We got up rather late on Wednesday morning, and called Josh to set up a meeting place. As it turns out, he doesn't have a car -- he's a poor, starving student, remember -- and so we had to meet him at his dorm room several miles south of the playhouse.
It took some doing, but Sweetie can find a needle in a mapless haystack, and we indeed found him at the end of the dorm construction zone. We picked him up and he suggested a little place in Sonoma, yes, several miles from there, called Hank's Creekside Cafe. We settled in, ordered breakfast, and stayed for over 2 hours chatting about the play, his process, politics, etc.
He explained The Method to me as Lee Strasberg interpreted Stanislavski, and that Daniel Day-Lewis may be the last user of The Method in modern acting. But Josh doesn't believe in it. He did say, though, that the physical blocking of scenes helps form his character as much as memorizing the lines. Some directors don't even want you to memorize your lines, preferring instead to work out the character with you as practice progresses.
We went to see Josh play "Gooper" in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that night, getting even better seats this time, as we were right in the middle, right behind the liquor cabinet in Maggie and Brick's bedroom. That liquor cabinet is visited by almost all the players, so we got a good look at them. I thought about putting something else in the ice chest, but obviously tinkering with the objects on stage is forbidden.
It was a really nice treat after the play, too, when I got to meet informally several of the actors. They were all very good. This was one Cat that sizzled.
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