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TAKING THE STAGE Kaigan Garcia’s dramatic homecoming.
BY ELENA SCIALTIEL
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wenty-six-year-old Kaigan Garcia is cast as the teenage intern at a busy helpline in the dramedy You Stupid Darkness! being staged this September under Daniel Strain-Webber’s direction. “I am playing Joey who is just seventeen, and at his first work experience: shy, awkward and uncomfortable with his new tasks. But because it isn’t confirmed that I convincingly suit that age, the director might upgrade my character to his early twenties, without stripping his essential qualities,” Kaigan says. “Joey entertains an iffy relationship with his estranged father, who happens to live just downstairs from Joey and his mum, and they often hear him play the piano.” Kaigan can partly relate to this, since he had a ‘somewhat turbulent’ relationship with his father when he was younger. Furthermore, Joey develops a complex relationship with his new male colleague, thirty-two-year GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2020
"I would have relished the challenge of playing him." old Jon: “I would have relished the challenge of playing him instead, measuring up with a mature character. Joey and Jon have different journeys, and Joey latches on to him, as if seeking a father figure or a male role model. But there also is a tinge of romance, and Joey seems still unclear about his sexuality.” His character has layers and sides Kaigan can empathise with, so he can feel comfortable in his shoes: “For example, Joey shuns the telephone calls, being a young man used to texting and typing, and I am wary of two-way live telephone conversations too. Joey is overwhelmed, ends up mishandling a call, being rude to a caller, and reprimanded by the manager.” Surely, more than one telephone
operator in the readership can indeed relate to this occupational hazard! Kaigan remarks that actors must be proficient at empathy, if they want to credibly get into their characters’ skin, therefore they would make worthy counselors as a side dish to their theatre career! “Drama school teaches you a good deal of transferrable skills, most obviously public speaking, but also makes you understand people, since you spend most of your time playing someone else, feeling their emotions and be driven by their motivations.” You Stupid Darkness! script is written in ‘landscape’, featuring three columns of text, so actors will have to synchronise their interaction virtually to the millisecond, as the conversations are meant to be going on concurrently and separately in reality, but on stage they must be kept free from excess overlapping, or the audience will be unable to follow them all at once and grasp the plot. 45
