher teaching
them something? Are they friends? Are they
enemies? Who are they? Why would they care about
what I have to say. Very often I say to actors,
'you know that the only reason that people in the
audience listen to you is because we're in the
classroom, we're in the auditorium,’ but you must
ask yourself, 'I've got a story I want to tell.

Who cares about this? Who cares about...this story
or this experience I want to share with them? Who
are these people?' So that the actor then, in
order to continue this chain, must determine who
he's speaking to and why he has a need to tell them

this story.47
___Arthur French
In addition to determining the audience's identity, the

actor must have a need to tell his or her story and a
specific objective or intention which, in most cases, is
directed toward those seated in the auditorium. According to
Professor Gerald Miller, there exists a correlation between
the performer's need to relate the material and the
audience's attention and receptiveness to it:

Most of the theories that have to do with receiver
retention and response usually will focus...on what
are called New-Look Theories of Perception. That
is to say the notion that we tend to perceive those
stimuli in the overall environment that are most in
harmony with our needs, requirements of that time.
Notions...called 'selective exposure' [state] that
[we are] more likely to expose ourselves to
information and to behavior that is congruent with
our beliefs or in harmony with those beliefs and
more likely to avoid information and behavior
that's discrepant. So I think...you could say that
the mere fact that an audience member is there and
paid a reasonably fair amount of money...to come
and see this performance or participate in this
performance as a viewer, a listener, would say they

63

must have some interest in what's going on. So I
would think one advantage might be that the
performer or performers would have an audience that
was initially predisposed to attending to
them....[In addition] if they [the audience]
perceived some need to associate with whatever his
or her message might be they're likely to attend
more closely. The extent that the performer is
able to generate an enthusiasm and an urgency about
their message, this already reasonably high level

of interest ought to be further enhanced.48
Gerald Miller

Charles Nelson Reilly states that, "They [solo performers]
just have to believe what they're doing is important because
as my teacher [Uta Hagen] said, 'the most important thing in
the theatre is the importance of the event.'"49 William Luce
is in agreement: "...the character has to be imbued with a
motivation....I mean the audience has to feel...this is
coming, pouring out because of this crucial situation on
stage."50 Arthur French relates the following:

I think the first thing you must do, you must be

interested in it and you must have a need, your own

personal need to tell this story. The story must

be important to you. You must have, then, a need

to share this story with these people for whatever

reason you determine, whether it's to enlighten

them, to share with them if they're your buddies,

whatever. You're interested in the story. It's

exciting to you and then you will convey it to us
for whatever purpose. If it's not interesting to

you, then who cares about it?51
___Arthur French
The interviewees felt that this enthusiasm for the story
and the need to communicate it to an audience must be
translated into carefully considered and specific objectives.

Michael Kahn refers to this as, "the old-fashioned word

64
'intention'. Whether it is to confide, to convince, to
know...I mean...what are you doing here?"52 As Charles
Waxberg describes it...

The essence of all theatre is conflict...what you
have to do is find something to play against and
that depends on the show itself. So the audience
has got to become something very real to you and it
has to be something in them that you are trying to
overcome so they become some kind of obstacle, not
necessarily a hostile one, but they become some,
you've turned them into something that will help
you convey what you're trying to do within the
play. There's a reason you're sharing something.
Either you're trying to, for example, correct a
misconception of the kind of person you are or you
are trying to instruct them. You're basically
talking about your life so there's something you
want to convey through the process of your life.
Now, whatever it is you choose to do, the audience
has got to, in some way, serve as something that
interferes with your immediate communication of

that.53
___Charles Waxberg
To have concrete objectives in one's relation to the audience
is also viewed as crucial by Hal Holbrook, Robert Benedetti
and Robert Cohen:

I'm projecting thoughts. That's all there is to
it. I'm projecting thoughts, whatever you are
getting--if you are imagining I'm talking to you--
is because you are receiving my thoughts. I don't
even have to be looking at you for you to feel that
way. If I'm out there acting up a storm waving my
arms around trying to do all this clever kind of
showy stuff, then I'm not dealing in the realm of
thought. The secret to Mark Twain's material, at
least, probably most material, is that you are out
there trying to get thoughts across to an audience
and make them think with you. That's the key to it
as far as I can make out. I'm not trying to do any
particular thing at all in terms of contacting an
audience or making them feel one way or another,
except to make them think with me--to get ideas, to
receive my idea, to receive my thought. And they
get the thought and it explodes in their mind,

65

whether it is a humorous thought that makes them
laugh or a serious thought that suddenly quiets
them...and I'm drilling it into their heads. It is
intention--it just goes back to good acting...the

word really is intention.54
Hal Holbrook

[In the one-person show] all of the same acting
techniques involving the sense of objective,
something that you're trying to get, a desired
change that you're trying to get from the other
person, which is the way that I like to express the
sense of objective, [apply]. The objective is
something, a change, that you're trying to win from
the other person. So the question to ask the actor
at those points is, what do you want from the
audience? Do you want them to understand the
difficulty that you're having? Do you want them to
agree with your point of view? Are you using them
as a sounding board where...you would like them to
give you advice? Whatever the relationship might
be [it should be] in an active form so that the
actor is seeking for, aspiring as Stanislavski
would put it, has an aspiration to achieve, an
objective which takes the form of a change in the
audience. And I guess I could say that underneath
all of this, I think in the years that I've been
teaching acting I've perceived only two principles
that I believe absolutely must be achieved in any
acting situation: that is that the actor's
awareness and the actor's energy must be flowing
outward towards an external objective, whether
that's another character in the scene or whether
it's to the god's or whatever... but the energy has
to be going outward towards another. It does not
work for an actor's energy to be directed inwardly.

It stops the dramatic event.55
Robert Benedetti

I think [the connection is made] by making the text
a series of invocations, appeals, threats...to put
pressure on the audience, to request and demand
assistance from the audience. I think the key

. words here are invocation and proposal and
solicitation and attempts to amuse...I'm trying to
win over some new friends. I want a counsel. Who
doesn't want a counsel? Don't you want a counsel?
Let's have some counsels around here. The trouble
with this world is there's not enough counsels,

right?56
____Robert Cohen

66
___Robert Cohen

Once the actor has given the audience an identity,
generated a fervent need to tell them the story, and
established concrete objectives, he must then determine,
specifically, the most effective techniques of presentation.
Those interviewed offered a number of insights into the
acting of one-person shows. A number disclosed that
performing in a direct address situation reminded them of
story telling, public speaking or, in several cases, what
they perceived to be the experience of doing stand-up comedy:

I find that the connection with the audience, the
one-to-one connection, I find that tremendously
helpful. I just want to think of it as telling a

bunch of people who are interested in the subject
anyway...telling them, you know, the story of my

little evening.57
Brian Bedford

Every once in a while I am asked to talk to

executives about doing speeches....It is exactly
the same thing, you know, when an executive does a
public speech or a politician....If they are scared

of the people, if they can't really look at one
person and another person in the eye when they
speak, the speech is not effective because the
person who is listening doesn't feel effective to
it, doesn't feel sucked into it. And I think it is
the same principle actually. [In] speeches where
the person has talked to the room generally and we
have not felt so involved, I think if we felt we
had been talked to it would have made a difference.

So I think it is the same.58
Michael Kahn

Actors are alarmed when they have to talk directly
to an audience and...if you're talking to the
audience, you talk to the audience like you talk to
like, well, like in All_My_$Qns the father will
talk to the son, only the father now talks to the
audience. It's really the same process except the
partner is not in the set area where the actors
usually are but they're out in the house. But it's

67

still the same process...and most actors get along
with that....Once [they] get over the fact that
they're alone...and the fact that they are talking
to the audience, like Henny Youngman, at the Sands
Hotel, then they're fine. That takes just a little
while and they realize it's sort of like the same

thing.59
Charles Nelson Reilly

You know the thing that just struck me as we're
talking in terms of this is that the big lesson, of
course, in all of this is to watch stand-up comics
work. [Working the audience]...that's exactly what
it is. I remember watching James Whitmore doing
Will Rogers and the stories about Hal Holbrook as
well, doing Mark Twain. I mean, he reached a point
from what I understand that he had just vast
amounts of material and he could change in the
course of performance, just shift from one story to
another to another, depending on the feel of the
house and that's basically an ideal concept of the

situation, what we want to be able to do.60
Sabin Epstein

And also in a one-person show, interestingly
enough, if you're talking to the audience, then you
have to deal with them. You know, are you telling
them a joke and if you're telling a funny story,
I'm sure it's going to be different for you if they
laugh or if they just kind of sit there and it
doesn't work. You have to then, the same way we
would deal with another character, respond to that,
to get a feel from that audience. Is this audience
really listening to this story here?...The actor
then, you know, if you tell a joke like you do in
real life where you tell something, you see how a
person responds to it. Are they laughing or are
they just smiling or are they wondering what was
suppose to be funny? And I think that will also
take the performer somewhere else. It will tell
you, whoa,...it's a rough night. I've got to work
a little harder here or they're not a responsive
audience or maybe they're responding in a different
way. So with all the things I've said we still go
back...that we have to respond then to what we're

getting back.61

Arthur French

68
In the case of this particular production [ElDrBr]
a great deal of conversation was me working in one
to the audience. In other words, I opened the show
sitting in the wheelchair talking to the audience
and I would go in and out of the scene, so we had
two turntables and we would go in and out of the
scenes with other people, then go back to bridge
the scenes when the turntable would move around to
bring in new furniture. I would go back below the
turntable and talk to the audience. So it was a
combination of doing kind of a nightclub act in the
sense of talking to the audience and doing jokes
during that period and then going back up and doing
an actual semi-play for them where I was talking to
imaginary people. I go back to the phrase
'nightclub act', because after awhile I began to
realize when I was playing it on stage, all
alone...that playing a one-man show is like working
as a comedian, in one with an audience, because you
can basically do anything you want and they'll go
along with it. You can take enormous pauses and
get off on a sidetrack if you want to for whatever
reason, losing your lines or forgetting something,
a piece of business and since you are the only one
they are looking at, it doesn't make any difference
within reason how long you take to do anything.
Because they are assuming that the next thing that
is going to happen of any importance you are going
to do anyway. So it is kind of a unique experience.
It is very much, as I say, like working in a
nightclub where the audience is only looking at

you.62
Robert Vaughn

Other techniques were discussed, all of which having
been employed in an effort to make the one-person show more
inclusive: to strengthen the relationship between actor and
audience. These techniques seemed to parallel those used in
the previously discussed direct address areas of public
speaking and stand-up‘comedy. Brian Bedford stated that he
would consciously, "dish it out to various areas." He added,
"you have to do that."63 Distribution of focus, in fact, was
mentioned by a number of the respondents. Robert Vaughn said

that he, "would address as much of the theatre area,

69
including the balconies, as I could, just by generally
looking around to make everybody feel included...."64
Charles Waxberg and Robert Benedetti also agreed that this
was an important method to increase audience/performer
interaction:

I would compare it most favorably with a good
fourth-wall technique. When you are doing a play,
you can't be as close, as intimate as you might be
during a love scene in real life because you need
to include the audience so what you create is your
fourth-wall and on that fourth wall might be
moldings or photographs, pipes, cracks in the
ceiling and as you speak, your eye wanders around
the room as anyone's does...Well, if you're doing a
one- person show, then you need to include the
audience. But you have to be more specific in
looking at them. So, if you were to pick twelve
people, I wouldn't put them house left. I would
put them scattered through the house. You may
decide that they do move around. Or I would put
them close enough that they do fill the entire
scope of your vision. You imagine someone sitting,
I don't know, eighteen feet from you, twelve people
lined up in a circle of chairs, that'll cover
pretty much house left to right and center, of

course.65
Charles Waxberg

Actually, I think that the best way to handle that
is for the actor to relate personally to a limited
number of people that are scattered in the general
area of the audience. It doesn't work to relate to
an anonymous mass so I think you do have to single
out individual people that become in a sense
representatives of the rest of the audience. And
it's best if, of course, geographically those
points of focus, those individuals that you're
focusing on are scattered around so that you don't
play exclusively to only one element, one part of
the audience....There was about a ten year period
of my life when every play I directed regardless of
it's form was done with the house lights on.
Because even in a naturalistic play I believed that
the actor is wearing his hat to include the

audience in the loop.66
Robert Benedetti

7O
Madeleine Sherwood relates an interesting story concerning
her method of gaining confidence and skill in direct address:

The first time I did it I wanted to see the
people's faces so, therefore, we had full house
lights so that I could. It also starts to get you
over the agony of actually looking at an audience.
It's not easy looking at an audience. It's very
difficult to break down the fourth-wall and be in
total contact. And then I would pick somebody that
I knew that I was not very close with or had had
some...words with or whatever. When I wanted to
engender a different kind of feeling in the beast,
for instance, if I was talking about the doctor who
I hated, you know, it helped to have somebody there
that I was not fond of, to say it lightly. Or at
another point in the piece it might have been very
helpful to have somebody there in the audience that
I could look at that would give me all of the
sympathy I wanted, and I wanted sympathy for what
Tom was going through in the hospital. What it did
was help me very much when I got down to a place

where I knew nobody in the audience.67
___Madeleine Sherwood
Robert Benedetti states that whenever it is appropriate he
encourages the actor to "move...down center and relate as
personally and as directly to the audience as possible...."68
Sabin Epstein has several suggestions:

...the most obvious thing is that you search out
and ferret out all the humor that you possibly can
so that you work for direct, immediate response,
direct feedback through laughter. The big gauge,
always, certainly when I'm watching something that
I've worked on, I try and sit in the back of the
house and I watch the audience rather than what's
happening on stage to judge from the quality of the
stillness and the quality of the silence or the
points in time when people lean into the action
[or] when they shift--shifting is also a major
cue. I mean, it has everything to do with the
level of engagement of an audience and that's what
one works for all the time. I mean, they're really
elemental and basic tricks in terms of being able
to do some of that stuff, in terms of changing
tempo, changing volume, slowing things down,

71

getting quieter, use of lighting, revelation of
secrets or those kinds of dramatic moments that

will pretty much pull an audience in.69
Sabin Epstein
A key point that Epstein raises, and one which was
repeated in several of the interviews, is that in a one-
person show the performer can immediately gauge how the
audience is responding, and be directly effected by those
responses:
...and they get the thought and it explodes in
their mind, whether it is a humorous thought that
makes them laugh or a serious thought that suddenly
quiets them down. I feel, I sense it. I'm
listening. My ears are wide open and I'm hearing

everything. The silence is as much or more than
the laughter and it is a communication of

thoughts.70

Hal Holbrook
I mean, every actor can sense the audience's
reaction, their silence, their breathing patterns,

their chuckles, their coughs, the rustling of
programs and you know how attentive an audience is

always on stage and you know how alive they are.71
Robert Cohen

I start the play and then I always remember saying,

'Oh, peOple really are listening.’ I can hear them
listening...because of the quality of the silence.
You can listen to silence. I can anyway, can't

you? As the play goes on, there's this sort of
difference in the silence...Ihe_Belle has a lot of
laughter in it, but in the more serious parts, I

could really hear them listening.'72
Julie Harris
Perhaps the most obvious and important technique to employ

when performing a one-person show is to genuinely speak to

72

the audience. Charles Nelson Reilly relates the following

story:

I never saw The_Belle_gf_Amhersr with anybody but
Miss Harris except one night. My friend...Timothy
Helgeson, directed a production in San Francisco at
this wonderful theater, the Berkeley Repertory
Theater....And it was very interesting 'cause the
actress was superb. [She] did one scene better
than Miss Harris. You can write that down.
Anyway, the rejection scene from Thomas Wentworth
Higginson, she did amazing. But the point is, she
came out, it was opening night, and she came out
and she performed an act and a half brilliantly
talking to the audience. You know, how the play
goes, 'This is my mother, my garden is out that
window and look at the bird.‘ And what happened
was, in the middle of the second act, she went
higher than a kite 'cause it hit her that she was
almost through and she got through it alive because
it's difficult. And she panicked and she went up
on my favorite line which is, 'I never cared for
Abbey Farley. I always thought she was a little
tart, but Otis says she makes good apple pie.‘
Now, that line doesn't mean anything but I think
it's the most clever line in the world....I mean,
she really was gone and then she talked to the
audience and she said, 'I'm sorry but I have to go
off and look at it. I'm petrified.’ Well, what
would you do? You can't turn to the chorus and
say, 'sing it again.’ You can't turn to anybody.
And she was superb. She really was wonderful, Joy
Clement, I think her name is. She walked out. She
looked at the script and came back. But you see
what was so interesting as an acting teacher is,
although she comes out in the very beginning at 8
o'clock or 8:06, and says, 'My name is Emily
Elizabeth Dickinson...I'm named after my cousin
Elizabeth on Father's side.'...But the point I want
to make is, she talked to the audience at 8:06
and...the original director and conceiver of the
play thought she was brilliant and then at ten
minutes to ten, she reallx talked...and the stage
lit up. I mean, it was like there was a light cue
because although I was fooled, the whole audience
[was] when she was talking to us about the
garden...when she really had to talk to us, she
really talked to us...[She had] fooled us, and she
even fooled the original conceiver ....'I've got to
go off.’ I mean, it was real. And so should have
been the whole play. 'That's the little garden

73
path out that window,‘ then it wouldn't show when
she really talked to us, it wouldn't have stuck

out. Only she wasn't talking to us when she was
talking to us, that's why it stuck out like the

lights went up six hundred volts.'73
___Charles Nelson Reilly

Perhaps the most significant relationship exists between
the actor and the audience. It is through this interaction
that the give and take inherent to conventional, multi-
character presentations is approximated. The majority of
solo actors choose direct address to engage the audience.
The interviewees expressed a belief that an effective
technique to establish this connection is to cast the
audience as the 'other character'. In addition they felt
that the actor must have a strong need to tell his or her
story, and a specific audience-centered objective.
Techniques of address include methods used in story telling,
public speaking and stand-up comedy. Of these, the most
important is perhaps the most elemental--simply and honestly
talking to the audience and being sensitive and responsive to
their reactions. The study will now focus on a third type of
relationship which is evident in the one-person show—-

relating to imaginary characters.

BMW:

...it's a little like doing fiarygy or something, you know,
where I've got to follow that rabbit around and not lose it
for one single second--and it's not easy. It's very
difficult. That in itself posed an enormous problem. An
enormous challenge is a better word for it. It was

challenging creating that character and making her work.74

74

Relating to the audience through direct address is, in
the main, the method of choice when performing a one-person
show. However, interacting with imaginary characters is also
used, to varying degrees, in solo productions. Presented in
this fashion, the one-person show retains many of the
features of fourth-wall drama: the performer creates his
acting partners in his 'mind's eye' and relates to them as if
they were present on stage. The audience is not formally
acknowledged. The specificity and vividness of his/her
vision and the skill with which interaction is simulated,
determines, to a great degree, whether or not the spectator
will accept the convention and, consequently, whether the
show succeeds or fails. Twelve of the respondents considered
the use of illusory characters a topic of sufficient
significance to warrant discussion. There are those, in
fact, who would argue that this technique provides a more
satisfying theatrical experience for the viewer than does
direct address. Bruce McDougall, in his article, "The Bare
Necessity of One-Man Shows," writes:

These productions [one-person shows using imaginary
characters]...free the performers from the
restrictions of addressing the audience directly--
the fourth—wall can be rebuilt so the audience
remains detached from the action on stage. And the
playwright and the performer can draw from a wider
range of theatrical effects than if the material
were presented directly to the audience. As Clarke
Rogers says, many one-person shows are no longer
addressed directly to the audience because such a
presentation leads to 'rhetorical inevitability'

and can become very 'school-teacherish. An
audience comes to the theatre to exercise its

75

imagination, not for facts. If they want facts,
they can watch the news.'75

___Bruce McDougall
While William Luce, in his plays, has "gradually gotten away
from having the protagonist address unseen characters on
stage,“76 he agrees that this tactic can be most effective:
...with Ihe_Belle_Qfi_AmhersL, I did employ the

address of unseen characters...and others have done
that, too. And an audience has accepted that

device...[a1though] once in awhile a critic who
doesn't like that feels cheated, feels it's a
trick....But it's very successful with audiences,

there is a readiness to accept these devices and
they seem to work wonderfully. For instance, in
the second act of this Dennison play [LngifierLa
Child], suddenly Julie is thinking of Dennis
Finchhatten and how elusive he was and how he
didn't want to commit himself to a relationship.
And she enters into an argument immediately with
him and takes both parts, which she does so
beautifully. So she's raging at him and he is
talking back to her and finally at the end, she
suddenly sags and she says, 'What has happened to
us, Dennis Finchhatten, my old friend,’ and she
turns away. In other words, dismisses him and with
a lighting change, she's back with the audience

again.77
‘___William Luce
'Imaging' or to 'image' is defined as follows: 1. To
call up a mental picture of. 2. To describe or portray in a
vivid manner. 3. To make appear.78 If unseen characters are
to be employed as a means of establishing relationships in a
one-person show, and if these characters are to live in the
audience's imagination, they must be made flesh and blood in
the performer's eye. They must be vividly imaged. Charles

Nelson Reilly, also speaking of Julie Harris, relates...

76

...When Julie was in one of her great moods, I
would actually see in the dark shadows in the night
scene, her brother's broadcloth collar on his coat,
standing in front of her and I saw that many
times....So in other words the other characters are
so evoked that you can costume them....And
sometimes I would see the cat, and in Bronte there
is a scene about a mouse running around the stage
and one night, truly, a real mouse was out there in
exactly the same place where it usually is
imaginary. She would do the same thing she did
[when] the real mouse was there. The audience
always said the mouse was wonderful...because it
looked like the same thing with or without the

mouse. I think that's interesting.'79

Charles Nelson Reilly
Sabin Epstein discusses the need for specificity when

relating to unseen characters:

...imaging is crucial in not just a one-person show
but in any piece. But when you are alone on
stage...one of the major things that you have to
avoid is generalizations. The thing that holds an
audience's attention is when you are specific; when
the actor is specific, whether it's talking about a
specific incident or a specific object or another
person....The actor's task is to recreate life,
whether they're alone on stage or with other people
and quite often when you're talking about the past,
you have to be able to see it as we do in real
life. You see it to describe it. And [in] that
process of imaging--there are different steps to
it--whether it's substitution or personalization or
endowment,...it [must all be made] personal,
personal enough that you can speak about it from a
point of personal reference, so that it has
meaning, and hopefully not just meaning but

passion.
Sabin Epstein
In presenting a similar view, Arthur French states:

We don't see the other person but the actor must
see that person, must hear that person, must know
that other person's response so that they can then
respond to their image's responses. If the other
person is sneering at them or laughing at them or
laughing with them or crying, then the actor must

77
see it. Because if the actor doesn't see it, we in
the audience sure in hell will never see it. In a

one-person show what that actor must do is make us
see that other person and make us know what that

person's responses are.81
___Arthur French
Vivid creation of imaginary characters can indeed prove
to be a compelling effect on stage. It is, however, in the
words of Michael Kahn, not easy: "And so I think they [the
actors] have to imagine very, very carefully who those people
[the imagined characters] are and what they are saying....You
really do two actor's work. You have to do yours and
theirs."82
The task is undeniably a difficult one. But what
methods can the performer employ to facilitate this conjuring
of imagined characters? How is it possible to enhance his or
her connection to unseen stage companions and in so doing
increase the audience's acceptance and understanding of the
convention? According to the interviewees, the aim must be
for specificity. Charles Nelson Reilly believes that this
specificity resides in and results from the actor's
imagination:
You don't need ice, roller skates or mirrors or
chandeliers...all the sound systems and the light
shows. You don't need any of that. You need [as
Julie Harris provided in The_Belle_gf_AmhersL] the

imaginary broadcloth collar of the brother...and
then you're in the theatre....We don't need the

other actors. An actor just needs a mind.83

Charles Nelson Reilly

78

In discussing the imaging of other characters, Robert Cohen

offers the following:

The other characters aren't on stage so you have to
have very specific notions of who they are. In my
Mad_Lndwig, there were a whole bunch of historical
characters and fortunately the person who was doing
it was the author and he had very clear ideas of
who these people were that he was talking about and
so did the audience. I mean, he was not an expert
actor, unfortunately, but he was able to compensate
in many ways by the vividness of his portrayal of
these people. Every time he referred to them and
kind of looked off in the direction that he
envisioned them, his breathing rate changed to the
way he would breathe in their presence. Do you
know what I mean? And his eyes would narrow when
he looked at people who had betrayed him. I mean,
it was just kind of a natural reaction for
him....As a director, I say clarity is my middle
name. Whenever anybody, in any play I direct,
refers to somebody important, who's not a character
in the play but is important in the context of the
play, I try to locate that person geographically so
that sometimes they'll even kind of look off in the
direction, I mean, if the play is in Venice and
this character is Milan, Milan is over here. It's
not that every time they refer to them they look
over in the direction of Milan. But at key moments
that they do. They really have a sense of where
that person is geographically and who that person
is very specifically so that they respond to a
human presence, not just an abstraction. I think

it's even more important in a one-person play.84

Robert Cohen

Robert Benedetti also addressed the difficulty of using

illusory characters and the need for vivid and specific

images:

I've seen one-person shows in which some of the
material at least assumed the presence of another
person...who ought not to be in the audience given
the nature of the material. What does the actor
do?...It's a tremendous spiritual exercise, I
think, for the actor to create a sense of the other
character that is so complete that the actor is
able to respond to it really as if it had a life of

79

its own....It is possible to get to that point. It
is possible to get to the point where you so
totally believe in the presence of the other
character that you begin to relate to it as if it

were another person...85

___Robert Benedetti
The question still remains: what tangible techniques can be
employed by the performer to make these unseen characters
'live'? How does the actor breathe life so deeply into them,
so vividly imagine them, that they furnish the give-and-take
relationship normally provided by other actors? Clarity
seems to be paramount. As Robert Cohen indicated, it is
essential that these characters be 'placed' or 'blocked' with
absolute precision so that the actor has a clear and constant
sense of where they are located. In agreeing with Cohen,
Robert Benedetti comments:

I think it helps to place that image on a tangible
object, an exit sign or a pillar in the
balcony....I do a lot of film and television acting
now, and when they come to shoot your reactions
you're supposedly looking at the other person and
usually the other person is there helping you out,
standing off camera and you can actually look at
them. But once in a while, because of the demands
of the camera, your eyes have to be focused on a
spot that's impossible for anybody to get to and
then we usually ask for a target. We ask for one
of the grips to put a piece of tape or to put a
little paper plate or any real object that we can
allow our eyes to settle on. And I think that the
actor needs to do the same thing. In a live
theater situation when they're relating to an
imagined character at the back of the auditorium,
they have to pick a spot, a physical thing that
they can see which provides an actual physical
target for their eyes. Then they can turn that into
the person that they're talking to a lot easier
than if they're just staring blankly into space and

trying to project like a hologram.86
Robert Benedetti

80
Arthur French believes that, in addition to giving these
characters precise locations, the actor must be clear in his
attitudes toward them:

People we refer to...in the presentational kind of
one-man show...we must have a full view of who that
person is. If I'm talking about my mother, well, I
must know how I feel about my mother? Was she a
loving mother? Was she a bitch? Was she
overbearing or was she sweet? Was she kind? What
was she?....Even if I talk about her, without going
into deep thing, it will be colored in a certain
way. So even though I'm not, I'm not talking to
her, you will get a sense of how I feel about my
mother. How I feel about my wife, my child, my
husband, my lover, whatever. But those, anyone you
talk about certainly, you must have a clear picture
of who they are, how you feel about them, any place
we talk about, including whatever environment we're
in. If I say, well, I went to Paris, but then
before we do this, I must have a clear sense of
what Paris meant to me. Was it a wonderful,
exciting time or was it the pits so that when I
speak of all of these places as the show goes on,
as I talk of other people, which is gonna happen in
any show. What is he gonna talk about? He's gonna
talk about a place. He's gonna talk about people.
They're gonna talk about the law or their
environment in their time, so we must then, in the
script as we work on it, have a clear, a very clear
idea of what do I feel about this. Am I talking
about the queen? How do I feel about my cat that I
have? Is he a joy to me or is he, you know, an imp
or what? And if we have this, if we know who these
people are, what we feel about them. What we feel
about our surroundings. What we feel about the
places we've traveled. People in one-person plays
talk about their childhood--when they grew up.
Well, it's very important than to know if that was
a pleasant childhood. Was it wonderful or was it
not so wonderful? Are you glad it's over or do you
wish you were back there? So, if we really work
and know who we are and know these people we're
talking about---it's gonna be different if I talk
about Aunt Mary than if I talk about Aunt Susie.

If I have clear pictures, it will come out

different.87

Arthur French

81
Several of the respondents felt that such specificity was
reached through extensive research, the use of photographs or
paintings and assigning the imagined characters specific
tasks or dialogue:

I talk to people. In both the Brgnré and The_Belle
Qf_AmheraL, I know exactly from photographs or
paintings, how the people looked so...I carry on as
if they are really there....it's almost as if I'd
had a stand in but it's just in my mind. In
Bronte, when the father comes into the study for
the first time after Charlotte has come home, I
picture him, he greets me and he breaks down and
cries and I have to comfort him. So, I actually
give them things to do which I respond to. So then
I help him into the chair and I try to comfort him.
I pat his hand. It's not pantomime. I don't think
it's pantomime. I don't do it as if it's
pantomime. I do it as if the hand is really there.
I mean by that...it's an emotional thing. It's
just as if you were standing there and I'd help you
into the chair....A1though I never did it with a
real person, I take hold of his arm and I help him

into the chair.88
Julie Harris

So there is another acting problem, how do you
people the stage? I don't know how you do that. I
think you imagine it....I think in your own mind,
in that wonderful area called imagination, you see
those people....I'll tell you something else I
used. Those marvelous pictures of Gertrude and Leo
when they first went to Paris and how her arm is in
his and she is looking up at him like, 'Oh!, my
wonderful big brother, my protector, my leader, my
mentor'. The next picture they are shoulder to
shoulder. The third picture, the other brother and
sister-in-law are standing between them and they
are quite distanced and that is the way that
relationship seemed to crumble. And I found the
more I got into the play, the more I used the image
of those photographs. I used those photographs of
Leo and Gertrude...and I really got so lost in that
scene [the fight between them] that sometimes
...when the scene was over I really felt schizoid.
For the first time in my life I had the feeling
that you can be two people and represent two
different viewpoints....It is incredible. Well,
I'll tell you, in my entire life in this

82

profession, I've never done a piece of work like
that.89

Pat Carroll

Since this was a real man [F.D.R.] who talked to
real people, I spent a great deal of time prior to
going into rehearsal researching who the people
were and what they looked like and what the
relationship was to them. I spent a whole week at
the Hyde Park library in New York with access to
all the film that that library contains on
Roosevelt from the beginning of his career, when he
was first photographed. Plus all the other film
that had people in it who were actually in the play
also. Many of these people were eliminated during
the course of the editing, but I knew what
everybody looked like and I knew basically what his
relationship was to them and how tall they were and
if they were standing next to him, whether they
were five feet tall or six feet four, and I tried
to incorporate that to the most part in the
performance, which meant nothing to anybody in the
audience, only to me....[Also] the director would
improvise the dialogue with me. It was important
to me because if it wasn't clear to me, it wouldn't

be clear to the audience.90
___Robert Vaughn
Another technique felt to enhance the reality with which
the solo performer relates to unseen characters, is the use
of other people during rehearsals. Robert Benedetti is one
who believes this to be an effective tool:

...but when you create a scene that's being played
with another person who's not really there it's a
little tougher to really be in action and have the
competency...to give us as much of a tangible basis
to that relationship as he can provide. Perhaps by
rehearsing the scene with other people present...we
develop a kind of sense memory specifically for the
playing of that scene....I think it would be great
in a one-person show, just as I sometimes do in
multiple person shows, to go to locations that are
appropriate to the locations in which the character
is meant to be living and I certainly think that
somebody doing a one-person show that involves
other characters ought to spend some time

83

rehearsing with other actors present playing those
other characters.91

Robert Benedetti
In agreement is Arthur French:

What I've suggested is that when people even do
monologues, because most monologues are really not
monologues, they're duologues with one person
talking and some person listening, I've even
suggested that you get the people there in the
rehearsal process...so that you get a sense that
it's not just an actor standing in front of a group
of people reading a monologue...it's someone
talking to someone else. There are very few true
monologues. There are some soliloquies, but if you
take these monologues out, you'll find that it's a
person talking to someone and the other person is
listening and reacting even though we don't see
them. So, I've even suggested in monologues that
people set the set up. Get the other person there
for the purpose of rehearsal. So you get a sense
of what that person's response might be. You can
choose or pick it as you like, but to get a sense
of that so that when we then eliminate it, you have
a sense of what happens when you say certain things

to someone, how they might react to it.92
Arthur French

A slightly different approach, but with a similar aim, was
taken by Madeliene Sherwood. While not using other actors
during rehearsals, she made a specific and detailed choice as
to the identity of her unseen stage partner and gave this
character precise dialogue and actions which in turn served
to stimulate her own responses:

I found someone for myself and it changed during

the first week of rehearsal. It changed until I

finally popped on to the person that was really

going to work for me. As an actor I could make

them anything that I wanted...within my own self

working I could make them who I wanted, make her,

who I wanted, it was a her...I had to wait for her

response quite often so that I could come up with
the next answer to the question that she presumably

84
asked me....She became someone who was very very
special to me. She was a very personable person.
I found her maybe six or seven days into rehearsal
and that was who it was for the rest of the time.
I'm not going to say who it was, because if I do it

again...I may be using the same person and I know
that from actors' ways of working a lot of us don't

like to give away what we think of as our secret.93
___Madeleine Sherwood

Relating to imaginary characters, either in addition to
or in place of direct address, is an approach taken by many
solo performers. Its effectiveness is dependent upon the
vividness, the specificity with which the actor peoples the
stage with these unseen characters. Techniques to improve
the efficacy of imaging include: 1) carefully 'placing'
imaginary characters in particular and consistent locations,
2) the use of paintings and photographs to imprint an actual
image within the actor's mind, 3) having other actors assume
the roles and responses of these imagined figures during
rehearsals, and 4) drawing from one's own experiences to
determine evocative images.

The final type of relationship to be considered in this
Focus Area is the actor's interaction with props, music,
lighting and the physical environment.

Elli I [Hi E II . 1.“. II]
Wm
...when they [the other actors] are not there, then I think
whatever else there is that can help the actor to be centered

and grounded and not self-conscious, such as props or music,
I think is important. I think they are all evocative and

also give the actor someplace to concentrate.94

Michael Kahn

85

Other resources to further a sense of connection include
the use of props, music, sound effects, lighting and the
physical environment in which the actor is to perform. Nine
of the respondents felt that these elements contribute
significantly to the art of solo performance. Arthur French,
for example, states that the use of props in a one-person
show is an important and effective way to reveal the actor's
character to an audience:

...they are critical. With the help of all the
elements, the lighting, the sets, props, all of
that--we will come out with a unique character, and
not one that you've kind of sat down and pumped
into your computer and just rolls out
everyday....The set and your props certainly are
important [and] it's very important how you handle
props [because] the way you handle them tells us
something about this character, how this character

feels about certain things.95
___Arthur French
To Sabin Epstein, props serve as a visual link to what the
spectator hears and therefore help to facilitate the
actor/audience relationship:

...the objects become extraordinarily powerful
props... external sources to redirect an audience's
focus. Because what we hear is so tied into what
we see that the visual can stimulate your
ear...[for example] by changing the light level you
will change the way the audience hears. An actor
can speak at exactly the same point of volume but
if you raise the lights two points, the audience
will think that the actor is louder. [Props, music,
or lighting] are more crucial [in a one-person
show]...because every object has to tell a story
and every object that is there has to relate to the
person who is speaking, so that everything has a

history and provides a form of visual relief.96

Sabin Epstein

86
While props, music and lighting can serve to heighten an
audience's enjoyment and understanding of a one-person show,
of greater relevance is their impact upon and contribution to
the actor during performance. From a practical standpoint,
as Sabin Epstein points out, they provide external sources of
stimulation:

...having objects is very helpful, props, because
they can help trigger you. They can help guide you
back. They provide a source of stimulation....It's
possible at times to build in physical associations
with objects, things that will trigger a story or
an image at a crucial moment. If you get lost, you

can go back to them to help guide you.97
I Sabin Epstein
Colleen Dewhurst relied heavily upon lighting and props

during My_fiene:

They were very important. I mean the lighting was
important in certain areas. The isolation of her,
particularly when you went into other roles. Just
to define for the house and for you yourself a
change, you know, if it went to moonlight and at
the end when she describes...his death. That was
very easy to do...and then to be able to handle
anyrhihg (laughter)!!! To be able to find some
things, to sit at a desk and even put your hands on
the desk and kind of address them. I had little
things, little earrings, little gloves that half
the time wouldn't go on, things like that, but at

least it gave me a self-involvement.98
___Colleen Dewhurst
In speaking of the use of props by the solo performer,
Robert Cohen simply says, "I would say they are absolutely
crucial. More so in a one-person show because that's the
whole world. You have to create a world through one person,

and beautiful work with props creates the whole world."99

87
Charles Nelson Reilly also is an enthusiastic believer in the
importance of props:

...I use lots of props. Props are interesting.
When Ann Jackson spoke at my friend's, Geraldine
Page's, funeral, she said, 'Geraldine Page taught
me the importance of props.’ I just think props
are so important...if we don't have the other

actors.100
___Charles Nelson Reilly

According to a number of the respondents, however, the
actor must be careful to avoid generalizations in the use of
props as well as an over-reliance upon them. His/her
connection to each article must be specific, and the number
and employment of props judiciously planned. As Michael
Kahn relates, "I think a good one-person show doesn't have a
lot of props. I think it has essential ones--a book, or a
letter. It isn't just millions of objects. But I think they
have to be important."101 Robert Vaughn concurs with Kahn's
observations that, in regard to props, perhaps less is indeed
more:

...the stuff that we had was...the exact kind of
stuff that Roosevelt actually had on his desk. For
instance, Roosevelt's desk was very cluttered, his
desk in the White House for all thirteen years
looked like a child's room....And all those things
were on the desk. But actually during the course of
rehearsal we found there were too many things on
the desk. I couldn't really function well because
there was so much stuff. We had to try eliminating
it for the sake of making phone calls and moving
around and so on....If they weren't an asset they
weren't there...we got rid of a lot of stuff
because it was just too cluttered. But I think the
thing that you learn in doing a one-man show is,
you are so terribly frightened of being alone on
the stage for two hours if you haven't done
nightclub work or something like that, that you

88

tend to overdo as far as helping things are
concerned...and eventually you find that the more
secure you become, the less you need of anything
external and the more you just rely on yourself to
create the scene and let the audience go along with

you.102
___Robert Vaughn
In the opinion of Arthur French, the key to effectively
using props is for the actor to carefully define, to
particularize, his relationship to each object:

...props certainly are important here [in a one-
person show] and it's very important again, how you
handle props. If they're there, what are they
there for? If you're gonna use them, then how are
you using them? Are you picking up this object
lovingly? Are you picking it up, you know,
carelessly? How do you feel about these objects
that surround you so even when you use a prop, if
you light a cigarette, if you drink a cup of coffee
or something, is it, are you familiar with them?

Do you like these items? Is it a precious item?

Is it just an ordinary item that doesn't mean too
much to you? When you sit in a chair...there's a
difference if you sit in a chair in your house or
you sit in a chair and you come here. You know, so
when you have props, it is really essential that

you know how you feel about the objects.103
___Arthur French

The principal contribution that props, music, lighting
and other elements in the physical environment bring to solo
performance, is that they provide a means of involvement, a
road to evocative connections. In the absence of other
characters, they present the actor with tangible stimuli to
which he or she can react. Julie Harris speaks of how
specific sounds would trigger effective responses during her

performances of Brghréz

89

.Sound...when Charlotte is in Brussels and she is
wandering the streets, she hears the church bells
ringing. So, very often we had that. Or the first
time she sees the ocean, we had sea gulls crying.

Church bell sounds are beautiful to me.104
___Julie Harris
William Luce, Silvia Miles and Pat Carroll discuss an
actor's relationship to and use of props, music/sound and
lighting and how these elements often stimulate emotional
involvement, as well as action, in a one-person show:

The thing is, you use all of the resources...you
think in terms of what the lighting will be and how
you'll lose the present [and then] suddenly you'll
be in the past. And you also think of immediate
things, immediacy...of what props you'll be using
because...they're the present tense of the play and
they sometimes...trigger memories. Sometimes they
call people back. On stage they call the performer
back to the present situation. In Lillian, for
instance, the light floods across the stage from
this room where Dachel is dying. It calls her back
to that situation. She goes over to the door and
looks in and then turns away. The light goes out
and then she starts talking about Dachel again.

All those things you kind of conceive as you go
along....In the Barrymore play [one-person play
about John Barrymore] as an example, the situation
is that he's on his last leg, which he was for
quite a few years, but he is going to try Richard
rha_1hird once more, maybe a comeback, to see if he
can really get back up on top again. And his
Bighard_rha_1hird, he' 5 going to try it with a
prompter, to get through the lines. On this, these
two hours when there's an audience there...it's on
a stage with the suggestion of part of the set--
throne, you know, and a few steps going up to it
and a prop trunk and a table with a telephone and
few other props. But out of that all comes a
wonderful opportunity for characters. And he's
trying to find the right props for Richard in this
trunk but he happens upon an old wig and feathered
hat and all the different things and suddenly he
remembers his grandmother Drew, who was the
matriarch of this acting dynasty, famous for being
Mrs. Malaprop, so he suddenly becomes Mrs. Malaprop
with the fan and everything. I mean all of the

90

things that are possible you try to come up
with...105

William Luce

...I was writing my life...it was based in my
apartment...which they came and photographed and
Eugene Lee blew up all of the furniture in
cardboard blow-ups and there was my apartment on
stage....[I was] relating to my artifacts...there
were so many characters in my play--the things on
stage were characters, there are characters in my
apartment. There are things, memories, and those
memories were on stage and they were very viable
and they were used in it. They were all in the
play...they were all characters...and I would talk
to them. There as a picture of Andy [Warhol]
there. I'd say, 'Andy, Andy' what did you do?‘
You know, I would talk to these people. There were
pictures there of everybody. There's a cutout of
Rod Stewart wearing all my clothes...I mean if you
walked in, you'd be startled because it looks like

there's somebody standing there in my clothes.106
__Silvia Miles

...the rain was very important to the beginning of
the second act, rain and thunder, very important.
The lamp on stage was very important for periods of
time, for me, I don't know how the audience felt
about it. The texture of the rug, because I looked
at the rug a lot when thinking, the texture of the
rug was very important. There were patterns in the
rug. The feel of the chair in which I sat for most
of the play was very important. The stuffing in
the chair was very important, because I sprung a
spring at one time. Very important how that felt
(laughter). I think also a certain pen, Mary Ellen
Devy went out of her way to find a pen that I wrote
with in the play, an exact period pen. I think
that the touching, the feeling, the using of that
was important. I think my sense memory is not as
great as it should be, but those things all added
into it. There was a penholder, an inkwell, a
penholder on the table that was also very
important--as many times I've touched that [and] it
gave me a feeling of something. A handkerchief in
my pocket which I specified should be there mostly
because I perspire so heavily during performance
and I simply didn't want to sit there dripping and
yet it seemed part of that character. And I also
used the image of the nuns who had taught me when I

91

was quite young, how they always brought out of
their pockets such wonderful things: big hankies
and holy cards and candies and pencils and Band-
Aids and their pockets were always full of good
things. So every time I brought that handkerchief
out, always the feelings those little sisters came
out with it and they were my red cross, they mopped
my brow, they kept me going. The handkerchief was
very important, it also became a punctuation mark

for me like George Burn's cigar.107
I ___Pat Carroll

Hal Holbrook employs similar 'punctuation marks' in his
portrayal of Mark Twain. In the following observations, he
perfectly illustrates how important skillfully used props are
to the solo actor: what a significant contribution they, as
well as other elements in the physical environment, make to
the effectiveness of a one-person show:

...when I started out with Twain...I knew I wanted
to play him at seventy years old or so, because he
was most colorful looking then. He had white hair.
He often wore a white suit which was colorful. I
knew that I had to try to do something about his
physical appearance and manner on the stage that
would be unusual, slightly unusual at least. It
would be eccentric, let's say, whatever word you
want to use, it would be different, something
different. What could I do? I thought, 'well I'll
have him wear the white suit'. By that time, I
knew that he didn't wear the white suit when he was
lecturing, he wore a formal black suit and tails.
But I thought well in that respect I can depart, I
can take dramatic license. Because, the more I
read about him, reviews of his lectures and all,
the one truth that came across about his manner on
the stage is he was considered eccentric in his
time. That is, his manner of delivering a lecture
was considered eccentric. He didn't just stand at
the podium like Dickens, he moved around the stage.
He slouched against things, that was considered not
only eccentric, but bad form. Slouched against the
lectern, he was criticized for it in reviews. He
took a long time, he paused, he slurred, some
people thought he was loaded, you know, he was
exaggerated in manner. But all these things in

92

those days were considered unique and even daring.
Not today. There is nothing daring about slouching
or walking around....So I said to myself, 'well I'm
going to have to do the walking and I'm going to
have to look for the unusual, so I'll have him in a
white suit, that will already be colorful and a
little bit strange.’ And then I thought, 'well he
is famous for the cigar, but he never smoked on the
platform, he wouldn't do that, it was the Victorian
era, I mean he was a gentleman, he wouldn't do
that. But, what if I have him smoke? That will be
breaking another rule, it is a little unusual to
have a man up there on the platform giving a
lecture and smoking. That really makes it seem
casual.‘ Then I realized that I'd have to have an
ashtray somewhere. That meant I was going to have
to have a table on the stage. So I had a lectern
and table now, suddenly my set was developing. And
then I found, well movement, the cigar began to
give me a reason for moving because I would go over
once in a while and drop an ash. And then, the
next thing I found out is sometimes I start to go
to drop an ash and an impulse would say, 'wait a
minute, just be struck by a new idea and don't drop
the ash now. Go on with the new idea, it
interrupts your thought and then a while later go
back and drop the ash.’ So then I started
developing this sense of, 'what the hell is he
going to do next? Is he going to drop the ash or
not.’ Because I'm alone on the stage, I've got a
lectern, I've got a table and a chair, I've got a
water glass and a water pitcher, I've got six books
and I've got an ashtray and a cigar in my hand.
This can create suspense. 'When is he going to
drop the ash. If there are no other people on the
stage, and there are just those few props and me,
dropping the ash in an ashtray becomes a small
event. That creates suspense. That's how you
develop the dramatic. 'When is he going to go over
there and drink out of that water glass.‘ After
forty minutes, somebody might be thinking, 'when
the hell is he going to take a drink of water!’ I
know that. It is not by accident that I don't go.
And you see, when I do take a drink of water, I
don't drink it right away. I might start to pour
it and then forget and get lost, because that is
the technique, that's the style of the performance
as it developed, as I conceived Mark Twain's style
was. The thing to do is to seem to be thinking, to
be getting a new idea, to forget what you were just
doing and start, the way older people do, the way
people do when they are interested in what they are

93
thinking. That is what was leading the parade, as

far as I was concerned. And that developed all the
eccentricities which, in turn, developed a sense of

suspense on the stage.108
___Hal Holbrook

Props, music, sound effects, lighting and the physical
environment serve the solo actor in several ways. They
assist in the revelation of character: an audience is given
clues into the nature of someone by the way in which he or
she relates to objects and/or outside stimuli. Props give
the actor something to do, something to handle. They help
keep him or her 'on track' during the performance as well as
furnish visual relief for the spectator. In some instances,
as with Hal Holbrook's cigar, a prop may exert a major
influence on an actor's performance style or become the
source and focal point of stage business. Principally,
however, these elements help the performer become emotionally
involved. They provide something with which to be connected,
to be in relation. The artful employment of props, music,
sound effects, lighting, and the physical environment, along
with material which has been carefully and enthusiastically
selected and prepared, and interaction with the audience
and/or vividly imagined unseen characters, all function to
aid the actor in his/her primary task--the establishment of
relationships in the absence of other performers. While this
concern is central, it is by no means the sole consideration

in preparing and performing a one-person show. We now

94
examine a second Focus Area which emerged during discussions

with the interviewees.

 

A tremendous amount of energy was required...people don't
realize this. You can't relate this to any kind of
television acting. This is like being a marathon runner.
You have to have a tremendous amount of strength to do this
kind of thing. I mean to stand up there for an hour and
forty minutes without stopping is a tremendous amount of
work. I was doing everything. It was like a marathon. It
was like running a marathon every day. It was exhausting.

This is exhausting when I talk about it.109
___Silvia Miles
Being focused and energized is essential if the actor is
to present an interesting, engaging performance. In an
ensemble production, his/her concentration and energy must,
at all times, be directed toward the moment to moment
interaction unfolding on stage. However, much like a
runningback on the gridiron, the actor in a conventional
play, typically, is not expected to 'carry the ball' the
entire game. In a multi-character play there will be times
when the thrust of the action will be initiated by different
members of the cast. Such is not the case in a one-person
show. The weight of the production rests squarely and
relentlessly on a lone performer. To several of those
interviewed, this responsibility presents no great problem.
Robert Benedetti expressed the opinion that...
...it's more exhausting in the sense that you're on
stage for a very long period of time without being

able to get off to catch a breather. But that's
the reason that it's tiring, not because you're

95

alone, [not] because it's unrelieved. A
performance that involves your being on stage with
other actors for a long period of time is exactly
as tiring if you're doing your job. I mean, this
is only to say that sometimes when there's more
than one actor on stage one of them can get away
with not doing their job completely because the
audience isn't looking at them all of the time.
But if they're all doing their job fully then I
don't see why a solo performance would be anymore
tiring than any other kind of performance except
that you don't get off stage to take a rest. So I
just think that every actor should be as complete
on stage when they're with other actors as they

would be if they were the only actor on stage.110
Robert Benedetti
Robert Vaughn offers the following:

...my great concern at the beginning was whether I
had the energy to do it. You know, every night,
eight performances a week....[But] once we had
frozen the script at two hours...then when I was
aware that the audience was not about to look
anywhere on that stage except at me, it was quite
relaxing. My concentration, I didn't have to worry
about where they were going to look, or whether
they were going to pay attention to me, because
there wasn't anything else going on, except me. So
it was probably more relaxing and less concentrated
than a normal play would be in that sense....I
didn't have to worry about anybody else. I only
had myself to worry about. And in a play, you
always have to worry about [whether] the other guy
is going to do what he did last night in the same
way and is he going to have the same energy
1evel...[here, you] only have yourself to worry

about, which in one sense was easier.111
___Robert Vaughn
This view, however, was distinctly a minority one. A
significant number of the respondents indicated that the
amount of energy and level of concentration required during
solo performance was indeed a leading concern. Pat Carroll

relates:

96

...I'd never done a one-person show. My
preparation had been in different areas of
performing. I had stood up in supper clubs by
myself and entertained...and when you have bits and
pieces you don't have to sustain the energy, you
have to program, but you don't have to sustain the
energy. So for me, the major problem was how do
you act for two hours and twenty minutes?
...Stamina, a very basic acting problem. How do I
sustain energy for two hours?...I mean, the kind of
controlled energy it took was exhausting,
absolutely exhausting....If I lost my
concentration, forget it, I didn't know where I
was. If I was not honed in from the minute I
walked toward that stage to make the first
entrance, forget it. [In a multi-person show] the
responsibility is split. For example, [in] Marry
Hiyaa I'm doing very difficult physical work which
means I have to keep my concentration as well...but
I also have swatches of time in between doing that,
whereby I can regenerate my energies. When you are
on that stage alone, there is no time to go to the
potty, there is no time to say, 'well, I'll put my
head down for a few minutes here and just, you
know, close my eyes and I'll be fine.' You have
none of that....It behooves actors never to be
tired, I figure. I figure that's the only area in
which we commit mortal sins because if you are
tired, I don't think you can concentrate. I don't
think you can physically do what you have to do and
I don't think that electricity...that voltage that
has to be a bright light blinking, paa, paa, paa,
paa, paa, paa, like a dynamo [can be there]. With
the knowledge that you are going out totally by
yourself for two hours, my concern was always am I

in voice and do I have the energy...112
Pat Carroll
Hal Holbrook, having, at the time of the interview, recently

performed the title role in Kihg_Laar, presents an
interesting observation:

Energy evolves out of concentration, and in a solo
performance, the concentration is probably more
intense....Much to my astonishment, I was coming to
the conclusion, after a couple of weeks, that Igaih
was just as hard as Lear, maybe a little more
difficult...I was at the end of the performance
[and] I wasn't as tired as I was doing

97

Tnain....When you are in the hot seat all the time,
why you know, you are there and the beam is on you
and your concentration is tense or it better be.113

Hal Holbrook
Both Julie Harris and Michael Kahn share this view:

...I think the biggest problem is that it [the one-
person show] needs an enormous amount of energy and
concentration. I mean there's no one to help you
with a line or a thought or anything. You have to
have the whole map of the play in your head and
know where you're going every minute of the time
you're on the stage. It has to be very

concentrated.114
Julie Harris

When you are all by yourself you want to have the
energy to drive through something....This question
of energy...I think you have to have enormous
energy, like you were doing a concert....I don't
think there are any wasted moments in one-person
shows. And I think this is another difficulty. I
mean there is no casual [time]. Everything counts
because the audience can't go away. So the actor
just can't ever let down....There are so many
things to concentrate on in a multi-person show. I
mean first of all, there are all the other actors,
so if you are really relaxed you could look at
another actor and whatever they are doing can
interest you. Here, there aren't any of those
things...you can probably lose your
concentration...at any given moment. That is the

hardest thing for an actor.115
___Michael Kahn
Great energy and intense concentration is integral to
solo performance. The fact that this energy and intensity
has but one source is a primary consideration to a number of
the professionals interviewed. Robert Cohen states that...
...in a drama with lots of people on stage and lots
of action, the intensity is pretty much pulled out

of you. I mean if you have somebody running and
saying, 'We just caught the king!’ well you're

98
gonna be pretty fired up. But here you've got to
generate everything....You have to continually

create the intensity of the situation or the
tension, the desperateness of the plight, whatever

it is that's driving you to speak.116
___Robert Cohen
Colleen Dewhurst felt that being alone on stage is not only
difficult but is also an unnatural state for the actor: "Your
energy just has to keep at such a high level of concentration
because you have no one there. It is self-generated energy.
It becomes a non-life situation."11'7
In what ways can the performer prepare him/herself for

the physical and emotional demands, the level of
concentration and energy, required in a one-person show?
What techniques are there to insure that these demands will
be met during performance? The respondents suggested a
variety of methods. One commonly mentioned was physical
fitness. Silvia Miles, in describing her experience in solo
performing as being similar to marathon running, said, "Did I
work out? Did I prepare? You better believe I did!"118 In
the words of Charles Waxberg, solo actors...

...should be capable of sustaining their energy for

the length of the show without a stop....What can

you do about that? You stay in shape. Now

whatever it is that makes you strong in stamina,
whether it be exercise or, I don't know what else,

[you do].119
Charles Waxberg
Others shared the Opinion that the one-person show

requires an actor to be highly conditioned, maintain a

nutritious diet, get an adequate amount of rest and plan the

99
activities of his/her day in such a way as to allow the
availability of sufficient energy reserves during
performance. According to Sabin Epstein...

...when people...do one-person shows, they've got
to be in the most extraordinary physical condition
because the mental work is so acute that you've got
to be in great shape. When I direct, everything is
involved with the mind and the eye and in order to
be able to sustain concentration, I've got to be in
good shape. You can't lag and it's the same with
actors doing it [a one-person show]. They cannot
lag, and physical workout, running, some kind of
aerobic, cardiovascular work, helps relieve the
tension of it and helps build mental concentration.
Diet becomes important as well. You have to be in
a state of training. Your whole day is gauged
around [the performance]. When you're doing a one-
person show you cannot expend a great deal of
energy. You can't do anything that's superfluous.
You have to guide, control, and plan your timing so
that you don't get too exhausted. You have to eat
early enough that you're not going to get bogged
down by anything that you had. You have to gauge
the amount of time after a show to come down. You
know, all that's crucial, even more so, than when
you're in a conventional and traditional piece with
another player. Even a two-person show, you've got
somebody else to rely on, who can pick up the ball
and carry it if you lag a little bit. You don't

have that with the one-person show.120
___Sabin Epstein
Pat Carroll and Madeleine Sherwood discuss their awareness of
the physical demands of solo performing and describe their
methods of preparation:

...I could orchestrate myself. I guess 'flow and
go' is what I called it in a way and that's why I
had to rest so much. I go to bed every day from
four to six and sleep and get up and do physical
exercises, because I knew there was only so much in
the well of energy and I knew I had to have it. No
matter how the play went that evening, with my
other actor, the audience, I had to be ready for
that. I had to be prepared with a full tank. Now,
where I used the full tank, where I spun out the

100

line, very, very far and pulled it in and how much
energy, that changed every night too.121

Pat Carroll

I just got into a routine...I had a good friend
come down and help me with this routine. I would
go to bed at maybe nine or ten o'clock at the very
latest and set my alarm and get up at four and work
myself from four to six. She would work with me
from six until eight. From eight in the morning
until nine I would do my exercises and have
breakfast. She would make it for me, so I wouldn't
even do anything like that. So I took one hour off
to do exercises and eat, and then she would work
with me until I went to rehearsal...I walked to the
theater, walked a long way each time, working on
the problems of the script and arriving at ten and
working through until two, taking an hour break and
then working from three until about six sometimes
seven, [and then] walking home. Polly would have
my dinner all ready for me. I would have my dinner
and just leave the script for an hour and that
would be eight o'clock or so. We'd review the
script as much as I knew and I'd go to bed and then
tomorrow start over. So that was my routine, it was
like a fighter I think. You must have that, or I do
anyway. I mean, I have to live a very Spartan
life. I have to eat very, very carefully. I mean,
I had to space my fun in half hour or hour segments
because I wouldn't take myself away....[During the
run of the show] I dealt with it [the physical
demands] by trying to get enough sleep and by
having a routine...and I didn't vary very much from
that, so that I always knew what stage I was at
during the day and how close I was getting to the
time when I had to use that energy....It was very
important for me to do my exercises both when I got
up in the morning and at the theater. I'd go very
early to the theater...and just get that feeling
that I'm back stage, that this is where I love to
be, that this is my theater, my church, my religion
to a certain extent, it is my love, it is all of
these things....I like to have that little time
there to have that feeling wrap around me and
become secure in that feeling. I like to be by
myself, I like to have the time to be very quiet
there and do some more exercise, just stretch, like
yoga type stretches and things and be very, very
quiet--I'm not a person who likes sound, radio,
anything like that, television never in the
dressing room--and be very quiet with myself. A lot

101

of the time just setting, allowing myself to drift
and sort of looking in the mirror, the makeup
mirror, really looking and discovering and becoming
her. That's one reason why I like to take a long
time to makeup because I find the best way to
become the other person is through the
concentration of eyes, eyes in the mirror, or
touching my face in a way that's different then
when I'm just sort of resting my hand on my chest
or touching my hair. This is almost like a person
removed but part of you. It's an objective person.
My hand putting on the makeup becomes the objective
person and tying the mirror person and me, the
flesh person, together. So that I am getting

myself ready to take my energy out on the stage.122
__Madeleine Sherwood
A number of those interviewed stressed the importance of
carefully planning the emotional levels required in a one-
person show, as well as the necessity of pacing oneself
during performance. It is Sabin Epstein's feeling that...

...you plot it out. I mean, you literally plot out
the down times. The image of a symphony, of
playing a score, is apt, because if you're never
off stage, there are going to be peaks and there
are going to be valleys and you have to know what
is what and when you can slow down and when you can
relax and when you can put, metaphorically, your
feet up and have a cigarette or whatever it is you
do, get a cup of coffee, kind of coast, and when
you need to search. If an actor thinks that they
have to do it all at every moment, play it full of
intensity, you're not going to have an audience
after fifteen minutes. I mean when an actor plays
most of the time, you structure it. That's what
you spend your rehearsal time working on. Whether
it's in a scripted piece with other actors or a
solo piece, you are looking to uncover the
structure of the scene and then you look to play
it, how you play it, and how it builds and crests
and how it releases and you work that out and then
the joy of performance is the joy of the variation

in the playing from night to night.123

Sabin Epstein

102
Charles Waxberg similarly underscores the need to emotionally
'change up' during a solo performance:

If the play is well written, and you're doing a
good job with it, you're not going to stay at one
energy level the whole time, anyway. Hopefully,
there'll be a build to it. But it's not going to
be a steady build. It will have its different
changes and directions and one may cost a lot more
emotionally and very little physically and another
may be extremely physical but cost you very little
on an emotional level. And with the discovery you
will then be able to take care of it piece by
piece, where you need to be re-grouped. It's
like...if you put every color, if you have a light
or some kind of unit that projects red, green,
blue, yellow, all the lights, [and] if you put them
all on maximum the whole time, what you're gonna
get is white. But if you put your red on intensely
and let the green rest, you will have a bright red
and as you then beam up the yellow, you're going to
start going into the oranges. You may then bring
up the green and then drop the red a little bit so
the red will, therefore, have a chance to cool

off.124
___Charles Waxberg

Brian Bedford states that, "It's just you for about an hour
and a half and that in itself presents difficulties, you
know. You have to pace yourself the way a runner has to."125
Julie Harris agrees: "Well, you learn that you have to have
the energy for the two hours and you learn how to pace it.
You're never at one peak, so to speak, of emotion or feeling
throughout the whole play. It ebbs and flows."126

In addition to being physically fit, carefully planning
emotional variations in the program, and pacing oneself,
actors can increase their energy reserves by simply making
sure they breathe correctly during performance. This may

seem elementary. Several of the respondents, however,

103
strongly emphasized this point, indicating that breathing
properly was indeed a concern. Pat Carroll, for one, found
it to be a major problem:

Thank God for a brilliant lady at Temple
University, Dr.Julia Wing. When I was doing run-
throughs in Philadelphia of the piece, I said to
Mary Ellen Devery, the producer, I said, 'Mary,
I've got to find someone to help me bridge in the
middle of the second act after the fight with Leo.
I am just so exhausted, I have no energy and I've
got still twenty more minutes of the show to do.’
So I said, 'I've got to find someone to help me in
that area.’ Mary Ellen was manager for the Richard
th_Ihird company with Al Pacino. So she had
contacted Dr.Wing to voice coach the Al Pacino
company....So she asked Dr.Wing if she'd come watch
a run-through. At the end of Act I, Dr.Wing came
up to me and we were discussing problems. I said,
'Dr.Wing, will you watch for a specific break in
energy that I have after the fight with Leo in this
next act?’ And I saw her with her notepad. At the
end of the run-through the second night, she came
to me, she said, 'I have an absolute solution for
you.’ She said, 'what you are suffering from is,
you've hyperventilated so much in that fight
scene,’ she said, 'that you are lacking air, you
are lacking oxygen, you are lacking breathing. So
when you turn up stage after the fight,’ she said,
'take the time, which will hold dramatically, to
take three, four, five truly deep breaths to
oxygenate yourself again and you'll find you have
the energy.‘ She was right on the money. Right on
the money! The next time I did a run-through, I
did exactly that, never had a problem with energy
again. Well, you know, come on, let's face it,
Dr.Wing, Elizabeth Smith, who is a vocal coach here
at the Shakespeare theater [at the Folger]...the
whole basis of everything that they do is
breathing. The basis of yoga, breathing. It is
the most important thing all of us do and we take
it so for granted or forget it. And we wonder why,
if we are upset or angry, that we feel like we are
choking. It is because we've allowed ourselves not
to breathe. Dr.Julia Wing...said, 'Any time during
the show, any time that you feel that drop, which
sometime can be a sugar drop if you haven't eaten
correctly during the day, there could be a number
of reasons', she said, 'simply sit back, you don't
have to do breathing exercises in your chair, but

104

she said breathe, just breathe. You will find
everything will come together in a very short
time.’ I said, 'what about the audience.’ She said,
'they will go along with you because life is

happening when you are breathing.‘127
___Pat Carroll
Madeleine Sherwood also found breathing to be more of a
concern in solo performance than she had previously
experienced in conventional theatre:

...breathing was something which I've never had
problems with. I breathe well, my voice is well-
placed. I feel as though I usually have never had
trouble breathing or [with] losing my voice...but I
found breathing [in the one-person show] to be a
chore...I found myself gasping for breath

sometimes.128
Madeleine Sherwood
Silvia Miles is in agreement:

Breathing, you constantly work on your breathing.

I had to stop smoking. I mean you really need all
the breath you can-—you really need a tremendous
amount of breath...But also b-r-e-a-d-t-h, besides
breath. That's stamina, you know, that
diaphragmatic stamina. You can't have a hoarse
voice and you can't appear tired and you can't
appear that you are spent. You have to pace it all
the time--like a race horse or like a racing car

driver.129
___Silvia Miles
Finally, a number of the interviewees felt that if the
artist has a strong connection to the material, and an
enthusiastic desire to communicate it, sufficient energy will
follow. According to Arthur French...
...if you really need to tell the story, your
energy will be there [and] you will not be tired,
even if you're tired going in. Many times you get

to the theatre and of course you're tired. You've
had a hard day....But once [you've done] whatever

105
preparation you do and you relax and it starts, you
will find the energy there because you are clear
about what you are doing. You're clear about the

need. I have a need to tell this story now. So,
my energy is not going to flag as long as I have

that need.130
___Arthur French

Brian Bedford states: "I don't think I ever ran out of
energy. And I think I felt quite the opposite really. I
felt that the work actually stimulated energy in me. I
didn't do a single performance that I didn't really
enjoy."131 Another who concurs with the belief that a need
to tell the story will infuse the performance with the
required dynamism is Charles Nelson Reilly. He offers the
following observations:

I never use the word energy. My teacher, Miss

Hagen, never used the word energy. It's again, the
importance of the event. If it's important to you,

it will have energy....If you really, really have
to say this, then that need to say it will have an
energy....Miss [Julie] Harris is such a great

artist. She said she should do it [The_Belle_gf
Amharat] without an intermission. After she had
been playing it for years...she would come out like
a gazelle on one-night stands and she said, 'I'm
not doing this. Emily is. I'm too old. Emily is

doing this.‘132
___Charles Nelson Reilly
Julie Harris's own words attest to the accuracy of Reilly's
remarks: "...I just felt like I was being carried away and
that I could go on and on and on as long as the audience
would stay there. I had the feeling that I was, I told

PeOple it was like riding on a magic carpet through the

SkY.fl133

106

Acting alone on stage demands an extraordinarily high
level of energy and intensity of concentration. The task is
compounded by the fact that this energy and concentration is
self-generated. It can come solely from the performer, and
must not, for a moment, flag if the audience is to remain
engaged. Ways in which the actor can increase energy and
facilitate concentration include the maintenance of good
physical conditioning; plotting the show carefully to include
sections of lower intensity in which he/she is allowed to
recharge; breathing properly; and having a commitment to the
material and a strong need to share it. A third Focus Area,
one concerned with the question of variety in solo produc-
tions, will now be considered.

W

...you need an incredible amount of variety in pitch, timber

and rhythm because they're listening to one person for a long
period of time, and unless you throw in constant vocal

change, they're gonna tune out.134
Sabin Epstein

...if you are going to play that piece, you have to be
prepared to sit at the organ at Radio City Music Hall and

pull out all the stops.135
___Pat Carroll
A significant number of the respondents in this study
were concerned with their ability to interest an audience for
the duration of a one-person show. "Why would anyone want to
hear me talk for two hours?" or "How can I possibly hold them

for that length of time?" were feelings verbalized or

107
inferred in many instances. This worry was fueled in part by
a common awareness of a sentiment described by Robert Cohen:

I, as a theater-goer am probably like a lot of lay
people. I see it's a one-person show, [and] I
don't want to go. My immediate impulse on a one-
person show is, 'well, I don't think I want to see
it.’ And why not? I've loved one-person shows.
I've liked a lot of one-person shows. But I have a
reluctance to go to them because, well, it's only
one person. It's like I'm getting cheated. I want
to spend less money. I'm only going to see one

performer.136
Robert Cohen
The interviewees indicated that an abiding faith in
one's material is the surest way to ease such doubts. They
further expressed a recognition of the need to consciously
strive for variety if success in solo performance is to be
attained. In a multi-person show the stage is filled with
changing stimuli: actors possessing a range of vocal
qualities and physical characteristics, different costumes
and colors, entrances and exits, shifting stage pictures.
Variety is manifest in such a setting. However, as Professor
Gerald Miller indicates, in a one-person show the realization
of this diverseness is a more difficult undertaking:
...when you've got ten or eleven characters out
there you've got a richer stimulus configuration
and you've got more novelty. When you're attending
James Whitmore, even though he's a fine
actor...you're getting a much less rich, complex,
total stimulus...So I think it would just be a
harder job to maintain that kind of interest, to
get as much richness. When you've got a cast of

six or eight people out there on the stage to
attend to, all with their idiosyncratic features,

[it] creates a much richer stimulus field.137

Gerald Miller

108
Achieving vocal and visual variation in a monodrama is
essential. As Michael Kahn states:

I suppose it would seem self—evident, but certainly
the fact that someone doesn't have someone else to
act with makes...the real need for the actor to
have an enormous amount of variety, both vocally,

physically and imaginatively really important.138
___Michael Kahn
The majority of respondents shared this view. Representative
comments are offered by Robert Vaughn, Hal Holbrook, and
Brian Bedford:

Well, the single word that we discussed most often
during the rehearsal was variety, because it is two
hours of one person on stage [and] nobody is that
interesting, and then if they are not capable of
giving a lot of variety to what they are
doing....And even though I was doing other people's
voices to some extent and some of that kind of
stuff, I had to be constantly aware that I was
capable of boring the audience by being on one
level, whatever it might be, whether dramatic or

comic for too long a period of time.139
Robert Vaughn

You worry about [variety] all the time. Because
variety has to do with what I said in the beginning
which is suspense. Without variety the suspense
goes. So variety of thought which requires a
variety of material is essential. And a variety in
the actions that you are doing is important. In
other words, as far as the Twain show is concerned,
you know, you can use the word variety. I mean it
just means the same idea, I think. You know,
variety, how to surprise them, how to keep them
surprised, the same idea as, in a sense, suspense,
you know. Variety--anytime you put a show on, you
start one way and you go somewhere, you know, that

creates variety.140
Hal Holbrook

Variety is something that's always in my mind to do
with acting of any kind. I think it's a very, very

109
important ingredient, especially with classical
acting. I mean, classical acting is successful to
the degree that you can make the text come
vibrantly alive and engaging to the audience. And
part of that technique which I learned many, many
years ago from John Gielgud, is the necessity for
the variety in tone and pace, and degree of emotion
too. And that's an ever present need I think in
any kind of acting. As I say, when I was, I think
I was twenty-two or something, I had the great
privilege of working with John Gielgud in Iha
Iampaat. He played Prospero and I played Ariel,
and it was directed by Peter Brooke. Brooke and I
had just been working in a play in the West End of
London, yiaw_Ergm_Iha_Bridga, and he offered me Iha
Iampaat. And part of the preparation for this,
which seems just unbelievably fortuitous, was that
John Gielgud was to give me verse speaking. And
one of the things that I learned from that period
of time working with John Gielgud, one of the main
things, one of the most valuable things, was the
need for variation, variety in a Shakespearean
speech. He had learned this previously when he was
very young from Harley Granville Barker, and he was
passing this on to me and, of course, I was very
young and very impressionable and this, the
absolute essential need for variety was plunged
into me at a very early age....This is something
which is ever present in my thinking about

classical text, the need for variety.141
‘___Brian Bedford
Several of the actors and theorists were of the opinion
that variety, while unquestionably central to the preparation
and performance of a one-person show, must not be a purely
technical or mechanical consideration. Rather, it should
result from and reflect a sense of the structure of the text
as well as an organic, emotional response to changes within
it. In the words of Sabin Epstein...
I think an actor tends to identify...create names
and labels for them [sections of the show]. This
is the mustache section. This is the cream puff

story. This is the this. This is the that. So
that you tend to think of these beats or scenes in

110
terms of a theme or image and that helps organize
and color the way that you approach them. And it
also prepares you in terms of how you're going to
launch into it. It's like creating a map or a
menu. You go from this to this to this to this and
it's got ups and downs and different dynamics to it
and different tonality. There are usually a series
of anecdotes or memories. I mean, most one-person
shows that I've been involved with or seen are
character studies, so that what you're doing is
revealing something about that individual by a
specific choice of what you're talking about and
so...the sequencing of it becomes important for the
actor in terms of the overall structure of the
piece, the flow of it, and where it's going to
crest, where it's going to crescendo or not....I
tend to think that most actors do have a sense of

structure.142

Sabin Epstein
Charles Waxberg states quite succinctly:

...if the script is well written and has different
moods and feelings in it, you're gonna sound
different...you find it within the script. That's

where your variety comes from.143

Charles Waxberg

Of a similar opinion is Arthur French:

...I think it [variety] is essential. I mean, of
course it enters in because you have to say, 'who
wants to hear me talk for two hours?'....[But] I
think rather than take that as a separate thing,
you know, of saying, 'do I have to heighten here'
or 'I've got to color it here. I've got to use
different things,‘ it's really treated the way you
should treat any scene which is to find all those
varied levels that any character has. As you
work...you try to find the subtext, the different
levels-~good, bad, sense of humor, whatever...what
is it about this person that's gonna interest these
people for two hours....We'll know certain parts of
this person in each scene or as he reveals or tells
whatever story he or she is going to tell....So we
must know these things so that when we talk about

them it will color itself.144

Arthur French

111

Robert Benedetti would also caution the solo performer

against approaching the matter of variety as strictly a

technical concern:

Variety is a symptom, and I'm not sure that we
always want to pay a lot of attention, a lot of
direct attention to symptoms. You know, we sit
there and we think to ourselves, 'this lacks
variety, this is getting monotonous, I'm hearing
only one tone of voice, I'm hearing only one
dynamic.’ I don't think the way to fix that is to
fix the symptom. And I don't think it is at all
useful to say to an actor, 'this needs more
variety,’ because immediately that sends their
attention to externals. I would rather take that
as a symptom of a lack of completeness or
involvement...To set any vocal requirements, that
you've got to talk like this, you know, is
absolutely to take the actor out of the living
moment and to put them at a distance from
themselves. I would never do that to an actor in
any situation including a one-person show. A
character in a scene has an objective--maybe the
actor has not sufficiently fulfilled what the
changes, the psychological and physical changes are
that this character undergoes, but that's what I
would direct their attention to, not the matter of

variety.145

Robert Benedetti

Madeleine Sherwood considered variety a by—product of

emotional

involvement:

One way I dealt with it [variety] was to try to
make it clear that each story had a different
emotional thrust....Perhaps one time immediately
excitable--remembering some detail and plunging in
and in another I was angry and it started out in a
completely different tone and therefore the whole

thing was colored by that.146

Madeleine Sherwood

Julie Harris eloquently expresses a strong belief that

variety springs directly from emotion and a heartfelt

connection to one's material:

112

...the work itself dictates that it should have
variety. The timing and the pacing is dictated by
the text. The writer hasn't just written in one
sort of monotone, but he's written ups and downs
for you. The way I score my voice, the way I score
the piece musically with my voice, just comes from
doing it. I don't figure that out. I don't try to
figure that out before hand. It all has to do with
what I'm feeling. The voice, if you ever heard
Eleanor Roosevelt speak or if you hear her speak,
her voice, more than any other I ever heard in my
lifetime, was connected right to the heart. And
because she suffered so terribly as a child and
young girl, her voice mirrored whatever she was
feeling. Well, that's what the actor has to do
ultimately....After I've worked on a play,
rehearsed it and then performed it for a time, I
think you could make musical notes from the way I
do the play. But you could never reproduce it that
way because you have to feel it....You know, at
first she [Emily] can hardly speak from shyness.
Well, that dictates what you've got to do. And
then a memory comes in and she remembers her funny
aunt, so then that's funny and she gets a little
bit out of the shyness. Then any time she talks
about her father, there's a kind of awe and this
wanting to please him, and a very emotional scene
where he finds her writing at night and he says,
'You know, you're supposed to be in bed.‘ And she
says, 'I know, but it's the only time when the
house is quiet.’ And he says, 'Well, read me a
poem.‘ And she reads him a poem and he's
dumbstruck, and says, 'Oh, alright, then. That's
very nice. You can stay up and write.’ I mean, her
father, she loved the most of anyone at that time
in her life, and for him to have given his
permission that way is just, she can't get over.

So that's what, I mean, those things, they dictates
what you should be feeling. There's no
tentativeness. There's no uncertainty about what

that means.147
___Julie Harris
Few, if any, of the respondents would disagree with the
contention that a well-written script, in most cases, affords
an actor ample opportunity to demonstrate substantial

emotional range and, as a result, variety logically follows.

113

Nonetheless, a number felt that there are additional ways in
which diversity can be enhanced. Robert Cohen states,
"...the actor has to really show a lot of virtuosity...has to
be, if I can use the word, theatrical, because you're
speaking to a large group."148 Cohen is speaking primarily
of vocal virtuosity. He continues:

I give lectures sometimes, maybe to a thousand

people. Well, I can't just come on and talk in the

way that I would talk to my daughter or talk to a

colleague. I mean, I just can't do that. It would

not hold the attention of a vast audience who have

a lot of different interests and other things to

do. So the actor must be somewhat theatrical or
dramatic or rhetorical or at least have a

structured way of speaking that is charismatic.149
___Robert Cohen
Earlier in this study it was recommended that if a
relationship is to be established between the solo performer
and the members of the audience, specifically during direct
address, the actor must indeed simply talk to them. Cohen's
comments should not be taken as contrary to that position.
The need for a well-trained, expressive voice, one capable of
subtle shadings and range, clear diction, power and
musicality was stressed by many of those interviewed.
However, the most important thing, as Brian Bedford relates,
"...is to hide the variety and make it seem inevitable. The
clever thing, you see, is to make it sound the way we're
talking now. To make it sound just as real, as one person
talking to another person...150 Nevertheless, in a one-

person show, as Charles Waxberg puts it, "...you've got to

114
have a lot of tricks up your sleeve."151 What sort of
tricks? William Luce and Sabin Epstein discuss some
possibilities:

Variety must be a prime consideration. Have the
star play other characters. To take other
characters, maybe with dialects, but make it very
varied, interesting, textured, ornamented, you
know, anything you can think of to give variety,
and most good actors are wonderful at doing other

characters.152
William Luce

...it has everything to do with tempo, pitch,
volume and timing. This is crucial in terms of how
you launch into a sequence to give an audience a
sort of an upbeat, and a breath of fresh air and
pull them into it so that they gradually have to
lean in to find out what's going to happen next or
what did happen....I would think in general what
you try and do is start off with a bit of volume
and gradually build down to a sort of pianissimo so
that you're quite quiet and they really need to
strain just a little bit to get it all. They need
to lean forward. Then you build in a point of
release where they can laugh or have some kind of
emotional response and then settle back down again,

literally settle back into their chair.153
Sabin Epstein

Pat Carroll has described solo performance as being similar
to a single flute player standing before a group of people
who are expecting to hear a symphony. Her fear of boring the
audience and her ardent concern for variety resulted in
extensive vocal preparation:

...when you are one person up there for two hours,

I really think you've got to consider the voice an

instrument. It is the only music you are going to

make. Dr. Wing and I worked for a long, long

time...she raised my voice about an octave so I was

able to play a two octave range on my voice. At

that point I did head tones that I never knew I
had, and I was literally doing a two scale octave

115

in speech. We would kind of orchestrate and color
speeches so that the sound never got like a
heartbeat on one of those machines in the hospital
shows, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep,
beep....dead. So for the first time in my life,
all of those craft things that I'd always [done]
naturally, I now had to break down, re-examine,
like taking apart the engine of a car, and I had to
clean them, I had to oil them, I had to replace
them and put back the engine, you know, with
replaced parts if necessary or the old parts
cleaned up. And I must say it was an illumination
to me to go back to basics....And after studying
with Dr. Wing I was ready to compete with anybody

in our profession vocally.154
___Pat Carroll
In a one-person show variety is achieved primarily through
vocal expressiveness. In the words of Michael Kahn:

You don't want to feel that the actor who is doing
a one-person show is just doing a funny voice, or a
deep voice, you'd get a little tired of that. And
you don't want to be so conscious of the fact that
they are imitating other people, so they need to
have the ability to subtly do that....I mean, I
think it is really difficult. The person really
has to have vocal and emotional range. If they
don't, I don't think this [solo performance] is a
good field of endeavor. I mean if somebody has got
a very distinctive voice, but doesn't do much with
it, I have a feeling a one-person show would be
very hard for them....Like a singer, they have to
have the notes. If they don't have them or the
possibility of them, if you are not an actor who
vocally has any colors then it is not a good

business...155
___Michael Kahn
In addition to vocal artistry, the respondents discussed
other methods of infusing variety into the one-person show.
According to Robert Benedetti, bio-energetic awareness and
sensitivity is important. He offers the following

explanation:

116

...you want to achieve as much of a differentiation
...as you can. So that at some point, usually
very late in the rehearsal process, I take them
through a series of checks on their physicalization
and their vocalization. I do it in terms of a bio—
energetic character structure exercise in which we
see where the character center is and how the
energy flows through that characters body. Because
that incorporates the voice as well as the body.
And then I encourage them...to select as much as
possible different centers, different charges, you
know, weak, strong, different directions of flow,
different blockages, different character structures
for each of the characters that they play so if one
character is head-centered try to make the other
one chest-centered. In other words to delineate as
much as is possible without distorting or
falsifying the characters. Again I'd like to focus
on the sense of center and innerbody dynamic. I
don't want the actor to be thinking in terms of
poses or posture or the way their voice sounds. I
would rather find adjustments in the inner
condition in the organism itself that produces
these external results, rather than allow the
actor's attention to be directed towards the
external results directly. That produces very

false acting.156
___Robert Benedetti
To help her become more emotionally responsive to her
material and consequently more varied in her presentation,
Pat Carroll employed an interesting technique:

Dr.Wing and I also worked on a thing when I found
the text becoming automatic. Dr. Wing suggested
using different colors in the text. You know,
actually thinking a mauve instead of an orange,
thinking a green instead of a blue--colors that
particularly excited me or that calmed me or that
depressed me or angered me. And the proof that
that was communicated, one night some people came
back stage, strangers to me, not friends of mine,
and this woman said, 'you know, I actually saw
colors on the stage.’ And I said, 'I beg your
pardon.‘ She said, 'I actually saw colors.' I
said, 'when specifically?’ She stated a moment in
the play and I had used orange and she saw orange
on the stage. And I don't think it is doo, doo,

doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo [milishLche].

117

These are electrical impulses, brain waves sent

out, and you sense it more when you are working

alone on the stage than you ever do when you are
working in a company.157

Pat Carroll
Madeleine Sherwood feels similarly that visual stimuli, such
as color, can trigger emotions and foster variety:

At the Eslin Institute I took a workshop in
painting called the Painting Experience [and] took
to it like a duck to water. I love it. And I'm up
here in the country and I have my paints set up and
I paint every day...So I found myself painting
different scenes in the play. I am sure that if I
do [a one-person show] again, I'll probably paint
it, paint the character or the setting...to help
stimulate [me]...I feel getting to something on
paint is my way of organically discovering things
that one couldn't discover simply from saying
words.158

___Madeleine Sherwood
Many of the interviewees rely on humor as a means of
injecting diversity into a solo production. To William Luce,
in fact, "Humor...is the most important, which is why having
Charles Nelson Reilly direct was invaluable."159 Reilly

himself confirms his faith in humor as a tool of contrast and

relief:

...because I'm comedic I have a gift of finding
humor in the worst kind of situations. I have a
lot of laughter in the plays I do, and if you have
a lot of laughter, when the play gets serious, the
audience is right there. It's [through] the
laughter that they step like [on] a gangplank to
the character. And if you get the laughter, it's
so important. If they laugh, then they are
confessing that they are part of it. And they will
not laugh at the serious parts but they will be no
less part of it because the laughter has been the
glue. And then the silences become as severe as the
laughter. You can hear the silences and then you

118

know you're home free.160
Charles Nelson Reilly

In discussing ElDlBl, Robert Vaughn also indicated his desire
to include as much humor as possible:

...Roosevelt loved to tell jokes, loved to tell
stories. We incorporated a lot of stories, a lot
of jokes into the script for that reason [variety].
And so in the course of telling the story, if I
could find any way to justify the fact that
Roosevelt would use different voices to tell his
jokes, I would do that. So I was actually doing

mimicry of other people.161
___Robert Vaughn
As one would expect, a show featuring the works of Mark Twain
has humor as an essential and inevitable aim. Hal Holbrook
describes his efforts to blend levity and gravity into the
fabric of W111:

...I decided obviously that the thing for me to do
was to start out funny and then to evolve into the
more serious material in the lexicon of Twain, you
know. In the beginning, all I wanted to do was to
make them laugh, but then that was a short show,~
fifty minutes, you know, in a high school assembly
in the morning. And I had to do an evening show,
well I had to do an hour and fifteen minutes with a
brief intermission, so...I started thinking of
variety. And since by that time I had discovered a
lot of interesting material, you know, like the
Shurburn bog shooting in Hagklaharry_fiinn is a
wonderful, dramatic piece....I thought well here is
a switch, a change of pace, you know, variety
whatever you want to call it. So, I mean when I
got to the Shurburn bog, I made that change, [and]
then I had comedy and then I had that number [the
Shurburn bog selection], you know, which is my

dramatic number.162

Hal Holbrook

119
Several of the respondents felt that movement, visual
variety, was also important. In the opinion of Michael Kahn,
for example, movement should be included in solo
performances...

...just for the the audience more than it is for
the actor, probably. So that the audience has
visually some changes. And then, of course, the
audience, if they are only looking at one person,
begins to be more subtly aware of the person's body
than they are if they are watching [a number of
actors]. So I think that you can tell the audience
something by your posture. I mean that's a word I
never use, but I think that, you know, since they
have nothing to look at but one person...you want
physical variety on the stage--sitting, standing
all that kind of stuff, [using] different parts of
the stage, and I also think that what you do with
your body, they probably, in a way, as in the dance
world, simply [by] looking at your body, they
probably read stuff from your body that is very
essential. Probably in the best of these shows the
person is physically very available and their body
shows you what they are feeling....Your physical

attitude, I am sure, reads very strongly.163
Michael Kahn

Robert Vaughn also sought variety through the use of physical
changes and movement:

Fortunately, the show moved along very rapidly, the

scenes were very short...there was so much going

on....We moved this, we intentionally moved the

actual setting and the lighting and the movement as

fast as we could from right to left center...you

know, suddenly lights would come up on Roosevelt
downstage left where we'd last seen him on stage

right on the turntable behind the desk.164
___Robert Vaughn
The effectiveness of carefully planned movement during a one-
person show is clearly illustrated by Charles Nelson Reilly:

...movement is very important. I mean you have to.
As animated as it can be is good. Usually the

120

movement comes easily. Now this is very
interesting. I have a piece that is so delicious
that's playing around the country now about Oscar
Levant, okay? It's called, At_flira_flnd. Oscar
Levant used to do these concerts in concert halls
that said they were a concert with comment. So
anyway, it's a concert hall so the set for the play
is a concert hall. So you have the theater and the
first thing that happens is this smoke comes out
'cause he's smoking in the wings before he goes on.
And by the time it's ready for the play to start,
it's really like a fire. It's very funny because
that's the truth, you can't smoke upstage in a
concert. So he's waiting in the wings and you see
this smoke and the audience keeps laughing and
they're laughing and he comes out coughing and
they're already laughing before the play starts or
the music starts. Now, you've got a man in a tuxedo
that's gonna sit at a piano at a concert. What am
I gonna do? So what happens is, he's talking to
the audience and about eight, nine, twelve minutes
into it, he puts his foot up, you know, how you put
your foot up and you talk, and his shoe is untied
and he ties it. Now when you don't have any
movement, you have to invent certain things, and
the slightest movement, like tying his shoe. ..when
you have nothing, this minute thing suddenly
becomes the rumble from Waat_fiida_$Ler. So it's
really not that difficult. If you're smart enough
to pick out a little toothpick, you don't need a
big log....You've got to find ways to do those

things in a one-person play.165
___Charles Nelson Reilly

Dr. Gerald Miller states that among the principal
challenges facing a solo performer is to "manipulate external
stimuli so as to create a little more novelty in the
situation."166 Variety is essential if a lone actor is to
effectively sustain an audience's interest for an extended
period of time. Those interviewed were aware of and
concerned with this fact. Some felt diversity results
naturally from emotional changes dictated by a well-written

script. Many others indicated that a prerequisite to the

121

presentation of a one-person show, perhaps more so than in
traditional productions, is a well-trained, expressive voice:
as all the colors emanate from one source, that source must
be capable of producing a broad spectrum of hues. Additional
suggestions included the use of dialects and/or the portrayal
of several different characters within the show; color coding
the script to indicate areas of emotional change; and
altering bio-energetic centers for various characters or
speeches. Several of the respondents expressed a belief
that humor should be introduced into the performance whenever
possible. Visual variety, such as movement, was also cited
as important. The study now progresses to a closer
investigation of the experience of being alone on stage.

EQQH3_JflNHL_IIi_JflEDfli_BLQNE_JNL_§IBGE
...it is different for the actor. They have to get used to

the fact that, 'Oh my God, I am alone!‘ It's just getting
used to the fact you are there all by yourself. No one's

gonna help you get out of anything...no one says 'cut'.16'7
___Charles Nelson Reilly

Performing in a one-person show affords the actor an
opportunity for unparalleled artistic control and, therefore,
can provide an immensely rewarding and stimulating
experience. However, being alone on stage can also seem
artistically inhibiting, and unnatural: an event fraught with
a sense of loneliness, anxiety and fear. In fact, solo
performance can at once be liberating and exhilarating as
well as terrifying. The respondents offered substantial

insight into the duality of experience that exists when one

122
accepts the challenge to act alone. Several of those
interviewed found that acting in a one-person show gave them
a feeling of power and autonomy--aloneness was synonymous
with freedom. In the words of Hal Holbrook, "It is a very
powerful feeling and you have to rise to it. You can't fade

away and be shy."168 Silvia Miles experienced this sense of

power and control during ltla_Mal_Silyia:

It's self-empowering. I wish I could do that right
now. Oh, it's fabulous to be able to create! I
mean don't forget, here I am sitting in front of,
'Limited Engagement! Stephen Greenberg presents
Silvia Miles in ' ' . Lived, written,
and even sung by the above.’ I mean, here's the
poster. I'm looking at it now. 'Book and lyrics
by Silvia Miles. Music by Galt McDermot. Scenery
by Eugene Lee. Lighting by Roger Morgan. Costumes
by Clifford Capone. Musical Director, Galt
McDermot. Executive Producer, Jeffery Madrick.
Associate Producer, Lisa Mark.’ I mean here's the
play. I'm looking at the poster. That's, you
know, fabulous! It's one in a million,
right?....The thing is, you're in more control when
you're by yourself. If something happens, if
something falls down, you can relate to it. The

people don't freeze up. I didn't freeze up.159

Silvia Miles

Charles Nelson Reilly is of the opinion that in certain
instances a feeling of aloneness can actually increase the
efficacy of a solo performance. He explains:

...you see what's wonderful, like a Charlotte
Bronte or Emily, they did live alone after their
families died. They did live alone at the time of
their lives depicted in the plays. They [the
characters] are alone and their [the actor's]
feeling of aloneness enhances the fabric of the

whole performance.17o

Charles Nelson Reilly

123
Reilly relates that Julie Harris was, for a time, concerned
about the prospects of being alone on stage:

What was so interesting was that after having this
glorious career of forty-five years or whatever, it
was the first time she was alone on the stage...you
know, she was by herself and that was a great
concern. Then I helped in some way to show her

that's not even to think about.171
___Charles Nelson Reilly
From the following quotation, one can see that Harris has
eliminated her concerns relating to being alone on stage.
She in fact feels great elation, freedom and control when

performing solo:

...there's a kind of freedom because you're not
dependent on anyone else and they're not dependent
on you. If you should make a mistake or your mind
should wander for a moment, the audience doesn't
know and you can use all that as part of the
character...incorporate it into what you're doing.
For instance, in W, I was
somewhere, in Cornell, Iowa, and I was very tired
and I started a matinee performance and I came to
the poem with "the narrow fellow in the grass,
occasionally rides" and I couldn't think of the
word 'occasionally'. So, I stopped and began
again, couldn't think of it again, and then I just
looked at the audience and said, 'well, I've
forgotten that one.’ And they thought, 'oh, it was
wonderful'. And then later on in the play I
remembered the word 'occasionally' so I said, 'oh,
now I remember it' and so I told them the poem
then. They think, 'oh, that's all part of the
play.’ There's terrific freedom because it's as if
you're making it up and you could just go with that

feeling.172
___Julie Harris
Beyond the self-gratification, the rush, the euphoric
sense of freedom and control that one often experiences when

performing solo, there may also be negatives. Among these

124

are a sense of aloneness, the missing of one's fellow actors
and a longing for the shared experience of ensemble playing,
the feeling of shouldering the entire 'weight' of the
production, and finally the sheer terror of being unable to
remember one's lines and knowing there is no one upon whom to
depend for help. According to the interviewees, acting alone
does indeed have its dark side. In the words of Silvia
Miles, the solo performer is, "always naked on the stage."173
Charles Waxberg states that, "If you are the one-person show,
you have got to create the show on your own and that means
everything that a show requires, you've got to do all by
yourself."174 Brian Bedford acknowledges this feeling of
responsibility and states further that it can be quite
intimidating:

...it's a pretty scary thing, you know, putting

yourself up there all alone. You're virtually by

yourself and it's scary. When you're in a play,

you know, you share the responsibility with your

fellow actors and the director who is...in charge

of the production as a whole. You know, your

responsibility is diminished somewhat. ...[But] in
a one-man show it's just you, you're sort of,

you're really sticking your neck out.175
___Brian Bedford
For Colleen Dewhurst, solo performance was, in many ways,
unsettling and unpleasant. She explains:

I think the most difficult [thing] was that so much
work on stage is the contact that I have with the
other actors and I began to realize that [in the
one-person show] you are out there by yourself...I
mean you think of the stage finally and ultimately
when you are out there as living some slice of
life. No matter how good or bad the script
is....there is contact going on between you and

125

other people. Except here...because you just are
so isolated....I think the actual acting is
disturbing because it is self-generating, you are
not playing off anybody...nobody interferes as they
do in life...nothing is being introduced to set me
off on a track, arouse some emotion in me. So
again, you are self—generating....You begin to
understand more and more what's happening to you
and what is coming at you from the other

characters...but in this you just couldn't}.76

Colleen Dewhurst

The isolation felt by the solo performer can be pervasive.

Madeleine Sherwood provides an insight into this sense of

aloneness:

I have one word, loneliness--which surprised me. I
mean, I thought loneliness. I was so busy I don't
know how I had any time to be lonely, but upon
reflecting I recognized that except for Patrick
[Brawford], who was both directing and writing, I
was by myself all of the time. I had no one to
bounce off of. I had no one except him, and we
were good friends, but still and all he's outside,
he's not within the framework of creating the
character. [And]...I was also lonely as I was
working, which is not something that I ever
remember working with other people. I might
sometimes have been bored when I was working in
other plays, which is, I suppose, a form of
loneliness but it's not that I was alone. And the
result of that feeling of loneliness was often that
I would take off after rehearsal and walk for hours
and hours and hours. Now I'm a big walker anyway,
but I would walk to shake off the feeling that I
had gathered. [And] it was more intensified
[waiting backstage]. It was different, but it was
very intensified then. I did feel a tremendous
sense of aloneness backstage...I didn't have a
dresser backstage. I didn't have anybody for make-
up. I didn't have any fellow actors. I didn't have
the stage manager, [in] modern theaters the stage
managers are not backstage they are up in the
booths away from you....So, yes I was very, very

aware of my aloneness...17'7

Madeleine Sherwood

126
The loneliness of the solo performer can extend beyond
the stage. While the actor's life-style would seem to rest
outside the parameters of this investigation, it is
nonetheless informative and illuminating to read Hal
Holbrook's vivid account of the sense of isolation he often
experiences when touring his one-person show:

The life-style is lonely. It is terribly lonely
being out there on the road. You know, I have my
stage manager, Bennett Thompson, Bennett has been
with the show twenty-four years now and, you know,
usually we eat dinner together, and then after the
show we always eat together, maybe with some people
who come back or whatever, the promoter. But you
know, I mean we are pretty used to each other.
We've pretty much gone over all the exciting
topics, you know. And we have a nice time talking,
we are real good friends and everything and I'm
very fond of him, he is a wonderful man, but you
know, it is lonely out there on the road. You go to
your hotel room and usually I end up getting on the
phone and trying to call people. I don't think
about it, but when I do think about it I realize it
is because I'm so damn lonely. I get on the phone,
I call home and you know, if I can't get my wife or
she doesn't want to talk too much or I sense that
she is busy, you know, I feel bad and then I call
my children constantly and all the kids, find out
how they are doing and maybe I get them, maybe I
don't. I call back to my office, [my] secretary.

I leave messages on services all over the country
and you know, I'm on the phone most of the time.
And you know, I have to realize that when I think
about it, it is not all really necessary. I'm not
much for watching television because it makes me so
angry to watch it most of the time, it is so
goddamn terrible and dull and sickening and cheap
and crummy, it makes me angry so I don't
particularly want to watch that. I would like to
see some movies, if they were good ones, if there
is a good one playing in the town [and] if you can
find it. Because most of these towns don't have
any movies downtown where I have to stay, they are
all out at a shopping center, about a thousand
miles out of town. (laughter) If you can find
one, you know, you say 'well I have to eat dinner
and then after I eat dinner, oh hell, it will be so

127
late, I'll just go back to the hotel and see what's
on TV or read or whatever.’ The best thing is when
I have a project like Lear going where I have a lot
of material to read and I'm all excited about
it.178
Hal Holbrook

A sense of aloneness is prominent in the one-person
show. To Colleen Dewhurst, acting alone signals self-
generated action and emotion--an absence of contact.
Madeleine Sherwood was lonely both on and off stage. Neither
of these professionals offer techniques to ease their
isolation. Rather, they seem resigned to the fact that a
feeling of aloneness comes with the territory in solo
performance and must simply be dealt with. In addition, Hal
Holbrook finds the solitary life-style of touring difficult
to bear.

But beyond the loneliness experienced both on and off
the stage, there are specific fears which frequently haunt
the solo performer. Perhaps the most prevalent of these is
the fear of forgetting one's lines. A number of those
interviewed reported having experienced this anxiety to
varying degrees. Sabin Epstein states that...

Fear is the actor's constant. I mean, I think
that's what actors spend their lives combating on a
day to day basis...fear is always sitting on your
left shoulder. It's always there. And fear of
forgetting lines? In the theatre? Absolutely. I
mean certainly doing a one-person show because

there's nobody to rescue you. There's no way to
get out of it. It's just you and the elements and

the stage.179

Sabin Epstein

128

Despite his many years of performing Mark_Iwain_IthghLl, Hal

Holbrook admits that he is not immune to this elemental

concern:

...there have been times when I experienced a wave
of fear that I might forget and I might not
remember all the lines....There is no prompt book,
there is no script. I haven't had it very much.
It's just once in a while you get
scared....Fortunately, I've been able to get myself

out of the few holes I've dug myself into.180

Hal Holbrook

In discussing the fear of forgetting, Charles Nelson Reilly

offers the following insight:

...there's a different concern in the one-person
play. You don't forget lines, you forget sections.
You jump. That's the horror. You jump. In other
words, if the staging is similar and you play this
for a few months and you're doing this on a chair
over in this corner of the room, chances are you
could jump to the scene that's the next one in the
corner of the room. It's not forgetting the lines
so much, it's jumping. It's jumping from section
to section, 'cause they are in sections. You know,
they have the end beat and then the beginning new

beat.181

Charles Nelson Reilly

Whether it is a fear of being unable to remember individual

lines or of jumping entire sections of the show, the terror

of going blank during solo performance is very real to a

number of the respondents. Certainly it was to Colleen

Dewhurst:

I mean I really had trouble learning the lines.

Oh, it drove me crazy, because I jumped so much
from one thing to the other, you know. I had great
difficulty during rehearsal, which made me anxious
on a level I'd never been anxious before, which was
to see an area coming up in which I thought, 'what
does this segue into? Nothing! There is nothing

129

out there! Nothing!’ And [there is] no way that
you could--I mean you got to save yourself out
there. And it was so...the whole rehearsal period
was one of agony....[because] when the final thing
came and the lights went on, you were going to be
the one. And so you were carrying baggage that
normally you wouldn't be carrying. You...just had
no idea of how it was going. [Normally] you have a
feeling of a flow, you know, like the first time
you come in without the script for the first act--
you've thrown that aside, [and] now you really
begin to work. Whereas [in this--the one-person
show], it was as if the script was attached to my
arm and you had a date and you had to be ready for
it...it was like the train coming through the
tunnel, you know, nothing could stop it. The first
night was pure agony. You had no idea how this
would work, because you never got on a track. In a
play...some nights you just go 'oh good,’ or you
just know you are on and everybody else is on and
it is just going to be easy...Whereas with this,
you never know. There was like something jerking
you by the neck. Kind of like you were a horse
that got running in one direction, and you felt
terrific and suddenly the reins came down and
pulled you and you were starting off in another
direction after you emotionally got rolling in
one....Sometimes there were sections that went
wonderfully, where...I suddenly get to it and
everything about me would relax, because I knew
exactly where I was going. I didn't need to build
up anything safe to get there, I just needed to go
along with it and that was lovely. That is always
a lovely feeling. But the rest of the time you

were swimming upstream.182
Colleen Dewhurst
Of this same sentiment was Madeleine Sherwood:

...the fear of going up was a very big fear for me
because the last couple of plays I've done I've
found that I don't learn lines as quickly as I used
to and I don't retain them for as long and this was
a nightmare....It was a big problem and I don't
think it goes away immediately...if you're doing [a
one-person show] you have no one there to rescue
you....It happened to me once in St. Petersburg.

It happened with no warning, but thinking back on
it I realize that I had had a slip of concentration
and feared that I was going to forget lines. It
didn't happen right away but I went to sit down in

130

a chair [and] I sat down and I realized that I had
gone totally blank. And this was maybe ten minutes
after I had thought, 'oh my God, I'm going to
forget something tonight!"...And I sat down in this
chair and I was a total, complete, absolute blank
in a place that I had never gone up in either

rehearsal or in performance.183

Madeleine Sherwood

Pat Carroll provides not only a compelling narrative of the

panic that can grip a solo performer when one's memory fails,

but also offers insights into methods of dealing with such

fear:

I went up, I totally went up! I didn't know where
I was, I didn't know why those people were out
there staring at me. I had no idea what I was
doing! Well, during the [rehearsals] I went to a
hypnotist because I was fearful that I would forget
the text. Dr.Si1ver said to me, "well, of course,
you are going to forget the text depending on how
you are going to play it because you are-going to
go on automatic pilot, and some day your conscious
pilot is going to say, 'wait a minute, I'm taking
over here,’ and the automatic pilot is going to
say, 'okay, go ahead.’ Then the conscious pilot
says, 'well what do I say!'"(laughter) Which
became true that day. And I remembered, thank God,
that Dr.Si1ver said, 'When that happens, and it
will, simply stop' and isn't it strange how the
medical field crosses over into the voice field,
'stop, take a very deep breath and allow the
automatic pilot to take over again.’ Which is
exactly what I did. I looked at my hand and it had
flop sweat on it. Now this took no more than a
minute, but what crossed my mind was, 'I could just
leave the stage now, apologize to the audience,
leave the stage, but I will never walk back on a

'stage again if I do or I can tough this out and do

what Dr.Si1ver recommended I do when this
happened.’ I thought, 'well, I have too many
commitments ahead of me, I can't walk off the stage
and never walk back on again.’ So I simply stood
there and I said, 'okay, take a deep breath,‘ which
I did. I said 'now just talk.’ When we later
sorted this out, I'd only missed two lines. So
Dr.Si1ver, the psychiatric hypnotist, knew what he

131

was talking about. And so did Dr.Wing. I later
found out that the problem was I had forgotten to
eat breakfast, so I'd had a sugar drop. [It]
behooves actors again [to] make sure that you are
watered and oiled before you perform...The end of
that story [is], I was in tears, I was in absolute
panicky tears when my dresser met me coming off
stage. I said, 'I don't know the second act! I
don't know the second act! I don't know the play
at all!‘ I went down the stairs to my dressing
room and the stage manager had gone to get Mary
Ellen Devry, the producer. And [Mary Ellen] stood
in the doorway and said, 'Now Pat,'--and we were
celebrating our two hundredth performance that
day,--she said, 'now Pat, this really is
interesting. An actress who has done two hundred
performances of this play and you can't remember.‘
I said, 'Mary, I don't know what happened to me,
but I can't do the second act.’ She said,
'alright, fine,’ she said, 'don't cry, don't be
upset. I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll go
upstairs and I'll tell the people you've been taken
ill and that they will get their money back, but
you will pay for that.‘ And I said, 'no, no, I
think I remember! I think I remember!’ I was so
panicked by the fact that I might have to return
the money! (laughter) I went in the bathroom and I
held my eyes so I couldn't cry anymore and ruin my
makeup and I came back up and everybody in the
company was standing upstairs watching me and Mary
Ellen said literally, the blood was drained out of
my face. And I started to talk and all of a sudden
it was like a cartoon show, you know, where the
thermometer slowly begins to fill again. You could
literally see the color come back into my face. I
was shaky, but at least I did it. At least I got
through it. I got back up on that bloody horse and
rode it again...I knew now that by following the
advice of two brilliant professional people, I was
equipped for emergency and it was just like dive,
dive, dive that if the emergency came I knew what
to do. But thank God, the computer of my mind had
gone over my alternate possibilities. One was to
walk off the stage and never work again or one was
to stay and tough this out. So fortunately I
stayed and toughed it out. I'll tell you it was
horrible. I think I lost that fear because the
worst happened to me. And if that is the bottom
line worst that could happen to you during a one-
person show, then I went through the test of fire
and I did come out stronger...It never happened

132

again, maybe because I wasn't afraid of it
anymore.184

Pat Carroll
Strategies used to counter the fear of forgetting lines
are varied. Brian Bedford relates:

If you notice I do have a copy of the script there
[on stage]. I bring it on with me...It's actually
a copy of the evening's show. I used it a couple
of times at the very beginning...unfortunately it
happened in the middle of a sonnet. I think I
spoke the first couple of lines and I couldn't
remember the third line, so I had to go to the
book. I don't think people mind that kind of
thing, I feel it's probably a joy [for them] when

things go wrong.185
Brian Bedford

Hal Holbrook simply says, "...I don't sit around dwelling
about it, I just go out and do it."186 Silvia Miles is of a
similar mind: "...there's always that fear...but then as an
artist who is committed, you just do it. You don't know that
you can't do it."187 To Madeleine Sherwood, if one is to
overcome the fear of forgetting lines, concentration is the
key:

...when your concentration goes anywhere...outside

the framework of what it is you're working on and

you have this fear, the first thing you think is,

'Oh my God, am I going to remember it?’ And

usually when I say, 'am I going to remember it,‘ I

forget it....Most of the time the feeling was not

so much of fear, fear, fear, that I was going to
forget, but the awareness that I had stepped

outside of my concentration...188
Madeliene Sherwood
Techniques, then, used to overcome the fear of

forgetting lines or to assist one in getting back on track in

133
the event they are forgotten, include: breathing deeply and
taking the time to gather oneself, having the script on stage
in case of emergencies, and making sure to harness one's
concentration and, in so doing, not allow the mind to wander.
Of course to Pat Carroll, avoiding substantial monetary loss
was incentive enough to surmount even the most terrifying of
memory lapses.

Although anxiety over a perceived inability to learn
and/or retain material was predominant among the respondents,
it was not their sole apprehension. Robert Vaughn was
consistent with the majority of the professionals in stating
that, "...the chief fear was being boring."189 To Hal
Holbrook the ultimate concern was not one of forgetting
lines, or being uninteresting, but rather...

...of not doing a good job, of letting down. It is
a fear that I won't give as good a performance as I
want to, that's the only fear I really have....I've
always been frightened of getting tired of doing my
show. I've always been frightened to death that
some critic will criticize me for not being
spontaneous anymore, for just having a tired old

show. I've carried this fear with me from the
beginning and it still haunts me and fuels me to do

everything I can to keep my show fresh.190
Hal Holbrook
Both Pat Carroll and Arthur French are of the opinion
that no matter the fear, the actor must be capable of
incorporating it into his or her performance:
All of these [fears] are subliminal feelings,
attitudes, thoughts...it was like juggling every
night. I felt like a juggler with various colored

balls...I felt that many, many times, but I used
it, as all actors, I think, must....I think to

134

utilize those feelings, wherever they come from, is
to be an actor. Every human being wallows in their
feelings, but an actor is able to control those
feelings, utilize them, focus them and, we hope,

have them come out creatively.191
Pat Carroll

...fear enters into it. I think there's often fear
when you do any show. There's nervousness....You
just kind of acknowledge it...once you acknowledge
it then you can find a way to channel it within
what you're doing....Then. it becomes alright,
because you say, 'okay, I'm nervous. I'll find a
way within what I'm doing to channel this.‘ Then
you can calm down. I'm sure there's fear in
saying, 'My God, I'm going out there. All those
people are there. They've paid their money to see
the whole cast and it's me!'...Most people come out
and kind of introduce themselves in these shows and
whatever nervousness we have in meeting another
person, [is lessened] if we just say, 'My gosh,
it's nice to meet you. Let's go on this trip
together. You're nervous and I'm nervous and let's

see what happens.’192

Arthur French

The experience of being alone on stage presents the
actor with obstacles beyond that of identifying and
overcoming fears. Robert Benedetti believes the solo
performer must keep in mind that he/she "...has an objective
toward the audience and that is to get the story across and
see that they are responding."193 It is his belief that the
actor in a one-person show risks "a level of self-
consciousness that's going to destroy the performance" if
this objective is forgotten because of an excessive concern
for technical, especially vocal, requirements. To him, "the
fundamental problem of acting is the elimination of self-

consciousness."194

135
Perhaps the principal lure of solo performance is its
promise of artistic control. Benedetti, however, cautions
that this sense of autonomy can in fact prove to be an
artistic pitfall if the actor is not careful to retain
vulnerability:

I think the great danger is that you feel more in
control. I think that's a danger because it
reduces an element of risk and an element of
unpredictability in the performance. And I think
that an actor who is alone on stage has got to
remain just as vulnerable. I think it's harder for
an actor alone obviously to surrender control but
he's still got to do it. You've got to rediscover
the part moment to moment and that takes great
courage...195

Robert Benedetti

Finally, Benedetti warns against a possible loss of
spontaneity resulting from the fact that all stimuli in a
one-person show are self-generated:

...when you've got somebody else on stage and you
are really tuned in to what they are giving
you...you're going to be getting something slightly
different in every performance. And if you're
awakened and present and available and are
responding to those differences, responding to it
as it is really happening rather than to your
rehearsed image of what it is, then there's no way
that your performance is going to go stale or
become stiff because you are responding to an ever
changing stimulus. The problem for the solo actor
is that since they sometimes have to provide a
visualization of the stimulus they run the risk of
becoming rigid, of the performance falling into a
kind of sameness....So you've got to have the
courage to allow the form to be rediscovered and
it's harder when you're alone on stage because
you're not being fed by stimuli that are beyond
your control and that again I think is the biggest

problem of solo performance.196

Robert Benedetti

136
The lone actor is afforded an opportunity for immense
freedom and complete artistic control. Many solo performers
are infused with a sense of power; they revel in this state
of 'aloneness'. Others, however, are simply lonely or
perhaps apprehensive. The one-person show is often fertile
ground for anxiety. The fear of forgetting lines is common,
as are other concerns. It is often difficult to avoid self-
consciousness or to maintain vulnerability and spontaneity.
To those who would approach this performance genre, Pat
Carroll has the following advice:
...I always quote Ethel Merman, 'if they [the
audience] could do it as well as I can they'd be up
here.’ (laughter) Isn't that marvelous! I think
every actor should have that tattooed on their
wrist. It is an angry statement, but you know
sometimes it takes anger or wit or vinegar to
really bring you to your senses and to stop those
self-destructive demons. Because I think actors
tend to have that little part of our brain that
wants to get ya. We all have it, every human being
has it. And that little self-destructive part is
the part that keeps us from accomplishing what we

want to accomplish. So you just have to say to it,
'shut up, get back in there, whatever Pandora's Box

you come from, and leave me alone!’197
___Pat Carroll
We will now consider the topic of engagement during the
one-person show: the degree to which the solo actor must
maintain objectivity or, conversely, avoid immersion while

performing.

. - ..., . - -, .,-- .. ., . .
.0 . .x . 0.x .\ x . \ .\Vv\ . v. \ , x \

You always have to be aware...because you are walking through
a mine field, and to get from point A to the end of the mine

137
field, point B, you have to watch carefully where you
step...you have to be aware every minute. You have to be
aware of yourself and you have to be aware of what is going

on outside yourself constantly, constantly.198
__Pat Carroll
In the late nineteenth century, the preeminent French
actor Constant-Benoit Coquelin stated:

...in the actor...that part of us which aeea should
rule as absolutely as possible the part of us which
exeentea. Though this is always true, it is
especially true of the moment of representation.

In other words, the actor should remain master of
himself. Even when the public, carried away by his
action, conceives him to be abandoned to his
passion, he should be able to age what he is doing,

to judge his effects, and to control himself...199
___Constant-Benoit Coquelin
To what extent an actor can, does, or should immerse
him/herself in a role-~become emotionally engaged while
playing, is a long-standing and frequently-debated question
dating back to Denise Diderot's Paradex_efi_AeLing, and
William Archer's Maaka_gr_fiaeeaz. One would, in most cases,
expect a member of the Actor's Studio to view the question of
organic engagement in a different light than perhaps someone
trained in the grand and technical tradition of the Comédie
Francaise or conceivably even the Royal Shakespeare Company.
The majority of one-person shows are presentational in
style. And while there exists the added dynamic of
characterization, these productions, nonetheless, employ
direct address in the manner of story telling, public
speaking or stand-up comedy. Is there, then, an inherent

tendency or increased need for the actor to be emotionally

138

disengaged while performing? Must the actor monitor the
progress of the performance more closely than he or she would
during an ensemble production? The subject of immersion, of
maintaining a 'third eye' during performance, was addressed
by eleven of the respondents. Charles Nelson Reilly was
quite emphatic in his opinion:

I don't think you should view yourself at any

time....Miss Ethel Barrymore, she was on Broadway,

she made history, right? The Barrymores. She came

to Hollywood. She was making her first movie, and

everyone said, 'Oh Miss Barrymore, you don't go to

the rushes. Miss Barrymore, you weren't at the
rushes. You don't go to the daylies, Miss

Barrymore.’ She said, 'I never saw myself on
stage.’ You never see yourself more than you see
yourself in life. That's what I believe. 'I never

saw myself on the stage.’ You can't in life look at
yourself. You're too busy living.200

Charles Nelson Reilly
Robert Cohen presents a contrasting view:

...the American tradition is for the actor to avoid
doing so, to flee from the idea that he/she is
controlling the performance, directing their own
performance. I think the one-person show naturally
demands that the actor be more the instrumentalist.
I think actors might have a problem in dealing with
that because they're trained as American actors and
they're trained to either feel that they're out of
control or feel that they're not manipulating the
audience or feel that they have to pretend that
they're not manipulating the audience and it's
harder to do that in a one-person show....The
American actor sometime has to be coaxed into
admitting that there's a certain self-consciousness
to their performance. I think there's self-
consciousness in all performing. I don't think
there's a performer alive who is not self-conscious
to a certain degree at virtually every moment....I
think Stanislavski wrote his books because he was
worried that he was too self-conscious on stage.

In any event, in a one-person show, you've got to
be self-conscious if you're on stage. You can't
not be. There's no way you can avoid being self—

139

conscious if you're on stage. When I give a
lecture, I'm self-conscious 'cause I'm giving a
lecture. It doesn't prevent me from giving a
lecture, but every now and then the thought flashes
through your mind, 'hey, if I forgot what to say or
had a coughing fit or couldn't speak or got
embarrassed or had a nervous breakdown right now,
the lecture would stop. These people would be very
disappointed.‘ It's just a fact of life and in a
one-person show, it's bound to occur to you. I
don't think you have to work to maintain that edge
of self-consciousness. I think what you have to do
is work, in your preparation, to justify its
existence and make it work for you....I think you
just have to give in to the theatricality of the
situation of the one-person show. I am here. I am
talking to a thousand people and a balcony and a
main orchestra. I am doing something very
unnatural and unusual that one ordinarily never
does in real life and I'm contriving a story for
them. I am telling them the story of my life, say
Truman Capote or of somebody else's life, Gertrude
Steég's, and I'm using the venue of a theater to do
it. 1

___4Robert Cohen
Engagement, immersion, organically grounded

characterization as a fundamental aim of the actor was first
championed in America by Minnie Maddern Fiske and her
pioneering work in psychological naturalism at the Manhattan
Theatre during the first decade of the twentieth century.202
Subsequently, the American Laboratory, the Group Theatre and
in particular the Actor's Studio, embracing the theories of
Constantin Stanislavski, stressed the concepts of inner
justification and emotional involvement as being consistent
with and a requirement of fourth-wall realism. The American
actor is steeped in a tradition that rejects the idea of
emotionally-distanced, self-conscious, monitored performance.

With this in mind, it is not surprising to find that several

140
of those interviewed found the level of self-awareness in a
one-person show to be unpleasant, uncomfortable, and quite
foreign to their performance instincts. To these artists,
maintaining a 'third eye' is a necessary, inevitable evil.
Colleen Dewhurst was certainly of this persuasion, as is

Madeleine Sherwood:

I try never to. I mean I'm in trouble and I know
I'm in trouble when I'm watching myself, or God
knows, listening to myself. If I haven't been able
to submerge enough not to do that, I'm in
trouble...that's what made the evening not
fulfilling, once in a while you had to. You know,
the abruptness of things would flow you into a
stream and you'd go, 'whoops, whoops, whoops, I'm
over here now. What happened?...'203

Colleen Dewhurst

I was very aware of the audience, more aware of the
audience than I've ever been in anything. I was
more aware of a program rustling or a person moving
or someone turning to speak to somebody than I've
ever been...and I regret it. But I feel it's
probably necessary...I feel very much so that this
is one of the traps, it's one of the difficulties
of watching yourself. It's a trap and it's
something which I found myself on stage consciously
saying, 'stop looking at yourself, come back, it
doesn't matter how it's going.' And I would try my
best to immerse myself so completely that I had no
awareness of anything....I had that feeling several
times in several performances and I like best
performing when I'm not aware of myself. ’And yet,
for a one-person show, I do have to maintain some
awareness of myself...you have to have that,
awareness otherwise there would be a lot of bodies
on the stage. So, there's a fine balance for
actors between this reality of immersing yourself
in the role and being technically aware of yourself
in the role....The actor is the only artist who is
both instrumentalist and the instrument. There's
no one else. Everyone else has some aid, we play
our own instrument. We play our own bodies, our
own minds so it stands to reason that we need to

know all parts of our instruments.204

Madeleine Sherwood

141

There are those who feel that self-awareness and immersion
are not mutually exclusive. According to Silvia Miles...

...you always have to have that [control] as an
actor because that's the reality of the stage. You
have to look where you're going, you know what I
mean? You have to know that you're doing it. The
audience has to hear you. You have to have that
'third eye,’ but it doesn't prevent you from being
totally involved. It's just part of the

technique.205
___Silvia Miles
Julie Harris also believes that emotional responsiveness and
accessibility does not have to be sacrificed because of the
control demanded in a solo performance:

You always want to be in control, every moment, but
I certainly don't say that you can't feel it. If
you indicate a feeling without really feeling it
yourself, I think the audience doesn't get
interested. The actor, I think, has to learn to
feel and still be in control....Sometimes you don't
reach that and it's very discouraging [and]
sometimes you're enough in control that people
don't realize that you're not there, but they are
experiencing something....You just keep going, but
sometimes it's just not as right...the only way I
can correct that is just not to strain for it, but
to go back into myself and try to connect with

myself more.206
___Julie Harris
Many theorists are of the opinion that total emotional

engagement is an impossibility--that the actor is in fact
aluaya monitoring the performance. In Sabin Epstein's
judgment, this certainly is the case during a one-person
show:

I don't know one actor, no matter how involved they

are, that does not have somewhere, an antenna out,
'checking audience response or the house or some way

142

keeping a critical eye out. And of course it's
heightened in a one-person show, because it's all
you....There's always that, making little notes, 'I
want to try this. I've got to remember to keep
that. This is really working tonight or how did

that happen.’ That's always going on.207
____Sabin Epstein
In Michael Kahn's estimation, the audience in fact attends a
one-person show to witness the actor in this process of
monitoring. They go to see artistry, to celebrate the
performer consciously practicing his art. To Kahn, the
question of immersion is irrelevant:

I don't think anyone can so impersonate another
person that anybody knows so well for that length
of time. I don't think that that makes sense
anyway. I also don't think that the audience goes
to just have an active impersonation. I don't
think they really go to see an imitation. I don't
think that's what they go for. I don't think you'd
go see Trn, let's say, just to see someone be
Truman Capote. You go to experience two hours in
that personality. Now, that personality has to be
both a personality of the person it is about and
the actor's personality. It would have to be, it
cannot not be. There is no way that an actor can
so totally become another person in something like
this. So therefore, I think you are also
celebrating the actor's art. I mean when Gertrude
Stein was over, it wasn't Gertrude Stein I was
applauding, it was Pat as an actress having made
two really wonderful hours on stage about someone I
was interested in. But it was Pat Carroll who I was
celebrating when it was over. The same way I think
with Robert Morse. The reason that they gave him a
Tony and the reason they gave Julie Harris a Tony
for Tha_Balla_Qf_Amharat, was not that they were
such good imitations, who in the hell knows what
Emily Dickinson sounded like, but that we saw an
actor using all of their equipment and so we
enjoyed the art of acting. And I don't think we
ever get fooled that Robert Morse is Truman Capote.
I don't think we care about that. We've seen
Truman Capote on television, we know he is dead.

We enjoy watching him being impersonated, but what
we mostly enjoy is the humor and the warmth and all

143

of that stuff that comes from the actor. And I
don't see how an actor can give up their
personality when they do that. That doesn't mean
they don't transform themselves, but I mean
obviously their humor, their timing, their warmth,

all of that's got to come from the actor.208
___Michael Kahn
A number of the interviewees indicated that monitoring
the performance, maintaining a 'third eye', is required
during a one-person show. Robert Vaughn, for example,
declares...

...in addition to doing Roosevelt, I also had to be
tuned in to the technical problems of the show each
night. I had this man that was stage managing the
show, one of my oldest friends, and he had to give
whatever there were, a hundred light cues. So I
was constantly in contact with him. I would, you
know, if something didn't happen the way it was
supposed to happen because you were changing
theaters and towns every two or three days and
there were always problems with the lighting and
staging and so on, I would be aware of him off
stage very much. When something was going wrong,
then I would have to fill in some way....Whatever
was going wrong I was pretty much in contact with
him off stage. So he would be able to gesture to
me or say to me, 'something isn't working'. In
other words...I'm certain that, based upon my other
experiences on stage working in normal situations,
you are not nearly as emotionally engaged as you
are when you are creating a character with other

people on the stage with you.209
Robert Vaughn
For Hal Holbrook, being aware of himself while performing is

natural:

...because of the way I'm constructed, I guess, as
a person, I have an intensely clear sense of what
I'm doing physically and otherwise. That doesn't
mean that I'm conscious of every gesture, I'm not.
But physically I'm conscious of what I'm doing...of
an effect I want to create...I'm totally conscious
of what I'm doing all the time. I've always been

144

totally conscious as an actor. You know, I have an
outside eye. It's just built into my being. I
have an outside eye.210

___Hal Holbrook
Being as concerned as he is with vocal variety and other
technical matters, Brian Bedford simply says, "...the
instrumentalist is more instrumental with a one-person show.
I think that's a distinct help with this business of speaking

for an hour and a half non-stop."211 According to Dr.

Gerald Miller, successfully monitoring one's performance is a

measure of effective acting:

...the essence of good acting is being able to
manage one's behavior....The issue becomes one of
saying, 'what kind of behavioral display would be
most in keeping with this portion of the
script?...How should I behave to get this kind of
response here'...Thinking about what kind of
emotional and/or cognitive response you're aiming
at and then saying, 'what's the kind of behavioral
displays that are going to generate those kinds of
responses...’212

Gerald Miller

Miller also states that consciously orchestrating the
performance is a necessity because the audience's responses

are often unpredictable and frequently differ from night to
night:

No matter how damn good you are, you can't attain
feedback from a thousand people the same way I can
attain feedback from you when its one on one. The
other problem is that even if they're real good in
doing it they're only going to be able to process a
portion of the responses they are getting from some
of the members of the audience. So I think it
would make sense that from night to night...actors
do things differently. They do things differently
and probably some of the reasons they do them
differently is because they sense that the

145
responses they're getting from the audience aren't

the same responses that they got from last night's
audience or last week's audience...so they

behaviorally try to change it.213
___Gerald Miller

Many actors and theorists acknowledge a tendency toward
self-consciousness and 'third-eye' disengagement in the one-
person show. The necessity to control one's performance, and
the degree to which such control is required, was viewed by
some of the respondents as foreign to their instincts and
consequently unnatural and uncomfortable. Some felt
emotional engagement and control were not mutually exclusive,
while others voiced the Opinion that avoiding self-awareness
during performance is an impossibility. Michael Kahn argued
that whether or not the actor becomes absorbed in a character
is irrelevant; the viewer in fact wants to see and celebrate
conspicuous and conscious artistry. Finally, Dr. Gerald
Miller expressed the opinion that because of the
unpredictability and variation of the stimuli which the solo
performer receives from the audience, it is essential to
closely and continually monitor one's actions.

This chapter concludes with a brief look at several
idiosyncratic considerations, concerns and problems discussed
during the interviews.

IEE3Hi_1uHflL_II;__IRIQ§XH£BBII£L_QQHQEENS

...it's interesting today what actors think they are. It's
interesting what's happening. It's just becoming awful.214

Charles Nelson Reilly

146
It has been the aim of this study, thus far, to shed
light on those concerns which may be deemed generic to solo
acting. The attempt has been to examine what may be termed
common performance sensibilities among those who act in,
direct, coach or write one-person shows. During the course
of the interviews, however, several additional performance
considerations were mentioned which, while not shared by the
requisite number of respondents to be considered common or
inherent to solo acting, are nonetheless of sufficient
importance and interest to warrant inclusion at this time.
Both Brian Bedford and Colleen Dewhurst found a
challenge in performing bits and pieces of various roles
rather than the sustained, through-line character portrayal
of conventional productions. For Bedford, an added
difficulty arose from the fact that a number of these pieces
were from roles which he had never played:
I had already seen a couple of Shakespeare one-man
shows, the most notable, of course, being John
Gielgud's Agea_ef_Man, which I saw several times
and which was just a knockout as far as I was
concerned. It was a very great act--you know,
giving us Shakespeare's greatest hits...I didn't
want it [my show] to be Shakespeare's greatest hits
because I didn't want it to be a retrospective of
my Shakespearean career...[so] the problems really
arose from the things that I hadn't done
before...I've actually performed some of the plays
that I do bits from, but I haven't played the Duke
in Measure_£er_Meaeure and I've never played Romeo,

strangely. So really the difficulty was just
working on bits of parts that I have never actually

done before...215

___Brian Bedford

147
Although Dewhurst portrayed Carlotta Monterey (O'Neill)

throughout M¥_Gene, the show also presented portraits of
other women from the plays of Eugene O'Neill, and therefore
necessitated quick cuts and shifting. This posed a problem:

I found it very difficult because of the way My
Gene was, in terms of jumping from situation to
situation...you have the invasion all along of
O'Neill's women coming in. So that for me it was
really trying to train the instrument so that I
could jump quickly from Carlotta into Leng_nay_a
learner or into Moen_fer_the_Misbecet.ten.. I found
the first fifteen minutes agony because what I was
doing was...tap dancing so fast...I felt that I was
swinging them so quickly. I thought it was an
interesting idea starting her in a sanitarium so
that she could go in and out of character quickly,
but it was just...agonizing....What you were trying
to do was draw between the life of O'Neill and his
plays...I mean when you play in his plays, there is
never a night that you don't discover something
[but] now you were up there and you cannot tell the
audience what the experience is of doing O'Neill,
you are just kind of into bits and pieces of
him....Going through an experience, I think, would
be more to my liking, Qne experience, not forty-
five...you just have the feeling that you were
giving them the tip of the iceberg very
quickly....I always had the feeling the audience
was like, 'wait a minute!'....I think something
where you just came on to do a one-woman show and

you spoke only as that woman would be easier.216
___Colleen Dewhurst

An actor who chooses to present a one-person show based
on the life of a well—known historical figure must contend
with the fact that the audience is, in many cases, at least
somewhat familiar with the character, and therefore may not
only have specific ideas of how that person should be
portrayed or the material which should be included but also

may find it more difficult to suspend their disbelief or even

148
accept the performance. A decision must be made by the actor
whether or not to seek, as closely as possible, imitation, or
strive rather to suggest the essence of the character. Hal

Holbrook seeks transformation, as four hours in the makeup

chair would attest. Others such as James Whitmore (Will

3mm, and W) and Henry Fonda
(Clarenee_narreu) chose suggestion.217 According to Michael

Kahn...

...you don't want to be so conscious of the fact
that they are imitating other people, so they need
to have the ability to subtly do that...I know that
when we did Eleaher that, you know, Eleanor
Roosevelt had a certain kind of voice. Now Eileen
Heckart's voice is quite different from Eleanor
Roosevelt's, but Eleanor Roosevelt had a way of
talking in a speech pattern that was rather,
elocutionary...and so we adopted that. But we
found that if we just did that, it got tiresome
after a while. So it had to be a mixture of what
we remembered of Roosevelt and a lot of Eileen
Heckart; so that Eileen Heckart could have the
chance, within her own range, to make jokes, to be
sad...so it was not a slavish imitation, but more a

suggestion.218
___Michael Kahn
Robert Vaughn describes his experience with imitation versus
approximation in his portrayal of F.D.R:

I was able to pick up the general Roosevelt cadence
more than his sound fairly early on to the
satisfaction of the director....Because as
everybody always says when they are doing anyone
that is this well-known, you fear the audience's
attention is on perfection of the mimicry, instead
of what's being said. Then particularly in a one-
man play, it is alienating for the audience,
because they are so taken up by your ability to
impersonate, they tend to not pay attention to the
story....I couldn't, I'm not gifted enough to do
Roosevelt perfectly, so I had to put that aside to
begin with and try to get the essence of the

149

cadence. I keep going back to the word cadence,
because I had dinner one night with Jimmy
Roosevelt, one of his sons, and I said, 'in all the
recordings I've heard and all the film I've looked
at up to this point, I've never really seen or
heard your father at any point, when he seemed to
be talking in any normal way, as you might talk if
you were being interviewed on 6Q_Minntea or A_Night
W I mean I never
heard him speaking what I consider a conversational
tone.’ He said, 'Well he didn't speak in a
conversational tone. He always spoke like you
heard him.’ Which was an interesting insight,
because he did tend to always speak in a particular
kind of sound like that which was unusual. It
wasn't a normal conversation. So his own son told
me that's the way he spoke. So I thought, 'well I
won't worry about it, I'll continue to not try to
find a conversational Roosevelt, I'll just try to
do the one that everybody is used to.' That was my
justification for not doing it [an impersonation].
However, perhaps I could have done it. I would have
realized that the audience would have gone along
with it, since half the audience didn't know his
voice anyway as I said. So I don't know that my
choices were limited to the choice that I made
which was, because I didn't think I could really do
it perfectly, I'd have to do the best I could. But
in the case of Roosevelt, he was so extraordinarily
theatrical in his entire body language and his
entire attitude vocally and his use of his
cigarette holder, use of an opera club, use of the
hat. He was truly almost a John Barrymore in the
White House as far as theatrical mannerisms were
concerned. So that, plus the distinctiveness of
his voice, combined to make a very interesting
person on stage, [even] if he hadn't been well-
known at all, if no one had ever known who
Roosevelt was. If you just got out there on stage
and did all that stuff with the hat and the
cigarette holder and the opera club, so on, you
would still be [interesting]....Basically the tilt
of the head and taking the cigarette holder in and
out of the mouth and the general attitude,
physically...he always was, even in his last few
weeks of his life, an impressive looking man

physically.219

Robert Vaughn

150
Charles Nelson Reilly feels strongly that before
attempting a one-person show, today's actors must accurately
assess, not only their own abilities, but the talents
required for solo performance:

Ruth Draper did a little piece, explaining a
portrait, a painting in a museum, to a child and
it's very funny. I mean it's amazing what her
humor's like. And she held the little girl's hand
and I know that the girl had white socks, patent
leather shoes, a cream colored dress with a blue
sash down the back and a straw hat. When I think
of it in my mind I see two figures and not
one....In other words, the other characters are so
evoked that you can costume them...with Ruth Draper
that becomes possible, but this is because the
woman was a genius. I mean it's just a passion I
have....it's a possibility [to achieve this]. Just
like the young singers today [who] know opera in
three languages. My friend, Roberta Peters, can
sing La_Irayiata in four....That's the possibility
of an artist. So, today when an actor reads three
cue cards, everyone applauds on the set, 'Fabulous
Billy!‘ Ruth Draper has got to bring us back to
the possibility of what the mind can do...to the
young singers who know the operas in three
languages. See, then they're using their minds.
Young actors today...nobody thinks like this.
There's the other singer who goes up on "Bridge
Over Troubled Water," one chorus. I mean, that's
the difference....See, when I did the [Paul]
Robeson play, I didn't have a good actor. I had
James Earl Jones. He's not the right actor....He
makes a fake voice. He had diction lessons every
morning. I said, 'Why is the play getting lost in
your palate? Can't you just talk?'...He wants to
talk like Richard Burton and you can't. Noel
Taylor, who did the costumes, said to me, 'Do you
want buckles or not on the evening shoes?‘ I said,
'It doesn't matter. I need a heart and soul. I
don't need a fake phonetic lesson.'...I mean, it's
interesting today what actors think they are. It's
very interesting what's happening. It's just

becoming awful.220

Charles Nelson Reilly

151
Because of its autobiographical nature, Silvia Miles'
one-woman show, lrla_Mel_$ilyia, demanded that the actress
reveal and relive a number of painful episodes from her life.
She discusses this unique experience:

...and there I was on the phone, always on
hold...with my agent, which was very funny, you
see, and then, of course, it took me into every
experience, very much like Ira....Mine also took
place on New Year's Eve, or Christmas Eve, the same
as Ira. And there I was, all dressed up with
nowhere to go, with my date being broken, cleaning
the apartment and drinking champagne, calling for
the maid and forgetting that I ya: the maid....I
mean I've done Virginia Woolf, all those heavy-duty
roles [and] I've always been able to use the
emotion and the experience of my life for another
role, but I didn't have to go through my own agony
for the entire [show]. Every night, I had to
really relive everything. As it happened, I
relived it. It was the most peculiar experience
I'd ever had as an actress. It was very painful,
very exhausting, very painful. And the more
painful it was to me, the funnier it was to the
audience....It didn't involve any self-pity or
asking for any sympathy....I'm such a volatile
human being that what happened was, I mean, it was
like hysterical, you know, because the things that
went on in the play were things that were
hysterically funny. The whole idea was, I was
always being humiliated or put upon, but I wasn't
asking for pity. It was like I was ignoring it and
just going ahead like nothing had happened to me.
And the audience was hysterical. It was like a

Chaplin comedy.221
___Silvia Miles
During the course of the interviews, a number of
respondents discussed concerns which, on the basis of the
general comments in this study, may be termed idiosyncratic.
The difficulty of presenting bits and pieces of plays, or
shifting rapidly from one character or scene to the next was

mentioned. The matter of imitation versus suggestion in

152

historically-based one-person shows was considered, and the
need to assess one's talents objectively, as well as to fully
realize the requirements of a one-person show, emphasized.
Finally, reliving and recreating one's personal agonies on
stage was viewed as a difficulty in autobiographical
presentations.

The investigation of the specific Focus Areas is now
complete. The dissertation concludes in the ensuing chapter
with a comprehensive summary and recommendations for further

research.

NOTES TO CHAPTER III

 

1Madeleine Sherwood, telephone interview, 26 June 1990.

2Discussed in Eunice Ruth Eifert, "The Fourth-Wall
Shattered: A Study of the Performer-Audience Relationship in
Selected Full-Length Monodramas." diss., U of Minnesota,

1984, 162.

3Robert L. Benedetti, W, 4th ed.

(Engledwood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice, 1986) 29-30.
4Julie Harris, telephone interview, 16 July 1990.
5Arthur French, telephone interview, 12 July 1990.
6Sabin Epstein, telephone interview, 18 July 1990.
7Holbrook, telephone interview, '90.
8Holbrook, telephone interview, '90.
9Harris, telephone interview, '90.
10Holbrook, telephone interview, '90.
11Pat Carroll, telephone interview, 19 June 1990.
12Brian Bedford, telephone interview, 2 July 1990.

13Bedford, telephone interview, '90.

153

154

 

14Carroll, telephone interview, '90.

15Sherwood, telephone interview, '90.

16William Luce, telephone interview, 24 August 1990.
17Bedford, telephone interview, '90.

18Carroll, telephone interview, '90.

19Colleen Dewhurst, telephone interview, 28 June 1990.
20Luce, telephone interview, '90.

21Reilly, telephone interview, '90.

22Carroll, telephone interview, '90.

23Gerald Miller, personal interview, 25 June 1990.
24Madeleine Sherwood, telephone interview, '90.
25Michael Kahn, telephone interview, 25 June 1990.
26Robert Cohen, telephone interview, 20 June 1990.

27Robert L. Benedetti, telephone interview, 14 June

1990..

28Kahn, telephone interview, '90.

29Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.

155

 

30Reilly, telephone interview, '90.
31Charles Waxberg, telephone interview, 12 June, 1990.
32Robert Vaughn, telephone interview, 10 July 1990.
33Harris, telephone interview, '90.

34Cohen, telephone interview, '90.

35Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.

36 Epstein, telephone interview, '90.

37Waxberg, telephone interview, '90.

38Carroll, telephone interview, '90.

39Holbrook, telephone interview, '90.

40Carroll, telephone interview, '90.

41Vaughn, telephone interview, '90.

42Harris, telephone interview, '90.

43Sherwood, telephone interview, '90.

44Reilly, telephone interview, '90.

45Luce, telephone interview, '90.

46Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.

156

 

47French, telephone interview, '90.
48Miller, personal interview, '90.
49Reilly, telephone interview, '90.
50Luce, telephone interview, '90.
51French, telephone interview, '90.
52Kahn, telephone interview, '90.
53Waxberg, telephone interview, '90.
54Holbrook, telephone interview, '90.
55Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.
56Cohen, telephone interview, '90.
57Bedford, telephone interview, '90.
58Kahn, telephone interview, '90.
59Reilly, telephone interview, '90.
60Epstein, telephone interview, '90.
61French, telephone interview, '90.
62Vaughn, telephone interview, '90.

63Bedford, telephone interview, '90.

157

 

64Vaughn, telephone interview, '90.
65Waxberg, telephone interview, '90.
66Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.
67Sherwood, telephone interview, '90.
68Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.
69Epstein, telephone interview, '90.
7OHolbrook, telephone interview, '90.
71Cohen, telephone interview, '90.
72Harris, telephone interview, '90.
73Reilly, telephone interview, '90.
74Sherwood, telephone interview, '90.
75McDougall, "The Bare Necessity..." 32.
76Luce, telephone interview, '90.
77Luce, telephone interview, '90.
”WW. 1987 ed.
79Reilly, telephone interview, '90.

80Epstein, telephone interview, '90.

158

 

81French, telephone interview, '90.
82Kahn, telephone interview, '90.
83Reilly, telephone interview, '90.
84Cohen, telephone interview, '90.
85Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.
86Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.
87French, telephone interview, '90.
88Harris, telephone interview, '90.
89Carroll, telephone interview, '90.
90Vaughn, telephone interview, '90.
91Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.
92French, telephone interview, '90.
93Sherwood, telephone interview, '90.
94Kahn, telephone interview, '90.
95French, telephone interview, '90.
96Epstein, telephone interview, '90.

97Epstein, telephone interview, '90.

159

 

98Dewhurst, telephone interview, '90.
99Cohen, telephone interview, '90.
100Reilly, telephone interview, '90.
101Kahn, telephone interview, '90.
102Vaughn, telephone interview, '90.
103French, telephone interview, 90.
104Harris, telephone interview, '90.
105Luce, telephone interview, '90.
106Silvia Miles, telephone interview, 22 July 1990.
107Carroll, telephone interview, '90.
108Holbrook, telephone interview, '90.
109Miles, telephone interview, '90.
110Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.
111Vaughn, telephone interview, '90.
112Carroll, telephone interview, '90.
113Holbrook, telephone interview, '90.

114Harris, telephone interview, '90.

160

 

115Kahn, telephone interview, '90.

116Cohen, telephone interview, '90.
117Dewhurst, telephone interview, '90.
118Miles, telephone interview, '90.

119Waxberg, telephone interview, '90.
120Epstein, telephone interview, '90.
121Carroll, telephone interview, '90.
122Sherwood, telephone interview, '90.
123Epstein, telephone interview, '90.
124Waxberg, telephone interview, '90.
125Bedford, telephone interview, '90.
126Harris, telephone interview, '90.
127Carroll, telephone interview, '90.
128Sherwood, telephone interview, '90.
129Miles, telephone interview, '90.
130French, telephone interview, '90.

131Bedford, telephone interview, '90.

161

 

132Reilly, telephone interview, '90.
133Harris, telephone interview, '90.
134Epstein, telephone interview, '90.
135Carroll, telephone interview, '90.
136Cohen, telephone interview, '90.
137Miller, personal interview, '90.
138Kahn, telephone interview, '90.
139Vaughn, telephone interview, '90.
14oHolbrook, telephone interview, '90.
141Bedford, telephone interview, '90.
142Epstein, telephone interview, '90.
l43Waxberg, telephone interview, '90.
144French, telephone interview, '90.
145Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.
146Sherwood, telephone interview, '90.
147Harris, telephone interview, '90.

148Cohen, telephone interview, '90.

162

 

149Cohen, telephone interview, '90.
150Bedford, telephone interview, '90.
151Waxberg, telephone interview, '90.
152Luce, telephone interview, '90.
153Epstein, telephone interview, '90.
154Carroll, telephone interview, '90.
155Kahn, telephone interview, '90.
156Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.
157Carroll, telephone interview, '90.
158Sherwood, telephone interview, '90.
159Luce, telephone interview, '90.
160Reilly, telephone interview, '90.
161Vaughn, telephone interview, '90.
162Holbrook, telephone interview, '90.
163Kahn, telephone interview, '90.
164Vaughn, telephone interview, '90.

165Reilly, telephone interview, '90.

163

 

166Miller, personal interview, '90.
167Reilly, telephone interview, '90.
168Holbrook, telephone interview, '90.
169Miles, telephone interview, '90.
17oReilly, telephone interview, '90.
171Reilly, telephone interview, '90.
172Harris, telephone interview, '90.
173Miles, telephone interview, '90.
174Waxberg, telephone interview, '90/
175Bedford, telephone interview, '90.
176Dewhurst, telephone interview, '90.
l'77Sherwood, telephone interview, '90.
178Holbrook, telephone interview, '90.
179Epstein, telephone interview, '90.
180Holbrook, telephone interview, '90.
181Reilly, telephone interview, '90.

182Dewhurst, telephone interview, '90.

164

 

183Sherwood, telephone interview, '90.
184Carroll, telephone interview, '90.
185Bedford, telephone interview, '90.
186Holbrook, telephone interview, '90.
187Miles, telephone interview, 90.
188Sherwood, telephone interview, '90.
189Vaughn, telephone interview, '90.
190Holbrook, telephone interview, '90.
191Carroll, telephone interview, '90.
192French, telephone interview, '90.
193Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.
194Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.
195Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.
196Benedetti, telephone interview, '90.
197Carroll, telephone interview, '90.

198Carroll, telephone interview, '90.

165

 

1990uoted in Toby Cole and Helen Krich Chinoy, eds.,

Agtgzs Qn Acting (New York: Crown, 1970) 198-99.
200Reilly, telephone interview, '90.
201Cohen, telephone interview, 90.

20203car G. Brockett, W, 5th ed-

(Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1987) 584-85.
203Dewhurst, telephone interview, '90.
204Sherwood, telephone interview, '90.
205Miles, telephone interview, '90.
206Harris, telephone interview, '90.
207Epstein, telephone interview, '90.
208Kahn, telephone interview, '90.
209Vaughn, telephone interview, '90.
210Holbrook, telephone interview, '90.
211Bedford, telephone interview, '90.
212Miller, personal interview, '90.

213Miller, personal interview, '90.

166

 

214Reilly, telephone interview, '90.
215Bedford, telephone interview, '90.
216Dewhurst, telephone interview, '90.

217Eunice Ruth Eifert, "The Fourth wall Shattered: A
Study of the Performer-Audience Relationship in Selected

Full-Length Monodramas." diss., U of Minnesota, 1984, 123.
218Kahn, telephone interview, '90.
219Vaughn, telephone interview, '90.
220Reilly, telephone interview, '90.

221Miles, telephone interview, '90.

CHAPTER IV

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

Solo performance has, in various guises, enjoyed an
unbroken history since antiquity. Because of the lure of
added financial security and the promise of unparalleled
creative control, the one-person show has been attracting
actors in ever-increasing numbers. Yet, limited research has
been conducted in the attempt to either determine generic
acting considerations, concerns and problems inherent to the
one—person show or to recommend techniques to address them.
It has been the purpose of this dissertation to examine, from
the perspective of successful and respected artists and
acting/communication theorists, performance methodology of
one-person shows. In a series of lengthy, highly focused
interviews, these professionals offered insights into what
they believe to be the unique experience of acting alone on
stage. Close examination of the interview responses revealed
that there exist performance considerations, concerns and
problems which are common to the experience of solo

performers. For the purposes of this study these were

167

168
combined and categorized into Focus Areas, the analysis of
which constituted the core of the investigation.

Acting is, above all, a process of communication. On
stage, as in life, one seeks to be in communion, in relation,
to connect with others. Actions, done to attain objectives,
are largely other-directed. The performer, responding to
stimuli provided, in most instances, by fellow actors,
becomes a link in an ongoing communication chain or
transactional loop. Such interaction does not exist in the
monodrama. The actor stands alone. And this simple,
inescapable fact serves as the wellspring for the
considerations, concerns, problems and techniques discussed
in this investigation.

The first Focus Area of the study dealt with the actor's
efforts to establish relationships in the absence of other
characters with whom to interact. How does one find
communion with no one else on stage? The respondents
indicated that connections must be made in other ways. Many
felt an increased commitment to one's material was essential.
To these performers and theorists, it is critical that the
actor be excited by, intrigued with, and completely immersed
in the text. To insure this passionate bonding between
artist and material, the actor must be a direct participant
in the research and development of the show. Hal Holbrook
would have the performer alone make all the creative

decisions. Others indicated that a close, collaborative

169
relationship with a writer would yield a similar connection
to one's material. All were in accord, however, that such
direct participation was central to the success of a one-
person show and would, in addition, provide greater assurance
that the content is suited to the performer's capabilities.
Several of the interviewees were of the opinion that in
selecting material, it is to the actor's advantage to
include, whenever possible, the subject's actual written or
spoken words.

Breaking the fourth-wall and directly addressing the
audience--making the spectator the other actor, the missing
link in the communication chain-—is the most common way
performers seek relationships when acting solo. According to
those interviewed, casting the audience as the other
character is both natural and theatrically effective.

Whether the 'role' assigned to the spectators is in fact that
of listeners gathered, in another place or time, to hear a
noted personality speak or read, as in Hal Holbrook's Mark
Inain_1enight!, or the 'visitor' persona used in shows such
asThLBelleJLAmherstorGertrude—Steinm
Gertrude_fitein, the actor's performance is enhanced through
such identification. One must know to whom he or she is
speaking and why. There must be a fervent desire, a passion
on the part of the performer to share the material, if it is
to be enthusiastically embraced. Therefore, concrete

objectives must be established. A number of the respondents

170
compared the techniques of direct address to those of story
telling, public speaking or stand-up comedy in terms of the
moment-to-moment responsiveness required and one-to-one
interaction which must be approximated. The need to
distribute focus throughout the house was emphasized, and,
above all, the importance of talking ta rather than at the
audience was highly stressed.

Direct address is used in the majority of one-person
shows. However, interacting with unseen characters is
another approach taken by solo performers in an attempt to
establish relationships. The interviewees indicated that the
efficacy of this approach is wholly dependent upon the
vividness and specificity with which these characters are
imagined by the actor. Techniques to facilitate imaging
include careful and consistent 'placement' of the characters,
the use of paintings and photographs to increase specificity,
rehearsing with other actors to help visualize responses, and
drawing from one's personal life and past experiences for
unseen images.

Another way in which the solo performer increases
his/her sense of connection, according to the respondents, is
through the use of props, music, sound effects, lighting and
the physical environment. How one relates to props provides
the audience with an insight into the character, as well as
giving the performer something to do on stage. These

external elements help keep the actor 'on track' during

171
performance and often prove to be powerful and evacuative
sources of emotional stimulation and involvement. Hal
Holbrook's skillful use of his cigar is a clear example of
the way in which a prop can actually become a centerpiece or
play a major role in one's performance, in addition to aiding
in character delineation.

Generating and maintaining energy and concentration was
the the subject of the second Focus Area of the study. The
consensus among the professionals consulted was that the one-
person show differed dramatically from ensemble productions
with respect to energy, stamina, and concentration. In
multi-character plays, the thrust of the action is often
distributed among various cast members, with different actors
carrying the principle weight at different times, thus
affording the others an opportunity to gather themselves, to
recharge and prepare for the next time when they will be
needed to provide the momentum for the action. During solo
performance, this opportunity does not exist. The
responsibility for the production is borne by one actor.
Energy must be unflagging, concentration ceaseless.
Everything is self-generated. The respondents stressed the
need to maintain a high degree of physical conditioning, the
value of a healthy diet and sufficient rest. They also felt
that one's program must be carefully planned to include
sections of lower intensity. Thinking of the show in terms

of individual segments rather than in its entirety was

172
frequently suggested. Several of the interviewees, most
notably Pat Carroll, highly stressed the importance of proper
breath control as a fountain of needed energy. Pacing, the
distribution of energy, was also considered crucial and
further illustrates the value of carefully planning the
emotional levels in one's production. Lastly, it was felt
that having a commitment to the material and a strong desire
to share it would help adequately energize the performer.

A third Focus Area centered on the respondents' concern
for achieving variety in one-person shows. Many stated an
early fear in their experience with solo performing was
whether or not they would be able to interest an audience for
an entire evening. Consequently, variety, both vocal and
visual, was a central consideration. Several of those
interviewed warned against the danger of becoming overly
technical or purely mechanical in one's approach to solo
performance. To these actors and theorists, variety must
come from an organic, emotional response to a well-written,
structured text. Variety is therefore the by-product of
emotion. Others, however, are of the opinion that a solo
actor must actively strive, and meticulously plan to infuse
diversity into a one-person show whenever possible and
appropriate. Many felt a well-trained, expressive voice was
vital. Since all the notes are to be played on one
instrument, that instrument must be finely tuned and possess

a remarkable range. Pat Carroll, in fact, used a technique

173
in which she color coded her script to help facilitate a
varied vocal delivery. Other suggestions included having the
predominant character imitate other characters during the
course of the show. In other words, the actor portrays a
character portraying other characters. The use of humor was
strongly emphasized as a way of injecting variety into one's
performance. And movement was considered valuable in
providing the audience with visual changes in what otherwise
might be a presentation that is theatrically static.

The experience of being alone on stage, of 'aloneness,'
was the tOpic of discussion in the fourth Focus Area of the
study. The multiplicity of solo performance was revealed in
the comments of the interviewees. Several indicated that
acting in a one-person show gave them an exhilarating feeling
of power, freedom and control. Others, however, described a
darker side to acting alone. The feeling of being 'naked' on
stage, or of having no one with whom to share the
responsibility for the success or failure of the show, was
described as being quite intimidating. Many solo performers
experience a longing for the contact, the interplay, the give
and take that exists in ensemble productions. This sense of
isolation frequently extends beyond the theatre itself. Hal
Holbrook and Madeleine Sherwood vividly recounted the
loneliness that so often pervades the life-style of the solo
actor. And beyond the loneliness, there are the fears. Fear

of forgetting one's lines haunts many actors who venture onto

174
the stage alone. The reason is obvious: there is no one to
be of aid if the performer suddenly is unable to remember the
text. The terror in such a situation can be paralyzing, as
Pat Carroll indicated. According to Charles Nelson Reilly,
jumping entire sections in a one—person show is quite common.
Techniques to counter this anxiety include bringing a copy of
the script on stage, simply not dwelling on the fear, or
seeking the help of a hypnotist, as in Ms. Carroll's case,
should all else fail and apprehension persist. Concentration
was also mentioned as a key in preventing the loss of one's
memory. Another fear, indicated in the earlier discussion of
variety, is that of being boring.

Beyond the need to recognize and overcome one's fears,
being alone on stage can present the actor with additional
challenges. According to Robert Benedetti, these include the
elimination of self-consciousness, the retention of
vulnerability, and the maintenance of spontaneity.

The fifth Focus Area was devoted to exploring the level
of emotional detachment or 'third eye' monitoring required in
a one-person show. Because most monodramas are
presentational in style, there is a greater awareness of and
interaction with the audience than one would expect in a
fourth-wall, naturalistic production. Therefore, it was the
Opinion of many of the respondents that the performer is more
aware of the theatricalism in the event, and of the process

of acting as it is happening, than in a conventional drama.

 

175

The one-person show, in their view, necessitates a higher
level of conscious artistry. It demands the actor assume the
role of instrumentalist, carefully and continually monitoring
the performance. Charles Nelson Reilly offered a dissenting
view, stating that the performer must never 'watch'
him/herself when acting. Others, such as Colleen Dewhurst
and Madeleine Sherwood, indicated that many of the residual,
negative feelings they harbor toward solo performing result
from the fact that they found the high level of self-
awareness in a one-person show inconsistent with their acting
instincts and, therefore, unpleasant and uncomfortable.
Julie Harris, on the other hand, believes emotional
involvement and control are not mutually exclusive. Several
theorists, among them Sabin Epstein and Robert Cohen, are of
the Opinion total engagement is simply not possible. They
argue the actor is always monitoring his or her performance
to various degrees. Michael Kahn believes the audience, in
fact, attends a one-person show in the anticipation of seeing
a highly skilled performer consciously display virtuosity.
The spectator enjoys watching an actor at the controls of the
performance. Finally, such orchestration, according to Dr.
Gerald Miller, is a necessity during direct address due to
the unpredictability of audience responses.

In the sixth and last Focus Area of the study, those
concerns which were deemed idiosyncratic--unique to one or

two of the interviewees, were examined. Brian Bedford and

 

176
Colleen Dewhurst discussed the difficulty of working on bits
and pieces of material, 'patchwork quilt' performing.
Bedford was concerned that several of the characters he
selected to portray were ones he had previously never played.
For Dewhurst, the quick cuts from character to character
proved extremely disconcerting and induced anxiety. The
subject of imitation versus suggestion in historical one-
person shows was discussed. Michael Kahn and Robert Vaughn
indicated a preference for approximation. Both felt when
mimicry is the aim an audience can become unduly conscious of
one's ability or inability to imitate effectively, thus
missing much of the content and subtleties of the
performance. Charles Nelson Reilly called for the
contemporary actor who anticipates performing a solo
production to first assess his or her talents, and to fully
realize the heart, the soul, the imagination needed to stand
alone on stage. And Silvia Miles described her
autobiographical presentation, ltla_Mel_§ilxia, as demanding
that she recount many painful experiences from her life.
WWW

There are aspects to acting alone and to the performance
genre known as the one-person show which lie beyond the scope
of the current investigation, and, therefore, warrant future
research. While Silvia Miles' observations were a valued
addition to this study, the methodology employed in personal

reflection and/or cultural commentary, as well as performance

 

177
art, has been the subject of limited significant inquiry. An
investigation into the techniques of such artists as New York
City writer and solo performer, Reno; New Orleans-based actor
and playwright, John O'Neal; New York City playwright and
performance artist, Alvin Eng; poet, playwright and
performer, Jo Carson; Mexico City performance artist,
Guillermo GOmez—Pefia; New York City comedian, Jackie Mason, I
as well as Spalding Gray, Eric Bogosian, Paul Linke and Shane

McCabe would be of substantial benefit.

 

Several respondents in this study drew parallels between
performing in a one-person show and doing stand-up comedy.
This connection could prove to be an interesting and
informative investigation. What can be learned, with respect
to the techniques of direct address, from the manner in which
a comedian 'works the crowd'?

As John S. Gentile recommends in his dissertation, "The
One-Person Show in America: From the Victorian Platform to
the Contemporary Stage"1, the role played by the director in
the preparation of a one-person show is worthy of further
exploration. It was revealed in this study that Hal
Holbrook, for example, felt one, and only one, artistic
consciousness was required, that of the actor. Julie Harris
and others, however, rely heavily on the vision and input of
a trusted director. The relationship between solo performer

and director warrants additional research.

178

The one-person show in schools, as an educational tool,
is another area worthy of future study. Many solo actors
present programs in elementary and high schools, as well as
colleges and universities. An investigation into the
performers and subject matter of these shows, sponsoring and
booking organizations, and the views of educators concerning
the efficacy of such productions is justified.

Research into the use Of one-person shows as a tool in
actor training would seem a valid subject for future study.
How do university theatre departments and conservatory and
workshop programs incorporate solo performance into their
instruction?

Further inquiry into the parallels between performing in
a one-person show and other situations in which the actor
works alone is merited. How, for example, can an awareness
of and proficiency in the acting techniques required in a
monodrama benefit the performer when auditioning or improve
one's ability to deliver a monologue during conventional,
ensemble productions?

The artists interviewed in the current investigation
have found substantial success in the arena of solo
performance. There is, however, benefit to be gleaned from
additional study of one-person shows which were ineffective
and the possible reasons for such failure.

Watching an actor work alone on stage can be a source of

wonder and inspiration. One cannot help but admire the

 

179
talent, imagination, preparation and courage required of the
solo performer. His is a situation not unlike that of a
tightrope walker, one which demands the utmost dexterity and
balance, one with peril but a slip away. And yet, actors
eagerly leap to this challenge. Why? Perhaps, beyond
financial considerations or even the question of creative
autonomy, people stand in this arena for the same reason they
climb mountains or run marathons. The risk of failure is
great, but the Opportunity to explore one's potential, to
expand one's limits, to confront one's private demons, is
undeniable. In the words of Janice Paran, writing in
American_1heatre magazine, "...at it's best, solo performance
combines the welcome company of a charismatic personality
with text that transcends the merely personal, giving voice
and presence to truths we recognize as our own..."2 Such is

the one-person show.

 

NOTES TO CHAPTER IV

 

1John S. Gentile, "The One-Person Show in America: From
the Victorian Platform to the Contemporary Stage." diss.,

Northwestern U, 1984, 176.

2Janice Paran, ed., "Taking It Personally," American

Theatre October 1991: 63.

180

APPENDIX

REGIONAL THEATRE SURVEY QUESTIONAIRE and HYPOTHESIS TESTING

RESULTS

 

Questions Concerning the One-Person Show

Name:

Theatre:

1.

Do you present, or have you presented In the past, one-person shows’“
at your theatre? UYES CI NO

If you have presented one-person shows, in the past ten years
approximately how many have you presented?

Do you regular! consider one-person shows' In selecting your season' 5
schedule?

Do any of your actors perform or have they performed one- -person
shows? Ci YES Cl NO

Are you presenting more one-person shows at your theatre now than ten
years ago? ClYES D NO
More than five years ago? DYES Cl NO

In your estimation is the on Uporson show an increasingly popular form

of theatre? UYES
If yes, can you explain this increase? (Please feel free to use the back of

this form.)

 

*One-Person Show: A theatrical presentation performed by one person

that Is scripted, spoken and that has character, form and a unifying theme
or subject. I exclude stand-up comedy, variety acts and strictly musical
performances.

Please return thirfimn to: Jane: Ryan. Owen Hall. E709, MSU, Earl Lansing, MI 48825.
1 8 1

 

Ryan Hypothesis Testing Results:

The Problem:

One of the most important questions from the nation-wide survey
concerns the perception of the artistic directors of LORT theatres

regarding whether or not the one-person show is an increasingly popular
form of theatre.

Of the seventy responses to this question, twenty-eight were in the
affirmative. This is a proportion of forty percent (I 0.40 ). In order to
show that this is a truly representative result, several statistical tests
were performed to assess statistical reliability. There are two classical
methods used to test for the statistical significance of a proportion.

Method 1:

The first method is to specify a claim or what is technically called a null
hypothesis. Such a claim would be that the true proportion (symbol I T) of LORT
artistic directors (which we never know unless we were to poll the entire
population) is equal to zero. This is written: H5: ‘T I 0 . Next the
sample statistic (symbol I p) in our case 0.40, is compared with the proportion
of zero. For a sample size of n I 90, it would be extremely unlikely to find a
sample proportion as large as 0.40. The probability of this occurrence may be
calculated using the following formula:

[notetthe null hypothesis Igtif I 0.10 .
is used instead of so: 1» I 0.00 in order to satisfy the statistical
assumption that. n1- > 5.0. In this case nI-I 90(.10) I 9.0. This correction
allows us to use normal curve techniques in this statistical test. In practice
what this means is that if the proportion of 0.40 is shown to be significantly
greater than 0.10, then de facto it is greater than 0.00 ).

Inferences for the Proportion, n

Hypothesis test: Ho: n I 0.100
Ha: n > 0.100

sample proportion (Ip) - hypothesized value of n

 

standard error

182

183

0.400 - 0.100

 

z - - 9.487
V(( 0.100 r (1 - 0.100)) / 90)

The p-value for this test is 0.000000000001
The p-value of 0.000000000001 is thg probability that our proportion of 0.40 is
not statistically significant. For all practical purposes this means that there
is a statistically significant percentage of LORT artistic directors who believe
that the one-person performance is becoming more important.
This fact is formalized by rejecting the null hypothesis Ho and accepting in
it's place the alternative hypothesis, H. that the true proportion 1 is in fact
greater than 0.10 (and by design therefore, greater than zero).
Method 2:
The second statistical test performed to assess the reliability of the proportion .

of 0.40 consists of calculating a confidence interval for the proportion. A
confidence interval takes on the following form:

point estimate ( I p ) f z * (standard error)

where point estimate is the proportion of 0.40, the 2 number is determined by the
investigator, depending on the level of confidence desired in the result, and
standard error is a statistic needed to assess the error factor.

For example:

..> for 80.0t confidence, the interval is:

I 0.400 t 2 * V((0.400 * (1 - 0.400)) / n)
I 0.400 t 1.280 * V(0.240 I 90)
I 0.400 t 0.066

The lower limit of the confidence interval is 0.334
The upper limit of the confidence interval is 0.466
This means that we are 80.0 t confidence that the true proportion of artistic

directors who believe that the one-person performance is increasing in popularity
if between 33.4t and 46.6t.

 

184

--> For 90.0t confidence, the interval is

- 0.400 t z - V((0.400 . (1 - 0.400)) / n)
- 0.400 t 1.645 . V(0.240 / 90)
- 0.400 t 0.035

The lower limit of the confidence interval is 0.315

The upper limit of the confidence interval is 0.485

Again we are more confident (90.0 t ) that the proportion is between 31.5 t and
.5 t.

--> Finally, for 95.0t confidence, the interval is

- 0.400 f z . «((0.400 . (1 - 0.400)) / n)
- 0.400 t 1.960 . «(0.240 / 90)
- 0.400 a 0.101

The lower limit of the confidence interval is 0.299
The upper limit of the confidence interval is 0.501
We are 95h confident that the true proportion is between 29.9 t and 50.1 t.

We should note that as the level of confidence increases, the limits of the
confidence interval increase. This makes intuitive as well as statistical sense.

The fact that a proportion of 0.00 is not within the confidence bands is the
second method for showing statistical significanco.

 

References: 8A8/8TAT User's Guide: Vblume(s) 1 and 2, version 6,
Fourth edition, 8A8 Institute Inc. 1990.

Webster, Allen Applied Statistics for Business and Economics.
Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1992

Shiffler, Ronald I. and Adams, Arthur J. Introductory Business
Statistics with Microcomputer Applications. Boston: Pws-xent
Publishing Company, 1990.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Erimary—Seurces

Bedford, Brian. Telephone interview. 2 July, 1990.
Benedetti, Robert. Telephone interview. 14 June, 1990.
Carroll, Pat. Telephone interview. 19 June, 1990.
Cohen, Robert. Telephone interview. 20 June, 1990.
Dewhurst, Colleen. Telephone interview. 28 June, 1990.
Epstein, Sabin. Telephone interview. 18 July, 1990.
French, Arthur. Telephone interview. 12 June, 1990.
Harris, Julie. Telephone interview. 16 July, 1990.
Holbrook, Hal. Telephone interview. 31 July, 1990.
Kahn, Michael. Telephone interview. 25 June, 1990.
Luce, Bill. Telephone interview. 24 August, 1990.
Miles, Silvia. Telephone interview. 22 July, 1990.
Miller, Gerald R. Personal interview. 25 June, 1990.
Reilly, Charles Nelson. Telephone interview. 8 August, 1990.
Sherwood, Madeline. Telephone interview. 26 June, 1990.
Vaughn, Robert. Telephone interview. 10 July, 1990.

Waxberg, Charles. Telephone interview. 12 June, 1990.

185

 

186
Books

Adler, Stella. The_Ieehnigue_ef_AeLihg. New York: Bantam,
1988.

Benedetti, Robert. The_AeLer_at_flerk, New Jersey: Prentice-
Hall, 1986.

Blau, Herbert. Ihe_Andiehee. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
UP, 1990.

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Articles

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Muir's Wilderness Footsteps." Lee_AngeleS_IimeS 7
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Shales, Tom. "JFK: A One-Person Show." Washingren_£eet 20
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Eifert, Eunice Ruth. "The Fourth Wall Shattered: A Study of
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Gentile, John Samuel. "The One-Person Show in America: From
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Long, Linda Sue. "The Art of Beatrice Herford, Cissie
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