Marc Forget on 5×6
[A little while ago, I made an offer to the theater community in Philadelphia: if they'd write about what they were doing onstage, and about WHY they were doing it--i.e, what was interesting about it, what was relevant about it, &c.--then I'd post the articles here. Marc Forget has offered up the first submission. Details about the time, place, and date of his performance can be found on our new Around Town page. --braak]
“But What I Really Want to do is Direct”
In response to Chris’ entreaty, I decided to share a few thoughts on the show I’m directing which is going up at the Shubin Theatre on February 12th. My name is Marc Forget and I was an actor for many years in New York. Because I wanted to actually make a living at it, I slowly moved away from theatre toward film and TV and commercials. And after a few years of mitigated success, I decided to leave acting altogether and try to be a grown up and get a “real” career. The excitement was pretty much gone.
The problem is that about 3 years later, after reading enough “find your passion, find your path” material to last a few lifetimes, I couldn’t shake the fact that I was happiest when I was involved in theatre, and within that, when I directed in New York. I fought it because I wanted to continue being able to buy food and pay my rent, but I could only fight it for so long.
So finally I gave in because that was the only sane response. I rented a space and started looking for material. I first came across The Author’s Voice, a wonderful one-act play by Richard Greenberg which in the space of 30 minutes deals with desire, fear, desperation, the nature of fame and how we use one another to reach our own goals. I saw it done in New York a few years ago and loved it. So I threw it into the basket and continued shopping for other material to fill an evening. And other gems showed up, like China by Scott Organ which every artist who’s ever worked in an office will want to see. Again, in only 10 minutes we see someone, who’s built a life meant to snuff away the nagging feeling that she’s not fulfilling some sort of destiny or vague dream that she has, completely fall apart. And the piece also attacks the hypocrisy of artists who separate themselves from whatever they do to make money.
The other plays are: Post Its (Notes on a Marriage) by Paul Dooley and his wife Winnie Holzman which takes the audience through an entire relationship through notes they left each other on post its (eight years into a relationship, I can relate to at least half the post its); Please Have a Seat and Someone Will Be with You Shortly by Garth Wingfield deals with our need to fantasize in order to escape either the dreariness of our lives or to deal with our fears; and finally Finger Food by Nina Shengold is a big, loud, silly yet brilliant comedy which also tackles artists’ desires for greatness, for something better.
I put up a casting notice, found great actors, designers and stage manager, and now I’m doing what I’ve wanted to do (again) for quite a while. And it feels wonderful. And I think that people who come see it will feel just the same; you can just tell when something’s done for the love of it. It all sounds very cliché, but it turns out that clichés become so for a reason.
Marc Forget
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