By Mary van Tamelen

Marco Barricelli - actor, director, teacher - enthralled Morning Forum members last week with his theatrical insights. Appointed as the first artistic associate of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, he had his first “defining life moment” in high school when asked to read for a part in “The Taming of the Shrew.”

Hoping only for a nonspeaking part, he found himself cast in a major role. That led him - in addition to being noticed by girls - to Juilliard, followed by a varied stage career throughout the country.

There are several “absolutes” about stage acting, he told his audience. Among them:

It’s hard for actors to get tickets for friends (they usually are given only two complimentary tickets).

First read-throughs are unsettling; you might be meeting your lover, or your enemy, for the first time.

Stage actors will never be rich or discovered.

Critics are mediocre (particularly the little man in the Chronicle, whose superficial judgment often robs the readership of the critic’s analysis).

It’s not a good idea to go out drinking after a show when there is another the next day.

Four, or even eight, weeks of rehearsals are never enough.

Offers of new jobs often come in bunches after a long hiatus.

Cell phones are terrible.

Barricelli also talked about the privileges and joys of the theater: being able to breathe and speak and live an extra language, to express profound thoughts. Within Shakespeare alone there is a complete chronicle of the human experience. And acting in a play gives a person a precious chance to enter another life. Barricelli also enjoys the feeling of holding an audience in the palm of his hand, of getting a huge laugh. He said there is a special satisfaction in hearing a response, a gasp, a breath of connection, by an individual audience member. Furthermore, stage life is never boring. It can be full of moments of magic.

Barricelli described the process of preparing for a stage performance - beginning with the exhilaration (about 15 seconds’ worth) after learning you’ve got the part, to dread (”Am I really able to do this?”) followed by reading the text, all alone, over and over. Well before rehearsals begin, the actor begins to introduce his own voice into the language of the play and to let the language become ingrained in his soul.

Using several examples from Shakespeare, Barricelli demonstrated how the rhythm of iambic pentameter gives instructions to the actor. An extra beat or a feminine ending alerts the actor that something special is going on.

When two consonants appear together in consecutive words, as in “To be or not to be,” the actor is told to take a special look at the text. Also, lines made up of monosyllabic words are usually reserved for profound thoughts. Barricelli illustrated that shared lines of pentameter often give cues for actions on stage.

In Shakespeare’s time, there were no directors as we understand them today. Shakespeare’s texts prove to be one of the best directors ever.

In short, Morning Forum members learned, an actor is much of the time an armchair detective. An actor gets a private thrill by connecting to character, to the human race, and by experiencing the utter joy of language, of universal truth, of bringing words and people together.

Morning Forum is a members-only lecture series held at the United Methodist Church of Los Altos. To get on a waiting list for membership, write to: Morning Forum, P.O. Box 274, Los Altos 94023-0274.