Sunday, October 30, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
shakespeare expressed
What interests me most about this play is how contemporary Hamlet's thoughts are, yet how uncontemporary the mode of a speech is to us now. I know I'm not the first to say that, but I might be one of a few younger persons who has listened to near a 100hrs of the "Great's" perform Shakespeare AND is highly interested in delivering the text to audiences that is built off the achievements of yesterday, with a sound that is today. With ever shortening tolerance for classical acting/texts that don't instantly hit them, audiences, especially younger ones, don't care to give the the time or politeness to sit and struggle to understand and identify with what's going on and being said on something as foreign as a stage. And why should they? With web access to hundreds of media outlets like "Youtube", and "Hulu" they can get anything that speaks to them more quickly, cheaply and more "comprehensibly". But the texts of Shakespeare, especially Hamlet, have the advantage of powerful and beautiful language, which said in real time can be matched by nothing. "No not for a king", "muddy-metal rascal", "A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!", "I did love you once"--I strongly believe, when spoken in a sound of now, but using the techniques of our great acting predecessors, this language can shake people to the core and give any film or video a run for it's money.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Afterword
The actor's spirit, above all, needs something to work on- something tonight, something tomorrow, something the day after that. Our intuition and our instincts are always functioning, but our conscious mind needs grist, a plan, a target for our arrows.
What is it you intend to be working on in tomorrow rehearsal? Now, however you answered that question, you need to relate it to specific pieces of text. Everything we imagine brings us back to the text, and it is to the test we bring our insights, and it is there we find our challenges.
When you have an idea, point to the specific part of the text that will allow you to get the idea on stage. You want to make the character "more dependent?" Where is the text that allows that to play? You want to show that she gets progressively "more alienated"; which lines show that progression or *allow the subtext that will? You wish to find the seeds of distrust that lead him to leave her? Point to the lines. Too much of our works as actors is free-floating, general, without being found specifically in the works and/or the circumstances.
Eventually, all our ideas are given flesh on or around the lines. All the tips you've been reading are meant to lead you back to the script. Have the idea, then find the words to play it with. This, I think might be the tips of tips.
Tips- Ideas for Actors, by Jon Jory
I now understand why actors sit in the dressing room looking at their script well after the show has stopped rehearsing and has opened. Until reading this, I shunned going back to the script fearing it would put me back in my head; preferring the recollections of my minds eye of the play as the source of queries, and re-tunings. Having turned a fear to a strength I'm much joyed by this "afterword".
*****Showing subtext- that is a color I'd like to use more. Does anyone know of an author, or play where it's used a lot? Pinter?
What is it you intend to be working on in tomorrow rehearsal? Now, however you answered that question, you need to relate it to specific pieces of text. Everything we imagine brings us back to the text, and it is to the test we bring our insights, and it is there we find our challenges.
When you have an idea, point to the specific part of the text that will allow you to get the idea on stage. You want to make the character "more dependent?" Where is the text that allows that to play? You want to show that she gets progressively "more alienated"; which lines show that progression or *allow the subtext that will? You wish to find the seeds of distrust that lead him to leave her? Point to the lines. Too much of our works as actors is free-floating, general, without being found specifically in the works and/or the circumstances.
Eventually, all our ideas are given flesh on or around the lines. All the tips you've been reading are meant to lead you back to the script. Have the idea, then find the words to play it with. This, I think might be the tips of tips.
Tips- Ideas for Actors, by Jon Jory
I now understand why actors sit in the dressing room looking at their script well after the show has stopped rehearsing and has opened. Until reading this, I shunned going back to the script fearing it would put me back in my head; preferring the recollections of my minds eye of the play as the source of queries, and re-tunings. Having turned a fear to a strength I'm much joyed by this "afterword".
*****Showing subtext- that is a color I'd like to use more. Does anyone know of an author, or play where it's used a lot? Pinter?
Friday, September 16, 2011
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