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Too Much or Too Little
Oct. 2nd, 2006 12:38 pmSo Saturday morning, Temptation rehearsal bright and early, 9.00 am. Amazingly, everyone was up and together and ready to work. So, three hours spent on the third office scene and the second garden scene (we skipped the first garden scene as Jessi still can't rehearse due to foot surgery, and she's rather central to that scene; we're actually going to her place tomorrow night to work).
Every time we run the large group scenes, new and interesting things happen that should be kept, and we lose some other things that have happened before that should have been kept, so I'm trying to keep all those in my eye and on my mind. We've fixed most of the blocking to work better in the actual space, and I can give more and more acting notes, but we need to be off-book to really proceed in some ways, much sooner than I anticipated. I do wish I had a little more time with the group scenes now, but I think that's a temporary thought, and we'll hit the proper stride in the next two weeks.
And the scenes look good from the house. Though it sometimes feels weird to me still to have things basically static for so long. I have to get used to that. The blocking is elegant, accurate, and non-ugly. It's what it should be.
Last night, after the very enjoyable drunken afternoon reading of Plato's Symposium at The Brick (though, having work to do afterwards, I indeed did not get drunk, despite pounding down large quantities of mimosas), Alyssa and Walter came by to work their two scenes. I had budgeted four hours for the work, which was much much more than was needed, or more precisely, would be useful. Really, we can only do these scenes twice usefully in any rehearsal. I was stunned at the first rehearsal, previously, with how quickly they fell into the casual, non-"acting" tone that I so very much wanted for the scenes, and which I had thought I would need to struggle to achieve. Nope. They got it right away. The trouble then in rehearsing scenes in this style is that the more times you do it, and the more notes you give, the more you lose the essential casualness, so twice is it, or it starts being "acted."
Also, the scenes (especially the second) get rather emotionally painful, and the ability to go as raw as Alyssa and Walter can in the first couple of runs begins to fade, the edges get sanded down, and there's no point in going through it again.
I sometimes tell casts at the start of rehearsals, "I'm not going to give you very many positive notes." And I explain the reason -- most of what I REALLY LOVE in what actors do are tiny, subtle, delicate things, which often they themselves have no idea they are doing, and if I praise these things, no matter what, from then on these things become underlined and spoiled, "actorly." So the catch-22 is often keeping these things without letting the actor know what specifically it is I'm trying to get them to keep. Sometimes it's easy enough -- usually if what you like is something an actor doesn't think anyone is paying attention to. I have a habit, both at my own rehearsals and in watching other peoples' shows, when someone is central and speaking for some time, of mainly watching everyone else on stage. Saturday, as Walter delivered his big speeches in the office scene, I was very interested in the eyes of Fred and Maggie, watching him, very invested. So I let them know, and i think they'll just stay aware of the fact and keep investing at that level.
But other times, as with yesterday at one point, it's good to just tell the actor what you liked and then tell them not to do it for a while. Walter did a lovely, strange, real hand gesture as his character talked about "flow." I said I loved it, but we agreed he shouldn't do it in the second run-thru, or it would be distracting and "acted." However, having even the memory of the note in his head made his reading of the word, "flow," full of strange meaning, other levels. The gesture had been incorporated into his voice; it was almost as good as the gesture. Hopefully, over time, the gesture will simply return, naturally. And if it doesn't, the moment and impulse behind it has been noted and will emerge in some other fruitful way.
(of course, if Walter reads this blog, I may have just sank his reading of that word in that scene forever -- like telling someone not to think of a purple elephant . . .)
The second Alyssa/Walter scene is really good n painful, and they got the emotions right. I had to deal with more blocking issues there, and while they were mostly off-book for both scenes, they were a little less steady in the second, so while the emotions were right, the precision in dealing with them was off.
We broke really early from those scenes, but that allowed Walter and I to go over several of his big speeches in the office scenes, which we went over beat by beat and made very very clear. I think we have those pretty well down. Walter suggested going on to his speeches to Marketa in the garden, but I think I was too beat by that point, as it actually took me a second to focus on what he was talking about, and when I did I realized they were so far away from my mind that I'd be useless in going over them right then.
I'm very very proud of the work Alyssa, Walter, and I have done on their two scenes. It's some of the best "character" direction I've done, and I think the three of us have really made something special out of these moments. Not that there's anything wrong with what's up in the rest of the play, but so much of it is about fakery and false faces that people put on, lies, deception, "performance," that when these two scenes come in of two people in love, incredibly comfortable and honest with each other, played with care and affection, it's something special.
Now I have to send the program material off to the printers. Unfortunately, I'm still short five actors (and I have to respond to some emails I've received on that), so my program info will be incomplete, and I'll have to do an insert in any case, dammit. Then I'll try and figure out if I can afford to go the NYTR thing tonight at The Brick. Not sure yet.
Every time we run the large group scenes, new and interesting things happen that should be kept, and we lose some other things that have happened before that should have been kept, so I'm trying to keep all those in my eye and on my mind. We've fixed most of the blocking to work better in the actual space, and I can give more and more acting notes, but we need to be off-book to really proceed in some ways, much sooner than I anticipated. I do wish I had a little more time with the group scenes now, but I think that's a temporary thought, and we'll hit the proper stride in the next two weeks.
And the scenes look good from the house. Though it sometimes feels weird to me still to have things basically static for so long. I have to get used to that. The blocking is elegant, accurate, and non-ugly. It's what it should be.
Last night, after the very enjoyable drunken afternoon reading of Plato's Symposium at The Brick (though, having work to do afterwards, I indeed did not get drunk, despite pounding down large quantities of mimosas), Alyssa and Walter came by to work their two scenes. I had budgeted four hours for the work, which was much much more than was needed, or more precisely, would be useful. Really, we can only do these scenes twice usefully in any rehearsal. I was stunned at the first rehearsal, previously, with how quickly they fell into the casual, non-"acting" tone that I so very much wanted for the scenes, and which I had thought I would need to struggle to achieve. Nope. They got it right away. The trouble then in rehearsing scenes in this style is that the more times you do it, and the more notes you give, the more you lose the essential casualness, so twice is it, or it starts being "acted."
Also, the scenes (especially the second) get rather emotionally painful, and the ability to go as raw as Alyssa and Walter can in the first couple of runs begins to fade, the edges get sanded down, and there's no point in going through it again.
I sometimes tell casts at the start of rehearsals, "I'm not going to give you very many positive notes." And I explain the reason -- most of what I REALLY LOVE in what actors do are tiny, subtle, delicate things, which often they themselves have no idea they are doing, and if I praise these things, no matter what, from then on these things become underlined and spoiled, "actorly." So the catch-22 is often keeping these things without letting the actor know what specifically it is I'm trying to get them to keep. Sometimes it's easy enough -- usually if what you like is something an actor doesn't think anyone is paying attention to. I have a habit, both at my own rehearsals and in watching other peoples' shows, when someone is central and speaking for some time, of mainly watching everyone else on stage. Saturday, as Walter delivered his big speeches in the office scene, I was very interested in the eyes of Fred and Maggie, watching him, very invested. So I let them know, and i think they'll just stay aware of the fact and keep investing at that level.
But other times, as with yesterday at one point, it's good to just tell the actor what you liked and then tell them not to do it for a while. Walter did a lovely, strange, real hand gesture as his character talked about "flow." I said I loved it, but we agreed he shouldn't do it in the second run-thru, or it would be distracting and "acted." However, having even the memory of the note in his head made his reading of the word, "flow," full of strange meaning, other levels. The gesture had been incorporated into his voice; it was almost as good as the gesture. Hopefully, over time, the gesture will simply return, naturally. And if it doesn't, the moment and impulse behind it has been noted and will emerge in some other fruitful way.
(of course, if Walter reads this blog, I may have just sank his reading of that word in that scene forever -- like telling someone not to think of a purple elephant . . .)
The second Alyssa/Walter scene is really good n painful, and they got the emotions right. I had to deal with more blocking issues there, and while they were mostly off-book for both scenes, they were a little less steady in the second, so while the emotions were right, the precision in dealing with them was off.
We broke really early from those scenes, but that allowed Walter and I to go over several of his big speeches in the office scenes, which we went over beat by beat and made very very clear. I think we have those pretty well down. Walter suggested going on to his speeches to Marketa in the garden, but I think I was too beat by that point, as it actually took me a second to focus on what he was talking about, and when I did I realized they were so far away from my mind that I'd be useless in going over them right then.
I'm very very proud of the work Alyssa, Walter, and I have done on their two scenes. It's some of the best "character" direction I've done, and I think the three of us have really made something special out of these moments. Not that there's anything wrong with what's up in the rest of the play, but so much of it is about fakery and false faces that people put on, lies, deception, "performance," that when these two scenes come in of two people in love, incredibly comfortable and honest with each other, played with care and affection, it's something special.
Now I have to send the program material off to the printers. Unfortunately, I'm still short five actors (and I have to respond to some emails I've received on that), so my program info will be incomplete, and I'll have to do an insert in any case, dammit. Then I'll try and figure out if I can afford to go the NYTR thing tonight at The Brick. Not sure yet.
