Tales from the Trenches Part 3

Today is Part 3 of our series of blogs by actor/director Paul Birchard…

I’ve got the callback – I’ve got the new script – and it’s…It’s… Not good.

There is no longer any conflict between Good and Evil. Everyone is evil, more or less.

The good wife sorely tested (who could handle a rifle all right, but who bore no resemblance to the grinning ghoulish soldier-ettes of Abu Ghraib) is now a swaggering, gun totin’ moll.

The Reverend (“my” role) is now a whisky priest, ruined by drink, his lines brimming with overblown hyperbole and a story arc of zero degrees. Even the Devil isn’t nearly as frightening or eloquent as he was in the previous version.

What happened? I looked at the two title pages. The first version I’d had was actually a revision of an original script. One screenwriter was credited on this revision. There were two writers named as co-authors of the original script. And now on this latest version their names were back again.

I could see it all. The two original writers were probably young guys, raised on crappy retreads of 1970′s westerns (themselves pale, crude imitations of classics). Video games were also clearly an influence on their grasp of storyline, character and conflict. They’d probably managed to sell the original script to a Hollywood studio, but the producer – or the studio – (wisely) commissioned a re-write.

The re-write was good. It excised all the awkward elements of the first draft, introduced the revolutionary idea of actual conflict – and it was a big one – Good vs. Evil ! Good people under awful conditions striving to be better, helping one another, standing strong together. And most importantly – from an Acting point of view – the dialogue flowed naturally from discernible thought processes and identifiable character needs.

But the original writers must have had a clause in their contract to do a ‘polish’ of the revised version. And I’m willing to bet they simply threw out all of the new, interesting things the second writer had introduced, and reverted to their original “vision”. And the producer must have gone along with this.

It was disspiriting to contemplate preparing for this important callback.

How to act such awkward, implausible dialogue? So hard to memorize. Not to mention the greatest Acting Challenge you’ll ever have to face, not letting on that you know what a P.O.S. this thing is, and why.

Could the director and producer actually prefer the latest version?

Not for the first time I recalled Robert Mitchum’s response to a British talk show host who smugly inquired how an actor as talented as he was could appear in so many drab movies, giving so many uninspired performances.

Mitchum replied: “I would never insult a producer by giving him more than he asked for.”

So – How to prepare?