Actor’s gift is his ability to skillfully morph into character

Shane Cullum - who opens tonight in a two-weekend run of a Neil LaBute one-act at the Vegas Fringe Festival - is a big believer in "less is more." I've seen the 33-year-old performer in nearly two dozen local productions, and I almost always have the same thought: He doesn't seem to be doing anything.

But the way he's able to quietly slip into character - taking on another man's soul so completely that you sometimes don't recognize Cullum himself - makes obvious the skill that I think is sometimes underappreciated. It might well be that Cullum could be more admired if he put a little more flash in his work. But, praise be, that's not his style.

"I don't like that kind of acting," he says. "I don't like to be over-the-top. I like the audience to forget me and see my character."

Cullum often succeeds. I sometimes don't realize I'm watching him perform until I read his name in the program notes. He never sounds as if he's just saying a writer's lines. He connects to the character's emotional make-up in many subtle ways. I don't personally know the man, but his versatile acting makes me feel he understands people.

"I like trying to figure out why characters feel justified in what they do. No one thinks of themselves as evil. Hitler probably thought he was a nice guy. As an actor, I like to try to figure out the justifications."

Cullum's makes it look easy because he understates (but doesn't underact). Some mistake this minimalist approach for laziness.

"Some people don't think I take it seriously. They think I'm nonchalant. But I take it very seriously. I try to find something beneath, something different, in every line I say. I don't want anyone to look at me and say, 'He's acting.' "

Cullum says he faces a particular challenge with the festival's LaBute drama, "Iphigenia in Orem," part of the author's "Bash: Latter-Day Plays." It's about a Utah man who, in Las Vegas, strikes up a conversation with a stranger (not seen) and winds up revealing some horrific actions.

"It's tough, because if you don't play it right, it can be very boring; depressing. I have to find humor in it. There's humor in everything, and I have to find the right balance."

The festival will be presenting nine productions by different theater troupes.

"I think the idea is great. Not only does it bring the community theater groups together, but it allows us to experiment, to do works we might not get to do during the regular season."

But the question people really want to know of actors is: How do you memorize all those lines?

"If it's a big role, I memorize about one-and-a-half pages a day. I don't go to bed until that's done. Then the next day, I memorize another one-and-a-half pages, along with the first one-and-a-half, until I've got it all down.

"It's hard work, but there's no getting around it."

(Fringe festival info can be found at lvlt.org)

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at vegastheaterchat@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.