Griffins take the stage in the first two weeks of October, presenting The Servant of Two Masters, a reinvisioned Italian comedy directed by Geno Carr and adapted by AJ Knox and Samantha Ginn.
The play follows the servant Truffaldino, played by Lizzie Cisneros, who takes on the job of serving two masters to gain double the food and money.
In true Italian comedy style, the play delivers a considerable amount of physical comedy: running, falling and, as Cisneros puts it, “clowning.” To achieve this level of physical comedy, the cast does not jump into rehearsals. Instead, it starts by playing games.
“When we start with games, it’s usually to warm up how we want to work for the night,” Cisneros said. “If we’re doing chaos in our games that we play, then it’s going to be chaos, controlled chaos, when we are actually rehearsing.”
Cisneros said the physical comedy elements of the play were similar to those of The Three Stooges. The energetic environment created during games transfers into the cast performance, creating a much more entertaining experience for future audiences.
According to Carr, a comedy with more physical elements requires more planning than most comedies to maintain the idea that each act is spontaneous and happening right before the audience’s eyes. For this particular play, the “controlled chaos” Cisneros mentioned is in the planning of actors’ movements.
Carr said the plan of movements “is what brings the words and the actors to life on stage.” He added that his process begins with the primary traffic, and the rest comes naturally to the actors.
When asked how they managed their abundance of choreographed movements, Cisneros said, “I always keep a pencil handy on me.”
The cast does not stick to a completely fixed plan. According to Carr and Cisneros, meeting with the playwrights, Knox and Ginn, gave them and the cast even more space to make the play their own. They said it opens the door to new comedic bits and jokes that make the play more relevant to contemporary audiences, while also allowing room to tinker with line delivery.
“It’s definitely a collaborative effort more than some shows,” Carr said.
To reflect themselves in their character, Cisneros said they chose to deliver their punch line in a serious tone, matching their own sense of humor.
“We are molding these characters into a form of ourselves,” Cisneros said.
Despite the personal elements of their line delivery, Cisneros said they found it challenging to commit to the physical comedy in their scene as well as in the wordplay of their lines, such as drawn-out alliteration.
There are also elements of the play can be both entertaining for the audience to see and the cast to perform.
“I love the parts where I actually get to connect with an audience member,” Cisneros said. In a few undisclosed moments, the audience becomes part of the play, according to Cisneros.
With each actor’s own twist on their performance and the collaborative nature of comedic elements, audiences can look forward to a play that is charming, immersive and relatable.
“It’s definitely not an old 18th-century comedy,” Carr said.
