Post by jo on Nov 1, 2012 5:53:26 GMT -5
This should really be called POSTSCRIPTS 2 - because there was a lengthy thread on the old TBFO Board on the same subject.
But there is an interesting insight made by one of the original actors, now that they have re-portrayed the roles, in a new revival of the play. The play was revived with the original theatre company which staged it, the Chicago Dramatists --
www.southbendtribune.com/entertainment/inthebend/sbt-lives-stormtossed-in-a-steady-rain-20121101,0,6691858.story
"This time around, I wanted to imply that Joey is a lot more complicit in what ultimately happens to Denny and, perhaps even manipulates, more than I was willing to admit before, the final outcome."
But this was what I actually got from my seeing the play on Broadway. That Joey was more complicit than what it seemed even when I viewed it for the first time. I do not know if it was the second or third or whichever viewing it was -- but the feeling that he was manipulative grew stronger because he seemed to be jealous of Denny's seemingly more stable life. Daniel/Joey started seeming manipulative to me at some point in the play, especially with how he tried to show full understanding of Denny's problems, when in fact he wanted Denny's wife and tried hard to show he could be a foster Dad to Denny's children. Hugh/Denny was actually more naive or even more trusting of the relationship...although at the end, he probably decided to do what was best for his family. He knew what Joey was trying to do, but he was resigned to it because of his own failures.
I think this theme was quite evident with the acting choices presented by Daniel and Hugh.
The original actors seem to say that now that they have matured as actors, they have started to look at a more realistic view of the relationship, especially towards the end.
Jo
But there is an interesting insight made by one of the original actors, now that they have re-portrayed the roles, in a new revival of the play. The play was revived with the original theatre company which staged it, the Chicago Dramatists --
www.southbendtribune.com/entertainment/inthebend/sbt-lives-stormtossed-in-a-steady-rain-20121101,0,6691858.story
Lives storm-tossed in 'A Steady Rain'
The New York Times By ANDREW S. HUGHES
5:59 a.m. EDT, November 1, 2012
Randy Steinmeyer and Peter DeFaria originated the characters of Chicago police officers Denny and Joey, respectively, in Keith Huff’s “A Steady Rain.”
But Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig made them famous when they starred in a 12-week run of the play on Broadway in the fall of 2009.
“When I think of Chicago cops, the cops don’t look like those two, with zero body fat,” Steinmeyer says by telephone from Milwaukee, laughing and then adding, “It’s pretty flattering.”
“If you have to be replaced by somebody, I guess it’s better to be replaced by two international superstars,” DeFaria says. “Randy and I never made it out to New York, but we felt we’d be doing this play again. I’d love to see it now, but at the time, I wasn’t ready to see anybody do the play, not just Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig. I wasn’t ready to give it up yet.”
DeFaria was right about returning to “A Steady Rain”: He, Steinmeyer and original director Russ Tutterow revived the play this summer at Chicago Dramatists, the theater where the play premiered in 2007. The two actors bring it to the Acorn Theater in Three Oaks today and Friday.
“It’s not a question of good cop/bad cop anymore,” DeFaria says about returning to “A Steady Rain.” “It’s a complicated story about two men who are good friends but want different things.”
Huff, whose wife’s family includes several police officers, had a read a story in the New York Times about three Milwaukee police officers who returned a 14-year-old Laotian boy to serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer after he convinced them the boy was 19 and his lover.
He then used that as the inspiration for his play about two lifelong friends and police partners who make a fatal error and must deal with the emotional, personal and legal consequences of it.
“It’s one of those things that it’s a fiction loosely based on a real event, but we never mention Jeffrey Dahmer by name,” DeFaria says. “In the grand scheme of things, this incident happens 45 minutes into the play, but when it happens, obviously, it affects what happens in the rest of the play. … It’s a catastrophic mistake in the lives of these two policemen, but it could have been a mistaken shooting.”
Denny and Joey, director Russ Tutterow says, are “entertaining guys,” but he’s not sure he’d want them as friends.
“They’re the closest of friends and their own worst enemies,” he says by telephone from Chicago. “It’s a love-hate relationship, but they’ve always got each other’s back.”
The two characters have known each other since kindergarten, but aside from both becoming police officers, much has been different about their lives.
Denny’s married and has children, a “people person,” “a bit of a racist” and a cop who doesn’t believe the law applies to him because of his badge as Steinmeyer puts it, while Joey is a recovering alcoholic who has never been married and uses Denny’s family as a surrogate for the one he doesn’t have.
“Let’s say he’s the beta to Denny’s alpha, kind of a guy with low self-esteem,” DeFaria says about Joey. “Outside of Denny, his best friend, you get the impression he might be kind of a lone wolf. Maybe that’s too romantic. Just a loner.”
“He’s not only a policeman, but he’s involved in the community, not always legally,” Steinmeyer says about Denny. “He’s involved in the bar scene. He’s one of these good-time guys and likes to have a good time. He sees himself as a loyal friend and family man.”
Huff refers to “A Steady Rain” as a duologue, and it’s structured as a series of monologues by each of the actors interspersed with some scene work between them.
“The audience has to provide a fair amount of filling in details about character, tone,” Steinmeyer says and describes the writing as being a combination of Nelson Algren and early David Mamet, while DeFaria compares it to Raymond Chandler.
“It’s kind of a book on tape,” Steinmeyer says, “so the audience’s imagination is always at work.”
“I think the interesting thing is that you’re never quite sure whose reality you’re supposed to be buying into,” DeFaria says about its duologue structure. “We start off on the same page, but as the situation gets thicker and harder to stir, the two points of view diverge and you’ll have to make a decision about who’s telling the truth and who’s embellishing to serve their purpose.”
Tutterow says the new production of “A Steady Rain” is “more detailed” than Steinmeyer and DeFaria’s first time with it.
“The actors are making, not different choices, but more choices,” he says. “You can play a show years and years, and with the best actors, it deepens. The actors are five years more mature. Some of the things, it feels like it took us five years to figure out how to say them.”
In 2007, Steinmeyer says, Huff was revising the script into the last week of rehearsal before the play’s opening. Now, he and DeFaria are more secure with the play and able to make it a richer story.
“When we first did this five years ago, I was more interested in having people believe what I was saying, my side of the story,” DeFaria says. “I never really considered that at any point I was diverging from the truth. This time around, I wanted to imply that Joey is a lot more complicit in what ultimately happens to Denny and, perhaps even manipulates, more than I was willing to admit before, the final outcome."
The New York Times By ANDREW S. HUGHES
5:59 a.m. EDT, November 1, 2012
Randy Steinmeyer and Peter DeFaria originated the characters of Chicago police officers Denny and Joey, respectively, in Keith Huff’s “A Steady Rain.”
But Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig made them famous when they starred in a 12-week run of the play on Broadway in the fall of 2009.
“When I think of Chicago cops, the cops don’t look like those two, with zero body fat,” Steinmeyer says by telephone from Milwaukee, laughing and then adding, “It’s pretty flattering.”
“If you have to be replaced by somebody, I guess it’s better to be replaced by two international superstars,” DeFaria says. “Randy and I never made it out to New York, but we felt we’d be doing this play again. I’d love to see it now, but at the time, I wasn’t ready to see anybody do the play, not just Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig. I wasn’t ready to give it up yet.”
DeFaria was right about returning to “A Steady Rain”: He, Steinmeyer and original director Russ Tutterow revived the play this summer at Chicago Dramatists, the theater where the play premiered in 2007. The two actors bring it to the Acorn Theater in Three Oaks today and Friday.
“It’s not a question of good cop/bad cop anymore,” DeFaria says about returning to “A Steady Rain.” “It’s a complicated story about two men who are good friends but want different things.”
Huff, whose wife’s family includes several police officers, had a read a story in the New York Times about three Milwaukee police officers who returned a 14-year-old Laotian boy to serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer after he convinced them the boy was 19 and his lover.
He then used that as the inspiration for his play about two lifelong friends and police partners who make a fatal error and must deal with the emotional, personal and legal consequences of it.
“It’s one of those things that it’s a fiction loosely based on a real event, but we never mention Jeffrey Dahmer by name,” DeFaria says. “In the grand scheme of things, this incident happens 45 minutes into the play, but when it happens, obviously, it affects what happens in the rest of the play. … It’s a catastrophic mistake in the lives of these two policemen, but it could have been a mistaken shooting.”
Denny and Joey, director Russ Tutterow says, are “entertaining guys,” but he’s not sure he’d want them as friends.
“They’re the closest of friends and their own worst enemies,” he says by telephone from Chicago. “It’s a love-hate relationship, but they’ve always got each other’s back.”
The two characters have known each other since kindergarten, but aside from both becoming police officers, much has been different about their lives.
Denny’s married and has children, a “people person,” “a bit of a racist” and a cop who doesn’t believe the law applies to him because of his badge as Steinmeyer puts it, while Joey is a recovering alcoholic who has never been married and uses Denny’s family as a surrogate for the one he doesn’t have.
“Let’s say he’s the beta to Denny’s alpha, kind of a guy with low self-esteem,” DeFaria says about Joey. “Outside of Denny, his best friend, you get the impression he might be kind of a lone wolf. Maybe that’s too romantic. Just a loner.”
“He’s not only a policeman, but he’s involved in the community, not always legally,” Steinmeyer says about Denny. “He’s involved in the bar scene. He’s one of these good-time guys and likes to have a good time. He sees himself as a loyal friend and family man.”
Huff refers to “A Steady Rain” as a duologue, and it’s structured as a series of monologues by each of the actors interspersed with some scene work between them.
“The audience has to provide a fair amount of filling in details about character, tone,” Steinmeyer says and describes the writing as being a combination of Nelson Algren and early David Mamet, while DeFaria compares it to Raymond Chandler.
“It’s kind of a book on tape,” Steinmeyer says, “so the audience’s imagination is always at work.”
“I think the interesting thing is that you’re never quite sure whose reality you’re supposed to be buying into,” DeFaria says about its duologue structure. “We start off on the same page, but as the situation gets thicker and harder to stir, the two points of view diverge and you’ll have to make a decision about who’s telling the truth and who’s embellishing to serve their purpose.”
Tutterow says the new production of “A Steady Rain” is “more detailed” than Steinmeyer and DeFaria’s first time with it.
“The actors are making, not different choices, but more choices,” he says. “You can play a show years and years, and with the best actors, it deepens. The actors are five years more mature. Some of the things, it feels like it took us five years to figure out how to say them.”
In 2007, Steinmeyer says, Huff was revising the script into the last week of rehearsal before the play’s opening. Now, he and DeFaria are more secure with the play and able to make it a richer story.
“When we first did this five years ago, I was more interested in having people believe what I was saying, my side of the story,” DeFaria says. “I never really considered that at any point I was diverging from the truth. This time around, I wanted to imply that Joey is a lot more complicit in what ultimately happens to Denny and, perhaps even manipulates, more than I was willing to admit before, the final outcome."
"This time around, I wanted to imply that Joey is a lot more complicit in what ultimately happens to Denny and, perhaps even manipulates, more than I was willing to admit before, the final outcome."
But this was what I actually got from my seeing the play on Broadway. That Joey was more complicit than what it seemed even when I viewed it for the first time. I do not know if it was the second or third or whichever viewing it was -- but the feeling that he was manipulative grew stronger because he seemed to be jealous of Denny's seemingly more stable life. Daniel/Joey started seeming manipulative to me at some point in the play, especially with how he tried to show full understanding of Denny's problems, when in fact he wanted Denny's wife and tried hard to show he could be a foster Dad to Denny's children. Hugh/Denny was actually more naive or even more trusting of the relationship...although at the end, he probably decided to do what was best for his family. He knew what Joey was trying to do, but he was resigned to it because of his own failures.
I think this theme was quite evident with the acting choices presented by Daniel and Hugh.
The original actors seem to say that now that they have matured as actors, they have started to look at a more realistic view of the relationship, especially towards the end.
Jo
