Notes from Word of Mouth @ A/C Studios/Early rehearsals for Riant Theatre's production of The Upside Down Mirror by Emanuel Fleischmann
First we form habits. Then they form us.
~Rob Gilbert
Habit is either the best of servants or the worst of masters.
~Mark Twain
As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge.
~Henry van Dyke
When I'm learning a role, at some point, I write out my dialogue. This 1) helps me to remember it (a technique I learned from Ed Hook's The Actor's Field Guide: Notes on the Run) and 2), it helps me to focus on each word.
A third incredibly helpful purely physical technique I'm practicing is quite simple -- breathing: while self-rehearsing, I let my breathe fully drop, all the way, down to the bottom of feet, before speaking, and then I just go slow enough to "be" in each word.
Specifically, here's my new self-rehearsal technique:
- I read and read and read the play to get the sense, the meaning, the thought or intent behind each line of dialogue. It's not that easy, at least for me, but it does becoming easier with experience.
- Once I've got the meaning, then I integrate the breathe into the meaning: I let my breath fully drop (so I can feel what I'm saying),
- and I pay close attention to my partner and what I'm trying to communicate
So what does it mean, really, to integrate the breathe into the meaning?
A great way to integrate full breathe is to build up the text one word at a time ("Breathing The Text" from The Actor Speaks: Voice and the Performer, p. 170), using full breathe, voice, full round words, slow and lots of air support. This is the physical part of acting, where it all has to happen. Everything that comes before is homework, preparation, but without this physical support, this physical approach, all the homework and preparation comes to (almost) nothing . . . it all goes back to Shakespeare:
As you explore the physical nature of words, you quickly unearth some of the most fundamental joys in the making of language. These verbal pleasures are rooted deep in our history like ancestral sounds and voices harking back to its very birth of the English language. They include: alliteration, assonance, & onomatopoeia.
- Speaking Shakespeare by Patsy Rodenburg.
And this work has been paying off in rehearsal -- I e-mailed Deborah this update:
Hey Deb,
Just to follow up on your observations about habits: something new happened to me in rehearsal yesterday. When I first started acting three years ago, within about the first 15 minutes, I decided that the less direction I got -- the better! At time went on, when I did get direction, it was the usual stuff --usually -- e.g., line readings, questions about 'what's my action,' etc.
Yesterday, I got a shockingly different direction. Van, the director said to me (and I'm paraphrasing), 'you know, that last section, you colored every word and I could see/feel what you were taking about, you were in every word, but in some other sections, you sound like your just reading the lines, it's a bit flat. I want you to do every thing the way you did in that last section.'
Now that's interesting! I've never gotten that kind of compare and contrast direction before. The section he liked? I just did what you taught me -- breathed, slowed down, etc. In the sections he didn't like? I tried to 'act,' I pushed, I forgot to breathe, I rushed though the lines, or I didn't listen closely enough to my partner.
So, the challenge now is consistency. This is exactly what my goal is in these small projects: to CONSISTENTLY apply what I've learned. I think it's that my old habits haven't quite died while the new learning is still become a habit, but if I keep working correctly, time will take care of that! Thanks for teaching me!!!
- Cheers,
Christopher
P.S. when the director says "bigger!!!" (something I hate hearing), I just slow down even more so that I can breathe even deeper, and the result seems to makes him happy. Who knew it was all really so easy!
Deborah e-mailed back:
YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Slow down………Color (mean) every word………..Listen………..Bigger = more air/voice..............Breathe down to your groin. That’s all. It’s easy!
