Aiding or Exploiting?

Someone once said of acting, “It is in the actor’s choices that he reveals his talent,” but talent has never offered a guarantee against bad choices (“Bad Acting Worth a Good Laugh,” by Hugh Hart, March 17).

For that matter, neither has experience. L.A. is overrun with people calling themselves “actors.” Some with talent, some with skill, some with both, a lot with neither, but all with a million different dreams.

The one thing all these souls share in common is hope, the thing that drives them. To classes taught by teachers who know nothing about the craft of acting. To workshops taught by so-called casting people who are seldom more than appointment secretaries. Or to diversity showcases that are no more than cover for the big networks.

They do some “funny but sadly pathetic” things, these actors with hopes. Luckily it’s not all for nothing. The Groundling Theatre has found a new way to exploit these people who want so desperately “to make a good impression.”

With their inside man (Tony Sepulveda) feeding them funny but sadly pathetic horror stories from his day job at one of the studios, cast members like “mature and zaftig” Lynne Marie Stewart can ridicule the hopes of old and fat actresses playing ingenues or “hyper-effeminate” Patrick Bristow can make us all laugh at the funny hopes of a homosexual actor putting his “queenly spin” on Stanley Kowalski. Only Paul Ruebens, who created the innocent Pee-wee Herman, seems to let that inappropriate choice of “hope” into his heart, but he catches himself; after all, as Sepulveda says, “the point of this show is not to make fun of the actors per se, but of inappropriate choices.”

I think any actor called in to read for “The West Wing” or “Will & Grace” should be wary of any “choices” offered by Sepulveda. He may be mining your overzealous, underexperienced thespian hopes for new material.

DAVID McCRACKEN

Los Feliz