Frank Langella

Over the weekend I was asked by the VPA dean's office to photograph Frank Langella, who was coming to Syracuse for the day to work with acting students. There were some concerns about him being photographed, but we all agreed I should go just in case he changed his mind. When I got there, the environment did not appear to be open to photography but I allowed myself to enjoy, something I can only describe as, a performance. For the 2 hours I was present, Langella pushed 3 acting students to present their monologues in ways they never have before. The first was a young man reciting an extremely intense part from Macbeth. Langella asked him to speak his monologue, no acting and then slowly had him act each line until it was perfect. The second student was a young woman presenting a piece about a wife confronting her husband on an affair and the third was a young man whose piece was about a man who had fallen in love with a prostitute. All three of the pieces were extremely well done and evoked pure honesty and truths about the words they were speaking. They all took on the bodies and minds of the characters. It's the kind of thing that makes Syracuse special, being able to attend a big basketball game and feel the intensity of the players and the crowd but also to attend something as small as this and feel the same amount of intensity.