Shadow emotion
Me as Tevye
Friday, February 18, 2011
Directing a play--The Tarentino Variation
So we have our first rehearsal. I have my work cut out for me. Three relatively untrained actors that need to begin to perform like professionals in just a few months. We are a million miles away from ready. We go over some basics. It's a spoof for God's sakes. A Farce. A satire of Reservoir Dogs. Come on guys, get real. Don't worry about accents I tell them, or objectives, or character back-story at this point. Just make it real. Bigger than life emotions. Your all holding guns to your friends head; you should be terrified, panic-stricken. Show me something! Be Seinfeld-ish if you like. Show me some physical improve with some high stakes feelings...All your actions should be the simple physicality of trying to suppress the emotion "fear" while you hold your partner at bay.... Three guys with squirt guns holding one another hostage--a Mexican Standoff if you will. We rotate the circle a couple of times then we reverse it. All these characters are trying to do is out-macho one another and trying to hold up their end of societies bargain. They're frightened, they're confused, they're trying to fit into the stereotypical roles they've been given and doing an abysmal job. In the end, they all go out for hamburgers and a salad bar, but never break free. It's just that simple. Now I'm beginning to ask myself... Is this show really about my directing this the show....is that what it's really about?? I begin to wonder....All I'm asking is 8 minutes of insanity. Come on guys. Show me some funny.
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As we work this play in rehearsal I see some lights shinning in the distance. The acting has improved in just a week, but we still need to rework our thinking about character. It is easy for an actor to jump out of character and try to be "cute" thinking that this is some sort of innate brilliance on the part of the actor or extemporaneous improvization. Cheap tricks don't work except to amuse the actor. I see this happen so often it needs to be a major issue of discussion. But comedy, just like drama, is based on true emotional feelings. Think of Laural and Hardy, I tell them,or Jackie Gleason's, "To the moon Alice". Think of George on Seinfeld, Elaine or Kramer. Each of them contributing their own insanity to their shows, but very much with real "high stakes" truthful feelings. Remember, emotion doesn't change at random. Something has to happen to change it so stay in character! Maintain the emotion, define it first, then make it real and heighten it if anything.
ReplyDeleteThen we talk timing. There has to be a break before the comedic punchline. A slight pause to cue the audience that a joke is coming. If done properly this is not even noticed, but there HAS got to be some form of derailment of the original idea and a major, unexpected change up. The old bait and switch...
I'm convinced that many directors try to overblock a show somewhere during the mid rehearsal process. When actors still haven't got their lines memorized and are not off book yet. This leads to hesitation, memory problems on the part of the actors, and a "stage-i-ness" that I believe is hard to erase. I think the reason they do is that by then, everyone has seen the show mulitple times, they start to get frustrated and bored and try to "fix" things prematurely. Actors can't really "act" until they have the lines down very well. Until the lines themselves become a part of their "being". So general blocking, yes, overblocking, no. Sometimes a driector will try to cute it up for an audience to get a cheap laugh and forget about the story line and motivations, etc. I think this leads to mediocre performances. What they should be worried about is pace, timing and bringing out the proper emotions in their actors--not blocking.
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