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2009 & After
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Acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion. - Kate Reid
There is good acting, comedy acting -- and dramatic acting. Identify EXPOSITION, CLIMAX, RESOLUTION. Do the ACTOR's SCRIPT:
Must use prop. Draw the floor plan. Required: 3 levels in vertical and horizontal composition (changes). Write down the 5W's for the monologue. What is the objective and the obstacle in this monologue? Read the whole play! First step : Select your monologue and the cold reading in class. "How to fix emotion, which is only from time to time could be recalled. There's only way is to do it -- to link an emotion with action. Get used to link an emotion with certain action, on one hand, it's become possible to repeat this feeling through familiar action, and, on another hand, emotions getting linked with different actions, force actor into familiar psycho-physiological states." Stanislavsky SummaryDo your job and demand your compensation, but in that order. ~ Cary GrantQuestionsA talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is an ability to articulate human relationships. ~ Gore Vidal
* Uncle Vanya
* one-acts NotesThe bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means. ~ Tom Stoppard Drama - what literature does at night. ~ George Jean Nathan
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Drama Scene due. Presentations and analysis.http://acting.freeservers.com/Dialogue.htmSame as with Monologue: 1. Dramatic clearity of structure (exposition, climax, resolution).
2. Actor's Text (a page with the text of your monologue, including your breakdowns, pauses, movement and floor plan).
3. Execution: performance.Not Happy? Select another online text!
3 Sisters scenes and monologues
Actor's Text: YOUR stage directions (left - movement, right - emotions)
Prop is a MUST!
MARK Key words (emphasis)
Samples
Paper-acting -- the analysis. Acting is ALWAYS visual-thought-process! "The thinking" must be there to carry on the physical presence.
Walk. Mater-gesture...
... "WORDS ARE THE POOREST FORM OF COMMUNICATION." - KF
Let me quote KF (Ken Farmer):
STEP 4. LEARN THE DIALOGUE - SEQUENCE OF EVENTS - NEVER MEMORIZE IT - **(DIALOGUE SHOULD NEVER BE ADDRESSED UNTIL YOU KNOW THE STORY AND HAVE ALREADY CREATED YOUR CHARACTER)**
KNOW THE STORY -The story only happened one way. Only one thing happened first, then one thing happened second, etc. Break each scene into French scenes or Natural breaks and break those into 3 equal parts: BEGINNING, MIDDLE and END. (A French scene is the entrance or exit of an energy or life force) This is done to help the brain absorb the information faster. The brain retrieves top down and bottom up. By making more tops and more bottoms, it is easier for the mind to retrieve the middles. Never highlight only your dialogue; that very act forces the focus on only one set of lines at the expense of the story and takes you out of the moment. Highlight or underline only the IMPORTANT WORDS (TO YOU) in each line of dialogue (for ALL characters). These words are the IDEAS or EVENTS of the line, focus on them only. Sequence these events or ideas in order of occurrence by writing them on a separate page. This procedure ensures that the actor is focusing on and learning the sequence of events of the story. Write only the underlined/highlighted words, all other words put "dashes" (the dashes should be the approximate length of the words they are replacing). Work only one section at a time. Then read aloud from the page you have just written, but, focus on the story, filling in the "dashes" orally without looking at the copy. You should be able to fill in 95 to 100% of the dashes. Continue rereading the page until you can fill in all dashes correctly and without hesitation. Then turn the page over, you will find that you probably will know all the dialogue for all the characters. You will work with each section (beginning, middle and end) separately until the sequence of events is clear. THEN JUST TELL THE STORY.
WITH PRACTICE, THIS ENTIRE PROCESS SHOULD TAKE LESS THAN 10 MINUTES PER PAGE OF DIALOGUE!!
REMEMBER, YOU KNOW THE DIALOGUE,... YOUR CHARACTER DOESN'T. NOR DOES HE KNOW WHAT THE OTHER CHARACTERS ARE GOING TO SAY. YOU MUST GET OUT OF THE WAY AND LET HIM CREATE IT AS HE LISTENS.
Go to your journal! If you didn't do well in class, I will see how much work was done at home!
NB
Physical Acting -- biomechanics.
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One beat pause = "/"
Two beat = "//" Three = "///" and so on. All pauses must have movement directions. Every "," is a pause! "." -- what do you think? STOP! "..." Where does it take place? (5Ws) Get a book (suggestion), big book, many books. His school papers, notebooks. Is he drinking? What are ANDREY's addresses? Doctor. God? Sisters? Parents? He himself in the past (photo?)
| ANDREY. What's become of my past, when I was young, happy, and clever, when my dreams and thoughts were exquisite, when my present and my past were lighted up by hope? Why on the very threshold of life do we become dull, drab, uninteresting, lazy, indifferent, useless, unhappy?... Our town has been in existence for two hundred years -- there are a hundred thousand people living in it; and there's not one who's not like the rest, not one saint in the past, or the present, not one man of learning, not one artist, not one man in the least remarkable who could inspire envy or a passionate desire to imitate him... They only eat, drink, sleep, and then die... others are born, and they also eat and drink and sleep, and not to be bored to stupefaction they vary their lives by nasty gossip, vodka, cards, litigation; and the wives deceive their husbands, and the husbands tell lies and pretend that they see and hear nothing, and an overwhelmingly vulgar influence crushes the children, and the divine spark is quenched in them and they become the same sort of pitiful, dead creatures, all exactly alike, as their fathers and mothers... [angrily] What do you want?.. The present is hateful, but when I think of the future, it's so nice! I feel so light-hearted, so free. A light dawns in the distance, I see freedom. I see how I and my children will become free from sloth, from beer, from goose and cabbage, from naps after dinner, from mean, parasitic living... [in a rush of tender feeling]. My dear sisters, my wonderful sisters! [Through tears] Masha, my sister! (3 Sisters) |
Retype the text, adding your stage direction.
Bring your Actor's Text to class. How to bring the OTHERS -- sounds, newspaper, his tears it (suggestion) Food in front of him? What prop symbolize our "sisters"? Photos? Sisters = hope, past? His wife (Natasha) is listening. He tried to speak in whisper. Forgetting it. Looks over his scholder.
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