Tuesday, January 19

VOICE

Today was our first day of the general New York dialect. It is WAY easier for me than the RP British was (although I ended up getting the hang of that quite well by the end).

Part of it is just that I've known people that have New York dialects, so it's easier to hear the signature sounds in my head. And part of it is that I once played a character who was pretending to have a New York dialect and had to ad lib in it, so I was approximating it for that role and got a good rhythm for it.

So far, it's fun. Our "Cheat Sheet" (aka a list of the dialect shifts for all the signature sounds) is due Friday.



MOVEMENT
Another half-day of class. Movement Professor seems happy with our progress in ballet. Killer and I have a rehearsal for our duet tomorrow.


ACTING
I did my final day of work on my Constance monologue from King John. I think it's really coming along, although I'd by no means call it finished. After I'd done it several times, and Acting Professoressa kept trying to get me to simplify it, she asked, "Do you feel like you're doing just nothing now?" I said, "No, I feel like I'm doing way more than I was before." She said something like, "Well, don't tell us that." I guess in having to simplify things, I actually have to make such an active effort at restraint that it feels like I'm doing more.

Why? Well, it's hard for me to take a character who is talking about how much grief she's suffering from and not feel that grief. And when I feel the grief, I apparently SHOW too much grief. Acting Professoressa calls it "playing a state of being", and it's something we're supposed to avoid.

Or at the top of my speech, I say tell a Cardinal that he must not be holy because he's telling lies about me. I have to do it without "playing a point of view", or giving an opinion on the fact that a Cardinal is an unholy liar. It hasn't been an easy thing for me to accomplish.

I'm getting better at it, but it's a challenge.

Here are some of the notes I took for myself:
- Ask "Don't you see?", "Do you understand?", and "Do you see what I mean?" after every line in this speech, especially in the section personifying grief.
- Don't play bitterness
- Don't show state of being
- Don't show point of view
- stay plugged into Need
- make Doings more specific
- link beats together with Need
- land each item in lists to prevent them from feeling list-y
- take caesuras in "Then, have I reason, to be fond of grief"
- landing does not just apply to ends of sentences; you have to land internally as well.