Today we started with continuing the work on act two, scene one. This scene is dragging on and on in my head. I cannot wait for it to be fully memorised so that it is easier to work with and fully embody. I think it being such a long scene really leads to some confusion and misunderstanding on my part, which I spoke to in yesterday’s journal so I won’t go over it again, but I was really aiming for clarity today! For me, this means slowing down DRAMATICALLY! I can take the slowness way past where it went today! As an actor, I can always. go. slower. They will wait for you Emmy. Be clear and succinct with your words, actions, and everything that you are! They want to hear you! Let them! Today Marc said “circumstances cannot replace clarity!” I’ll be taking that to heart!
After Erika was released and we finished our work on “the long scene,” we went back to do some review on scene one! I had an absolute blast working this today! Books were down and it was so freeing and fun to just act with Rob and Ben! I forgot what that felt like because I didn’t really act this summer. I just pretended to do the show without saying my lines in my room… which let me tell you is NOT the same! We started with some brainstorming that focused on the opening moments. Next, we played with me handling the stockings and scissors that are so crucial to the ending of the play. I thought that the moment that we worked ended up reading really well and I enjoyed the collaborative dialogue while we were shaping this moment! Throughout the rest of the scene, I loved brainstorming some silly and fun moments with Rob! Our characters mesh in so many cool and scary ways and it’s amazing to just play! I’m so happy we’re finally at a point where that can happen!
Some of the more technical things we talked about today were really interesting as well. Marc brought up something from the beginning of my Voice and Body Movement class from last fall. We had talked about percussive sounds in words and how consonants shape the word if we think about it musically. I had completely forgotten about this concept of consonants being like playing the drums! We talked about the word “garroting” that comes up in the first scene, and how delicious that word is if you think about it in a musical way! Anyways, that means I’ll be doing a word search through the rest of the play to find more kick ass, percussive moments! Another thing we spoke about was not saying that my character “feels something” rather I should be questioning the action or what I want the other person in the scene to feel. How can I accomplish what I want? This was brought up because of something that I had said, “oh I need to stop being _____ in this moment!” Marc said PAUSE, and I definitely know better it just slipped out! So moving forward I need to remember to switch that perspective and really think about the other characters, my objectives, and actions instead of my own feelings. No one in the audience cares about my, (Emmy’s) feelings. They care about what Margot does about it!