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Lost in Buffalo

By Shamrock McShane

Part 3

Well all right then.

Try to make each beat clear. It requires a tricky kind of naturalism, the aesthetic distance collapses and expands, a disintegrating fourth wall that then regenerates itself.

In the first act there are customers in the shop. We acknowledge them. In the second act they disappear. They are hiding out, wearing their cloaks of invisibility.

And the whole system collapses if you walk out there and the other guy doesn't know his lines. Now you're not just listening anymore. Your attention is divided. You're trying to anticipate the next dropped line.

You saying I don't know my lines?

You know you don't know your lines.

Well, I'm sorry but…

Sorry? What am I supposed to do with sorry? How can there be forgiveness where there is no trust?

I don't know. Whyn't you just try not being so much of an asshole?

How much of an asshole have I been?

You have been a great deal of an asshole. You have been marvelous much.

This not very nice person I have been, he lives one more night. The thing is, even if you're applying practical aesthetics, you're still inhabiting the character to the extent that you wear his scruffy beard, your hair is unkempt like his. It forces certain habits upon you.

A salient point — the audience knows nothing of this.

I sit alone at the bar in the Shamrock. It's 7:40pm. Kieron has poured me a Harp and is watching a rerun of CSI on the big screen. Next door the audience is gathering.

Finally. On closing night. They're packing the joint. There are theatre folk and bar folk and school folk and street folk and CMC folk.

We are hitting every beat. We are nailing it. Scot has got his shit down and he is liberated from the desk. He's all over the shop. He's engaging customers.

The first act hooks every soul into the second act, and on we go. The audience disappears and the fourth wall emerges. There's a crisis of anxiety because each of us must pounce on something and there's nothing but each other. And the junk. The shop.

"Gimme that fucken phone!"

I snatched the phone and it got loose from me and it went flying across the room and smashed into the lectern Chomsky spoke from, next to a bank of chairs, sailing like a missile past a row of spectators' faces. That close. Phone smashes to bits.

Now what are we gonna do? Phone's gotta ring later on in the play. When Ruthie calls!

Everything goes through your mind at once. Here you've brought the audience into your environment.

I went and got the phone and handed it to Scot, who had picked up the pieces of it that had broken off.

Then Scot calmly put the phone back together. In character. Saying his lines. Never missing a fucking beat.

And then, when it was supposed to, the phone rang.

Every beat of the play rang true.

And then we drove away.

Gregg Jones was not there, and that was disappointing, because we've been friends for ten years. Gregg came over to my house one night a few years ago and we started reading Buffalo. I played Donny and Gregg played Teach.

"We gotta do this play," Gregg said.

And as the years went by, I would now and then propose a production for the two of us, especially once Mike came of age to play Bob. But nothing ever came of it. It's not easy for Gregg and me to work together. He's an Equity actor and I'm not.

At the Shamrock afterward, Olivia Grimes Potter asked, "How long did you rehearse?"

"Not long enough," Scot said. And we laughed our asses off.

You think you can do it without an emotional investment. And you cannot. You cannot do any great play without a significant emotional investment. It is going to hurt.

We say Hurt the People!

That"s our motto.

Get revenge.

Itıs a Revenge Play.

And right away you go into withdrawal. All day long, when you would be running your lines, flipping the loose–leaf pages of your sides like flip–cards, now you're not. At night, as eight o'clock approaches, you still break into a cold sweat.

When you would drive to the theatre you would wish that this cup could pass you by. But now that the show is closed, your heart fills with remorse, and you wish to God you had one more chance. Now — while you've still got the lines down.

And then to be physically distanced from Teach, to lose sight of him in the mirror. I went to the barbershop.

They don't call them that anymore.

I went to get a haircut. I'd been there last June when we finished shooting Votive Pit. They had my info in their computer. It was the info for Bald Man. So I ended up with another Bald Man cut.

"What's done is done. Forget about it. Let's get started on the thing. Tell me everything."

Hey sham,

Loved the performances, loved the staging, (or lack thereof)… wasn't crazy about the play, but, hell –2 outta 3 ain't bad. My 3 favorite aspects of the performance were (in no particular order) how your voice resonated through the metal bookshelves; Scot using the expletive phrase "cocksucking fuckheads," & you three getting in the car & driving away…too cool.

Munique

It wasn't the subject matter, per se — I'm not altogether unfamiliar with the dark side, having hung out with junkies in South Philly as a teenager and been a welfare mother in West Philly for a few years. It was the seeming pointlessness — or maybe that was the point. I guess I prefer art with some kind of catharsis or uplift. It's all valid. It's all good. It's just that these days life seems so short, so precious, that I don't have time to fuck around with bullshit, even if it be watching depictions of lost souls thrashing about in the morass of their karma. Been there, done that. You're a might actor, Sham. Keep rockin.

Monica

Shamrock,

I have been able to reflect some on the experience. Here are my observations in no particular order:

The small audience and intimate environment seemed to call for interaction between actor and audience; there was some like when the plastic wrapped pictures were passed around, but this could have been played with much more, and the audience might have really been brought into the fray. At times I felt like making a comment, but in the end decided not to, again particularly because I knew you all personally and didn't want to "steal focus." I would be interested to know if anyone in another audience felt the desire to "chime in."

After I left, I realized that knowing the actors personally, influenced my behavior; I may have laughed too raucously and too much; perhaps it wasn't as funny as I perceived, especially after the woman there said Al Pacino's performance in NY had netted nary a sound. On the other hand, I was not laughing because I knew the actors, but at the characters' behavior (Don, Bob and Teach); they were portrayed seamlessly in my opinion in the production by you guys; I thought Michael's portrayal had great veracity to it. This was particularly brought home in the end, when Bob's ear was bloodied and his subsequent behavior appeared to indicate he was really injured. Teach's gun also was also more shocking in the small, informal space. I felt more ill at ease than if I had been in a theater; same thing when Teach violently threw his fit on things that seemed part of the CMC. Finally, you guys actually driving away in the car was a superb ending. One thing it provided; some time for those of us present to actually discuss the production before the curtain call. The moving in and out of Bob--actually buying pizza and Teach exiting for the day were fine touches.

Again, as I reflect on the space, it seemed to be just the right venue for this with all the stuff sort of stored in cubby holes in the CMC. Only when the production started did I realize the card table was part of the set. I thought you all used the full space effectively.

I am not sure what others have said about Mamet and the play in general, but for me it showed how the characters were so disconnected with each other. Although in close proximity and talking, very little effective communication seemed to go on, and so it became a symphony of misunderstanding. In the end I am not totally sure what really triggered Bob and Teach to ferry Bob to the hospital at all.

Malcolm

Malcolm T. Sanford
Professor Emeritus, University of Florida

Shamrock —

Thanks for the Buffalo updates - I've been following fondly from Atlanta with homesickness for Gainesville. Sounded like a great show. I've never seen the stage production but the film version with Dustin Hoffman and Dennis Franz was pretty damn good. I'm sure you guys tore it a whole new one.

Anyhoo congratulations on what I'm sure was a Gainesville classic. And keep me on your list.

Shaun

Boys and Girls, the play is on. We are having a grand time with site–specific American Buffalo at the CMC. We opened the play tonight, and it works like a charm. Have one at the Shamrock and check us out. Real Mamet. Get it while it's hot! Sundays and Mondays at 8pm through November 27.

sham

Very cool Sham. What a clever idea. I'd love to see it.

Congrats on the terrific review.

Mace

American Buffalo
by David Mamet

Civic Media Center
October 1, 2, 8, 9, 15, 16
8pm

The Everyday Theater presents
David Mamet's
American Buffalo
With Shamrock McShane and Scot Davis
Design by Mike McShane
Civic Media Center
1021 West University Avenue ­ next door to the Shamrock Pub
Donation: $5 (sliding scale)
Limited Seating
Sunday and Monday Nights in November
November 12,13, 19,20, 26,27
8pm

Rehearsal Schedule for American Buffalo