Less than three weeks from opening night! The cast of Legally Blonde is fully off book this week. Things are coming together. This is such a fun show, and such a change of pace from the dark fury of Sweeney. Callahan has been an interesting role to step into. Blocking the show has been such a blast. Tonight we have a music and dance rehearsal, a final opportunity to clean up any rough patches in songs before we begin to run and polish large blocks of the show. Music rehearsals are my favorite. I can’t wait.
Speaking of dance, being around trained dancers has made me realize one sad truth about myself: I am not a “triple threat.” A “triple threat” is a musical theatre performer who is remarkable for being a fabulous actor, singer, and dancer. Examples of triple threats off the top of my head: Tommy Tune (truly a triple threat!), Neil Patrick Harris, Sutton Foster, and Liza Minnelli (not Hugh Jackman!). While all of these performers are naturally talented, they’ve also gone through substantial training to hone their abilities in these areas. I admire them for this. At most, I am a double threat, and more honestly just a single threat. Singing has always been my forte. I feel insecure in my acting, mainly because of I have had limited training, though some amateur experience. I feel incompetent in my dancing. Legally Blonde has some great dance numbers. Callahan dances in none of them. There are days when I think that a dance class might do me some good, but with such limited time to devote to such pursuits, these days I can only admire dancers from afar. To be able to move with such grace and precision on stage, a fifty year old man can always dream.
Outside of personal insecurities I have about my dancing abilities that will remain hidden in this show, at rehearsal last night we tackled another thing that I am actually involved in and was anxious about: intimacy choreography. Late in Act 2, Callahan makes a pass at Elle and kisses her on stage, a pivotal moment in the character’s story arch that reveals him to be the villain that he is. This show is lighter than Sweeney Todd, but by the end of it I think I like Callahan the law professor much less than I like Sweeney the serial killer. The audience needs to boo Callahan. I want the audience to grieve for Sweeney.
During my early years in high school and college theatre I shared several kisses on stage with different performers. My first kiss, in fact, was a stage kiss when I was in ninth grade. Up to this point, all stage kisses in which I’ve been involved were romantic kisses between characters whose relationship was consensual and affectionate. Legally Blonde is different. My character is not a romantic lead. He is an egotistical law professor with substantial power over Elle, the young woman he is making a pass at on stage. There is a substantial age gap between them. The kiss is nonconsensual. This is not comfortable territory for me personally. The power that Callahan has over Elle is mirrored by another reality: Patti, the actress playing Elle in our production, is an ACU theatre major at a school where I myself am a tenured professor. She is literally my daughter’s age. There is an age and power dynamic in our relationship as well. This is not something I am comfortable with. Thus, anxiety…
Thirty years ago when I was performing more regularly, there weren’t many instructions given to performers about stage intimacy. The gist was, “Just do what comes naturally.” I played Rolf in The Sound of Music in a local summer theatre production when I was in high school. One night after a dress rehearsal, I recall the director of the production pulling me and the actress who played Liesl aside. Concerned that our kiss was beginning to look just a bit too much like a teenage makeout session, she encouraged us to tone the kiss down. I recall high school productions where the entire cast would gather as an audience to watch the first time we actually kissed on stage, adding pressure and anxiety to the stage intimacy. We had little training. We went with our gut.
Fortunately, these days actors are working in settings that are more aware of the importance of establishing boundaries and safeguards for intimacy on film and in theatre. The director of Legally Blonde, Katie Hahn, has substantial training in intimacy choreography. Working through the scene, Katie did such a fine job walking Patti and me through a routine that turned the stage intimacy into something that, while appearing natural for the characters, was routinized and choreographed for the actors in a way that made both Patti and me feel comfortable and safe acting in that moment. It almost felt like fight choreography (something I learned about in Sweeney). After last night, I am feeling so much less anxious about that scene. When I got home after rehearsal last night, I said to my wife, “Hey we did intimacy choreography! Let me tell you what we did!” I walked her through the step-by-step process that makes the scene look natural, but also strictly controlled.
If you haven’t bought tickets for Legally Blonde, don’t miss out! Get yours here!