Monday, October 09, 2006
Reading the Richard Maxwell plays today made me realise just how much the success of our performance will be based on the way we perform it - when I was simply reading the script, there were often moments when I phased in and out of concentration because of the repetitious elements of the script as well as the normality which they sometimes talk about - most notably for me in Burger King. When I then saw some excerpts performed by other members of the class, the dialogue began to become more engaging. Yet seeing these performances did make me realise that continuing to engage the audience throughout our performance is going to be somewhat of a challenge if the technique is so based on stillness and lack of expression. As I watched these performances I made a couple of notes:
Clear diction is important for the speech to be effectively humorous. Maybe one of the biggest challenges will be maintaining the audience's interest - there is little to look at - few expressions and movements. How do you make it interesting and funny throughout?
I then started to compare the performances we saw today with the video of Boxing 2000 that we saw last week. I thought that perhaps the difference between the two was that in the video, they seemed a little less serious and sombre facially, more vacant and clueless - thus creating an impassive, carefree expression. I also felt that we may have to work hard not to look bored, act robotic or take the way we are performing for granted - every line seems to have meaning and therefore must be performed dramatically, even if this is limited to our voices and mild gesticulations.
When it came to performing our excerpt of the Citizenship questionnaire, it was the first time that I had personally attempted to act in a similar style to the New York City Players and I was surprised at how hard I found it to act with such little expression. I was not aware how much when I usually act, I almost talk with my face - engaging with other performers and the audience, conveying the way I feel and so on. Trying to act having taken away this was surprisingly difficult! However the best excersize that we did in preparation for performing this extract was to act our section normally and naturalistically and then perform it once again, however taking away our physical naturalism, leaving just the voice the same. Does that make sense?! It's really hard to describe! Anyway this meant that I became a lot more aware of what I was saying and how I said it, I discovered the effectiveness of both pauses and snappy responses. The more we practiced the extract, the more keen we all seemed to keep the pace high and make any pauses significant and a clear and stark contrast. This definitely seemed to increase the dramatic effect.
Apart from these elements of today's session, I was just truly appalled at how little I knew for the Citizenship questionnaire - I have always felt that I was a pretty good citizen - I have never (I don't think!) broken the law and I think I fulfil most of the requirements that society seems to expect but does my lack of knowledge of these questions make me a bad citizen? Apparently I, and I assume many others, do not fit the criteria that they expect those seeking citizenship to fit.
Naomi x x x
