I failed to convince Manny to videotape his role for 'Henry Goodbar,' so, we are back to the drawing board. I contacted an actor who we auditioned months ago, we are to meet with him tonight. The plan: have him do a quick study for the role of Rashid, and tape his performance within the next two weeks. Then, I will need to do some creative editing. We will set up a video monitor for the live performance and the Rashid character would appear on-screen only. The 'interrogation scene' would be between a live actor onstage (Noel) and a taped performance (Wahid).
This actually all 'makes sense' for the piece; Rashid, is a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay; the Dreamer dreams of a character in another time and place. It will be tricky to pull this off, but at this point, we don't have many options. As always, 'necessity is the mother of invention,' (thank you, Frank Zappa).
Creativity sometimes comes not from complete freedom, but from 'real constraints.' Somehow, we want to turn these 'constraints' to our advantage. This is true in everything we do.