Menage à Trois in Adams' 'Old Times'

“Old Times” is an intimate play in

more than one way. The plot involves a

married couple, Kate and Deeley, who

are entertaining Kate’s former roommate

Anna for a reunion fi lled with sexual tensions,

old connections, and a merging of

past and present that blurs the edges of the

characters’ realities. But the three-person

play, which runs through this Saturday,

becomes even more intimate after one

looks at the playbill and realizes that the

three actors—Julia L. Renaud ’09, Renee

L. Pastel ’09 and Daniel R. Pecci ’09—are

also the play’s three directors. The trio all

wanted to direct and act but realized the

logistical diffi culties in doing both in one

season. After reading and being intrigued

by “Old Times,” they decided to take on

what Pecci describes as “the impossible

task we are trying to achieve.”

All three have had much more experience

acting, and this is Pecci’s fi rst

ever directorial role. “It is hard to direct

yourself,” Pecci says, adding that his inexperience

made relying on his co-directors

crucial.

“We worked more on instinct than a

director would and were more analytic

than an actor would be,” Renaud says.

The trio rarely had to call on a fourth

set of eyes during rehearsals, in part due

to the actors’ openness to one another’s

suggestions—what Renaud calls getting

to know people’s rhythms.

“If someone wants to try something

in a scene, there is never a time we fl at

out say ‘no,’” Renaud says. Suggestions

often don’t work, but in the cases that

they do, all three actors say they can immediately

feel it. Although the three have

collaborated in the past, Renaud says

that the experience this time was different.

“We have learned things about each

other on stage that we didn’t know before,”

she says.

The three also say they helped each

other grow as actors and directors. After

spending so many hours in rehearsal

together, they have developed a kind of

shorthand, which Pecci describes as the

ability to “look at each other right after a

scene and be like ‘no,’ and fi x it without

having to ask questions.”

It is extremely helpful, Renaud says,

that the three are able to take risks around

each other. In fact, risks proved necessary

in “Old Times.” There were moments

when the three actors didn’t even agree

on what is happening in a scene, but realized

after discussing it that they were

really talking about the same thing. This

process mirrored the play itself, which is

driven by the merging of the three characters’

clashing psychological paths. “Because

the play is about these relationships,

it’s different every time,” Pecci said.

Interpreting their characters has challenged

the actors to expand the skills they

have developed in previous productions.

Renaud’s character is focal to the play

but very quiet, forcing Renaud to perform

what she calls “an exercise in being

still onstage.” As an actor, who generally

has the impulse to move and be active

onstage, it has been a way for Renaud to

learn how to simply sit and exist. Meanwhile,

the entrance of Pastel’s character

Anna into scenes often breaks the rhythm

of the married couple and initiates time

shifts. For her, playing Anna has been

about making that clear without being

overly explicit.

The three believe that the play is already

a success. Though they would like

an audience, they are more interested in

the process and feel they have already

learned much through it. But that doesn’t

mean the audience is unimportant to

them. “The audience is the fi nal piece,”

Pecci says. “[The ability to] audibly touch

the audience, it makes the whole process

more real and makes theater different

from movies...Theater is a living, breathing

organism.”

The trio is uncertain whether they will

pursue similar projects in the future. All

hope to continue in the dramatic arts,

but, Pecci says, like many students at Harvard,

they would like to try on different

hats. “No one wants to limit themselves

to one.”