Second Thursday
We move on to the text. Only one person in Group B has a script - they've not ordered enough at Off Stage - but we survive.
Non-contact improvisation. More difficult than the contact kind. Some people seem to want to complicate the task. Or to lose some of the simplicity that they had before. Whereas one of the main goals in the first instance was to make something strong and clear with their partner, now some start to work against their partner. Someone jars her shoulder. Others lose focus. Become repetitive. Stale. But not all and after reminders all re-focus.
We look, both groups, at Pelagea's first speech in which she tells us that she's ashamed of the soup that she's forced to give her son Pavel. She tells us that her son's wages have just been cut one kopek at the factory. She tells us that she's worried that she can't do her job properly as a mother, that her son is growing away from her and will leave her once she becomes completely useless.
We use our lack of scripts to our advantage. Only some can read. Most have to listen. Most have to watch. Listening and watching are good things to do. We do a variety of things with this one speech. We read it. We practise reading it with the read, engage the audiences eyes - and say method. We do it (with one group) where a 'prompter' reads it to an 'actor' and the actor says it - again using the eyecontact so vital. We do it from memory after spending a few minutes with a partner deciding the main points of the speech or the structure or narrative of the speech.
We do it that way in Swahili, in Farsi, in Portuguese, in Spanish and in a little Catalan and in Lithuanian. I like it this way and although not everyone does, it does seem to fit with the title of the Act: Vlassovas of all Countries. It gives me some ideas as to how we might begin our 'showing' at the end of term.
Non-contact improvisation. More difficult than the contact kind. Some people seem to want to complicate the task. Or to lose some of the simplicity that they had before. Whereas one of the main goals in the first instance was to make something strong and clear with their partner, now some start to work against their partner. Someone jars her shoulder. Others lose focus. Become repetitive. Stale. But not all and after reminders all re-focus.
We look, both groups, at Pelagea's first speech in which she tells us that she's ashamed of the soup that she's forced to give her son Pavel. She tells us that her son's wages have just been cut one kopek at the factory. She tells us that she's worried that she can't do her job properly as a mother, that her son is growing away from her and will leave her once she becomes completely useless.
We use our lack of scripts to our advantage. Only some can read. Most have to listen. Most have to watch. Listening and watching are good things to do. We do a variety of things with this one speech. We read it. We practise reading it with the read, engage the audiences eyes - and say method. We do it (with one group) where a 'prompter' reads it to an 'actor' and the actor says it - again using the eyecontact so vital. We do it from memory after spending a few minutes with a partner deciding the main points of the speech or the structure or narrative of the speech.
We do it that way in Swahili, in Farsi, in Portuguese, in Spanish and in a little Catalan and in Lithuanian. I like it this way and although not everyone does, it does seem to fit with the title of the Act: Vlassovas of all Countries. It gives me some ideas as to how we might begin our 'showing' at the end of term.
posted by Steve at 10:00 PM
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