My Time at Temple Studios, Part 11

Show #11
Sunday, December 29: 5 pm

My first target for the night was Badlands Jack. I had seen a small portion of his loop back in September, but lost him after the 1:1, so I never really got a sense for the whole thing. Of course, I faced my usual issue – how do I find him at the beginning of the show? I knew he rarely, if ever, left the town area, so there was very little ground for me to cover – but even so, I didn't want to spend the first few minutes of the show running around like a chicken with my head cut off (like I did while looking for Romola at my last show). Instead, I decided to take the opportunity to check in on a new (to me, anyway) Grocer, Jesse Kovarsky. The last time I had started out a show with the Grocer, Jack stopped by very early on – so I figured I could just switch over at that point.

My earlier Grocer experience was with Julian Stolzenberg, who played him as sad and weary. Jesse's Grocer, on the other hand, is a bundle of nerves, erratic and possibly quite mad.  Also sad, but that was more of a hidden texture that seeped out around the edges of his performance than an overriding mood.  The energy in his shop was so different from before that after only a minute or two, I knew I would have to return to see more of him – after Badlands Jack, of course. I can be stubborn that way.

My plan went a bit awry, however, when the Grocer pulled me into his back room for a 1:1 almost immediately. This hadn't happened the previous time – to me or to another white mask – so it was quite the surprise, albeit a pleasant one. Nonetheless, it resulted in my being ejected back into the store, alone, with still no sign of Badlands Jack. My plan was clearly not going to work – no more waiting; I needed to set out to find him.

Fortunately, I didn't have to go far – Jack (Julian, my original Grocer) was in the Drugstore, taunting the Drugstore Girl (Anna Finkel) while wearing Andy's jacket. Julian's Jack immediately impressed me as much more aggressive and out of control than the other Jack I had spent time with, David Essing. David has a certain degree of class and poise (part of what makes him such a fantastic Claude) that he couldn't quite bury when playing Jack, while Julian seemed half animal.

I followed him out into the woods, where he and Andy (Tomislav English) had a fight that culminated in Jack cowering on the ground in front of a straw man. First the Grocer, now Jack – clearly, this was going to be a night of instability and madness. But what else could I expect in Temple Studios?  After that, he rushed back to his trailer, where he pulled me in for a 1:1 that started like the one I had in September, then went off in a completely different direction and ended with him inviting me along to the hoedown. While I won't detail what happened in that trailer, I will say that hearing what he had to say in there was the moment that I finally “got” Jack, and understood why he is the way that he is. It makes so much sense that it almost seems obvious in retrospect, and maybe others have figured it out without the 1:1 – but it certainly didn't hurt having it spelled out.

The hoedown was. . . well, the hoedown. It was much like any other hoedown, which means that I loved it. The aftermath was quite interesting, though, because for the first time, I stuck around for the big fight between William (Omar Gordon) and Dwayne (Nicola Migliorati), with their sidekicks, Andy and the Barman (Francois Testory). I was shocked at how brutal it was – when the baseball bats slammed into the floor or walls, it sounded like an awful lot of force for acting. Meanwhile, Jack retreated behind the bar and watched, punching the air and directing the fight like a villain from the 60's Batman TV series.

After the conclusion of the fight, I followed Jack back to his trailer for a second 1:1, which matched up much more closely to the one I had in September, and which resulted (again), in my being ejected into town alone. I was about to race back around to try to rejoin Jack, when I saw the Grocer heading for the Drugstore. Given the where we were in the loop, I had a pretty good guess as to what he was about to do – and I knew I couldn't pass up the chance to see what this Grocer would do with the Drugstore Girl's death scene.

Said death scene played out very differently from how I remembered, although I don't know how much of that is actual difference, and how much is my memories of the first time getting jumbled up. In September, when I saw it performed by Julian and Sophie Bortolussi, I remember her being generally on board with what was happening, while he was struggling with it – breaking the action multiple times and starting over, as if trying to avoid the end of the scene. This time, it was the Drugstore Girl who interrupted the scene, retreating to the counter with the script and leading the Grocer in a brief struggle/dance before he took it back, forcing her to start over and see it through to the end. She did so, with an attitude I can only describe as “pouty.” Jesse and Anna made for a really terrific pairing for this scene. The Julian/Sophie version was one of my favorite scenes, but this one was better still. I made a mental note to return to Anna's Drugstore Girl somewhere down the line, although I sadly never really followed through on that.

After she died, the Grocer clapped his hands while jumping up and down, before stopping suddenly, overcome by the realization of what he'd just done – a stark contrast to Julian's morose take on the moment. This Grocer is so fascinatingly unstable; I don't know whether I like and sympathize with him or whether I'm terrified of him. I think the answer is yes.

I followed him back to the Grocery, where he reset back into civilian clothes and closed up the shop with a defiant “My name is Eugene Greene.” He headed into the studio to start the story over again, and that was where I took my leave of him. Kind of an unusual choice for me, but it was consistent with how my night was going – I was feeling a rare bout of wanderlust, perhaps a reaction to my night of lengthy, comprehensive loops on Saturday. My next destination was the basement, where I intended to meet up with Isabelle Cressy's PA. Given how much I had enjoyed my time with Fania Grigoriou and Kirsty Arnold's PA's, I was very interested in checking out the newer cast's interpretation.

When I got to the basement, the mannequin reset room was closed up, which meant she was most likely inside. I hung around the corridor for a minute, and was treated to a light show – someone inside the room was shining a light through a hole in the door, tracing patterns on the wall. Finally the door opened up and she and the Doctor (Rob McNeill) emerged with the Grandmother mannequin, but surprisingly without any white masks. I guess that's why he had time to mess around with his pen light.

I followed her to her office, where the watch quest began. The scene was surprisingly deserted – other than me, only a single older woman was there to see it. The PA climbed on to her desk and retrieved the watch, then stood on the edge of the desk right next to me, teetering back and forth, almost-but-not-quite reaching out for me. She leaned even closer, and I prepared to catch her as she fell - but instead she leapt deftly to the ground, literally brushing past my hand and rushing over to pin the other woman to the wall. Thus, the woman became her assistant for the watch delivery. I was actually pretty happy with that outcome – I certainly didn't need to do the watch delivery for a third time, and I had never watched someone else do it. I couldn't help feeling that she was deliberately teasing me with it, though.

Once we got back upstairs, we accumulated a bit more of a crowd, mostly due to meeting up with Dolores (Jane Leaney) and Marshall (Fionn Cox-Davies). We watched the ice dance, then the PA helped Dolores change into her black outfit. The crowd remained much thicker, despite Marshall's departure. I couldn't help but think back to my last two loops with the PA - I was the point where I had lost her both times, as she disappeared into a 1:1 with someone else. This time, though. . . this time was different. Before heading off, she fixed me with her gaze for a second, then passed through the crowd right beside me, opening a pathway in just the right spot for me to take full advantage. I followed her out of the ornate bedroom and shortly thereafter into the 1:1 room.

Coming out of the 1:1, however, I was disappointed to find myself alone again – she didn't emerge with me. I was determined to see this last, tiny missing piece of her loop, though, so I did something uncharacteristic – I waited for her. I spent the next few minutes watching Marshall and Dolores cavort in the bedroom with one eye while keeping the other on the 1:1 room. Sure enough, the PA emerged shortly thereafter to interrupt the bedroom antics, then headed into the dressing room to tell Wendy (Sophie Bortolussi) what she saw – and so, finally, I completed the PA's loop, returning to the scene where I had picked her up last time around.

I decided to stick with her a while longer, though. We returned to the basement office, where she sucked out my life force and breathed it into a potion. I have to give Isabelle a lot of credit for this scene – after having my life force sucked out by three different PA's, this was the first time I actually realized that's what was happening. The other two times, I just thought they were kissing me on the neck for some obscure reason. I can be rather dense at times. After that, we caught up with Conrad (Adam Burton) in his dressing room and she added the contents of his dropper bottle to the potion. I'd like to point out that through both of these scenes, I was the only white mask present. Second loop on a reasonably full night, and I'm the only person following the PA? Or, apparently, Conrad? What is wrong with everyone? Not that I'm complaining, mind - but I'm certainly confused.

After that came the seduction/drugging of Marshall, and finally, we parted ways as she headed downstairs for the orgy, which I didn't really feel like watching again. All told, I enjoyed Isabelle's performance as the PA quite a bit, but there wasn't a lot about it that was distinctive – it was very much “in the style of Fania,” which was a little bit disappointing after seeing the huge differences between Fania and Kirsty's interpretations.

We were getting toward the end of the loop, so I decided to try to pick back up with Badlands Jack. I had heard there was a very nice interaction shortly before reset involving him, Mr. Tuttle, and a noose, so I figured I could just head to the toyshop and let Tuttle lead me to Jack. The first part of the plan went swimmingly – I found Tuttle (James Traherne) in his shop, surprisingly all alone. Apparently, though, waiting for Badlands Jack gives me special luck powers, because inside of two minutes, I was heading behind the counter for a 1:1 that was incredibly different from the one I had with Mateo Oxley's Tuttle the night before. Once it was done, he didn't chase me away the way Mateo did, so I circled back around to the toyshop to continue with my plan.

By this time another girl had wandered by, hovering in the doorway. As I stood beside her, watching Tuttle paint on his counter, he slowly looked up and fixed her with a gaze. Was he going to do two 1:1's in a row? She didn't respond right away, so I tried to step back out of the store to encourage her – but the plan backfired, because as soon as I moved, she took several steps back, making sure to stay farther away than I was. Tuttle shifted his gaze to me and gestured for me to come over to the counter. I shrugged and pointed to the girl, but he just repeated his summons, so I obeyed. It turned out he just wanted to play a game of questions. He pulled a card with the question, “what is your favorite name for a child?” Uh-oh. What is my favorite name for a child? I had no idea. Why would I know that? The only thing that popped into my head was an image of the cast board, so I blurted out the first name in the upper left hand corner: William.

In retrospect, I think that's sort of a legitimate answer. When I was young, around 7 or 8, I used to wish that I had been named William, since that was the name of the protagonists of both the Dark is Rising series and the Tripods trilogy. Not to mention William Shatner.  None of that occurred to me in the moment, however - it was a pure panic answer.

Apparently satisfied with my response, he gave me a jellybean and wrote it on his painting. Now that she could see what we were doing, the mysterious skittish girl worked up the gumption to join us, and he asked her the same question. I wondered if she would continue the pattern. A Mary or a Wendy would do – but alas, her favorite name was Madeline. William and Madeline. Not much of a game, but it passes the time.

Speaking of passing the time, I had been hanging out with Tuttle for quite a bit longer than I expected. Where was Jack? Where was the noose? Why was I suddenly hearing reset music? WHAT WAS GOING ON?!?!?!?!

I later learned that there are actor Jacks, and dancer Jacks, and only the latter do the noose scene with Tuttle. Julian is an actor Jack, so he was off somewhere else doing something else and not being watched by me instead. Thus, I still have not seen how Jack's loop ends – but at least I still had time to see how it begins. I set out on another Jack hunt, and quickly found him in the motel office, reading a book.

I'm not sure how long he spent on that book, but it was enough time for me to watch him, get tired of watching him, go through the contents of the desk, watch him a bit more, and flip through the entire contents of the bookshelf (mostly pulpy detective thrillers, plus some erotica). Eventually he came to an illustration, tore it out of the book, handed the page to me, and left. I have no explanation for any of this.

The next stop was the saddlery, where he spent rather a lot of time eating an apple and staring out into the street. The beginning of Jack's story is not what you would call eventful. I actually really enjoyed this particular bit, though – standing in the saddlery with him, just watching everyone pass by, and catching tiny snippets of scenes that I had previously viewed from the inside, several of which seemed to be happening simultaneously  – it was a really fascinating perspective. This was the moment where the show felt most like a full, living, breathing world, and it was magnificent.

Eventually we had to start picking up a narrative, however, so we moved on to Jack's first real “scene,” a surprisingly brutal eviction of Romola (Katie McGuinness). Now, I've seen this scene several times. I've seen it with Katie as Romola. I've seen it with Julian as Jack. This was the first time I'd seen them together, though, and it played out way more aggressively than ever before – she damn near strangled him to death at the end of it. It's really nice when even a scene I've seen over and over again can shock me.

Not long after that, Jack played his part in the delivery of Stanford's package, then disappeared into his trailer, alone. This was the point where I said goodbye to him for good. His loop was still frustratingly incomplete for me, but I had made a lot of progress, and I finally felt like I had a handle on the character – so there really wasn't much to complain about.

At first, I wasn't sure where to go next – but a new opportunity jumped out at me almost immediately. Harry Greener (James Sobol Kelly) was in his motel room, calling the studio in hopes of getting a job. Back in September, I had seen the first part of his loop, up until I lost him after the 1:1. I had also seen the end, as the gatekeeper found him passed out drunk near the studio gates. I never saw how he got from one to the other – but given the timing, I must have been within a couple of minutes of the start of that missing chunk. That was the rest of my night sorted, then.

It was maybe not the best time to join the loop – just as Harry's descent begins. It's much easier to sympathize and appreciate the tragedy of these stories if you've had a chance to bond with the characters during the good times. Fortunately, James is one of the most inherently likeable people I've ever met, which comes off strongly in his portrayal of Harry. He had also made a very strong impression on me back in September – so it was easy for me to pick back up where I left off, emotionally speaking.  Even his new beard wasn't an issue for me, since I had seen him with it in passing just enough times to get used to it (and now, I can't imagine Harry without it).

After failing to get a job by phone, Harry's next stop was the drugstore, where he posted fliers in the phone booths (making sure to tear off the first phone number), sold some miracle salve to the Drugstore Girl, and shared some of her vodka. I had seen this scene before, from her perspective, when it had simply seemed charming and fun. I loved their rapport, and the way she bought the salve just because she liked him. This time, all of that still held true, and reminded me again that Anna is a very good Drugstore Girl who I need to see more of – but it was also very troubling, because now I could see the thunderclouds gathering around him.

After the Drugstore, Harry headed for the saloon, passing by Tuttle's shop on the way. Tuttle stopped him for a bit of congenial, neighborly chat, telling Harry that he had a new doll for him in the shop, to pass on to Faye. Harry told him to go get it, and as soon as Tuttle's back was turned, he booked it out of there at top speed. This was the one and only time at The Drowned Man that I was unable to stop myself from laughing out loud. It was a great bit of business, and one that think may be specific to James Traherne's Tuttle. Psycho Tuttle seems too. . . let's say hyper-aware of Faye as a woman, rather than a girl, to give her a doll. I suppose now is as good a time as any to mention that Tuttle seems different from any of the other characters to me, in the sense that I'm not sure he is a single character. In most cases, different performers have different takes on their characters, but they all relate back to the same core character. Tuttle, on the other hand, feels like a completely different person depending on who plays him.

Once we reached the saloon, I was treated to a remarkably difficult to watch scene, as Harry tried first magic tricks, then fortune telling, and finally flat out theft in an attempt to get free drinks. There's always been a element of the huckster to Harry (I suppose that's literally what he is, but I mean to invoke the trickier connotations), but it wasn't until this scene that the ugly side of that really came out. Not long after that, he was wandering the streets, drunk and crazy, until he finally passed out near the studio. Seeing this missing chunk of his loop really drove home how different his story is from most everyone else – it very much seems like weeks, if not months, of his life, are all condensed down into a single day.

Once the Gatekeeper (Paul O'Shea) revived and recruited him, Harry headed down to the dreaded Studio 3. This was the third time I had reached this critical moment, and twice before I had turned away. This time it would turn out differently. I forced myself to follow him into the bar.

Inside Studio 3, I continued following Harry, neglecting to remove my mask until a few minutes in. He stopped to talk to the female exec (Jo Bowis), and that was when I learned just how powerful the psychological effect of wearing the mask is. I'd heard all the talk before about how wearing the mask frees you up to be a voyeur, but I'd never felt like it changed my perspective on anything – until it was gone, that is. Without my mask, I was just the creepy guy lingering around the edge of the conversation. It was awkward enough that I almost left – but just as I made the decision, Harry looped me into the conversation, introducing me as his lawyer. Thus began an incredibly difficult few minutes, as I tried (and failed, spectacularly) to improvise a lawyer character. It's a good thing no one was watching us – after that display of ineptitude, they would surely have demanded their money back. Fortunately, James and Jo are both experienced professionals, who were able to keep the conversation flowing despite my halting, bizarrely non-specific responses. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is why I'm not an actor (actually, one of many reasons, but we won't get into that).

After that, Harry performed a song (which I had, apparently, selected for him – or so I was told) for the crowd, and quickly returned to the masked world of the show. What. A. Relief.  Back where I belong. The show was nearing its end, so we headed straight for the saloon, where Walkin' in the Sand was already underway. For some reason, it didn't hit me the way it usually does. Maybe I was burned out on it (doubtful), maybe it was that we came in partway through (possible), maybe it's that I just don't click with Natalia's Faye and I was too wrapped up in Harry's story to really feel the whole William/Mary thing (likely). It was a surprisingly low-key end to a night that had turned out to have a rather unexpected trajectory, with a plethora of really wonderful surprises. All told, moment for moment it may have been one of my best shows, but it was just too fragmented to really compare to the previous night's magical double-header.

Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. But when you've reached heights like these, downhill isn't so bad.