Sans AH. Work on actions.

Last weeks exercise became an actions exercise. So the person in the scene reads the next line. Then everyone outside the scene offers an action in the form of 'So and so needs to hear this to...leave the room/answer you/bang on the door/punch Gandhi.' The person in the scene then picked one to play.


Some notes:

It was stronger if we played to make the other person do something.
Making them 'realise' or equivalent 'make them know, inform them etc.' was not often a strong choice. Making them do some new action, an action that is beneficial to you, was stronger.
It was best to choose something and play it, rather than waiting for ever for the 'right' one. There is no 'right.' It was good to remember that often in life we pick the best action we can in the moment, due to the time pressures and constraints of the situation, and sometimes even in the execution of it are aware that it is not the best option. But it is the best we have. This tension is a useful source of emotion, but also something we can fight against in the next moment.

Next we looked at Gandhi's 113 bus speech in a number of ways.

Feeding the line - being given an action - playing the line with that action
Hearing an action - then being given the line - then playing the line with that action

The two Ghandi's (Damian and Paul) at every change of though abusing each other with the line 'You idiot they think...'. We attempted to make this specific to the people on stage eg 'You idiot, Alan's bored.' They then played the next line to fix that problem. This was an attempt to explore the long, sprawling sentences in the speech.


Finally more work on actions with the game 'if you see what I mean...'

The liens were fed and the speaker says 'If you see what I mean you'll...' they then pick a positive outcome or action they want to make the other person do with the line. e.g. 'If you see what I mean you'll bang on the door/leave the room/sit down and listen/back off/soften/crumble.' After that they say the line solely trying to use it to make the other person do that thing they said.

Some notes:

Again we tried to avoid 'understand/know/realise' for most (not all) of the time.
We tried to pick things the actor could actually be forced to do there and then - regardless of the 'reality of the situation' for now (e.g. trying to make someone leave although the characters in the play couldn't leave if they wanted to). We tried to avoid things they couldn't do there and then (e.g. vote BNP).
When struggling to find an action we encouraged the actors to look at the people they are playing with for inspiration, and to avoid the tendency to look down or away. Then they could pick up on some behaviour of the other person and try to change that. When we were off our game actors got away with walking away, sitting down etc without these actions having any consequence to the other people on stage. But everything that the other people do in this situation is as a result of the behaviour of the others. It was suggested later on we should do an exercise looking at the moments when one character or another chooses to remain silent for long periods, why this might be and how it involves and affects the other people on stage.



This was a great exercise that produced some really dynamic work. Lots of play. Lots of specificity. Lots of not letting each other off the hook. Let's do it some more.