13 men are in a room. They greet each other with hugs, kisses. The workshop eases into 1st gear. A list is read out-loud; props are required. They begin to hunt them down. A bit of a heavy metal pole is a gun, tupperwear in plastic bags are bits of ceiling, a mobile phone is a CCTV camera. Chairs make up walls, the scene is set,

2 or 3 men alternate in each role. They feed each other their lines, they run the action through, with very little pause or repetition, pushing through the material as actors are ‘buzzed out’. When one man is buzzed out, another leaps into his place. Buzzing out predominantly seems 2 happen for ‘being the same’ i.e. maintaining the same emotional tack for longer than half a sentence and for paraphrasing - even if only one word is swallowed. ‘Getting on a bus’ is not tolerated. ‘Being Clever’ will be noticed. The turnaround is swift.

Initially it is Alex who has the power to buzz out. After the ball is rolling, the rules shift. Anyone can buzz you out, in order to buzz themselves in. Few of the men are swift to punish each other, but across the board, they all begin work harder in the judgement of their peers; their intensity and attention increase visibly.

They feed each other lines, and perform their own, focusing entirely on the strings of words between two punctuation marks in the play. No larger passages of the play are discussed. No character arcs, no memorizing lines, no one utters a question about motive. All are attentive only to tiny individual moments, how many ways they could play them and what impact they have on the man playing opposite them.

They finish where they finish, according to the clock - not the material. There give commentary on themselves ‘being lazy’. So it seems this workshop is about the men as actors, not about the stage the play is at. There may be a time when the story takes priority, but for now a space is created for these men, the actors to come first.

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Wednesday 20th May 2009.
13 Men gather at the Factory to study, play and discover more and more about the nature of acting and truth through the fantastic new play by Steve Bloomer, Boiling Frogs.
The session started with Tom's big speech.
All the Toms(all 5 of em) stood at one end of the room and Colin fed them their lines.
Tom would then come into the middle of the room and deliver his line to the rest of us(we were a jury of sorts).
The Tom that was speaking would be advised by the other Tom's on how to deliver the line in such a way that it be most effective and appeal to our better nature.
They would then return to their group and were told how the other Toms thought the delivery went.

Next, when Tom steps forward and delivers his line, we, the jury (or a group of people chosen to help with Tom's clarity in order for him to be real when he finally steps forward to the real jury....phew...a bit long winded...but then that's Alex's exercises for ya.) would tell Tom why what he was saying didn't work:
"Too earnest","Too aggressive","Too pre-school","Too smug" etc...
This was loads of fun being a member of the jury. A lorra lorra laffs.
We then made all our comments constructive(ie-how to help improve his case and the effectiveness of his communication).

The Toms were then told by their advisers (other Toms) to :
Do show.......ie.remorse
Don't show.......ie.arrogance
and then they came into the middle of the space and delivered their piece with the appropriate seasoning.
The jury(us) would then reply with either a:
Thumbs up-Life or
Thumbs down-Death

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