Recently in Monologues Category

I had my first monologue audition at The Actors Alliance last night with the head a New York City Film & Television Casting Agency. My first real professional audition (The Actors Alliance is a member's only meet-and-greet studio; They're known mostly by word-of-mouth: I first heard about them in How to be a Working Actor, 5th Edition: The Insider's Guide to Finding Jobs in Theater, Film, & Television by Mari Lyn Henry and Lynne Rogers).

I have been having trouble with my monologues lately -- so I've been working with Deborah Carlson/Word of Mouth Studios to hammer out my difficulties, and the difficulties, for me, have always been in starting.

Like most beginning actors (I'm assuming), I thought of auditions as a separate "thing" or "state" I needed to enter into before I started, i.e., in an audition, there's usually a brief introduction, and the auditor asks what you'll be doing. You tell them, and they say something like "whenever you're ready."

At this point, the pressure, naturally enough, steps up, and -- sometimes (actually, a lot of the time) I would just go blank: there was no internal motivation to start the monologue, i.e., no "reason" to start talking other than the auditor is waiting for me to start. This is absolutely the worst place to start from as any beginning or seasoned actor can attest.

Deborah, however, give me some good advice, and -- more importantly -- showed me how she starts an audition. Acting, for me, is in large part, learned by watching others who know what they're doing. It's hard to explain, but "I get it" (more times than not) when I see and hear something done well.

Basically, she said the critical moment before needs to be quite simple and it should come out of the "place" you're in just before the auditor says "whenever you're ready." Don't think you have to somehow undergo a rapid and radical transformation, or psychically teleport yourself, somehow, to some imaginary place. That (for me) is working to hard and trying to do to much. My beginning still need a lot of work, but I'm making progress.

I (somehow) last night did just what Deborah told me to do -- and showed me how to do: I don't know how I did it -- but I did it, and it was the best I've done so far under pressure:

God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.
~ Isak Dinesen (author of Out Of Africa)

 

I've always like this quote (and Dinesen is a wonderfully observant and poetic writer) because it reminds me not to look too far down the road. I have my long-terms goals and a plan, but that's really only a dry map -- day by day, it's just concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, being no where else than "in" that single foot-fall, being fully there, fully present.

Lately, I've been struggling to take my monologues to the next level, and I said in this post that I had a good idea about how to do this. Actually -- I didn't, but now I do.

This clip from Facing the Giants is instructive on a couple of levels: one -- it's an object lesson in setting your "real" goal to simply keep putting one foot in front of the other. Of course -- you have to pick a direction, know what you're working towards, but then . . . don't worry or focus on the hoped-for, wished-for, end result. Just focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Let your attention, your heart, and your mind be no where else other than the current step. Be fully present right here, right now.

It's also a great metaphor for how to "do" a monologue: one step/thought at a time -- really be present in that step, that thought, and be no where else other than where you are . . .

. . . and you may just wind up going much much further (in terms of reaching for your goals) and going much much deeper (in terms on a monologue):

After WWII, in the early 50's, Durning started reading Shakespeare and Ibsen and Chekhov with other actors in Joseph Papp's home (Joseph Papp of The New York Public Theatre fame).

Recalling his early days with Papp, Durning says that Papp was "brutally honest but always right," and he also reveals Papp's insight into how to handle Shakespeare's heightened poetic language:

Durning spent most of the 1960s under the tutelage of Papp, whom he remembers as "brutally honest but always right." Durning notes, "He never did it maliciously. If you didn't know him, you might think he was being harsh." The actor recalls one incident in which he wanted to play Hamlet and Papp told him he wasn't good with the poetry of Shakespeare. Says Durning, "I said, 'What do you mean? I'm in all the Shakespeare plays.' And he said, 'Yeah, but you're doing all the prose stuff. You're not doing any of the poetry.' He had me pick up a Shakespeare play and read it, and I asked what he thought. He said, 'More to the point, what did you think?' " Durning pauses before admitting, "I'm still trying to figure that one out."

. . . more to the point, what did you think?

I just auditioned for membership with One on One. Like Actor's Connection and The Network, they function as middlemen between actors (sellers) and casting directors, filmmakers, agents, managers and producers (buyers), but their audition process is not just a formality.

I was rejected, but they invited me to try again, and I thought I'd share the feedback I got -- feedback I found constructive, solid and professional.

Deborah Carlson @ Word of Mouth Studios teaches that ALL monologues and soliloquies are really about insight and discovery. When the character is talking (to another person, to himself), the character is not simply dispensing something already known -- instead they are figuring it out as they talk, as they go along; they are talking themselves in consciousness. Each sentence is a step in the journey, and during the journey, the character discovers/creates something that did not exist before.

A great example is Hamlet's final soliloquy on that desolate plain in Denmark. When he starts, he's bewildered about why he has not taken action against Claudius

I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do't.

In the end, he finds resolve, i.e.,

O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

a resolve that did not exist when he started with the observation

How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge!

Communicating that insight and discovery is the key to creating a great monologue performance.

. . . And this is NOT just some theatrical convention, some simple dramatic device found by the playwright/actor to make the performance compelling for the audience. It turns out that there is NO other way to perform monologues and soliloquies because this is LIFE -- it's how we create ourselves in life:

My auditions have been getting better -- not steadily, but more think small but significant leaps forward after periods where I don't seem to be getting better at all, yet I continue to work and push, and I think that's the key to my growth (think Punctuated Equilibrium):

. . . instead of a slow, continuous movement, evolution tends to be characterized by long periods of virtual standstill ("equilibrium"), "punctuated" by episodes of very fast development of new forms.

Having a difficult audition is painful, but they're incredibly useful, if I can learn from them. Here's what I've learned:

Soliloquies - Vanya is a soliloquy, i.e., he's talking to himself, but don't do it as it's done in life: there's an audience out there, so put myself out there and talk to me out there.

Tips & Hints:

Always use lots of air, words have colors, let the passion and emotion in the words out

Goal of a monologue -- no overt/endogenous attention, at all, should be on what I'm feeling/experiencing. My attention should be fully on the other, making sure everything is crystal-bell clear. Make sure they understand me, every word.

Stop extraneous movements when they're correlated with "thinking between the lines." Practice/rehearse moving nothing except what I need to use to breathe. Practice/rehearse by lying on my back, lots of air under each phase. Let myself be overly dramatic.

Audition Prep: 1st) physical voice warm up, intone, journal of the thought, etc. whatever I think I need to do 2nd) Review -- "breathe in" the vertical, the deep meaning, then let it all go.

Audition Notes: Starting is still difficult for me -- the most important step is still the hardest. Rehearse a simple task, a simple way to start -- use that to center and focus me. Also, I'm still rushing the beginning, the moment before. Remember that great monologue audition with Vanya at The Impact -- remember how I just spontaneously, organically took me time? It was completely unplanned, as if the gods loved me that night and gave me a great gift, but I think I just focused and took my time without worrying about or being conscious of starting -- usually I feel awkward and self-conscious, and I tend to rush starting the monologue. This is so hard for me, yet it was perfect that night. Practice each day doing that, whatever that was ...

Audition death -- certain death: trying to recall memories and images that will make be feel. I can either do what the character/monologue/words are doing or I can be trying to drive the performance from the outside, from the "top-down."

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.

OK -- The goal here is to keep track of 1) how I'm rehearsing for various things and 2) to note what's working and what's not

Monologue: Gabe -- Dinner With Friends. This, I think, will be a tough monologue to nail, but if I can nail it, it will great.

      I'm going to try to outline a general procedure for myself:

     Since I'm just starting out, the first step is grasp the content, the ideas, the intent of Gabe. Tonight it was just "pictures and words" (from Jack Poggi's The Monologue Workshop, chapter 7). Basically, I'm just alternating between taking-it-off-page (Guskin's approach), with the goal of personally connecting and grounding the text in my own real/imaginative experience, and improv. Taking-it-off the page helps with making things specific and real. Improving helps me to grasp the content/ideas before I find the exact words to express myself. Not sure how long I'll do this -- probably 2-3 more times.

    Idea -- for Gabe, things have been building (through most of the play) until the scene with his monologue, and Tom starts pushing buttons in this scene. I need to write out exactly what Gabe thinks of Tom, what he's done, how he feels about it. It doesn't say all this to Tom, but -- it comes though in the monologue: the end of a friendship.

   It's a sad, beautiful monologue -- or it will be beautiful if I can infuse it with hope near the end (my take on it all).

Sight-reading: Spent about 10-15min tonight. Do this every night. It's breathing, taking the phases off the page, and throwing them out, directing them to the listener. Hold the page up, no head bobbing. Keep practicing this until it's automatically nice and easy. It's not cold reading but it's handing the mechanics of it.