(no subject)
rehearsals are moving along rather nicely. i have 99% of my lines memorized, and the character development is certainly developing; the delivery is up to snuff: pretty naturalistic, though i think i can do better. the challenge of shakespeare -- a very tempting and enthusiastic challenge, to me -- is turning this thick verse into something that sounds real and motivated ... if not spontaneous in the traditional sense (since who would really spontaneously talk like that??), then spontaneous enough to sound natural and not forced and not nearly as lofty as one might be tempted to deliver it. i would much rather watch a quietly, tenderly weeping Juliet say “Thy lips are still warm!” than some diva who swoons the line at the audience, or rather at no one in particular, least of all her dead lover.
this is what i love about acting shakespeare, and watching good actors perform shakespeare: the translation of it. ‘cause though it’s english, it’s still not immediately wholly understandable on the page; not to me anyway, and i doubt to any of you, and even these stuffy oxford professors who can explain all the annotations had to work pretty hard when they first cracked the quartos to get their head around it. i’m not saying i like shakespeare because he’s inaccessible: i’m saying he seems at first to be speaking in some complex archaic tongue, and then you realize he’s speaking english, and then you realize he’s speaking the language of the human heart. as an actor, the joy is in cracking the language and poetic imagery, and then moving beyond the words to the innerscape of character. it’s the same process as any other kind of acting -- you work to link the text to something visceral inside you, and so long as you stay true to the intent, and don’t overblow everything just because you have to say “thou” and “wouldst,” i guarantee you the audience will understand Shakespeare much better because you’re performing it.
Which is what he intended, really.
having pontificated, i will now sheepishly explain how my shoulder came to be hurt in a bit of slapstick we were working up. i adore slapstick: i don’t care if it’s lowbrow, it makes me laugh, and it makes audiences laugh, too. Some of my heroes are Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and, lately, Michael Richards. In the 6th grade I was the only kid I knew who watched Chaplin films -- I’d track them down in the public library or video store and watch them endlessly. I was an incredibly lonely, dorky kid growing up, and so after lunch, at recess, I would go off by myself and teach myself how to slip and fall -- over and over again I’d pretend to slip on something and fling my leg up in the air and come down on my ass or back -- when recess was over I’d shuffle into social studies with mud all over the seat of my pants sometimes. I taught myself how to do this kind of hyper-somersault -- i project myself forward in a tumble and land upside-down, on my back, legs flailing. the gag works the best when i can get someone to “throw me” -- that is, take me by the arm or neck or something and go through the motion of throwing me to a heap on the ground. it sounds graceless, but i think there’s a kind of grace in it -- at the very least doing something relatively painless that everyone goes, “oooh!! are you okay?”
Painless until now. We were working up a scene from The Taming of the Shrew -- I play the servant-clown Grumio, Chris plays Petruchio, and Sarah plays Kate -- the director decided to set it in the Old West (which is not the 1st time its been done, you snickerers -- look up the N.Y. Shakespeare Fest’s production w/ Morgan Freeman and Tracy Ullmann) ... and so, what better way to play this beaten bumpkin servant than a Pat Buttram voice. That’s what I thought, too. So Petruchio says “Where is the foolish knave that I sent before,” and I say in that cracking country drawl, “Here, sir, as foolish as I was before.” And the director told Chris to take me by the ear and drag me across the stage, and told me to end up “over there somewhere.” How could I not use my tumble in a slapstick scene (to be performed for kids, no less) where every other stage direction is “He strikes him,” (there’s a stage direction that says, “Throws the meat & c about the stage”)?? So without any warning to Chris, a take the fall, everyone laughs -- it’s great. We’ll keep it, says the director. The problem came the next day, when we rehearsed it again -- I guess by the way Chris was holding my by the ear, my tumble got shifted a little bit, and I came down hard on my left shoulder. Really painful. Wrenching. The next day during rehearsal it happened again. Even more painful. I couldn’t lift my arm without a sharp pain somewhere in the recesses of my tendons. But I didn’t want to complain to the director, because it’s a great gag, and the kids will love it. So today I made the mental note to adjust the tumble: just lean into it with my RIGHT shoulder.
There’s no punchline here. It worked -- didn’t hurt a bit. So with any luck, my shoulder will be given time to heal.
What’s interesting is that during the rehearsal, when I’m into character, “playing the moment,” in actorspeak -- i’m not really aware of the pain. this is not the first time i’ve noticed something like that ... i remember doing a couple of plays where I was sick as a dog, strep throat, flu, or fever, or all of the above -- and when I began acting, I’d forget about it until the end, or until the director stopped us .... that’s awesome. i don’t think it really says anything about my talent, just my commitment -- and not commitment to a role or to the process either, but commitment to make-believing, which is the most honest bit of acting theory I’m able to understand; it’s pretending I’m someone else for a little bit of time -- it’s using my naturally over-active imagination...
I guess that’s why they call us “players.”
* * *
I’ve been having really vivid dreams lately, and I don’t know what to attribute it to. I’m thinking it has something to do with the fact that my sleep schedule has shifted from waking up around noon to waking up at 7:45, not getting drunk at night, and the psychology involved in moving to a new place.
I’m not going to bore you with the details of trying to describe my dreams as I have in the past -- I’ll just say these motherfuckers are vivid motherfuckin dreams.
“o, then i see queen mab hath been with you --”
shut up.
+ + +
I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for at least two weeks -- my buddies, the oft-referred-to-in-these-blogs the everybodyfields are going to be playing in pilot mountain, n.c. on saturday, which is about an hour or so away ... i can’t wait to see these guys; i haven’t seen them since they left for their tour of the northeast, and it will be very good for my heart to see some people from home. and i plan to get trashed with Sam and Jill and Dave, who are very fun people to get trashed with, in their hotel room ... i’ll probably try to get them to take back a bunch of borrowed stuff i wasn’t able to return to their respective owners before i left, as well as some pages for the upcoming (i swear) Boom Comix #3, which I was able to scan, manipulate, and print with my new scanner/printer that I finally got working.
* * * * * * *
I’ll try and post pictures of me in my Elizabethan actor’s costume if i can get someone to take pix with a digital camera, or scan in a regular photograph, so you all can make fun of me.
Also, my birthday is coming up on the 21st... my present? Dress rehearsal.
this is what i love about acting shakespeare, and watching good actors perform shakespeare: the translation of it. ‘cause though it’s english, it’s still not immediately wholly understandable on the page; not to me anyway, and i doubt to any of you, and even these stuffy oxford professors who can explain all the annotations had to work pretty hard when they first cracked the quartos to get their head around it. i’m not saying i like shakespeare because he’s inaccessible: i’m saying he seems at first to be speaking in some complex archaic tongue, and then you realize he’s speaking english, and then you realize he’s speaking the language of the human heart. as an actor, the joy is in cracking the language and poetic imagery, and then moving beyond the words to the innerscape of character. it’s the same process as any other kind of acting -- you work to link the text to something visceral inside you, and so long as you stay true to the intent, and don’t overblow everything just because you have to say “thou” and “wouldst,” i guarantee you the audience will understand Shakespeare much better because you’re performing it.
Which is what he intended, really.
having pontificated, i will now sheepishly explain how my shoulder came to be hurt in a bit of slapstick we were working up. i adore slapstick: i don’t care if it’s lowbrow, it makes me laugh, and it makes audiences laugh, too. Some of my heroes are Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and, lately, Michael Richards. In the 6th grade I was the only kid I knew who watched Chaplin films -- I’d track them down in the public library or video store and watch them endlessly. I was an incredibly lonely, dorky kid growing up, and so after lunch, at recess, I would go off by myself and teach myself how to slip and fall -- over and over again I’d pretend to slip on something and fling my leg up in the air and come down on my ass or back -- when recess was over I’d shuffle into social studies with mud all over the seat of my pants sometimes. I taught myself how to do this kind of hyper-somersault -- i project myself forward in a tumble and land upside-down, on my back, legs flailing. the gag works the best when i can get someone to “throw me” -- that is, take me by the arm or neck or something and go through the motion of throwing me to a heap on the ground. it sounds graceless, but i think there’s a kind of grace in it -- at the very least doing something relatively painless that everyone goes, “oooh!! are you okay?”
Painless until now. We were working up a scene from The Taming of the Shrew -- I play the servant-clown Grumio, Chris plays Petruchio, and Sarah plays Kate -- the director decided to set it in the Old West (which is not the 1st time its been done, you snickerers -- look up the N.Y. Shakespeare Fest’s production w/ Morgan Freeman and Tracy Ullmann) ... and so, what better way to play this beaten bumpkin servant than a Pat Buttram voice. That’s what I thought, too. So Petruchio says “Where is the foolish knave that I sent before,” and I say in that cracking country drawl, “Here, sir, as foolish as I was before.” And the director told Chris to take me by the ear and drag me across the stage, and told me to end up “over there somewhere.” How could I not use my tumble in a slapstick scene (to be performed for kids, no less) where every other stage direction is “He strikes him,” (there’s a stage direction that says, “Throws the meat & c about the stage”)?? So without any warning to Chris, a take the fall, everyone laughs -- it’s great. We’ll keep it, says the director. The problem came the next day, when we rehearsed it again -- I guess by the way Chris was holding my by the ear, my tumble got shifted a little bit, and I came down hard on my left shoulder. Really painful. Wrenching. The next day during rehearsal it happened again. Even more painful. I couldn’t lift my arm without a sharp pain somewhere in the recesses of my tendons. But I didn’t want to complain to the director, because it’s a great gag, and the kids will love it. So today I made the mental note to adjust the tumble: just lean into it with my RIGHT shoulder.
There’s no punchline here. It worked -- didn’t hurt a bit. So with any luck, my shoulder will be given time to heal.
What’s interesting is that during the rehearsal, when I’m into character, “playing the moment,” in actorspeak -- i’m not really aware of the pain. this is not the first time i’ve noticed something like that ... i remember doing a couple of plays where I was sick as a dog, strep throat, flu, or fever, or all of the above -- and when I began acting, I’d forget about it until the end, or until the director stopped us .... that’s awesome. i don’t think it really says anything about my talent, just my commitment -- and not commitment to a role or to the process either, but commitment to make-believing, which is the most honest bit of acting theory I’m able to understand; it’s pretending I’m someone else for a little bit of time -- it’s using my naturally over-active imagination...
I guess that’s why they call us “players.”
* * *
I’ve been having really vivid dreams lately, and I don’t know what to attribute it to. I’m thinking it has something to do with the fact that my sleep schedule has shifted from waking up around noon to waking up at 7:45, not getting drunk at night, and the psychology involved in moving to a new place.
I’m not going to bore you with the details of trying to describe my dreams as I have in the past -- I’ll just say these motherfuckers are vivid motherfuckin dreams.
“o, then i see queen mab hath been with you --”
shut up.
+ + +
I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for at least two weeks -- my buddies, the oft-referred-to-in-these-blogs the everybodyfields are going to be playing in pilot mountain, n.c. on saturday, which is about an hour or so away ... i can’t wait to see these guys; i haven’t seen them since they left for their tour of the northeast, and it will be very good for my heart to see some people from home. and i plan to get trashed with Sam and Jill and Dave, who are very fun people to get trashed with, in their hotel room ... i’ll probably try to get them to take back a bunch of borrowed stuff i wasn’t able to return to their respective owners before i left, as well as some pages for the upcoming (i swear) Boom Comix #3, which I was able to scan, manipulate, and print with my new scanner/printer that I finally got working.
* * * * * * *
I’ll try and post pictures of me in my Elizabethan actor’s costume if i can get someone to take pix with a digital camera, or scan in a regular photograph, so you all can make fun of me.
Also, my birthday is coming up on the 21st... my present? Dress rehearsal.