Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Theatre-"Working From The Inside Out"

So I've Been Working On This Monologue From The Play G.B.S
ob-gbs
About THis Guy Who's Father Is Dying Of GBS Syndrome
In This Monologue My Character Is Close To A Mental Break Down And Then Finally Snaps
So For About 2 Weeks I've Worked With It(Beats,Sub Text,Objectives,Tactics,And Obstacles)
And I Hadn't Developed A "Feel" Or Attachment To The Piece.
While Working With My Partner(Who Didn't Really Help Me At All Like He Should Have)
I Kinda B.S.ed All Of The Emotion Instead Of Feeling It.
So Today We Got TO Work With Are Instructor Dennis Sims.
And He Said That I Was A "Natural Actor" And My Blocking Was Perfect And Flowed Great
But My Emotion Was FAKE And He Wasn't Moved(Which I Knew He Wouldn't Be)
So He Gave Me This Method To Try.
He Put A Chair In The Middle Of The Stage And Ask Me To Say My Monologue While Pacing Around IN A Circle Around This Chair.
And As My Monologue Progressed To Increase My Anger Untill I Got To The Line I Thought Was The Most Powerful Or Me The Characters Breaking Point And At That Point I Had To Pick Up The Chair And Throw It As Hard As I Could Against The Wall.
As Crazy As THat Sounds. It Worked
The Moment I Threw That Chair I Burst Into Tears,Turned Bright Red, My Temples Were Hurting, And I Was Out Of Breath.
The "True" Emotion I Brought Out Shocked Me And Scared A Few Of The Other Students.
I Have NEVER Done Better Work Than That In My LIFE

For The Record I Bent The Chair Leg And I Chipped A Piece Off The Wooden Door.
I Guess I Left My Mark HAHAHAHAHA ^_^

1 comments:

Jacob said...

I almost chose a piece for my senior rep from that play, I love it so much. It's a really interesting story.

And from working with Sims for three years now, I've seen him do the chair thing before, and it always works. It's just one of those great methods.

Good luck with the monologue!