Darrow
For the first time ever, I am playing someone that lived. All of my usual work into script, shoes, and motivation are complicated by reality, and how much I should try to approach who he really was. Not because someone that knew him may be in the audience, but I do feel some kind of pressure to add a reality to the words. I have found out that many of the quotes I speak onstage were actually spoken by him, so it is important to try to approach ‘the man’ as part of an honest portrayal. I am already ageing my movements and delivery to make me closer to the sixty-seven years of age Darrow was at the time of the Leopold and Loeb case: This is still almost fifteen years older than I am, now. Luckily, this is a Student presentation, so I am already the oldest guy onstage. The view of grey hair and a slower delivery than the rest of the cast will show that I’m old. Trying to nail down an Ohio accent, and adding it to my already suspect general American one, is a bigger challenge, because it doesn’t stand out to my ear from anything else north of the Mason-Dixon Line. I am a little too “Southern” at present although that does point me out as an outsider from the rest of the cast. Darrow’s “shambling” gait is mentioned three or four times in the script, so I’m experimenting with weight displacement, how to bend to portray age, and blending the two to appear to “shamble” (What is that, anyway?) across the stage, without looking too caricatured, is another work in progress. Obviously, all of this together will add to the character’s speech patterns, pauses, and the placement of Italics in the script give me definite “Pacino” moments, when I suddenly explode for no other reason – seemingly - other than I’ve reached the end of a sentence! The ups and downs, the cadence of speech are beginning to come through. There is no doubt about the overall ‘Man’. He always took the underdog cases, the ones with huge issues – Leopold and Loeb, The Scopes Monkey trial - at stake. However, these cases were guaranteed to bring him lots of press, so he obviously didn’t shy away from controversy – especially as these high profile cases would help his practice. He was described as “kind-hearted”, and some that “truly cared” on many different occasions. I have been trying a softer delivery, at least while in court, to make people listen to me and what I’m saying, rather than shouting at them (Something I learned from working on Carmichael, but without the gun.). From Mid-west ‘common stock’, he and grew up through the Civil War, so these facts also inform my decisions, as does his theatricality. He was, of course, famous for his “Aw Shucks, I’m just a country bumpkin, small town lawyer.” delivery that has been copied, and parodied, ever since. With twelve days to go before first night, I have the usual jigsaw of physical and mental clues on which to draw, but can I ever truly be Darrow on stage in anything close to a “Day-Lewis” project? Well, Lincoln was also from Ohio. Perhaps I should copy that actor’s delivery? After all, we are both English, so perhaps it will sound the same?
