I blink a lot-every day, in fact. It was never a problem before, never the kind of thing that might trip up a journalist, like bad spelling or dangling participles. But then, I had never acted in a soap opera before.
I was standing in a classroom at Columbia College before a pack of students who write, act and produce the soap opera ”Behind the Screens” in their advanced broadcast course. They were watching me go over my guest part as an egotistical talk show host.
”Don`t blink so much,” the director, Laura Chvatal, 22, told me. She was wearing dark lipstick and a purple dress and exuded the confidence of a veteran student director. She looked mildly perturbed. ”Just blink as little as you can.”
I`d never thought about it before. I tried to still my eyelids. That brought on a surprise case of cotton eye-similar to cotton mouth.
And this was just the rehearsal! How would my twitching look before the cameras next week, when we would film my 2 1/2-minute scene in the TV studio down the hall? I was determined to pull off my big moment as Jennifer Cavandish, a prima donna in a world of sizzling melodrama.
For five years, the student soap opera has followed the trials and tribulations of a small Chicago TV station and the mob-connected family of struggling station owner Olivia Jackson. The show portrays ”biracial romance and racism, fatal attractions and true loves, cops and robbers, greed and generosity, environmental waste, split personalities and failed pregnancies,” according to a college press release.
This would be a far cry from the suspense in my average week: will the clean underwear hold out.
At first, I was excited. Here was the perfect opportunity to find out if I had any totally hidden star qualities. After all, I once dreamed of becoming an actress. Hadn`t everybody said I was so great in the high school play?
Those of you who still wonder if you could have been a rock star, baseball player or president might want to listen up at this point.
In rehearsal at my right stood deadly handsome Mark Andrushko, 24, who plays the double-crossing station manager, Jack Jackson. Mark just finished acting in a soon-to-be-released independent film and hopes to act in a professional soap one day.
I looked deep into his eyes (to observe his technique). Laura kept telling me to look closer, to stare him down as my character demands changes on the set of her talk show. I was close enough to see he did not have a blinking problem. His eyelids were perfectly still.
Laura had to tell me again and again to maintain close eye contact. Sure he was cute, but I didn`t want to look at his pores. It wasn`t polite.
But this was acting. I was moving in on Mark, pointing my finger at him like Laura said. ”Listen to me, you little man,” I rail at him in my opening lines, which I had memorized the night before. ”I want my chair to be at least three feet higher than the other guest chairs. They should be looking up at me when they talk.”
In the scene, Mark objects that guests would be insulted. I insist that Olivia Jackson, his half-sister, explain who`s the boss. Little suspecting her half-brother is trying to take over her station, Olivia, played by the winsome Ruth Ellen Sheahan, backs up my preposterous request. I stalk off, explaining that I`m late for a date with a pro linebacker.
This would be as likely in my own life as a date with a sheik on a camel. And I have never called any co-worker a ”little man,” though other thoughts have come to mind.
That`s why acting is so great, Mark told me in between run throughs. ”I like playing an ass,” he said. ”You`re able to express every emotion to the fullest and not be blamed for it. It gives you a chance to not be in real life.”
So this was not real life. After the seventh run through, Laura was quiet. So was the room. She was looking at me, disturbed. The students observing the rehearsal, and acting instructor Chuck Smith, also looked at me. ”Frankly, in this scene I don`t believe you could be a talk show host,” she said.
Her words cut me to the quick. You mean I couldn`t be a talk show host?
Hey, that`s sort of my line of work.
My whole self-image was falling apart.
”Posture,” she said. ”Watch your posture.”
This was appalling. My mother was right. All this time I thought I only slouched in her presence as a sort of neurotic response to my family. (OK, Mom, I`m saying it here in print: You were right. For future reference, I don`t mean right about everything, just this one thing.)
Laura then told me I was acting ”too old,” that I should try to act younger, as if I`m 30. I`m not yet 30, so why do I seem so decrepit?
One of the television instructors, Ronn Bayly, gently suggested that Laura use lay terms to explain what she meant by ”too old.”
She thought for a moment. ”Just be yourself,” she said.
She was being kind. She didn`t say what I knew. My attempt at ”acting”
made me seem affected, like a school marm with a fake British accent. I was getting the shakes.
Favorite course
Maybe this acting thing isn`t as easy as it looks. Maybe it`s not just a lot of standing around talking about love and money with Barbra, Meryl and Kevin.
To those of you snickering into your coffee, let me say I know this was not ”All My Children” or ”General Hospital.” But ”Behind the Screens”
does play in 47 suburban communities and Chicago`s public access Channel 21 on Friday nights. Around the U.S., the soap opera runs on 128 university stations through U-Network.
I had only five lines, but 65 students sweat and slave for four weeks to put together just one half-hour episode, which includes eight 2 1/2- to 3-minute scenes like mine. They get credit, but it also is their favorite course.
”It`s not even like a class. You don`t even think of it that way,” said Keith Reid, 27, of Naperville, who works in an insurance office and wants to write Hollywood screenplays. ”Even at 10 o`clock at night, after a long day of work this is still exciting. You write something and then you get to see it acted out.”
Sometimes. Keith wrote my scene in the scriptwriting class, which meets on the 14th floor of the school`s high-rise campus at 600 S. Michigan Ave. Rehearsals and taping take place at the same time on the floor above. When they hold conferences, the students keep to the roles they would have had if they were professionals at a story meeting for a real TV show: writers at the bottom of the pecking order (I could relate), then line directors, then the director.
Keith will remember this, I thought, when he`s a success like other alumni of ”Behind the Screens”: Mike Stoyanov on the sitcom ”Blossom”;
Andrew Sherman, who played accussed murderer Richard Church in ”America`s Most Wanted”; Scott Wertz, an associate producer on ”Falcon Crest” and
”Knot`s Landing.”
At the rehearsal, my mental state hit rock bottom. I was trying to
”focus,” like Laura said, but instead I was reminding myself of the scene in ”Bugsy” where mobster Bugsy Siegel, played by Warren Beatty, has a screen test because he thinks he can act. Even Warren, who I always thought was a pretty shallow guy, can act better at being a bad actor than I can at being any actor.
The connection was spooky: Bugsy Siegel. Jessica Seigel. Neither can act. Mr. Handsome, my co-actor, was not helping any. He kept laughing right in the middle of our scene. He claimed he was only giggling because one of the lines was so funny. I suspected he was laughing at me.
Matter of technique
The realization that I was el stinko was my first step on the road to recovery. We ran through the scene repeatedly. I began to improve.
Afterwards, I felt almost in the know as instructors Ronn Bayly and Luke Palermo let me in on a few inside insights. ”If you could play yourself you`d make a million dollars,” Ronn said. That`s all Robert Blake and Jack Nicholson do, the instructors told me.
”I think it`s shallow,” Luke added.
Now I could appreciate what they meant as they discussed techniques of the legends. Marlon Brando only had to be told two words and he knew exactly what to do. James Dean, on the other hand, had to be directed step by step through every move and emotion. ”It was all persona,” Ronn said.
I guess my acting technique is really a lot more like Dean`s than Brando`s.
Wardrobe willies
The night before the big taping, I must confess I was frantic: nerves and wardrobe willies. My part called for a stylish, ”expensive-looking” outfit, but it couldn`t be black, which doesn`t show up well on camera.
Everything I own is black.
”Expensive-looking?” I wondered if I could buy a new outfit and put it on my in-town expense account under miscellaneous: $400, Bloomingdales. No?
I couldn`t decide if my red blazer was ”expensive-looking.” I knew it cost $59 (wholesale). It would have to do. My leather skirt, on the other hand, was ”expensive-looking” because it was. It was black. That`s just too bad, I thought, on my fifth pass through the closet.
When I arrived at the 15th floor TV studio, nobody cared what I was wearing. In the bathroom, Ruth, who plays Olivia, intently picked a piece of pizza from her teeth. Laura was talking about her love life.
Again more looking at me. Makeup artist Tiffany Westerfield, 20, a woman with plenty of personality, evaluated my face. Bags, she said. We`ve got to cover them. Hair, she said. Too flat. She told me to rat it.
These kids today. Maybe they`ve resurrected the lost art of ratting, but I`d never done it before. I didn`t let on. But when she handed me a toothbrush, I balked. A toothbrush? What, I should clean between the bathroom tiles too? She explained that a toothbrush creates fewer split ends than a comb. That set my mind at ease. It worked great.
Places everyone
In the professionally equipped TV studio at 6:30 p.m. sharp, we took our places on the simple set: a gray-backdrop decorated with inane little squiggles, just like a real talk show. Since we were supposed to be in a TV studio, parts of the three cameras would be seen at the end of the vignette.
We went over the scene a half dozen times, stopping on command so camera operators Matt Comings, Kristin Milbrath and Jeff Parks could practice their shots. When the technical rehearsal was done, director Joe Leo went into the control room, where he would edit the scenes live, calling out which shots to take from the three cameras, all going simultaneously.
This was it. My moment in the spotlights. About 20 students-lighting technicians, the timekeeper, the line director-stood around looking. More looking. Unimpressed looking at me.
The first two takes were blah. Well, I was blah. Mark and Ruth were perfect each time. Back on the sidelines, acting instructor Chuck Smith was reassuring. He told me to watch my posture and try not to breathe in the middle of sentences.
After the third take, Chuck gave me the A-OK sign. My back began to hurt, but I was standing straight. I was focusing. I was looking Mark in the eye. I could breathe (always a good sign). I felt pretty good.
After eight takes, the director was satisfied. Everyone trundled upstairs to look at the videotape.
I was OK. Not great. Just OK. But at least I didn`t blink too much.
