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Transitive Verbs Revisited
Jam Session on Transitive Verbs – Wed 11th Feb 2009
Simon led the session on transitive verbs or actioning, based on TC’s session with the Hamlet project back in 2007. It’s a must read so take a look HERE
There is also a list of transitive verbs HERE
Simon explained how actioning consists of finding the appropriate transitive verb that describes the action you wish to play, a transitive verb being one which describes direct action. To test whether the verb is transitive, ask whether it can be done to somebody...
– “Could I be made to feel threatened / crushed / bolstered etc…?” The aim is to make the action about the other person onstage, rather than bringing the scene back round to you. To highlight this we did a number of difficult, yet utterly inspiring exercises:
EXERCISE ONE:
I missed this one because I was late – sorry - please fill me in!
EXERCISE TWO:
We split into two teams, which faced each other in two lines. One member from each team (Amanda and Tim), got up armed with the beginning of Act 4 of The Seagull, the scene between the bailiff’s daughter and the teacher. For each thought change the actor was secretively given a new action to play, by a member of their team. The other team had to guess what action was being played. The actors needed to stay apart and avoid physicalising the actions. At the end of the exercise, they then freely repeated the same scene without stopping.
The exercise highlighted the importance of playing an action in order to CHANGE THE OTHER PERSON.
Due to the randomness of the actions being requested, this brought up a discussion of whether there should be a logical sequence of actions when a character speaks. Surely it is difficult to play so many contrasting actions when they do not seem to building on each other? Do we not have to listen and chose our actions logically depending on what we are trying to achieve and how the person responds? The subject of logic was quickly dismissed by the group.
In life we never pre-plan how we speak logically. We might start in one direction, change our mind, go off on another, change our mind again, go off on yet another… we jump around (Tim mentioned a bizarre telephone message he left that morning). Surely it is more interesting if we specifically and freely play different actions in order to win the situation and change the other actor, rather than generally ironing it out by trying to be logical and placing too much focus on the overall objective of the scene? Hm….. (I learn something new every session).
EXERCISE THREE:
Sarah, Simon and Tim stood up with a scene from Hamlet. The spectators from the two teams randomly shouted out actions (to pin, to dismiss, to stroke etc…) which had to be picked up and played immediately. The actors were challenged if they were not specific enough. This lead to the spectators shouting out from their chairs… “to entertain. Entertain! ENTERTAIN HER!!!” until they were satisfied that this is what was being played.
Again stress was put on changing the other person. Play it to win it. It’s not about you.
Another two from each team got up, this time Laura and Paul. The same exercise continued with Act 4 of the Seagull and the actions were shouted out randomly from the teams. Again, if the demanding spectators were not convinced that the action was being played, the actor was challenged to do it again, and again, and again.
EXERCISE FOUR:
This time Maddy and Susy got up and played the end of Act II Seagull, between Nina and Trigorin. Simon instructed the commands from the teams to be phrased “I want Nina to feel…” or “I want Trigorin to feel…”. The new phrasing highlighted the change we wanted to occur in the other actor.
However I still found it difficult to shake off my tendency to bring the scene back round to me. On the command “I want Nina to feel sexy” I found myself gyrating and flicking my eyes. No, it’s not about how sexy I am, but how sexy I want her to feel! – I though and immediately stopped what I was doing. I then started playing a wide eyed goofy character who was astonished by Maddy’s sexiness. But this was not the exercise either, as I was again bringing the scene back to myself. I was playing a pantomime-y version of myself being affected by how I want her to feel, rather than simply playing “to make her feel sexy”. I felt I had been wacked round the head by the challenge of transitive verbs.
Simon then reminded us of TC’s mantra WWIBL – “what would it be like to simply say the words and mean them”. Just say the fricken words because they are true! Simple.
We then continued the same text, this time the instructions were allowed to be phrased more abstractly. Eg. “I want Nina to feel like she is the Sea.”, “I want Nina to feel she is in Alice in wonderland.”, “I want Trigorin to feel like he is a King…” etc… Again (I say this drumming it into my head) the focus is on changing the other character.
Maddy mentioned that phrasing the instructions this way helped her to visualise the other person being changed. That way you are constantly trying to focus on the other person, not yourself. So, on the command “I want Trigorin to feel naked” she made me want to run away and hide in a bush.
EXERCISE FIVE:
We split into pairs and secretly wrote down six actions which were numbered and hidden from our partners. Each pair picked a scene. Simon then randomly shouted out numbers bingo-style, and the corresponding action from our list had to be played for each thought.
Simon also added the element of “Transitive Listening”. By silently playing the corresponding action from their list, the listener was made to really focus on what the partner was saying.
The exercise was then repeated. This time each action was repeated four times whilst Simon made commands to “intensify the action”, “intensify even more”, “intensify to the max!”, “HIDE IT!”
When the actions were played to the max on the third command and hidden away on the forth command something really extraordinary happened. We watched Tim and Laura do their exercise from a section of “Love at First Sight”. As the actions got more intense, the playing became more abstract, bigger and physical. This was then swallowed and stripped away on the command to “hide it”. Each hidden actions became so engaging and rich, yet simple and specific. Beautiful!
Another inspiring session for the newbie – thanks so much Simon.
Susan Momoko-Hingley
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, Feb 14 2009, 12:41 PM EST
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