Since far too often we only publicly say nice things about people when they are dead I’ve decided to randomly pick a Facebook friend every day and say something nice about them.
June 9, 2019
Today’s person; Stacy Ross!
There was a moment on a break right at the end of a comedic love scene, while rehearsing a reading in which we played a dysfunctional couple who had divorced but still loved each other, when Stacy and I looked at each other and it really sunk in:
We had never been in a play together.
We both mentioned it right then, and how weird that was. Here we were having a great time, playing off of each other like we had done this before, but all these years in the Bay Area, both of us bouncing from theatre to theatre - never onstage together.
Which means I’ve only been an audience member, watching Stacy and her dramatic contradictions. I’ve watched this relaxed dynamo stride or slink or gallop across the stage, watch her pierce a story with a combination of vulnerability and steely strength, watch her underline each laugh with a distant sadness, or each heartbreak with a wry humor. Watching Stacy onstage is watching a think description of life - nothing is exactly what it seems, everything has inherent in itself its own opposite, which means at any moment any direction taken is already justified - anything can happen. Stacy gives a curiosity to all her characters, a sort of “Hmph, I wonder what’s going to happen” combined with an eventual “How, in the grand scheme of the universe, were we brought to this?” She also brings a genius to each of her characters that makes them glow, and no matter how seasoned they may seem they are still absolute innocents in this situation. Like I said - she embodies onstage the contradictions of characters, and life, and all I can do is sit back and watch in awe.
So I can’t really say what she was actually thinking during the reading, and maybe she was just humoring me when I said how much fun it would be to work with her. But if so that just again shows how good an actor she is, because I totally bought it.