Klinkelhoff
I haven’t portrayed a character onstage for over 25 years. The audition listing that I found mentioned an age that I can portray, so I decided to try to get the part. And I did! He is the straight guy in the Farce. The ‘Pillar of Respectability’ that enters the scene when everything is going wrong, and who’s continued entrances only complicates things. Being unsure of the characterization that I should be doing, and whose only direction was: “Do it less, don’t try too hard”. I based him on my physical appearance: he is taller than the rest of the cast, so I played him ramrod straight. His conversations with the female character were very dismissive, so he is used to getting his own way around women. I played him as unmarried (He is looking for a room to rent) and, as a professor at a local University, I played him as a know-it-all whose only dealings with women would be as servers at bars and restaurants and , perhaps, some of his students. The paly is set a Century ago, and it is German, so perhaps everyone is a lot more set in their Politically Correct ways, as well as enjoying that Teutonic sense of being better than anyone else. The trick about Klinkelhoff is to keep him as prim-and-proper as I can, because when things go awry, it is fun to not only be shocked, but distraught. Why is he looking for a room, and why is a room in this place so important? He makes three different entrances trying to get this room, so he does require this exact address, for some reason. I made it about it’s proximity to certain places in the city that he wanted – allowing for a little piece of panic when he thinks that can’t get it. Perhaps one of those people that starts by thinking: “That would be perfect.”, and then cannot see any other possible answer. His reaction to seeing the Monarch late in the play also ads to his personality: A Royalist, a traditionalist, someone who knows what everyone’s place is in society, as well as his own. Educated, but not widely travelled, who’ whole world probably turns around him. Unmarried, and someone without much need for women. This photograph was taken 2 weeks before opening night. It was dropped on the cast by the Director that she wanted this specific look for the play – I call it Silent Movie, but it could be clown-like. I am anxious to tamp down my physicality and be somewhat fluid in my movements and gestures. I’ll be pretty bland in my delivery, and allow the moments of shock to be exaggerated in my facial features, before recovering somewhat and speaking – trying to keep myself under control, perhaps? Another idea, along with my own love for my beard! I haven’t had to grow one before, and it is “manscaped” every other day, so I can transfer that to him, too.
