ES Home
Seeing Eric perform in "Misalliance" and meeting him afterward.
(Television Without Pity)
Play text
The Play
(scroll down)
Well, Sprouty is a little under the weather right now, so until she feels better and is able to give you a blow-by-blow description of what happened, I'll give you a little "taste" of it.
Sprouty sent a note to Eric before the play "Misalliance" saying she was visiting from Canada. The play was a radio play so the actors either stood up at the microphones and read their lines from scripts or they sat down in chairs at the back of the stage and sipped from water bottles. The theater was intimate, only 13 rows and Sprouty, the brilliant chick that she is, got us FRONT.ROW.SEATS.
Eric at times read his script from the floor, and at other times watched the actors. Or rather, watched their backs. In the first half of the play he smiled a few times, in the second half he had more serious expressions on his face. He had short hair (no, not the Father Michael hair!) and looked just like he does in the movies. It's a good thing he came out with short hair too, because if he had come out with the Dimitri hair, I think Sprouty's head would have exploded. His skin was pink and smooth - he's a good-looking man. He wore a gray suit (why was I surprised, was I expecting plaid?) The suit was perfectly pressed and elegant, and he wore a white shirt and blue-gray tie with tiny red polka dots. And black shoes.
There's a LOT more for you to read and see, and you'll learn more in the other accounts linked on this page. Right now Sprouty is curled up on the couch with Clem, her own special Snuggle Puppy in overalls, recovering from the euphoria of last night. Who needs wine to make you giddy? And we found out the answer to the raging controversy: his eyes are blue.
Basically [Eric Stoltz] was a very present, very zen-like, polite, charming, funny, caring, generous and real person. more so than Dimitri, in fact. While unlike Sprouty and Irina my loyalty remains with Dimitri, Dimitri was a little rough around the edges, a little too clever and 'too cool for school' whereas Eric (or at least the cross-section of Eric we encountered) was entirely warm and open like Roger Avary said, seemed like someone with no ego. We all stood around the parking lot afterwards still basking in his aura--it was weird, it was like he had this essence to him which was entirely unrelated to his performance as Dimitri even though in retrospect it totally makes sense that Dimitri, as played by him would be so charismatic and charming.