[I missed the first bit of the session so please feel free to fill in!]

Tennis Balls

Playing bits of scenes, throwing to each other.

Throw on last stressed syllable of the line, catch on the first stressed syllable of the next.

- Accuracy: are you being specific about the exact point of throw/catch?
- If it's making you feel rushed, give yourself more time by observing the line-ending and giving the ball a decent throw.
- If you're receiving the ball from someone else, be ready but be careful not to over-anticipate by starting to speak before the ball is on its way to you. Follow the ball - you'll still have enough time.

Verse observations

Act III sc i.
- Line 10 ("Most like a gentleman.") and 15 ("To any pastime?") are unfinished half-lines: do we often - ever? - observe and play with these?

Act I sc i.
- First few lines of the play: so much scope for playing with unfinished lines, unspoken beats. Lots of potential variety too. Often our nerves at the start of the show mean we rush and gabble these moments, but there is much music, excellent voice to be found in the silences around the text.

- Line 25 "I have seen nothing": unfinished half-line. Observe?
- Entry of the ghost on lines 41/42/43. Again, lots of options here for Ghost's timing and reaction to it - there are a variety of choices of unfinished or shared lines. Let's explore!
- Lines 58 ("Of mine own eyes"), 62 ("As thou art to thyself"), 67 ("'Tis strange"): more unfinished half-lines, all eagerly waiting to be observed, or at least considered.


Actions

Reuben suggested we have a play with using transitive verbs to action our speaking. We played Act I sc. i, and anyone not in the scene called out a verb, which the speaker then had to use to action their next thought.
Eg: poke, stroke, deflate, drown, slap, tickle, cut, etc.
In this version it was up to the player to seek out verbs from the crowd (ie. decide when they needed a new one).

We then did the same scene in a slightly different way: each player had a buddy, who would be responsible for giving their player actions, but at moments chosen by them, not the player.

Observations:

- Some verbs are more useful than others. Something like 'slap' is easier to play in the moment than something more nebulous like 'teach'.

- It's tempting to hear a verb, eg 'deflate', and respond by trying to act out 'deflating' in some way, whereas the aim is to 'deflate' the person you are targeting. It's about getting the attention off yourself and doing something to them.

- If it becomes about you then you spend time worrying about whether you've, say, done a good enough representation of 'deflate'. Have I nailed that? But it's more important to verb your target in whatever way comes to you in the moment as a response to the action word you've been given - there's no 'right/ultimate' way.

- So we discovered that responding immediately is more useful.

We then played the scene straight, and could see in moments the actioning work that had gone before. Interesting, though, that a lot of the verse work disappeared. Also, it's hard to do it all with a script in your hand.


We're going to have to deal with all sorts of obstructions. Having a script in your hand doing an exercise is a very palpable obstruction which is very clearly something that needs to be dealt with in the moment. In the course of our shows other, perhaps subtler, obstructions are present which we don't necessarily register, so don't steel ourselves against. We're going to need to check in with our exercises/principles all the time so that we can continue to put them into action in the face of even the most distracting of situations.

Ultimately, this hopefully becomes something we don't even have to think about consciously. Federay talked about her experience of working on Skane with TC: by the time of the performances, the company had done so much work on the text through exercises etc., that Fed found herself armed with reams of possibilities for playing the text at any moment, which could be accessed instantly and without forethought, and indeed may not have been thought about or explored at all before the moment of playing. A fantastic depth to the text which meant she didn't have to think about the next line - the work done before allowed the playing always to be three-dimensional and truly spontaneous.

That's something to aim for!

Scott