Happy Halloween

Thinking about acting class -- improv and action analysis

First, by improvisation, I mean dramatic improvisation within a framework. For example, you are given a situation to play -- a doctor telling Character B she has cancer. You don't have a series of lines. Your job as an actor is to pursue an objective. In this case, it might mean to comfort her or it could be to scare her --  to shock her so she takes care of herself during treatment. Either way, you follow your objective as you would in life, by making stuff up that you hope will get you what you want.

These exercises are pretty common in acting classes here in the U.S.

But my teacher in the Russian version of the Stanislavski system said they used a similar approach when rehearsing plays. Generally, the practice here is that you're given a script. You read through it, seated. After discussions of motivations, actions, obstacles and given circumstances, you get the play up on its feet. That is, you start exploring movements that support the meanings of the text while you have the script in hand. In the meantime, you're memorizing the text by rote. The next step involves getting the actors off book and completely into the movement, or blocking on stage. The directors and other actors make adjustments and refinements. This is an oversimplified version of a complex process, but you get the picture.

How Some Russians Rehearse

In the System, though, the rehearsal process is radically different. First, the director reads through the play himself, out loud. Then the actors learn the beats or the actions of the play. Once they get those down, then they stand up and improvise their pursuit of those actions on stage, without the script. The actors are working to achieve their goals as set by the script, but without the lines in place, instead using their own words and physical actions. As the most juicy or most moving or most effective strategies are tried out and tested, the play develops. Then, the lines -- the playwright's text -- come into play. The actor, having worked with her guts and brain to pursue the objectives set in the text can now make use of it as an ally.

Again, this is a crude over simplification, and my apologies go out to the very sophisticated teacher who gave me this lesson.

Juggling

I understand the rationale behind the first, more common method. It's fast, it's easier in many ways, and a set of professionals can get a whole play in shape in four weeks. Individual scenes can be done in hours, as in most television and movies, and made presentable. But I also wonder if that practice isn't responsible for a lot of the superficial work we see. Actors want to please and tend to rush to solutions. Reading text lends itself to "funny voices" -- to actorly readings that get ingrained.

This current acting class has reminded me of how difficult it is to act and deal with text at the same time. Training and practice can make that juggling act easier. But a fundamental split happens. The work isn't organic; it has less of a chance to come from the actor's own imagination and pursuit of her needs in the given circumstances.

I plan on using the latter method -- the method of action analysis  -- the next time I rehearse. It places much higher demands on the director and on the actors' creativity. It may not work with actors who haven't been trained in the Russian version of the system, but I am going to experiment with it.

(Then there's the Mike Leigh/Cassavetes method of development which I purposely am not getting into here. For now.)

Mischu Vass

via

16 Horsepower: American Wheeze (live)

Old men

Little boys chase the fire trucks

The ambulances

As they scream by.

Emergency, they cry, emergency

Dizzied by the lights, the siren's wails.

Old men don't bother. 

They merely sigh,

sink

a little deeper in the couch,

Turn up the volume on the TV.

- TR

Malick's advice

from the comments section:

While sitting down and eating lunch on break, I had the opportunity to chat with Mr. Malik about Filmmaking and other topics, along with his wife. His advice to me was to use Nature because it was free and always keep writing.  

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2011/08/sean-penn-vs-terrence-malick.html#ixzz1VibKP3Hn

Peckinpah: Passion and Poetry, Straw Dogs

So I guess there's some remake of Straw Dogs floating around out there, another installation from the Hollywood recycling factory.

Let's revisit the genius who made the first one.

Check it out, it builds. Especially around 7:48 plus . . .




Check out at 17:08, his shark grin as he says: "...Mister Williams as a penchant for his own work. I don't."

R.L. Burnside: Going Down South

Check out the cement brick walls. Just like home.

Susan Rothenberg

Seasick Steve: fathers and the Dog House Boogie

"All the kids in America know where the guns is."

I take an acting class, scene 3

To prep, I read my assigned play, Becky Shaw, by Gina Gionfreddo.The play is well crafted and a pleasure to study. I thought about my character, a tough and manipulative son of a bitch whom I liked. I spent time breaking the seats down into beats, feeling my way into his "actions" -- what he's trying get, and what's preventing him.

We started with some relaxation and warm ups. The relaxation was the standard, "relax your eyes, let go of your shoulders. . ." instruction. The teacher also lead us through physical and vocal exercises. Then we broke up to rehearse on our own. My partner and I had about 30 minutes or so. I figured it'd be best to read through it to get a feel for how the scene played with her, to get a feel for the flow of it, and then we could dive into it. We worked well, but superficially. The coordination between reading the text, listening to her, and feeling out different reactions was like a complicated game, as if I had to toss apples at a target while standing on one foot and whistling Dixie. Time flew by. Our teacher herded us back in the main studio.

My partner and I went first. No need to sit around and fidget as nervous tension builds up. Again, the point here was to simply sit across from each other, and read the text while listening to the other person as carefully and realistically as possible, within the context of the scene.

It went okay, that is, I didn't feel stupid or incompetent. My attention veered wildly from saying the text to my partner to what she was saying to reacting to what she was saying more or less genuinely to evaluating the sound of my line readings, to gauging the reactions of the audience. So, no, not a good performance. I was too much in my head to do anything worthwhile. Our teacher used the same tactics as before: asking us questions about what we wanted, how we could get it, where we were. These did help clarify things.

She suggested the "you know what I mean?/Yes, I know what you mean" exercise where you end your speech with the question and start your speech with the I know what you mean answer. It jammed the rhythm of the scene, but I could see where she was coming from with it.

It's a little strange. You have to contend with the essentially classroom atmosphere and your own eagerness (or lack thereof) to please. This is all entirely separate from living the text as written. It's not the fault of the teacher; it's the inevitable dynamic of a class.

The rest of the class followed the same pattern. People would read, she'd work the scene by posing questions, then seeing how the adjustments would play out. If the actors got stuck, she'd make a suggestion about an action or a motivation to them, through questions about the basics of the scene.

Casting

It makes me wonder about the whole idea that you can read a text and play it within a few minutes. If you're a pro, I guess you'd be able to, by dint of practice and training, cough up a scene, a performance, and let the watchers know what you can bring to the game.

And I understand the utility of it. Say, for example, you are casting a young thug. You want to find out in a minimum amount of time if David can be a convincing thug. Maybe David is a thug. Even better. You can pass him along. But the process is suspect. The ability to pick up and read a bit convincingly is different from living the part.

I remember reading about how Kazan cast his films. He'd see the person on stage. He'd make a point of seeing their actual, finished work. Then he'd hang out with them. Dinner, drinks, long walks, intimate conversations. Then he would cast them. This is the man who discovered Marlon Brando, James Dean and Warren Beatty. Others, no doubt, would've eventually seen and recognized their talents. But he found them first. Not through readings, which seem to me some rarified, fancy bullshit.  I think if you had a modicum of ability, you could polish it with practice. Fifteen minutes a day, I read, should  be devoted to this. That skill, I would submit, is far away from being able to convincingly inhabit another person and present that role compellingly before the camera or an audience.

Same with André Wajda. He'd haunt theaters. Then he'd note the great performances. Then he would cast, based on his direct observation of a finished performance.

Just to complicate the issue, I think monologues aren't very helpful either. You want an actor who can listen and work with other actors. A monologue is a fancy kind of masturbation. Yes, you can see someone cough up an emotion on the spur of the moment. But who does that in our real lives, or even in our dreams? Characters exist in relationships. Even at night, even without reason or pattern in our dreams, a persona does not step out to the foreground and deliver a speech. Yet, this is the basic tool. It's ridiculous. I understand the budget constraints. The time constraints.

And casting, as John Huston said, is 90 percent of the job. Get the right person in the role, and you're done.

I have cast parts successfully and less successfully. What worked best was trusting my instinct, and seeing actors work in a class over weeks. What didn't work was the traditional casting process -- inviting eager (and, let it be said, desperate) people in to a space and witnessing them tap-dancing  their way into a part.

Okay, so it's a bit superficial. I signed up for it. I'm getting parts of my neurons re-awakened, and I'm dealing with the situations real actors must confront. I'm not complaining. But I am thinking there are better ways to operate that what is the standard here at the moment in the U.S.

But these aren't the problems I need to solve. I'm going to work on the part, keeping what she suggested in mind. There's a lot of value in the specific. And simply learning to keep out of my head will be worth the price of admission.

Susan Rothenberg