He steps on stage alone and takes a deep breath. The actor warms up his voice before any set of eyes is laid on him. He takes in the space, walks around the set in his worn-out black Chuck Taylors and transforms into his character for the evening. He lies on the floor and melts as his consciousness drifts into a state of ease and awareness. Forty-five minutes until curtain call.
Andrew Bailes, a 28-year-old masters of fine arts acting student, is playing his last UF acting role as Inspector Goole in "An Inspector Calls." Opening night is Oct. 21 at 7:30 in the Nadine McGuire Black Box Theatre.
The play is about the inspector informing the Birlings, a troubled upper-middle class family, that a lower-class, young woman from town committed suicide. The main conflict emerges when the inspector tells them they all had something to do with the woman's death.
"It's really about class separation and the differences between the rich and the poor, and how that gap is through capitalism," Bailes said. "It's actually relevant to today, which is so cool about it - even though it's kind of dusty."
The production, written by J.B. Priestley in 1945, takes place on a single night in 1912 at the Birlings' Victorian home in New England.
Bailes said he's found his role challenging because he has to appear larger than life to present the inspector; however he sees himself in the role.
"I am kind of the same way, that I try to treat people as equally as he does and remind those that are more privileged that they shouldn't hold that much of a difference over the lower class," he said.
While living in St. Augustine, Fla., to study English and theater arts as an undergraduate at Flagler College, Bailes worked on a ghost tour as a dead doctor in a Spanish military hospital, he said. Occasionally he will draw from the way the character spoke, its vocal cadence and presence for the inspector character.
"It's really nothing like I've ever done before," he said. "There's an eerie quality about [the inspector], almost a ghostly quality about him."
When the play ends, the inspector transforms the Birling family into a skeleton of its original self, Young said.
"Expect some thrills, some laughs and some mystery," he said.
The audience can expect to see a chilling reminder of why people should treat each other with respect and the harsh consequences of not abiding by those considerations, Bailes said.
"An Inspector Calls" runs through Oct. 30. Tickets through the UF Box Office are $13 for UF students, faculty and staff as well as senior citizens and are $17 for the general public.
Master's in fine arts student Andrew Bailes plays Inspector Goole in the UF School of Theatre and Dance's production of "An Inspector Calls."
