Last night was another acting class. Dr. Hash took us to watch the rehersal of Your a Good Man Charlie Brown in the WCU theater. They were doing a technical rehersal, arranging the actors and props based on light cues. They would “spike” props when they figured out where they needed to go. There were so many marks on the floor that I wondered how they knew which one was for which prop.
It’s interesting how this acting class is geared toward the stage. I suppose that people have less of a chance at acting for TV or film, so it’s more practical to teach stage production. Also, there seems to be a bit more to stage acting, since you have to know things about what is upstage and downstage, and whether you are open or closed. These things don’t really apply the same way to TV or movies. Still, with the proliferation of video cameras these days, it’s curious that nothing is TV or film-oriented.
After an hour of watching the rehersal, we returned to the studio for warm-up exercises. We were joined by a new student, Amber, who might be one of the more talented actors in our class. I would like to see how and if she would handle a more dramatic role to be sure, but I think it’s true.
Our warm-ups consisted of a lot of crazy head-rolls, bending, and stretching. We did a Dr. Hash version of sit-ups with counting. I had no idea that this acting class was going to be so physically involved. We then held hands in a circle and played a hand-squeezing game of “Pass It Down the Line”, and my fears of having a less-than-stellar acting partner started to be realized, since it was Deon who broke the pattern every time. <sigh>
After exercises, we did a little hand coordination, which wasn’t bad. My mirror for this class was Bill, who seems quite coordinated. At least coordinated enough to run through all these patterns on demand. I still wonder how this correlates to acting.
Heh. Before class we were in the hall, and Deon and Danielle were practicing these patterns. Some guy over by the offices said, “I see someone’s taking Dr. Hash’s acting class.” Yeah.
Well, we eventually broke off with our scene partners and began to read lines. I had some worries about the old script having some accent difficulties, since it used some cockney expressions, so before class I got a couple scripts for other scenes to run by Deon. She didn’t seem impressed by any of them. If it’s one thing I can’t stand in school, it’s someone who isn’t there.
If you just show up for class because it’s a requirement, you should at least make an effort. And that’s not to say that she’s not doing what needs to be done, just she’s not making a whole lot of effort. She’s not really getting into the part of her character. It’s very hard to play someone who is angry toward someone who is muddling the words.
Anyway, we looked at the Good Will Hunting scene that I chose. It didn’t even occur to me that there was so much profanity in it. It’s actually very profane. But it’s acting, and as Dr. Hash said, we’re just portraying these parts, not actually being them. And everyone in the class is presumably an adult, so it should be fine. Deon was quite trepid about doing it, and I wasn’t trying to convince her or force her to choose this script, but I worry that she’s really not going to put the effort into something she’s not into, and then we’ll both look bad.
I spent too much time reading her lines to her. She had never seen the movie (are there a lot of people who haven’t seen this movie?) so it was hard to relate the context of the scene to her. At certain points, Skylar, her character, is obviously getting angry or frustrated, but she’s not acting it. I’m not sure I can even relate in written words how she was speaking her lines.
Plus, this is difficult to do without a director. Nobody is really reviewing the speech with us, or giving us our blocking (I guess we do this next week) so it’s hard to visualize how we will be saying things. I’m not sure how to play it. Should I just act my best and ignore her failings, or should I play off her failings and comeout looking mediocre? Bah!
At the end of class I watched Danielle and Amber do their scene. Since Chris was sort of-teaching the class, he gave up his partner to Amber. I think it’s a much better fit. Danielle and Amber pulled off a very funny scene; it was dead-on, and they had even mostly memorized their lines by the end of class.
I’ll just have to look forward to the second scene, I suppose. If my grade is based on improvement over the course, I guess I can’t go wrong with that.
