Gregory wrote:As for why Myrtle would agree to take on the role in the first place, I did find it believable that an actor would start out saying "I can do this" and thinking of the role as not being so much about herself personally, and then being not just unwilling but unable to do it due to a personal crisis. The role becomes something real, and a stage slap becomes a real attack.
For me, one of the key moments in the film between Myrtle and Sarah comes early in one rehearsal, where the problems are just beginning to come to a head. Myrtle keeps complaining that it's not working, that Sarah's writing is missing something. And the playwright responds by asking Myrtle point blank just what it is that the play is lacking. Myrtle doesn't skip a beat: "Hope."
What's fascinating to me is how differently I've interpreted that line each time I've seen
Opening Night over the years. The first time, I sided with Myrtle kind of unquestioningly (Duh, the play's a lifeless straightjacket of a narrative that's totally untrue to her character and that denies the authentic realities of a woman of her age.). On subsequent viewings, I've realized there's really no evidence for this reading, none either way, really, on how good or bad a play it is, or how authentically its limning Myrtle's character or women of her age in general. Because Cassavetes deliberately withholds the bulk of the play from us. And I've begun to think of this exchange as a means for Myrtle to define the existential stakes not just of her own present and personal crisis but also of the relationship of all actors to a given text. In a way, even in the most deeply felt, honestly written and accomplished writing, it's not really the author's job to give anyone "hope," especially the actors. They have to make that for themselves in the course of creating their performance.
Acting is a calling and an art. For some, like Cassavetes, it's even close to a spiritual practice (as his father reminded him when he took on the career in the first place). But it's also very much a job. And the diciest aspect of the hard work that goes into each role an actor commits to is the negotiation that happens between being true to the text and true to themselves, finding a way to honestly own what they bring uniquely to each character, to channel the essence of that made-up soul through themselves and to find some hope for us all.