Where We Are

Hi Everyone

Smile.

I just want to reassure you all that everything is going OK. That we are where we are and that we have enough time to make our show.

I know some people are aware that some scenes are more developed than others, but that is in the nature of the rehearsal process. Some scenes suggest a staging more readily than others. And all actors work at a different pace.

Also, to reassure you all that we are not throwing out the psychological baby with the bathwater. Everything our characters say and do is for real. They SPEAK to each other. They AFFECT each other. They listen to each other. The way they behave is 'true'.

However, we are also trying to use States of Intensity within that structure. And we are using the States of Intensity to help us to give the necessary VARIETY within our acting.

We also have to remember that witches are performing the story. Which gives us the freedom to be freer with the physicality of the action than it would be if it were an episode of Eastenders... a choreographed and expressed physicality....

This is to help you and 'mark' the energy of each intention with a suitable physical action.

Also, please, don't be thrown by me saying I don't believe in 'characters'. It's not a big deal. I don't mean anything existential by it. I just mean, people's 'characters' depend on the situation. Small example:

I don't want to go to school today. I hate it. I hate it!!

Stop whimpering, Derek!

No. I'll whimper. I'll cry too if I bloody-well want to. It's not fair. I hate it.

You're acting like a baby.

They all bully me! The kids. The teachers.

Derek. Stop crying! Get out of bed! It's 8.30. You'll be late! If they saw you behaving like this they'd all laugh!!

So what? Let them laugh!

So what? For goodness sake! You're the Headmaster!

Overall though, what's the Headmaster's 'character'? At home, he might be something very different from his public image: when he's slopping around in his underpants, when he's making love to his wife, when he's sitting, constipated on the toilet. When he's sulking. When he's having road rage. When he's trying to chat up and get off with an attractive young woman who's not his wife while he's away at a three-day conference in Scotland....

'Character' is non-dynamic. It's in danger of being very limiting to you as an actor. Hitler - cruel. Stalin - mad. Romeo - starry-eyed. Juliet - drippy. What's interesting is Hitler - sulking. Hitler - charming. Hitler - reasonable. Hitler - in love. Hitler - romantic. Hitler - soppy. Hitler - goofing about. All the things that he must have been. All the things that you and I are too. Given the particular moment in your life. The ever-changing moments of your life.

Don't so much think character. Rather you want to think of the role as a lot of different drawers of an endless filing cabinet from which to bring out different facets... or, as Stanislavsky would have it, different TACTICS for getting your way, progressing your intention and reaching your objective,: charmer, boss, little boy lost, authority figure, in need of mothering, comforter, wounded, clown, tyrant, ad infinitum.

Bad acting, on the other hand, is playing the 'character' on one note...

IN THE END, the audience, or even you, might consider that your role has more clown than tyrant, more hero than drip, but don't START there. Play the situation. See it from the role's point of view. After all, what's YOUR character? Some people will say bossy. Others will say kind. Some will say sexy. Others cold. It all depends on the experience they have had of you. And even then one action, one single word on your part could change it again....

Have a good time from now to Friday, everyone and just get more and more comfortable with your lines..

; )