A Candid Interview with Alex Lyras, Star of The Common Air

Picking the brain of the versatile solo performer

by Jesse Schmitt


Alex Lyras is as direct as they come. His handshake is firm, but easy, his temperament is relaxed, yet forward leaning, his message is direct, but coded. Alex Lyras is a performer. Artist. Actor. But he also has a very sensitive ear for things: words, inflection, intention. Alex Lyras is currently playing in a recently extended run of a show in Los Angeles called "The Common Air."

"The Common Air," is a very distinct, very original show. It's a show we've seen before because it's the story of our modern lives. However the distinct and original part of this show is not just in its telling but also in that it is told through the voices of many and the vehicle of one; it is a solo show. While many people, this scribe included, may recoil at the thought of a "solo show" and think only "Ego, indulgence, repeat;" the fact of the matter is that this is a very sensitive show. It is sensitive because it is in flux; it is moving it is pulsing it is changing. The show has undergone a number of small aesthetic changes which have made it even more powerful as it embarks on its second tour of duty in the perpetually bored, always changing market that is the Los Angeles theatre scene.

"The Common Air," had been playing for the last 12 weeks at the Lillian Theatre in Los Angeles on Mondays & Tuesdays and has recently been promoted! It has made the jump to The Asylum Theatre where it has received its own time slot on a pair of much more favorable nights; Friday and Saturday.

This is a show which has spent a great deal of time in the making. It is still being changed and altered and modified and upended and you, as an audience member, are all the more likely, on any night, to see a slightly different show then on the night before. This makes the tickets for "A Common Air" that much more of a highly prize item; the fact that whatever you're seeing may never be seen again. Mr. Lyras has been doing solo shows for years and this latest birth is a true gem which deserves your scrutiny and attention.

"The Common Air" tells the story of our modern dilemma; the fact that we can't walk past someone of a certain countenance without reflexively hearkening back and wondering; the fact that there can't be an "alert" without raising all kinds of red flags in our own minds which borders on psychosis; the fact that we as a society are having a hard time getting beyond certain generalizations which are corrosive, barbaric, obsolete and sad.

This is the world that we live in and Mr. Lyras is front and center with his astute commentary. But this is not a thing which is new for this seasoned performer; he's been doing this same sort of performance in production since 1999. Prior to that even, as a student of improv and of theatre he had decided he was going to write his own monologues for audition.

This is one of the things which sets Alex Lyras apart from a large majority of actors in the world today; he is participatory all the way up and through what he says, where he stands, and how he moves through the scene, through the story, and through to the end.

I recently had the fortunate opportunity to sit down with this versatile performer and pick his brain about the entertainment industry in general, his show in specific, and the way of the world which we are all constantly swaying every which way with every day.

As a child of parents from the Midwest growing up near New York City in the 1970's was a life altering experience, even if he wasn't aware of it. Born in the Bronx and growing up in Westchester, Mr. Lyras and his parents spent a great deal of time in the city as a youth; particularly the epicenter of avant garde live performance: Greenwich Village.

Alex Lyras is the son of a mother chef/author and an entrepreneur businessman who had very early exposure to the theatre bug: "I saw my first Broadway caliber show in London when I was five. It was Carmen."

Needless to say, this event had a large and decisive impact on the young man. Regardless, he went to college with the intention of becoming a business major. Fortunately for him he realized after seeing the course load that this was not what he wanted to do.

"I got there and seeing the course load, 'Business 101, Business 201; Accounting 101, Accounting 201;' I knew it wasn't for me." Making the life altering decision, he jumped ship and quickly switched majors in the Amish land of Bucknell, Pennsylvania in a Philosophy program.

When I asked how his college major affected his solo shows, he seemed hesitant.

"Philosophy is best for ideas." Mr. Lyras draws from the long tradition of our ancestors and subscribes to the storytelling aspect of the theatre. It's where he's gotten his best creations including the six characters in "The Common Air." But he didn't get here alone.

"Rob McCaskill is a coach I'd met and he's influenced me a lot." It is with the direction and co-writing of Mr. McCaskill that "The Common Air" has lifted off and appears destined for a long journey through the skies.

Mr. Lyras seems to be a realist about the current precipice theatre artists walk with their hesitant audience. "If you're going to bring people into the theatre and ask them to sit in the dark for 90 minutes, you have to give them more. They have to trust you; it has to be a journey, it has to be a story."

While the arc of the story is the beautiful dance in "The Common Air," the standout vehicle in this story is the performance of Mr. Lyras. When I brought that to his attention, he demurred: "It takes a long time for things to catch on...it's a faster world. So with email things spread and word spread."

Alex Lyras is a man who has had a great deal of success and his own share of failures. As is evidenced from his own work, it takes a great deal of trial and error. As he said regarding the work for his solo shows, "developing layers takes a lot of pictures and stories."

Alex Lyras doesn't claim to be any sort of sage. In fact, here is a full grown man who seems to still have the curiosity of a child. About his own travails he did tell me though that the "best advice for actors and writers is have some people who are honest around you."

Honesty is what has gotten this performer this far; his honest portrayal of these characters is illuminating indeed. Anyone interested in honest theatre in an apathetic world should make a point to see "The Common Air." While the east coast audience will need to wait for their fly-by, Mr. Lyras assured me, "the show is being developed for New York." In the meanwhile the skies the limit for this solo performer and folks out west should catch this bird before it's gone.

More resources

www.laweekly.com/index.php?option=com_lsd&task=theatersearch&letter=U&Itemid=108

http://www.calendarlive.com/stage/cl-et-common22feb22,0,6165896.story

VARIETY REVIEW http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117936875.html?c=33

"The Common Air" Reaches for the Skies and Soars

Alex Lyras Cruises the UnFriendly Skies

By Jesse Schmitt

Every sentence creates its own alternate reality. Every uttered word amounting to an individual interpretation can come up against someone else’s words, interpretation, and reality. This is our actual world as each sound heard has its own unique effect on an individual person; and so it is for the six characters in “The Common Air.”

“The Common Air” is a new show written and performed by Alex Lyras and written and directed by Robert McCaskill which features the thoughts, feelings, and intentions; deliberate or haphazard of six strangers told through the vehicle of one man. There should be no surprise when it's revealed that every one of the characters, like each one of us, have their own reason, their own logic, their own spin, their own justification for doing the things that they do regarding their ever lingering, ever intensifying airport delay of which they're a part.

This is the reality of which we have all gotten uncomfortably used to, where an airport delay can mean an impending weather crisis in a distant hub city, just as much as it could mean collisoin of taxiing planes on the runway, just as much as it could mean a thwarted terrorist plot. These reasoning’s would often come smack up against one another and the invocations from their sources were astute, ridiculous, prescient, understated, and understood in the hyper real world of modern fear that we all live.

Some of the spooky, rambling, point blank statements which some of the characters are credited draws them into immediate suspicion. The self involved, all too prepared, “hipster DJ” seems a little bit too attuned to what it is that is going on; so much so that he is able to rap about it; there is a professor who is battling his near ex-wife over custody issues on his cell phone which he seems a little bit too impassioned about for good taste in public. There is the perspective of an Iraqi-American who has just returned from Baghdad and of course the old man Iraqi cab driver and his prattling which all seem, upon first glance, a little too suspicious for comfort.

The one strain connecting all these varied characters is that they all share one body as they are all played by one single actor. This is the truly impressive statement about “The Common Air:” All these wildly divergent characters (as well as a gay gallery owner and a corporate attorney) are all played by one man in one show at one time.

From my description, it may appear that a show like “The Common Air” would be too cumbersome, too full of noise, too rife with self satisfaction and plainly just too much a problem. This couldn’t be further from the truth as Alex Lyras plays all the characters with a measured intensity and a brave cunning which is truly hilarious, moving, stunning.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Mr. Lyras has a long history in crafting these stories so effortlessly; as well it shouldn’t surprise anyone that this show is now headed for an even further reaching audience. Mr. Lyras is a versatile and uber-talented solo performer who aims to bring the art of story back into storytelling and is trying to reach this ground from the platform of our shared Common Air.