Acting I : Script Analysis

We're almost done with the semester and close to our performance day for the last scene. Many of the students have made incredible progress. Each experience has afforded them a new level of comfort. Some of the students at the beginning were hesitant to start, scared of messing up before they began. Now the students are willingly to play. They're up on their feet earlier and eager to figure out the logistics of the scene.

While watching rehearsals for this last scene, I've realized how important script analysis is. Understanding the context of a scene within the whole can be a driving force behind the scene. Knowing the character and what he/she wants, not only in the scene, but in the play as a whole, brings specificity to the stage. Specificity make characters unique and more accessible, allowing not only the actor to connect with character but more importantly with audience.

Acting I : Rehearsing

Now we're getting it.
     With an exception for the occasional off-day, the class has really started to take risk. It seems they are worried less about being right and more about having fun. This I attribute to partner selection.
     Last time, they all seemed to be flying around at the last minute, trying to find a partner. This time, after being with the same students for half a semester, they've latched on to those people with similar, or, complimenting personalities. Vulnerability is crucial to acting. It's hard to look in the eyes of a person you don't know. Sharing ideas can be anxiety inducing if you're intimidated by your partner.
For prior scenes, rehearsal were pretty unhelpful, as the general mindset was "alright, let's get this over with." This last week's rehearsals have been fun, active, and experimental. People are on their feet and in the space, figuring out problems and finding motivations.
     I'm curious if every acting class takes this amount of time to Ensemble building games are great, but sometimes just make the actors hate each other more. Is there a way to develop the sense of community earlier? They have to know it's a safe place. A room full of people who are just as eager to learn as they are.

Acting 1 : Monologues

Monologues, especially to young actors can be frightening. It makes sense. When most people think of monologues they don't think of doing them in the context of a show. They think instead of standing in front of one or more people, who they believe decide their theatrical career. They think of all the other people who just might be doing the same  monologue (maybe better than themselves). Of course, they also think of the horror stories of auditions. How directors almost always make up their mind in the first ten seconds. Of people forgetting their lines.

How can you get an entire class of people past all of these roadblocks and just have them do the damn thing? You must give them structure. What I've found most useful when I'm preparing a monologue is to know the facts. Before I do a monologue from a play I like having read the script at least twice. Actually, I almost always use one from a play that either I've spent an entire semester working on, or, at least analyzed in class. It's really interesting to me that some of the monologues in class were from monologue books. How the only facts are those found in the monologue itself. You must glean everything you can from a short paragraph. It think it's more obvious when one of the stand alone monologues haven't been fully developed because you absolutely have to make choices. 

After searching for all the facts I find it incredibly important to keep exploring. As I've said in previous post, every rehearsal is an experiment. What reaction do I get if I change this variable? If I spin this line a different way?

While watching the class work on these monologues I noticed a few things. Often, after a couple of days they would stop working it and stay sitting for most of the period, resolved in their belief that "it's not getting better than that." I also saw people reading and memorizing their lines from their phone, i pads, or laptops. I believe that not having a tangible copy of the script makes a difference. I'm not sure yet what kind of difference. I think it has something to do with how you can mark things and how feeling something's texture actually has an impact on how you memorize. A lot of the times I heard things like "I think he's angry here" or "she's should cry here" . Now, I understand that discussing emotion is necessary for acting and theatre, because it's all about humans and we are certainly emotional but I believe if we tie every emotion down to a fact it becomes stronger and grounded. Some people in the class understood this and I hear many " he's so and so because of so and so". By introducing the word because into the vocabulary of a young actor I believe you make him/her into a more empathetic and specific artist. It was so good to see that so many in the class had already introduce this into their preparation.

Many people in the class did very well, because they didn't take their monologues simply for what was floating at the surface.

Let's go!

First Scenes. They were scared. I was scared for them. It's was nerve wrecking, I didn't realize til the day of just how much I wanted them to do well.

I had my ideas of who would do well during performance, based on what I saw during the rehearsals. Some kept playing and discovering things about their scenes, setting up given circumstances for themselves even if they hadn't read the play. They busied themselves doing things that helped them get into the world of the play and make it a specific performance. These scenes were fantastic to watch.

Others, would rehearse the scene maybe once or twice during a class period and then sit and talk about anything else for the rest of the class. During these people's scenes I would start on the edge of my chair and as the scene went on and the ideas became less clear and the movement stunted I'd feel myself slowly sink back into my seat. If they didn't do the work it made everybody feel awkward.

One thing I struggled with was grading the scenes. If I didn't fill out the grading sheet as I went, I felt like I wouldn't remember everything. Yet, if I spent the entire time looking at the sheet I would definitely miss things because I wasn't watching the scene. Do you grade them all the same? It's very clear they came in with varying levels of skill. The only thing it felt fair to grade them on was how hard they worked on it.

It's hard to explain!

   As they’re preparing their first scenes for performance in front of the class, I walk around the room and try to catch a glimpse of each of the scenes. I’m scared I might annoy them or make them nervous with what may seem to them like “hovering”.

     The first couple days during my rounds, I felt were very unsuccessful. They would ask me for advice and I’d feel like I was speaking a different language. Of course, I have a different theatre vocabulary than a business major and once I took that into account it got easier. I could relate to them with references to movies, shows, or videos they had seen. Instead of beats I could say pauses, wants instead of objectives and get the same point across but with a language we could all understand.

    It was interesting because without using the vocabulary I had learned, I had to define and understand what exactly it is that I think is important about acting. I had to give them advice but without going against what I personally believe. Yet, I still wanted their scene to be authentic for who they are. It was so much fun to watch, because some of the students understand things like beats, objectives, and tactics, almost instantly, even though they didn't know they were called those things.

Scenes

  This week in class they got their first pieces for scene study. All of the scenes were from different plays that most of the kids admitted they had never read before. This struck me as odd because I've never studied a scene from a play that I've not been forced to read. 

   I've always been taught the best thing you can do is get all the facts. This includes previous action, time, and place. All of these things creates a very specific perspective and opinion that a character has on their world and situation. This opinion will have an impact on how they react to everything. 

   I know that for me this has been at once helpful and scary. Helpful, because you are better informed and it does create a richer performance. Scary, because you are constantly worrying " did I forget something?" Also if you know the play, you may feel the need to live up to productions you've seen before. One of the guys in class pulled out his smart phone and searched for his scene on youtube to get "perspective". Unfortunately, even if you don't have intentions of recreating another's performance, it can still, without you knowing, have an impact on the way you say your lines and reduce the level of sincerity and discovery of the scene.

    It'll be interesting to see how the scenes turn out because I've never seen it down this way. It might reduce hesitation and liberate them a little if they don't know the context of the scene.

  

How do they rock?

      The instruction for the class was to find a video of a performer and try to capture their physicality or "essence" on stage, and then perform it for the class. I'd never heard of anyone doing this in an acting class before, so I was a little skeptic. The class period that was given to them as rehearsal didn't ease my fear at all. All of them seemed to nervous to get out of their chairs and try moving with the music. Most of them just sat listening to the song or watching the video. I understand though. My first acting class I was paralyzed. It's a terrifying thing to do.
       It can be a daunting task to try and figure out how a character works. One of the things that the class was encouraged to do was to figure out the performer's center. A center, is the part of the body that a person leads with. Head, stomach, groin, and heart are only some of the options. Each one of these centers has different personality traits associated with it. A person that leads with their head could be anxious, ruminative, panicky, or shy. There are good and bad linked to all of them.
        Another thing they could consider was what was the performer's strongest relationship on stage? Was it with the music? audience? or even his/her fellow band mates?
       Did they seem to say with their movement " hey guys, here is some music for you, I thought you might like it" or "LOOK AT ME DANCE, aren't I great?"
       Dancing was one of the more confusing parts of the project. Some of the students on the day of performance seemed only to have memorized the choreography and reminded me of cheerleaders who can have immensely complicated cheers and yet retain a single forced smile. Not understanding why the performer is picking that certain movement, those people seemed disconnected
       On the other hand, some of the performance rocked! Everything made sense. They had picked out a relationship, a center, and also just connected with the music. It made sense. These people really made me appreciate this exercise. It also seems like a good way to start a class because they pick a song they know, which is way more accessible to them than a play they have never read.