The Sunday Read: Actor's Notes - Paul Hopkins and In Absentia

l-r Paul Hopkins, Jillian Fargey, Jade Hassouné (photo: lucetg.com)

From With-In Absentia

Actor's notes 

by Paul Hopkins

I’m currently performing in Morris Panych’s new play, In Absentia, at the Centaur. I play Tom, husband to Colette. To me, this is a story about love. And boy, do I love this play. It reminds me of what I love about theatre: The opportunity to explore the big questions. Below are various thoughts, questions and obstacles that I had during the rehearsal process. The audience only gets to see a prepared meal. What’s below might give a taste of some of the ingredients that went into it.

FYI - The play, in case you haven’t seen it: Colette lives in a house next to a lake in cottage country. A year earlier, her husband was kidnapped, in Columbia. She’d agreed to pay the ransom but then never heard back from the kidnappers. Since then she has remained in limbo, not sure whether her husband is alive or dead. She has taken to talking to an imaginary husband, and receiving consolation from her neighbour and sister. The play begins when a young man shows up at her door, seemingly out of nowhere. The play moves forward from this moment but is comprised of little scenes that jump back and forth in time.

Sunday Feature: Paul Hopkins on creating Macbeth

Notes on Building Macbeth

Paul Hopkins, Repercussion Theatre’s Artistic Director, will be playing the lead role of Macbeth for this summer’s Shakespeare-in-the-Park tour.

This collection of notes I’ve written is a musing on my experiences building Macbeth’s character over the past how-many-ever months. Everything I write may not be true. Everything I write may not even make sense. This is just intended to be a collage of consideration.

‘Horrid Image’ vs. ‘Nature’  – that’s fucked! How is anyone in the audience supposed to get that the Horrid image is the murder of Duncan. What’s the horrid image to me? I think ‘nature’ is the thought of actually the murdering someone is repellent, against nature – if you really think about it, the actual act of it.