December 2006 Archives

New Training/Lessons:

• Placing the voice: (see The Actor Speaks, exercise 17, p.75): speak "1," "2," "3," . . . "10" alternating between the top and bottom of my vocal range (using just enough breath -- see The Actor Speaks, exercise 21, p.79), and then find my middle/natural voice/tone -- it is from there that I should always speak.
• Building more breath support: Sigh from the top of my range to about half way down (to my eyes, my middle/natural voice/tone) and then intone a speech: use lips, full breath, and go slow. When I start the sigh, train myself to be immediately on voice, i.e., no empty breath before a sound.
• Find the high palette: (see The Actor Speaks, exercise 17, p.75). "ooo" into "ah," full breath, easy, slow, place the vibration. Intake should be silent if my palette is up.

Soliloquy notes:

All soliloquies are to someone who listens and "gets it." Communicate clearly the thoughts to that person, and I'm half way there, the most important part of the way.

Acting: A Serious Discipline and a Craft

Notes on doing monologues:

With all monologues, you "think" yourself into consciousness, you "figure it all out" as you go along. Most -- if not all -- monologues are "insight" based.

Train myself to be "on" the text (see The Actor Speaks, exercise 51, p.176): communicate only with eyes and breath -- no extraneous movements of my head and body: just breath, move nothing else.

Notes on Vanya:

After Elena leaves, his monologue -- don't play the end: he doesn't feel like a fool until he says it.: Be exactly where Vanya is, and that's IN the words, ON the line I'm speaking, and NO WHERE ELSE. My full attention needs to be on where he is right now, NOT on where he's going. Train myself to always work this way.

Most characters, especially Chekhov's, are usually "unhappy," i.e., they're striving for what they're convinced will make them happy, and the mistake I'm making is to put a negative spin on everything they say, i.e., assuming the characters feel unhappy or negative or upset when speaking just about anything. In Vanya's monologue, thinking about Elena, remembering when they meet, imagining how things could have been -- that gives Vanya great pleasure (and he's drunk too) until he realizes what a fool he's been. All stories have a natural arc -- find them.