Mah week... Last post with lots of days in one.

8 August 2011

So sorry! It’s been exactly a week since I last blogged! For shame!

It’s been an interesting week, and the reason I haven’t been blogging is because I haven’t really been online in awhile. Every now and then I check my facebook, but it’s on someone else’s computer because they want me to add them as friends, or something obscure and quick like that.

So, to sum up this week in a few words…

Nope, can’t do it. So I will just tell you flat out what happened this week in a few different posts.

Monday: Had an amazing Commedia class in the afternoon after pretty much sleeping in and doing things like my laundry (which is actually the last time I did it… ew!... Yuck for wearing the same sweaty clothes almost everyday!). In class we talked about action vs. tactics and intention vs. goal. Many of the terms were the same as when I had learned them at PCPA, but the actual name of the terms were a little switched. I’ll get it eventually.

I love that Michele (our instructor) (pronounced Mi-keh-leh) is so passionate about Commedia. He does each of the characters so well when he’s explaining them and giving us examples of how they are supposed to walk and how they talk and from where they originate (meaning region of Italy). To him – and I agree – an action is how I change the world around me to achieve my goals. Waving my hand is not an action; it becomes an action when I have a purpose to my waving. I can be waving my hand to shoe a fly, or trying to capture the attention of someone across the room. But it’s the intention behind the wave that makes it a true action. There must always be an intention behind every action on stage. We always have one in real life, so why should on stage be any different.

When your intention is not present in your action, for whatever reason and for however long – even if an instant – your intention is unexpressed. This is a waste of energy basically.

Tuesday: Class again. All day. Michele says that the voice is like our 5^th limb. It’s so true. Our voice can fill voids on stage and in life that many of our physical limbs cannot. When you are trying to fill an entire space, but your arms don’t reach, what do you do? Give a little shout in every direction to fill that space with something. Even your voice can change rhythm, tone and volume, just as the body can in our exercises.

Wednesday: Class all day. Much of what we’ve done this day is work on space and power in the space. For Commedia, the most powerful spot on stage is center center. If two characters have equal power, the best way to show this is to split the stage in the center. If one has slightly more power than the other, that more powerful character might step a tiny bit further down stage (closer to the audience) or the weaker of the two characters might turn slightly on the diagonal. The character who is directed at the audience always has more power than the slightly turned character.

There are also many levels on stage. Someone who is in the back of the stage (up stage) has less power than someone standing directly in front of them, or even on the same plane but closer to the audience.

There are vertical, horizontal and diagonal levels on the stage; any of these implies power. However, if you are standing just off any of these imaginary lines or planes and are in the no man’s land of inside one of the triangles these lines create, your power is suddenly lost. A simple inch or two to the left could mean the world to the audience’s interpretation of what is going on and who is the more powerful character in the scene.

Thursday: Class in the morning. Working with others can sometimes be difficult. I’m not speaking of class of course, because it’s amazing. I’m talking about working with directors and other actors in shows or rehearsals. Michele brought up an excellent point regarding this. So often, directors think it’s their job to tell the actor what to do. This is so incorrect and it usually pisses someone off. This is why:

“I’m not a puppet; I’m an actor.”

As a director, you can make suggestions for the actor to do, and usually if you are a good director, you can see what will make the scene better or worse, but telling the actor how to act or what actions (see the previous class discussion about ‘actions’) is not the director’s job. Directors have specific ideas of how a show should go and what it should be like; that’s fantastic. It helps shape the show, but if you expect the show to be exactly what you pictured in your dreams, you’re going to be very sad.

As an actor, it’s essentially what my character and my body bring out in the character. My ‘animal.’ We can work on closing the distance as much as possible between what the director would like to see and what my animal is actually informing me of, but it is up to me and how my animal interpret the character’s animal. Otherwise, you just expect me to be a puppet. I’m not.

What I mean by ‘animal’ is the core of the character or my core or even your core. What is essentially and basically you. There are three portions of the body that make up any person. In the head, you have reason. In the chest, you have the soul. In the pelvis area, you have the sex drive; this is your core. In Commedia dell’Arte, everything is led by the pelvis.

For example, if I’m talking to you, and you have my full attention, my reason, my soul and my core will be directly aimed toward you. You have my full attention. However, if we are in a scene where I’m telling you I love you, but I really love this other man, my head will be toward you as I tell you I love you, but my soul will be facing this other person. This means that my reason knows I should love you, or even thinks it’s best or that I want it to be this way, but my soul belongs to another and you can’t have it.

Isn’t that interesting??

We also worked on a new game to me regarding stage space. There are four people to share the space. Person A starts in the space by making a triangle. Each segment of the triangle is whatever rhythm, tone and volume they chose, but at one point of their triangle, Person B must meet them for a second, fully present with them. This means both reasons, both souls, both pelvis’s must face each other. Then A continues with the same triangle and B creates their own, but each time they come to this meeting point, they must arrive and leave at the same time. This gets very difficult as you add Person C. Person C must meet both A and B at one of their triangle points and then finish their own triangle at a separate point. Person D comes in to make a triangle, but they have only the points still available in each of A, B, and C’s triangles. So, once you’ve spent awhile trying to make all the meetings work and everyone is arriving on time (without changing your initial speed once you’ve started that segment of your triangle), you’ve got four people in the space, meeting each other on time and fully present each time and helping each other all the while. It is a difficult but a fun game.

How does this relate to acting? Other than the obvious learning how to use the space properly and be fully present with the others on stage, all characters have a dialogue, goals, meetings. So learning how to keep those rhythms (speed) on each segment and working with each other to achieve those goals and meetings, it all becomes the dialogue.

Also, a play can have a run of anywhere from one night’s performance to years of performances, six days a week. So it must always stay fresh and the actors must still be able to be present with everyone else on stage even if they’ve done this part 128 times. It’s the same meetings, same shows, but it needs to be new/different every time or you will get bored. And if you are bored, the audience picks up on it and they get bored.

The simplest change as changing rhythm can change everything. If the scene is a woman wants to leave her boyfriend and she is about to leave, the man can choose to run at her to stop her or walk slowly toward her to stop her. It doesn’t seem like it, but either one could be a good choice, depending upon the man’s intentions, but they are both completely different stories and convey those completely different stories to the audience.

The man chooses to run at the leaving woman because he intends to stop her and tell her he loves her more than life. Running makes sense. He chose a high rhythm.

The man chooses to walk slowly to her as she leaves because he doesn’t really want her to stay but he feels obligated to make her think he does. He chose a low rhythm.

Neither are incorrect, but both are completely different. It depends on the reason, the purpose, the intention. These decisions are what create actions.

Others went on a day trip to Assisi for their Art History class. In the afternoon, I don’t remember.