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Jack and Bella

R-ACT Theatre Productions

Gaslight

directed by Eric Armstrong

October 2017

Role - Jack Manningham

 

As so often happens, I find myself inhabiting a role of someone so far from myself that I have to take two busses, a train and a horse-drawn carriage to arrive at their point of view. And thus it is with Jack Manningham, the original prototype of the sociopathic bastard. Much to my chagrin, I find I really relish playing Jack. He's so smooth and so polite and so devious.

 

If you've never heard of the term, "gaslighting," I suggest you turn on the news. The play Gaslight, or Angel Street as it is known here in the states, is the origin of the term. Gaslighting is the act of manipulating someone via psychological means into questioning their own sanity. I leave your imagination to work out what that has to do with this play.

The play takes place at the Angel Street home of Jack and Bella Manningham which, on the surface, gives the impression of the ideal Victorian household. But there is a dark and sinister undercurrent just out of sight of the public eye. It is this darkness that the audience becomes privy to as the play unfolds.

Theatre Masks Horizontal Rule

Red Barn Theatre

Jesus Christ Superstar

directed by Jessica Patterson

July 2017

Role - Caiaphus


This is still my favorite musical and it was a pleasure to return to it as the, not evil, but certainly misguided antagonist, Caiaphas. Some of the notes are just below my range but we managed to figure out which places I could sing up an octave and not make the songs sound riduculous.

This was a very talented cast of very young people, so I did feel a little out of place. But sometimes it's good to keep your distance from the main characters of the story when you're playing the antagonist.

Theatre Masks Horizontal Rule