Actors and Acting – Page 12

5 April, 20085 May, 2014

Week 10: Production Week Begins

Lighting Rig in Empire Theatre

This is a post taken from my personal blog Groundling. I kept an acting casebook during a production of Cabaret for the Empire Theatre in 2008.

Gird the loins for production week. Here we go. Day 1 for the acting company in the rehearsal studio, and it’s another run. This is what I want and need right now. I’ve written before here about losing momentum in an extended rehearsal period, and we’ve arrived at the time to get the arc of the story right and to polish. Continue reading “Week 10: Production Week Begins”

30 March, 20085 May, 2014

Week 9: Tightening the Wheel Nuts

photo credit: mag3737
Saturday:
Goodness! Talk about feeling dazed and confused. This weekend was the first back after an Easter break, and 10 days away from the rehearsal room floor. To make matters worse, three of our company were absent; one on tour, and the others MIA. It was a difficult call given yesterday’s schedule which entailed working scene transitions and tightening up of crowd work. The understudies did their valiant best, but it isn’t the same at all.

A minor flurry during the afternoon as one of our dancers fell on to her back during a lift, and winded herself. Anxious moments, ice-packs etc., but like the trouper she is, back on her feet and into it after a while. Dancers are tough nuts! I do admire them.

All up, a scratchy, messy afternoon with a hint or two of anxiety from the creative team. Yes, we’re a couple of weeks out now and the pressure’s on.

Sunday:
OMG! The wheels fell off for me. Today was undoubtedly a step up from the last run which was literally 2 weeks ago, and also the horror run you have to have at some time. Better now than later, but I’m not going to tempt the theatre gods. It was actually only the second full run of the play, and the first for me entirely off book. Three of the company are ill and voices are not back yet so the energy fluctuated within and across scenes.

On a personal note, I kept being distracted during the run by everything. I couldn’t concentrate. There was the proximity to the director’s table (edge of stage), my own self-doubt, keeping up with scene transitions … oh, everything! This distractedness meant that I dropped lines, a whole verse of one song at one stage … I wondered why the conductor was singing; bless her, she was trying to get me back on cue. So what else did I do? Changed keys, flubbed an entrance, and all the other stuff that happens when it ain’t happening for you. It was probably a good thing though, when all’s said and done. It pointed up the critical points in the show that need focus.

I was determined to finish the day on a positive note, so whined a bit and got an extra 20 mins in a private session with the beautiful musical director and the singing coach. That tidied things up and restored some confidence. It’s what we all need right now. On a very comforting note, it’s clear that the director is clicking into top gear now; among other things he’s dropping hints of some of the visual elements that will be backing some of the scenes including mine … kinda Brechtian … signalling what the scene is about. Nice ideas cooking here.

But how I do miss the way I’m used to working, i.e., daily rehearsals over a shorter period. I know why we are doing this, but it doesn’t make the process any easier. I can’t wait for the start of full runs on (an almost) daily basis from next weekend. That’s when the acceleration factor kicks in and the tempo-rhythm of the whole play will manifest itself for the ensemble. It’s still bits and pieces being threaded together.

17 March, 20085 May, 2014

Getting up close and personal

There comes a time in rehearsals when the director wants to go in close to a piece of text and refine things with the actors. Sometimes it’s because moments or a whole scene are not working as well as they might. Characters may have become becalmed and need a fresh injection of energy. Tonight was that night for my principal scene partner and I. It was a probing, analytical session, one that posed ‘what ifs’ about relationships and actions. It came at a good time, before the lines have solidified around these things, but after the preliminary outline or sketch has been made.

I’ve often thought of role development during rehearsals being like the creation of an oil painting. Firstly, the script determines the kind and scope of painting that might emerge. Early rehearsals for me are about sketching in the outlines of a broad composition, then about adding colour, light and shade … layering, defining some areas over others, and as the composition begins to emerge, even scraping away an unsatisfactory element or two, and replacing it with something that has emerged during the process. This is how we create during rehearsals.

And so tonight we were challenged. We scraped and redefined, layered and changed some of the tonal palette in several scenes. Paraphrasing was cleaned up … being dead letter perfect matters. What emerged after a couple of hours was a clearer sense of the arc of the characters’ roles within the story, and of course, a developing and refining of their relationship. For me it was one big step along the road.

PS. The night began with a publicity photo call in costume. It was great to get a first view of my character wigged and costumed with period spectacles … all grist to the creative mill. We stood on stage in 1930s costume inside a 1930s art-deco theatre. Thought for a bit about being the theatre ‘ghosts.’

Image: Thanks Adida Fallen Angel

16 March, 20085 May, 2014

First Run: spot the holes and string the beads!

Water Court installation Queensland Art Gallery

Despite the dreads a week or so back, the first run was actually a bit of a thrill. During the blocking and working phase of rehearsals so far, most of our scenes have been worked in isolation from the others. So today, it was terrific to see them all and especially the dance chorus numbers beside our own. It was like stringing a whole lot of beads; the little pieces all make sense when they’re of a piece.

First runs are for spotting the ‘holes’ from both sides of the rehearsal room table: scenes that are working or not working as planned, moments that need rethinking, songs and routines that require further work. For the creative team of directors this translates into re-blocking, fixing and rescheduling of planned rehearsal sessions. For the actors, singers, and dancers (and that’s all of the acting company) it’s getting a chance to see how much of the arc of the story has bedded down through our action, lines … and gosh, darn it … just remembering to get everything in the right order. Working off premises in a local school kept us on our toes … the familiarity of the stage or the rehearsal studio was replaced by a new, not altogether congenial space with a shocking acoustic. Still, one does what one must!

Did I have the book down? No, not for all of it … I clung onto it for some scenes, but in others not bad I reckon. I know where I have to mend the holes. I’m working with a fine scene partner who’s a ‘giver’ and that means a great deal to any actor. The support that comes from a steady, calm gaze (not looking at the book, remember?) makes the job a lot easier. You get all you need from your scene partners during performance. Watch, listen, and respond.

That first rum had to be done. It’s over, the dread’s put to bed, and with a work through tomorrow night of all of the Schultz-Schneider scenes, songs and dance routines, I should be feeling a lot more comfortable as we head down the track into Week 6. Now it’s into refining, tweaking and polishing as well as creating the character’s ‘journey’ across the whole play, and not just within the confines of individual scenes. That string of beads again …

Tomorrow we are exactly one month out from opening night … and it’s St Patrick’s Day!

14 March, 20085 May, 2014

That Triple-Threat Thing

Empire Theatre — Image by Dramagirl via Flickr

Sing, dance, and act … if you can do these equally well, you’re a triple threat according to show biz jargon. Well I’ve long known I’m an actor first and foremost. I love music and singing and always have. We’ll pass over the dance part. So here I am in a singing role in Cabaret (Fraulein Schneider) with a modicum of dancing.

Last night I spent an hour with the choreographer and my scene partner working on a dance sequence, which is testing the triple part of the job: dancing, singing and acting at one and the same time. It’s an exercise in discipline … motivate, move, breathe and all in strict tempo and on pitch. I was reminded of some of the training work I did years ago in beijing opera (jingju) where the freedom often afforded and treasured by modern western acting style is conditioned and honed by a strict adherence to the performance traditions of the Chinese form. Demanding is not the word when it comes to prepping for jingju or for that matter a lot of traditional theatre forms. Shaping up to the insistence of tradition is good for the modern performer’s soul and feet! And it’s also good for me, a trainer of actors to get back into the saddle and to try to ride as well as I ask them to.

PS: I had the first tingles in the fingers a couple of nights back. This is my signal that the performance is just round the corner … as is that first run on Sunday.