All language subtitles for 16. Domestic Activity Exercise

My name is Ally and I'm going to be

doing Maggie from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

always had to suck up to people I

couldn't stand because they had money

and I was poor as Job's turkey.

You don't know what that's like. Well,

I'll tell you. It's like you'd feel a

thousand miles away from Echo Spring and

had to get back to it on that broken

ankle without a crutch.

That's how it feels to be as poor as

Job's turkey and have to suck up to

relatives that you hated because they

had money and all you had was a bunch of

handme-down clothes and a few old moldy

3% government bombs.

My daddy loved his liquor. He fell in

love with his liquor the way you've

fallen in love with Echo Spring.

and my poor mama having to maintain some

semblance of social position, keeping up

appearances on $150

a month off those old government bonds.

When I came out the year that I made my

debut, I had just two evening dresses.

One mother made me from a pattern in

Vogue, the other a handme-down from a

snotty rich cousin. I hate

the dress I married you in was my

grandmother's wedding gown. So that's

why I'm like a cat on a hot tin roof.

Uhhuh.

Uh just tell us I mean I many people

know this play but just tell us the

circumstance and who you're talking to.

I am talking to my husband Brick and the

circumstance is that they just found out

that her father-in-law is dying of

cancer and they are Maggie is

more interested in the inheritance than

Brick is. And um also she he does not

love her.

And she knows this. and she knows this,

but she feels that if she can take him

to bed and have a child, that that might

secure their fortune. But I think it's

also that she's

completely and utterly lonely

and wants to be loved.

Well, it's interesting because the the

the choices that you made in playing

that were almost as if you were in your

own head. I never saw somebody

It was like you were doing a monologue,

but I never had a sense that you were

trying to convince this person of

anything because you chose to be beused.

What does that mean?

You were amused by all of it. So, you

don't seem to have any stakes. you

seemed very,

you know, lounging and

carefree and

and then I think to myself, okay, what

does that mean? A cat on a hot tin roof.

What does that mean to you?

Yeah, I this is interesting. Is it Does

he mean like that? It's It's basically a

cat going like is that what it is? Well,

I mean, there's there's the there's the

literal

cat on a hot tin roof, meaning it's

[ __ ] hot and you can't [ __ ] keep

your paws on it for too long. You've got

to [ __ ] get off the roof, right? So,

there's a kind of energy to it. There is

of course a great one of the greatest

theater stories ever

which is that when Elizabeth Ashley was

doing Cat on Hotton Roof on Broadway

in the middle of a matinea

a sound started coming out of the

audience that began to drive her nuts

and it was a kind of sound that no one

could quite identify what it was and it

drove her nuts and at intermission she

went to the management and she said,

"Whoever the hell is in the audience

making thating noise, send them home."

She later regretted that because she got

a note the next day from a man who

apologized to her

because he said that I came to the

theater yesterday.

I'm blind

and the only time my dog makes that

sound is when there's a cat in the room.

And it was his dog making that sound

over and over and over again. That's she

said the greatest review she ever got in

her life.

So, this kind of feels to me like it's

another one of those dangerous

monologues that it sucks you into a kind

of

loungy,

you know, you could have a cocktail and

a cigarette and it's all very who the

[ __ ] cares? Like, I have no I don't know

what your stakes are. So I thought to

myself again, this is one of those where

if you have a task, if you're in the

middle of something

and of course because it seems to be

about material things,

you know, maybe you're trying to pick

out a dress, maybe you're trying to find

a dress. How many dresses do you have

now?

It's not a question you ever asked

yourself.

No.

Good question to ask for a character

that's talking about why clothes mean so

much to her. why she grew up with two.

When she came out, she had two dresses.

Apparently, that's not enough.

So, these are kind of basic questions

that you want to ask yourself. H So, how

many dresses does she have now?

She's worried about an inheritance.

She's worried about not having enough

money. She's still worried about the

same things that have been driving her

whole life.

This seems to me not a casual

conversation with her gay husband.

So, point being is if you were, you

know, trying to find a dress, trying to

find something to wear

when you go downstairs or when you're

going to finally sit with your father

and try to convince him that you're

going to have children and you're going,

you need to find the perfect dress for

this [ __ ] event.

Give yourself that.

and see where that takes you. Let's try

it again.

Always had to suck up to people I

couldn't stand because they had money

and I was poor as Job's turkey. You

don't know what that's like? Well, I'll

tell you. It's like you'd feel 1,000

miles away from Echo Spring and had to

get back to it on that broken ankle

without a crutch.

That's how it feels to be as poor as

Job's turkey and have to suck up

relatives that you hated because they

had money and all you had was a bunch of

handme-down clothes and a few old moldy

3% government bonds.

My daddy loved his liquor. He fell in

love with his liquor the way you've

fallen in love with Echo Spring. and my

poor mama having to maintain some

semblance of social position,

keeping up appearances on $150 a month

off those old government bonds. When I

came out

the year that I made my debut, I had

just two evening dresses.

One mother made me from a pattern in

Vogue. The other a handme-down from a

snotty rich cousin I hated.

The dress I married you in was my

grandmother's wedding gown. So that's

why I'm like a cat on a hot tin roof.

Nice. Do you do you feel that

difference?

Cuz I'm sure we see that difference.

It's just so interesting when we get out

of the mode of, you know, I'm an actor

doing a monologue and so I'm going to

I'm going to be in this sort of

imaginary world instead of the real

world

because suddenly I saw the person you

were talking to. Suddenly you were in

the in the middle of something and we

understood there was a relationship

because you weren't,

you know, settling into an easy

less than, you know, and and I'm sure if

you work on that and you keep adding

little degrees of frustration and of

anger and of memory and of that, you'll

find exactly what you want to do

physically. But immediately just just

off the cuff, it's a much more

interesting piece than you did in the

chair.

Yeah. No, it felt it felt like more was

just turning. It just felt

Yeah. And when you say something like,

"I'm like a cat on a hot tin roof," we

understood. You weren't saying something

poetic that Tennessee Williams wrote,

"Yeah,

I'm like a cat on a hot tin roof." You

know, no, you're a [ __ ] cat on a hot

tin roof. That's why I'm this way.

That is interesting.

Nice adjustment.

Quite remarkable today. I think even to

some degree more than yesterday. The

distance that people were able to go

from the way it was initially done to

attacking it in a new way, giving

yourself a a task, a some domestic thing

to do. Suddenly the piece opens up.

Suddenly it has a reason to be. Suddenly

there's a life going on. Um

there's a great story. Um

I think it was Strawber there was they

were doing a class. Someone got up and

was doing a scene.

About halfway through, Strasburg said,

"Um, please, um, just sit in a chair.

I want you to explain to the class

how you

make a fruit salad."

And the actress went, "I'm sorry." She

said, "I want you to explain to the

class how you make a fruit salad." She

said, "How I make fruit salad?"

Yes. He said, "Uh, I put some bananas in

a bowl. I put some oranges in a bowl."

And he said, "No, no, no, no, no, no.

Stop. Stop. I want you to explain to the

class step by step how you make a fruit

salad.

I go to the store.

I go to the fruit section."

and she began to describe buying the

fruit, weighing the fruit, coming back

to her kitchen, getting a bowl, cleaning

the bowl, washing the fruit, cutting the

banana. And she got about halfway

through and he said, "That's right. That

is exactly right. That is exactly how

you make a fruit salad. You don't throw

a bunch of fruit under a steamroller."

And that, my darling, is the same way

you act.

You put your key in the lock. You unlock

the door. You open the door. You come

into the room. You shut the door. You

turn and turn the light on. And then you

see him in the chair. You don't put your

key in the lock knowing he's in the

chair. It's moment by moment by moment.

And when we break those moments down and

ask the questions that we think are

rudimentary, we think, "Well, of course

I know that." But actually those are the

details that if we don't ask and don't

try to answer

and as we talked about yesterday many

many questions that lead us to more

questions that lead us to more blind

alleys that lead us to more culde-sacs.

Sometimes the answers aren't there.

Sometimes the answers are in the

mystery.

But what we can express,

what we're given the chance to say to an

audience

night after night if you're lucky,

is again serving the writing.

And when we serve the writing, we're

better actors.