(Listening) Shrdlu, Rehearsal, The Adding Machine

Rehearsal @ Impact last night and today, by myself, in the loft.

Rehearsal Technique: General/Specific Insights/Principles

Did not rehearse much last night, but we did work on scene 2, and it was rough.

Today, I finally did a backward-sequential analysis of this scene (see Backwards and Forwards by David Ball), a technique that’s helped me so much in play/scene analysis, and scene 2 is much clearer to me now . I don’t know that the hell took me so long to do this – next time, do this earlier: it may save me time in getting a grip on the structure of the scene.

One the big lessons I learned last night is how important it is to listen – this is a habit and skill. I continually need to develop it: if a scene is like something burning, something on fire, then listening is like wind, an rush of oxygen feeding the flames. I suspect listening makes the actor’s job much easier.

Shrdlu

Shrdlu’s responses are the complete opposite of mine. I’m still working externally, i.e., from the outside-->in, and in lieu of that, sculpting the performance, “creating” Shrdlu rather then “being” Shrdlu. My personality helps; my response to inner imagined “objects” are real, but that’s it – I’m just not at all this guy in terms of how he sees himself or his world, and I definitely do not have his values. He’s really quite an extreme character.

Question: What is "good" acting?
Answer: (procedurally, from a ‘prepare/homework/rehearse’ perspective), acting is . . .

1. A deep, damn deep, understanding of the text, what the character wants.
2. On stage, listening to my partner.

… not a full answer to this question, but this is probably close to 90% of acting.