Correct Path
So the other night at rehearsal, we had to break into pairs to perform our monologues with one another and offer feedback. (Karen, the director, wants to see what we'll be bringing to the table before she offers her vision and direction. Plus, she had a work emergency she had to deal with.) I was paired with Marilee, a nice 20-something who had a bunch of technical theatre experience but not much acting experience, and ...Jeanette, I think (I'm TERRIBLE with names), a woman in her early 30s who hadn't acted since high school. They're performing the two parts of the monologue "My Vagina was my Village", which is based on testimony by Bosnian women who were gang-raped by soldiers. Needless to say, it flashed me back to Goucher and The Children, what with all the talk about the barrels of guns going into women's lady parts.
Both women were anxious about performing the piece, as it's arguably the heaviest one in the show. (At one point, the character describes how a part of her labia came off in her hand.) Karen had asked that we "find the humor" and keep the energy up with the piece, as it's all about empowerment and giving voices to those who didn't have a voice until the play was written. But how can you find the humor in a piece like this one? Luckily, the monologue is split into two "characters"--the woman before she was raped, and the woman after. The woman before describes her vagina as "green, water soft pink fields, cow mooing sun resting sweet boyfriend touching lightly with soft piece of blonde straw." Her parts are very poetic and soft and happy and flowing and confident in who she is and where she is. I told Marilee (who is playing this character) that she will be responsible for finding the lighter parts of the monologue, and in doing so, she will accentuate the stark contrast with Jeanette's part, which will help make it all the more heartbreaking.
We spent most of the rehearsal time talking about their piece, helping them find their character's voices and the flow of their lines. I would describe how I thought the two characters should sound, and I could see both women light up with understanding. They would then read their piece out loud again, and at the end of the 20 minutes or so you could see the difference between two women who were self-consciously reading lines from a page and the two women who were starting to understand where they wanted to go with the piece and how they wanted it to sound. They wrote down a few exercises I suggested for practice at home, and then we spent some time on my piece, talking about what I wanted to do with it and how much of a challenge it was going to be for me to get the entire audience chanting "cunt" at the end of my monologue.
After rehearsal, before I left, I went up to Karen to make sure I hadn't stepped on her toes as a director. She assured me that she had overheard the things I was saying with the two women, and she agreed with what I was saying, generally speaking. She told me that she wanted something like that to happen--the more experienced actresses helping the less experienced ones to find the right voices for the character and make the whole production more organic than it would have been if Karen had said to each woman "do your monologue like this."
I drove home and called Matisse to rant and rave about how good I felt about the whole experience. I felt like I was teaching these women something, offering my knowledge of finding characters and motivations and emotions and sharing them with two people who didn't have that knowledge or experience. It validated my choice to become an acting teacher and to strive for the UNCO Theatre Education Masters program. (PS: How fucking AWESOME is that program?!) It was nice to feel like I had chosen the right path and that I would find a way to share my passion (and make money doing it, for once!).
Both women were anxious about performing the piece, as it's arguably the heaviest one in the show. (At one point, the character describes how a part of her labia came off in her hand.) Karen had asked that we "find the humor" and keep the energy up with the piece, as it's all about empowerment and giving voices to those who didn't have a voice until the play was written. But how can you find the humor in a piece like this one? Luckily, the monologue is split into two "characters"--the woman before she was raped, and the woman after. The woman before describes her vagina as "green, water soft pink fields, cow mooing sun resting sweet boyfriend touching lightly with soft piece of blonde straw." Her parts are very poetic and soft and happy and flowing and confident in who she is and where she is. I told Marilee (who is playing this character) that she will be responsible for finding the lighter parts of the monologue, and in doing so, she will accentuate the stark contrast with Jeanette's part, which will help make it all the more heartbreaking.
We spent most of the rehearsal time talking about their piece, helping them find their character's voices and the flow of their lines. I would describe how I thought the two characters should sound, and I could see both women light up with understanding. They would then read their piece out loud again, and at the end of the 20 minutes or so you could see the difference between two women who were self-consciously reading lines from a page and the two women who were starting to understand where they wanted to go with the piece and how they wanted it to sound. They wrote down a few exercises I suggested for practice at home, and then we spent some time on my piece, talking about what I wanted to do with it and how much of a challenge it was going to be for me to get the entire audience chanting "cunt" at the end of my monologue.
After rehearsal, before I left, I went up to Karen to make sure I hadn't stepped on her toes as a director. She assured me that she had overheard the things I was saying with the two women, and she agreed with what I was saying, generally speaking. She told me that she wanted something like that to happen--the more experienced actresses helping the less experienced ones to find the right voices for the character and make the whole production more organic than it would have been if Karen had said to each woman "do your monologue like this."
I drove home and called Matisse to rant and rave about how good I felt about the whole experience. I felt like I was teaching these women something, offering my knowledge of finding characters and motivations and emotions and sharing them with two people who didn't have that knowledge or experience. It validated my choice to become an acting teacher and to strive for the UNCO Theatre Education Masters program. (PS: How fucking AWESOME is that program?!) It was nice to feel like I had chosen the right path and that I would find a way to share my passion (and make money doing it, for once!).