As Hugh and Giovanna’s scene ended, the lights were fading on stage while Sinatra’s “Come Fly With Me” filled the theater with his mellow sound. Suddenly the students in class began cheering and applauding. It had been a long time since Hugh and Giovanna had done a scene together in acting class and everyone went a little nuts. When the lights came up, Giovanna and Hugh sat on the edge of the stage still high from their performance and anxious to hear what Robert Barquero, their acting teacher, would have to say.
Robert Barquero, or “Mr. B” as he was called, was charming, funny, intense, and hot. He was dangerous to work with because he was completely present and fearless when he was working. If you were lucky enough to be the actor in front of him, you were the only person who existed for him in that moment in time. He was so alive creatively, it was hard to keep up, but he instinctively knew what to say or do to bring a student to a better understanding of what he needed to improve in his work. He would tell you positive things about your performance when possible, but he never withheld the truth. He seduced both men and women with no other intention than to inspire them into a new way of thinking and acting.
Students would wait to see him after class because they just couldn’t get enough. He answered their questions but didn’t linger, he wasn’t interested in having long conversations, he was onto his next gig. That gig was playing in a rock band after hours in cool clubs most people didn’t know about. There were many things his students hadn’t discovered about him, like a 15-year affair with a mysterious woman who was married and appeared to have a public life that had to be protected.
When he spoke to Giovanna about what he saw in her performance, he was very validating of her choices and gave her specific notes as to the character’s conflicting feelings toward her lover in the scene. He then moved on to Hugh and talked to him about playing “ideas” instead of finding the man who was deeply in love with this beautiful woman. When he talked to Hugh about taking Giovanna in his arms and dancing with her in the scene, Hugh disagreed and said he didn’t think it was something the character would do. As he continued to protest, Mr. B stood and directed the stage manager in the booth to cue the music and he took Giovanna in his arms and began to dance with her in a very slow and sexy way. No one in the theater could breathe and the point had been made. When the critique was finished, there was a huge round of applause and class was over.
After class, the usual suspects were waiting to speak to him, but tonight he couldn’t stay. Someone was waiting in a limo around the corner, down the street.
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