Getting to know Judd Fry

   In less than two weeks the curtain will rise on KMLT's production of Oklahoma!, and I have the honor of portraying Judd Fry. I've spent weeks now in rehearsals learning the songs, the blocking, my lines and what is one of my favorite parts of acting, getting to know my character. The playwright gives you the what your character does and says and with that, and the help of your director, you develop the why. Judd is a very interesting role, he's a sociopathic villain right smack dab in the middle of a romantic comedy, but you also feel kinda sorry for him. I believe Judd grew up without much love or affection, the only schooling he got was of the hard knock variety and while he's not very smart, he's also not an idiot. The fact that he hasn't had much affection in his life is evidenced in the way he's so easily led into talking about his own death when Curly mentions the fact that people will weep and wail for him, and that women folk who secretly loved him might even faint at his funeral; also Laurie's act of checking his forehead for a temperature, that touch of kindness, is, I believe, the spark that starts his fatalistic infatuation with her. This lack of affection at a young age may also explain his sociopathic tendencies, these are evident is his seeing no difference in the act of killing a hog and killing Curly and in seeing the burning to death of a family as a smarter way of getting even than shooting them, your more likely to get caught shooting someone. He also takes umbrage with the fact that the man who told him about the burning, and supposedly the perpetrator, lied about where it took place but it didn't bother him at all what the man may have done. As for him not being the sharpest tool in the shed, or smokehouse as the case may be, this is shown in the way he talks and moves and his overall lack of social graces. But he's not without some brains, as he on a couple of occasions asks leading questions to which he already knows the answers.  Not only has Judd not had the affection of women that he so craves but he's also been put down by just about everyone in his life. Curly in just one of many that's called him names, Judd doesn't believe himself to be less than everyone else on a conscious level but he probably spends a good deal of time defending that belief in his mind. I think this really comes out after he's rejected by Laurie and he says, "I'm not good enough for ya am I? Just a hired hand, dirt on my hands, pig slop." He's referred to in a number of insulting ways in the play but he's the only one that calls himself pig-slop, I suspect this was a name he may have been called growing up and when he faces this ultimate rejection he reverts back to it. I feel a bit like Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead here, not rationalizing away Judd's crimes but looking into why he was the way he was. Okay, I suppose that's more than anyone wanted to know about poor Judd or my process but it's my blog and I can share if I want. If you'd like to come see Judd, and the amazing cast of Oklahoma! go to KMLT's website for all the info., word of warning though, you may want to reserve a seat before you come because I got a feeling we're going to sell this mother out.