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 ....... i.e.remorse
Don't show ....... i.e.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

Somewhere along the way we had a coffee break that seemed to be very short but I got talking to Colin and the time went very quickly because of our conversation so I don't think Alex had cut it short it's just that I didn't have time for a ciggie so I noticed the brevity of the break.
That was a bit "Yeah, but, no, but" Sorry.

We then moved onto the new Entrance of Tom scriptage.
Three of us were in the space and were being fed our lines.
We used our own names instead of the Character's names and would refer to each other like this.
We would then say our fed line and end it with either a:
"Ben, you lovely man." or
"Tim,you prick." Depending on how the character felt at the time and who he felt was the more friendly.

This moved onto elaborating on your complement or diss:
"Ben, you absolutely incredible man." or
"Tim,you f**king a**ehole" (The missing letters were: 'uc' and 'rs' in case you didn't get it).

And next.....The Japanese Tea Ceremony.

For this exercise all the players sat on the floor either in Japanese style (kneeling on their legs) or cross legged around a tea set.
They were fed their lines and had to deliver them highly contemplatively, meditatively or philosophically, slowly and measured (ly).
No emotions, thoughtful and reflective, still and non argumentative.
They delivered this as though it was an incredibly formal Japanese tea ceremony.

This was incredibly hypnotic to watch and didn't get too boring or wanky.
In fact it was fascinating.
Each of the lines came out as pure information without any of the actor's meddling.

As each actor very meticulously took their time to give their line to the rest of their Samurai brethren the other guests, if in agreement, would give a "HUI" to show their approval.
Top exercise.

The last 20 minutes were spent with Colin playing the Policeman giving his final speech.

I was feeding Colin but didn't have all the cuts,so, as Steve was amending our scripts, Alex (for his own entertainment) asked Colin to do the last speech, in his own words, from memory.

I really enjoy watching Colin work, he is a constant source of interesting clear choices and was able to surmise the final speech concisely. Also his laughter is infectious.

Steve finished the amendments to my script and we started the final exercise properly.

I feed the line to Colin, he delivers it to the panel (the rest of the group all sitting around the space) and then the panel reply to him:
"Oh, you mean....."
and they interpret what the sub-text of what he is saying is.
Colin then replies:
"No, I mean....(and then repeats his line).
This goes on until the panel are convinced and understand his meaning.
And then, we jollied off to the pub to congratulate ourselves for being 'oh so cuttin edge'.

Another fun-filled factory night of festivities.

See you at the next one.

Damian