This is my
first update on the progress of the play. Some interesting things have already
started happening. Asimov writes quite long, wordy sentences that work well
when read, but are a mouthful to deliver with kind of modulation, and
variation.
So far with
the actors, getting them to sound natural, and varied, over their longer, and seemingly
he bland dialogue has been a challenge. One thing that really helped us get
over the edge, is we made actors say the dialgogues usig different situational
emotions. Essentially we made people say the dialogue like cats, dogs, whiny
aunts, professors, other actors, anything, to change the cadence of the words.
The entire
process was strangely revelationary, cause it gave us serious insight into the s,
and varied attitudes one might speak any combination of words, and how much of
the meaning of a dialogue, or sentence depends on the cadence.
This is
something all actors are used to of course, you can say HEY in such a way to
mean I love you, and just as easily convert I love you into a death threat, but
right now is when I come to the second aspect of the exercise
Recognizing
the whole while working with a small part of it, is very important, the only
way to really break out of the singsong and repeating cadence of ‘reading’ is
to have people understand the situation, and drill that into them. The sense of
continuity and development, exists within the play as much as it exists in the
creation of a character by an actor.
To the
audience a character is a blank slate,
when he/she first appears, and then it develops through the course of the play,
in pretty much the same way a character evolves out of an actor during the
development of the play itself. Keeping this in mind is very important. An actor
cannot be responding to stimulus he hasn’t yet received. So keep that in mind
as you attempt to create a real character on stage. What you come into the play/story,
knowing, what you end up becoming, needs to be a transition understandable to
the audience, and equally important, it has to seem organic.
Having
actors tell their stories, will really help which is what I am going to do
today.
