This writer has known Paul Tei, at least on a professional level, for almost three years. This writer has chatted with him in half a dozen theater lobbies, written half a dozen plays about his work, and has watched him star in at least as many shows. But when the tattooed, pierced, spiky-haired, sandpaper-throated Tei appeared as the paunchy, smooth-talking, oily-voiced Southern snake-in-the-grass named Chaplain White in GableStage's springtime production of Defiance, it took this writer 20 minutes to recognize him. It was the most complete and realistic transformation of an actor into his subject to hit Miami in this or any recent year. The part didn't have a lot of weight — Chaplain White was too shallow a being to inspire any audience reaction more complex than dislike — but he was a marvel nevertheless: a perfect triumph of technique.