UC San Diego

ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

How Richie Got His Groove Back:

Tension and Letting Go of the Inner Director in Streamers

by

Martin Meccouri

Master of Fine Arts in Theatre and Dance (Acting)

University of California, San Diego, 2017

Professor Marc Barricelli, Chair

I… campaigned to play Richie in David Rabe’s Streamers, my last role at UCSD. He was so much like me: smart, confrontational, thorny, pining, and used to being on the outside. Plus, I had to come to this hilarious understanding of myself as an actor whose bad habits had all been worked through by now!

Nope. Once Streamers was in front of an audience, the play changed without my permission and I felt like a beginner. Another actor was doing things that didn’t make sense! It was moving too slow! This important play was not having an impact because our audience was quiet! Richie didn’t stand a chance. I would mentally leave him and note things that were “off.” I anticipated how to correct a scene by countering another actor’s choices. I tensely waited and did everything but breathe and listen. Richie couldn’t groove. First preview: bombed.

Infuriated, I took a long reflection. Thankfully, a spark: this training was not a magical antidote to Martin’s less thrilling habits. This training was a cornucopia of techniques to inhibit them and midwife character. The next show, I reached in the creative water of all I learned here… and freed my neck. I touched my sound. I held my own feet down. I let myself want what Richie wanted (which wasn’t to direct the play he didn’t know he was in). My training allowed me to interrupt Martin instead of Richie. Beat by beat, Richie got his groove back. And he was fabulous.