Well hello all you lovely, curious folk who have stumbled across the Company One Blog! My name is Marvelyn McFarlane (you can call me marv) and I currently play the role of Saartjie Baartman in Voyeurs de Venus. I'm happy to report that we had a great opening weekend, and I especially thank all of you who came out on Halloween night!
Yeah, wow! What a crazy journey this has been. This is my second show with Co. 1 and i just love love them. Summer Williams is such an awesome director and an incredible human...although I thought she was crazy when she called and said I'd love to have you read for the role of Saartjie. And of course in my head i said "who?" and then when I read the character breakdown which said she is "a brown-skinned, voluptuously proportioned African American woman..." i thought . . . umm does she not know me? has she forgotten the lack of curves on my body aside from my forehead? Thankfully, i put all of that aside, went to the audition, and now here i am!
Being part of this project has been such a challenging and exciting process it's really hard to find the words to describe it. From the start I could tell we had a great cast. I could tell that everyone was really chill and incredibly talented. We were zipping right through rehearsals, almost everyone was off book very early on, and together we really began to see the play taking shape.
One of my personal challenges, besides trying to gain some weight so Saartjie wouldn't look so scrawny, was taking on the South African dialect. Somehow, this came easier than expected. Cheryl, our dialect coach, helped out a ton, and I also have a friend from Kenya who lived in South Africa for 10 years give me some direction. So after finding Saartjie's physical voice, the next task was how to tell her incredibly devastating life story without making her seem too sad. Summer would often tell me Saartjie is just stating the facts of her life in this scene. She's already dealt with it. This was so difficult because the more i learned about her life the more sad, depressed, and angry I became, and then I just had to make her seem complacent. Ahhhh! But somehow I've been trying to find the balance that shows her as a whole human being that laughed, cried, was angry, and yes even complacent.
So fast forward to us moving into the Plaza Theatre. We have a cast of eight, five dancers, 38 scenes, a revolving stage, present day, flash backs, and nightmares, crazy awesome lights and music, and yes - Becca - the blood and guts. All in a lil black box. Talk about in your face action! Lydia sure knows how to keep you on your toes. This is play is so loaded with content and questions that you will be chewing on it for days. In a good way, of course.
Ok so if any of you were at the talk back on Saturday you know I can talk for days so i'm gonna stop here with my random ramblings. But don't worry, there will be more to come! Come see the show and tell your friends!
-Marv
Labels: Marvelyn McFarlane, Voyeurs de Venus
