Rehearsal -- Monologues/Scenes/Cold Readings

Working again tonight -- getting back into the habit. It's like physical exercise for me. Sometimes I don't feel like doing it, I get lazy, I blow it off, time passes . . . then I think I really start to feel out of sorts: I feel frustrated with everything -- I get compulsively obsesses with doing minor things I don't really care about. I don't know what I'm doing with my life and feel lost and adrift, and I think -- at least in large part -- it's because I lose touch with this. I don't know why it's my sail, my guide.

OK -- I'm setting the bar higher now:

Gabe's monologue. Really get the content, the thoughts, the ideas -- I haven't zeroed in on them yet, but that's my target. In the past, I've worked too often from the outside-in, and I'm doing too much, going moment by moment, but nothing is strongly binding the moments together. Time to set the bar higher.

(from Jack Poggi's The Monologue Workshop, chapter 7): Improving on the content:

1. Using improv -- build up the 'structure' of the content, the sequence of thoughts, points, ideas.
2. THEN use the character's words
3. Go back and forth between #1 and #2 until I've "grasped" the content.
4. GOAL: Find the one simple thing that the monologue is about -- this will bind together the moment-by-moments.

The big question: What it is that Tom doesn't "get?" My homework is to keep reviewing critical scenes in the play that lead up to this moment. I think with this monologue, for me, that may be very helpful. Tom doesn't "get" something -- what is it, specifically? When I know that, when I'm filled with that, then Gabe will be there.

Rosemary and Howard, Picnic, William Inge, Act III, scene 1.

From last rehearsal. Start working from a general description and opening, middle, and closing attitudes/feelings. NOTE: Really try to find out what Howard is doing, what's his behavior. This will give rise to something close or related to these opening and closing attitudes.

Rosemary: A proud woman who needs to be seen as a "lady." She hides her loneliness and fear behind her identity as a teacher. A good friend. A contributor to the betterment of her community. She's in good standing, well regarded. Confused by men.

                Opening, middle, and closing attitudes/feelings: pre-occupied & empty --> determined and frustrated --> emotional, vulnerable, frightened.

Howard: Insecure, shy lonely man who has fallen into an identity that keeps him safe. Sees himself as independent. Wants desperately to be liked. Threatened by romance.

                Opening, middle, and closing attitudes/feelings: anxious & defensive --> embarrassed & evasive --> confused, extremely nervous and threatened.

Interesting. When I tried to come up w/a description and attitudes on my own, I saw Howard as comfortable in his life, liked his independence, and wants to keep things the way they are. I saw him going from defensive/evasive to guilty. I definitely got his behavior -- but I missed the why.

If I was going to audition this scene, my description of Howard, while correct, would have lead to pretty flat reading. I knew I was missing the why, but I didn't quite know what to do. A good character description can really fire the imagination, and here I needed to come up with one on my own, but I wasn't quite able to do it. I think the clues/keys/insights are in the text, and I didn't really spend enough time with it.

-- I resolve to better develop my theatrical logic and instinct to come up with some character description that makes "sense," theatrically, given the dramatic potential of the scene.

Enough for tonight.