Matthew Broderick

Last night, I watched a large portion of MASTER HAROLD, made for tv, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. Wow. Pretty great document. Zakes Mokae is almost effortless. It's as if he is in a trance - but not the bad kind. Broderick is subtle and underplayed, but kind of lovely and boyish. Hard to imagine him, though, being alienated and friendless. Clear however is the love between Sam and Hally.

(BTW, it is awfully strange to say the name HALLY for me. Two folks in the world call me that: my mom and cousin gail)

Watching the video made me realize that we are doing justice to the play, both in the things that we are doing the same as the video, as well as the things I am directing differently. One notable difference: Willie in the video seems to insert himself a lot more into the action than I see him doing. It may simply be a made-for-tv idea, but it seems intrusive and wrong. The other thing that was notable to me, was that there really is no great way to block much of those long conversational passages. They are what they are. Additionally, I want to bring more attention to the thing that Guiesseppe spoke of at the bookstore: the love between the three men.

Yesterday: got a good chunk of blocking down (through page 30 of 65). Hopefully by tomorrow, we'll have blocked a solid 50-55 pages. then it's backtracking to do nice, finessy work. Guiesseppe, Wendell and Clifton worked with Patricia Narcia for a few hours. There seems to be a bit of disagreement between the actors and Patricia about certain sounds. I think the three men should noted sound the same. Hally is white and Afrikaaner. Willie is black and Basuto. And Sam, though black and Basuto as well, is more well educated than Willie.

The thing weighing most on my mind is what to do with willie. Really - how to block a guy who seems to be working on his knees for most of the play.