The body of work that playwright Samuel Beckett has set forth into the world is specific, unique, and often intimidating. This summer, though, Marry-Archie Theatre Co. plans to promote the accessibility of the beautiful and obscure material in its newest production, ‘Hellish Half-Light: Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett.’ The DePaulia had the opportunity to speak with DePaul Theatre School alumnus, Lauren Guglielmello, who has taken on several roles in this powerful collection in order to learn more about the show and her career as an actress today.
The DePaulia: Can you tell me a little bit about ‘Hellish Half-Light’ in general?
Lauren Guglielmello: This is a really interesting show. We’ve got a great director, Jennifer Markowitz. She really loves to do immersive theater. She is very interested in work that is either going to make the audience feel like they are involved or she is going to find an actual space that she can do work in that is different than your traditional theater setting. She is awesome, she is really cool. And then, of course, we have Samuel Beckett who is our actual playwright. He is not too common of a playwright in terms of theater companies taking him on all the time just because he is so unique in his writing style. It can be a lot to take on. There are six actors in the show. There are several different Samuel Beckett short plays and we are playing several different roles. It has kind of been formed into one experience all together. What I think is cool about it is that Jennifer wanted to take a bunch of these shorter plays that are very rarely done because of that reason, and put them all together as one.
The DePaulia: That sounds like such a wonderful, varied experience. Can you also tell me about the characters that you portray within the show?
Lauren Guglielmello: Definitely. For my first character, I am playing is Vi in ‘Come and Go’ and traditionally, how this play is set up is with three women in longer coats and they have hats on. You can’t see their faces. There is no age specified, we do know they’re women but other than that it is kind of non-descript. Vi is more of the naïve character out of the three women and she asks a lot of questions. I think Vi is eager to know exactly what is going on.
The second play is ‘What Where’ and I am the voice of one of the characters. I am actually going to be in the light box and you will see my face and you will hear my voice but only at specific times. I am actually not on stage with the actors. I am supposed to be an older version of a character. In this piece, my voice is representing someone looking back on past memories and decisions she has had to make in her life and kind of grappling with “did I make those right decisions?”
And then the third play that I am in is actually called ‘Play’ and it centers around three characters. I am playing the character of Woman Number Two. It is two women and a man and the other girl is his wife and I am the mistress and we are talking about our different views on what exactly went down when it came to the whole affair. Its interesting because we are speaking in the first person and we are recalling what happened so of course we are going to have our different viewpoints on it. How we will be staged is we are in huge urns. We are all dead and we’ve set up this environment where obviously we are in some sort of underworld or half way point where we have been sentenced to recalling what exactly happened for the end of time and that’s our punishment as awful as that sounds. That’s been really interesting because there is going to be a spotlight on us when we have to speak and the direction is a very quick, almost scripted emotion. I am not doing it, necessarily, like I was taught at The Theatre School. It’s just as fast as I can get it out, I am telling my side of the story. It is a very quick read and the rhythm is so specific because of the way that Beckett wrote it. He wrote it based off of the sounds so you are not taking your time with it at all. We actually do it twice. It is done all the way through once very quickly and then the second time we repeat it immediately again and what I really like about how Jennifer is directing this piece is, normally, there is very little change between the first and second time you hear it but what Jennifer is hoping is the second time that could be a chance for us to allow a little bit more emotion to come through. So the second time we will keep up with the same rhythm, we will keep up that same pace but there will be some parts where I think we are going to be able to, as actors, take some liberty in really explaining our side of the story and indulging in that a little bit. So those are the three plays that I am in.
The DePaulia: Has your time at the DePaul Theatre School impacted your theater career in any specific ways?
Lauren Guglielmello: Oh, it’s been wonderful. I’m from Massachusetts and I came all the way out here to Chicago because I heard that DePaul University has a fantastic, very well known Theatre School. So I came all the way out here, I moved the Midwest, I had four wonderful years at The Theatre School. It just opened my eyes to so much, I learned so much, I met so many fantastic people. This first year out, I couldn’t be more thankful for the training I’ve had just when it comes to the knowledge that I have about being in a rehearsal room, about being on a performance schedule, about professionalism, too. I have to say I feel like The Theatre School did a wonderful job of teaching “This is what it’s like out in the real world in terms of theater or film and these are some tools that you can use whether that be professionally or technique-wise. This past year, there have been plenty of times where I have said, “Thank God for my training”. I met the director, Jennifer Markowitz, in school. She directed me in ‘The Glass Menagerie’ my second year. I played Laura and that is how I met her. I just think she is so wonderful, I really do think that she is incredible. I think she is really something. The talent that woman has—it’s been so exciting to be working with her again and if I had never met her at The Theatre School then I don’t know if I would be in this production today so I am very thankful for that. The Theatre School is an awesome school and a great experience. I met so many people in the industry in my four years of school that making that transition into my professional career has been somewhat smooth actually where other times I hear actors either moving to the city or coming from different programs and they don’t feel like they know who is who in the community but I definitely feel like I do and I know that my other class mates do too, who graduated from The Theatre School.
The DePaulia: If you had to tell your audience one thing before they see Hellish Half-Light, what would it be?
Lauren Guglielmello: I would say that we have spent a lot of time and hard work really diving into this in a different way, I think, than most people do when they have Beckett in front of them and because of that I hope for this experience for the audience to be a time where they can feel a lot of different emotions and it is ok to feel danger or anger or dislike. That is what I love about theater and art. It doesn’t always have to be beautiful which, it will be, the lighting—it is Beckett play so we are going to have full tech. It is going to be beautiful but it doesn’t all have to be “happy feelings” and it doesn’t have to sit with them well. To me, if they walk out of there with any feeling whether it be good or bad, I’ll take it, because I think that it’s really for the audience to take away what they want. He just kind of wrote it. When people would say to him “What does this mean?” he would say “I don’t know”, you know? He’ll say, “I just wrote it”. So I allow my audience to totally recognize whatever they are feeling and don’t judge it. Don’t judge it at all because it is totally valid. There are going to be a lot of different emotions in that room.
‘Hellish Half-Light’ will be at Angel Island from July 25 to August 30.