2/26/09

Thursday, February 26

Movement
People have started doing forward rolls (somersaults) from standing positions. I'm not doing it because landing on my shoulder freaks me out (although it's apparently safer than landing on my upper back, which is what I'm used to).

I'm getting stronger already. Doing the combat crawl today was a piece of cake in comparison to last week. Christina's Crawl (which is a sideways combat crawl) is still really hard though. Luckily, I have a feeling that one isn't going to come up too much in my acting career.

I got into the yoga "tripod" position in a properly balanced way for the first time today! It was really exciting.


Auditioning Workshop
I was the last person to go today, so I had the benefit of hearing the comments for everyone else before I went. As a result, I did well. The thing that I have to work on is controlling my movement without moving into a state of rigidity (because on my first go, my knees locked and I wasn't really free enough movement-wise). But still, I'm happy with how I did.

Some key lessons I picked up during other people's tries:

- Make one sentence interchanges as active as longer monologues
- You are allowed to take a moment to drop into coherence before you begin. Just don't take longer than 30 seconds
- When preparing, read the text out loud and get the language into your mouth with ease
- Read the ENTIRE PLAY, not just the sides
- Determine the character's point of view
- Find action verbs for the character to pursue at specific moments in the text
- Do your research on the text (particularly into words/phrases/concepts you don't know)
- You don't owe the Reader in the same way that you would a scene partner; it's perfectly acceptable to steal a scene instead of sharing it
- Thank the Reader when you're done; it shows that you're polite and professional
- You CANNOT be tentative in your choices
- Pay special attention to making the text at the top of the scene come alive

We're learning the difference between "audition technique" and "rehearsal technique", which really are two different things. "Audition technique" feels a little more manufactured and less organic, but it's something that we need to have under our belts in order to get work.


Acting
We took turns using Three Sisters for story time. One person would read EVERYTHING (dialogue, stage directions, everything) while everyone else listened and allowed themselves to think in abstract imagery, and then another person would read. We weren't supposed to follow along in our texts, but I HAD to after about 3 pages. I just kept feeling like I couldn't stay focused on the story without reading along, and I kept getting confused.

At the end of the act, we'd write down our images. I felt like mine were stupid. Like melting ice cream cake, pink dresses in a brown closet, or an overcoat that was missing buttons. I'm not sure they had anything to do with the text. Maybe I was doing it wrong?

We only got through the first two acts. We'll be reading the last two acts tomorrow in the same fashion.


Analysis
We continued to discuss Mother Courage and Her Children. We tried to come up with an action for it, but I don't think we fully nailed one. The first thing thrown out was "to survive (at any cost)", but we became less sure of it as the discussion continued.

Our next assignment is to read Caucasian Chalk Circle by Brecht. We'll have to write papers on that one.

With Brecht, we're supposed to find the difference between what the action is, and how the play asks us to judge the action. I think I understand it, but it's a pretty confusing line to draw.

Killer had a really interesting idea about how scenes are introduced in Brechtian scene introductions might have been a predecessor to "coming attractions" and "next week, on LOST". I thought it was a cool insight.

3 comments:

Amy said...

I remember STRUGGLING with Three Sisters in undergrad - mostly because Chekov's rhythm is very different from my natural rhythm, which is more in tune with Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. I'd love to have a chance to tackle it again now, though...

Since it looks like Imaginary Invalid will close before you get a chance to play in it, how do you feel about the whole understudy thing? The amount of work/stress/mental energy you put into it?

Brennan said...

Oh WOW, I'm excited for you, Angela. I LOVE Chekov. Haha, didn't realize you were working on it till today.

Angela said...

To Amy -- It's sad to be unable to play a role you've understudied... but this isn't the first time it has happened to me. I had a similar experience in Chicago with a long-running show that I worked on for 3 months. So I was prepared for the idea of not going on. At least we got our understudy run to show off our stuff a little. :)

To Brennan -- That was our first day of working with our Chekov project. I hope it'll be an incredible experience.