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"I am not a devotee of Stanislavski. I need the lines."
Last night I had the most useless rehearsal in my entire history of acting.
We went through the lines, discussing the motive and direction of each line.
Then we all sat in a circle and discussed our characters, and what their history and childhood is like, and how they feel about life, and what colour best describes them.
And then we walked around the stage, clomping our feet, then floating lightly and gliding along, then moving suddenly, and moving gradually, moving aimlessly, moving in straight lines, moving with motivation, moving without reason, trying to truly capture our characters...
It's Oscar Wilde. My character is a socialite who spends her life going to parties and not listening to what anyone's saying. She's shallow. And it's Oscar Wilde. She doesn't have any deeper motivation. That's kinda the point.
I'm aware that I'm being impatient, but really, trying to wring deep inner emotion out of characters in an Oscar Wilde play strikes me as fairly silly.
We went through the lines, discussing the motive and direction of each line.
Then we all sat in a circle and discussed our characters, and what their history and childhood is like, and how they feel about life, and what colour best describes them.
And then we walked around the stage, clomping our feet, then floating lightly and gliding along, then moving suddenly, and moving gradually, moving aimlessly, moving in straight lines, moving with motivation, moving without reason, trying to truly capture our characters...
It's Oscar Wilde. My character is a socialite who spends her life going to parties and not listening to what anyone's saying. She's shallow. And it's Oscar Wilde. She doesn't have any deeper motivation. That's kinda the point.
I'm aware that I'm being impatient, but really, trying to wring deep inner emotion out of characters in an Oscar Wilde play strikes me as fairly silly.
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My friend's in a play, actually, and her director had them say the motivation of the character before each line. Sounded kinda tedious.
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I was just sitting there thinking "...and when do we get to the play?"
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Still, you get to wear Serious Frockery. And Wilde lines!
I can see an argument for approaching a role in terms of aims and intentions, but clomping
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The serious frockery might just be worth it... :)
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Me too!
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"Eaten!"
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Or the story of Brad Dourif suddenly speaking with his normal American accent at the end of his shooting Lord of the Rings and startling everyone who thought Wormtongue's voice was his accent.
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Yes...I remember that from Uni Drama. For one of my subjects we spent most of the classes lying on the floor 'becoming our character' - which in this case was an animal we had chosen that represented our actual character. In becoming the animal we were going to understand our character better. So first to become the animal we had to lie around visualising their habitat etc, then finally start moving as the animal...six weeks of this then we finally started thinking about our actual characters...
Hideous.
I find it totally unnecessary, embarrassing, and over-thinking the whole acting thing.
Hated hated hated having to walk randomly around 'filling the space' which often involved touching pieces of furniture "lightly! Now more firmly! Feel the acting space!"
"Now run towards each other and veer away at the last minute! Now say hello as you pass! Say it in a language your character might speak! Make up a language for your character!"
"The best way to feel ready is to rub under your nose and on your lips! Rub rub rub!"
Blergh...I don't miss that world!
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I think I was just trying to come up with the most useless place to apply that exercise.
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