Character by Association #1: an actor faces the inevitables

Glengarry Glen Ross. You may have seen the movie. If you did, it’s likely the performances left an impression. Jack Lemon, Kevin Stacy, Ed Harris. Al Pacino as Roma. I’m playing Roma in Main Street Theatre’s production (which will be running at Little Mountain Studios from Nov 19-29), so Pacino’s performance is the one I’ve got to deal with. I start reading the text and all I can hear in my head is Pacino. Every line is him. If I’ve got a chance of escaping that fact, I better start speaking this out loud. I can’t escape the fact that Pacino completely owned this part. No matter what I do, I won’t be able to erase the imprint. So let’s just give that up. Why don’t I just incorporate that reality? Like actors who have played famous Shakespearean roles. They’ve had to wrestle with film actor’s versions, stage actor’s versions, and if they’ve done some historical research they may have been wrestling with reports of performances by the likes of 19th century actor Edmund Kean, and others. In pursuit of originality some actors shun such information. Others reference it. That’s what I’m going to do. Reference Pacino’s performance.
 
There are also the Broadway stage performances of the same role by Liev Schreiber, Joe Mantegna, and the original Roma — British actor Jack Sheppard. I’m not much of a film and TV buff, so I can’t evoke any of these performances. So far it’s an intertext between me and Al. But Wikipedia tells me Jack Sheppard was the Master of Jordan College in The Golden Compass.  I saw that movie and if I’m thinking of the right character — an erudite, sympathetic, but weak individual — then Sheppard adds a very odd layer to my inter-textual construction of Roma. Then again, like a good professor, Roma likes to wax philosophical.
 
There are a few other factors to consider right off the bat. David Mamet himself is one, the voice I’m accustomed to from his other famous early plays, like American Buffalo. And the voice and physical features of the playwright himself, who I’ve watched in interviews with Charlie Rose excerpted to Youtube. And another association: the Royal Court editions of Mamet plays from the 1980s. White backgrounds, black and white photos from a production, and blue trim. I believe all the copies I’ve ever seen of these plays happened to be on the shelves of used bookstores. So I’m also pulling from an atmosphere from the 1980s connected to the smell of 2nd hand books —mysterious, slim little volumes of plays no one wanted to keep.
 
So let me see who Roma is at the moment: he talks like Al Pacino, thinks like the Master of Jordan College, looks like David Mamet (buzz cut with a 5 o’clock shadow on Charlie Rose), and smells like a used book.