I am usually very conscientious when it comes to my roles in the theater. It's a matter of pride and a certain work ethic I gained from decades of dancing. That's why my current blasé attitude about learning the lines and even thinking very hard about my character is both a surprise and an embarrassment for me. I mean I know my lines. Not in the solid I know the words will just come way that I usually learn them but I know what they are. What my cues are. What the last words of my lines are definitely. That sort of thing. But not well enough that I can really concentrate on listening and doing because the words are not so ingrained that they will just spill out no matter how I work.
And my lack of character development is also surprising to me. I haven’t really thought about either of these women or what they really want. And that is a terrible lack. I’m trying to play them natural, of course. Make all of their movements real, all of their words that come out of my mouth real. But I don’t know why. I really didn’t see this total disconnect from what I am doing and the characterization until we did the rehearsal without E for Sweetness. It was like floating free without the third pin to hold us down. And I started to ask myself questions about my blocking that I couldn’t possibly answer without more thought into what is really supposed to be going on here. And then I realized I had never even asked those questions before.
I can’t place blame for these things. I think I maybe having trouble though because my husband is so upset at me for doing this show. And how it’s interfering with our time that I am reticent about working on it outside of rehearsal time because I don’t want him to be angry with me but that’s hurting my performance. I can’t keep going without doing the work that I have to do outside of the studio. So I am going to start doing the work right this second. I’m going to think about who I am and why I am. And I’m going to learn those lines so well they just spill out of me and ride on top of the action. Like Meisner would say I’m going to float them on top of the river of the emotion like a boat.
2 comments:
Its good to read that at least someone is committed to their acting skills, I can't even find actors to work on the low budget movies planned on our blog...English actors, rubbish.
Where are you looking for actors? I haven't been acting for very long but it seems to me that if you want to find dedicated actors that don't need a lot of pay you should look at your better local community theaters. Oh, and being an ex-ballet dancer, older dancers (and by older I mean over 25)often are very expressive and have a really strong need to still perform. And they have a great work ethic and are incredibly malleable. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Post a Comment