Chaos Attraction
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Recap Day: November 2017, Section 1 2017-12-27, 8:43 a.m. |
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Again, this is so long I gotta break it up. November 1: For the record, here's the sorts of grades he gives on papers about your acting: As for my performance: He liked how I laughed in multiple scenes (bold choice) and did it differently each time--”one time she almost snorted!” This was followed up with a character analysis lecture and performance critique criteria. Vocal delivery--how do you send your voice to the audience After that, we were supposed to rehearse our one page scenes. But my partner unexpectedly left halfway through class (still don’t know why), and since I couldn’t really rehearse alone, he told me I could leave early. This was slightly annoying considering that months ago I bought a ticket to a show this night, and ended up giving it away to a friend because “you can’t bail on your scene partner!” Hell, I could have left and gone to the show had I but known :P (Though the friend who went had a good time.) He did uh.... get on her for a bit about that during the next class. Before I left, given the circumstances, I asked him for memorization tips. He said he was going to go over that later in the class (why so late?), but this is what he said: Oh yeah, and for the record, here’s the second half of the questions we were supposed to answer: 12a. What secrets do I know? 13. What would I be doing or thinking now if I were alone and this particular scene were not taking place? 14. What past circumstances of my character’s life must I (as the actor) create and live through via fantasized “private improvisations,” in order to experience the present state and circumstances of my character? 15. What emotional reactions do I experience and what memories, fantasies, and plans of the character (“character stimuli”) can I draw upon to create these reactions? 16a. What does my character say that is particularly evocative for him or her? 17. What can I draw upon from my own life (“personal stimuli”) to help me understand and create the character’s wants, actions, and emotional reactions? 18. What is special, different, or urgent about this event? 19a. How does my character use (and think of) his or her body? Is the body used consciously to affect others? 20a. How does my character use his or her voice or use words for effect (the voice thus becoming an instrument for action)? 21a. How is my character distinctive? 22a. Am I concerned about what I wear? 23a. What aspects of people or the environment is my character particularly responsive to? 24. How does upbringing, formal training, taste, position, occupation, etc., affect my character’s behavior and thinking? 25a. What people do I (the actor) know or have I observed that remind me of (aspects of) my character? 26. What choices can I make so that my character’s speech and physical behavior are as expressive, varied, and unpredictable as is warranted and logical? November 6: This was leading into a discussion of personal and character stimuli, which were something we were asked to discuss on the second round of question answering. I have been getting my friend Melinda to help me with homework and when it got to those questions she was all, “you basically didn’t answer it at all.” So...yeah, I think we needed help on this. Personal stimuli-- basically using stuff from your own life as a substitute for feeling in the scene. Two ways you can come up with this information: After that, we had more rehearsal. My scene partner and I discussed how (a) the teacher loves it when you do stuff on stage like we did last time, and (b) we had nothing in our one page scene about anything people are doing. They are literally hanging out on a terrace in the afternoon. So we set up this whole thing where we were drinking, I’d get up and stare out at the railing... yeah, we seriously did not have activities to do that were very dramatic, so we drank. November 8: This class’s lecture was on movement and staging. He was not kidding when he said he wanted us off book by this class. He made a big deal about how you have to be staring*/looking at something or you are not compelling. Focus is what makes people watch you. * except apparently he hates the word staring for some reason? Hoo boy. Uh, looking at something for an extended period of time? So he did this extended activity in which he made us walk across the room multiple times while reciting our lines, and doing different things while going across (wandering across stage, doing something with a desk, I forget whatall else). This actually kind of blew my tiny little mind because at one point--I believe it was the time when he wanted us to wander back and forth across the stage and I was thinking stuff like “huh, I’m going to go the opposite direction of everyone else just to liven it up,” and he stopped me and was all, “What were you looking at there?” “Uh....nothing, I guess.” So he made a big deal about the looking. Is that the problem all along? Because I am usually trying to NOT look directly at anyone in the audience (hard to do with all the lights anyway, but also I think I’d be easily distracted if I noticed someone doing something). Is that why I’m not good? I wasn’t focusing? Things to think about, there. Then he gave a lecture on blocking: We’re also supposed to work on picking our monologues--Melinda told me that the best monologues are when a character figures something out. An “aha,” or “oh shit,” or “I know what to do now” moment. |
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