‘Shaw’ cracks the whip in Beaumont

“I hope I come across as a fatherly figure, believably – that’s my biggest thing I’m working on. I hope I do the character justice,” said actor Alex Giorgi about playing the Reverend Shaw Moore in Mt. Hood’s production of the musical “Footloose.”

Reverend Shaw is a character responsible for outlawing dancing in the small Texas town of Beaumont. He lost his son, who died with three other teens in an accident on a bridge.

“It was horrific that these four youth(s) were killed on this bridge due to ill choices and decisions, and for whatever reason they blamed it on the dancing,” said Giorgi, describing the plot.

The play starts about five years after dancing was banned. Until Ren, a teenager who moves to Beaumont from big-city Chicago, no one thinks having dancing outlawed is strange.

“Something you notice with Shaw is when he’s with townspeople, and with people outside of his family, he’s this calm and reserved, kind-of-charming guy, jokes around with people, seems normal,” Giorgi said. “But, when you see scenes with him and his family – his wife, his daughter, and eventually Ren – you see him break.

“On the outside, everybody thinks he’s great, he’s very friendly with a lot of the people in the town, but on the inside, he’s really hurting and suffering,” he said. “That’s why he holds on to this image of his son being corrupted by dancing and drugs and stuff like that.

Giorgi has sunk his teeth into the role.

“You basically get a reveal under that mask that he has with everybody else… he’s trying to maintain this level of protection over his family, and because of that, he’s very hard on Ariel, his daughter, who’s now 18 and is trying to be independent.”

Shaw becomes extremely overprotective of Ariel and is constantly grieving for his son. “He is putting a huge grip on her, trying to make sure that she doesn’t go through the same thing,” Giorgi said. Those attempts backfire, he explained. “He doesn’t realize that his restriction is causing her to want to do those bad things.”

Giorgi said there are different ways to see Shaw’s character. “Ariel sees him as the overbearing father. Ren sees him, at first, as this guy who is uptight and ridiculous. Once Ren finds out it’s because of his son, he sees him as a mourning father.

“It’s Ren who gets to him because the reason Ren moved to Beaumont is because his father left him and his family, and his mom can no longer support him.”

Ren and Shaw clash at first, but they end up connecting. “You don’t really realize that Ren is kind of suffering in his own way, and that’s where the two meet and connect. They’re both hurting inside, and it’s because (Shaw is) so blinded by his pain that he can’t see that he’s kind of restricting the entire town,” Giorgi said.

The actor has worked hard to channel Shaw’s suffering, he said.

“You have to come up with scenarios, you muster feelings from imaginary circumstances,” he said. “That’s what one of the great definitions of acting -’living truthfully through imaginary circumstances,’ I love that quote.”

Giorgi draws from his own emotional experiences to portray Shaw’s pain. “If I was a dad, I’d probably be able to relate a little more because I’d know how it would feel to imagine my son dying. But, I’m not even that, so I have to take what I have,” he said.

“I’ve felt pain before. I’ve lost a grandfather, I’ve lost friends, and I have to try to find those feelings,” he said. “I’ve (also) been authoritative; I know how to be in charge when I need to be. I have to pick and choose and combine those emotions and feelings.”

Giorgi has had moments where he believed he truly felt Shaw’s suffering. In a scene where Shaw’s wife (‘Vi’ played by Tootsie West) sings a song about how Shaw should forgive his daughter for acting out, Giorgi was directed to look at his “wife” while she sang.

“I didn’t really understand what that meant, and then when she started singing, and I was looking at her, I didn’t cry, but I sure was holding back tears,” the actor said. “She’s not my actual wife and this isn’t my actual daughter, but the feelings, the emotions were real, all there.”

Giorgi and other cast members hope the audience will connect, he said.

“When the audience has emotional investment in the characters, that’s what really draws (them) in to a show.”

Giorgi graduated from Mt. Hood last year with a two-year associate transfer degree, and is not currently attending college. “I kind of decided that I’d take a year off to work, maybe find the right (four-year) school.” He hopes to do something “that’s related to acting where I can still pursue my passion, but maybe through different means,” he  said.

He encourages everyone to try theater, at least once.

“If you wanna look at it from an educational standpoint, it’s learning how to be human,” Giorgi said.. “You learn more things about yourself and, what’s great about acting is, you also learn things about other people.”