Learn Your Lines!

Many people find learning lines difficult. During Oedipus and The Winter's Tale, I've found that starting sooner rather than later helps. I've learned speeches in half an hour simply by taking the time to sit down and do it. It requires discipline.

We are now at the stage where we have worked out the text we'll be using, so it's down to the actors to learn it. Here's some good advice from director Richard Spaul about learning lines:

"LEARNING LINES:
The way to make the most progress at this stage is for everyone to have learnt their lines if possible by the restart - or as near to that goal as possible. if that can be done, we can move forward very quickly - if not, things will be slowed down. So I think that should be aimed
at.

Some tips on learning lines:

1. do it regularly. Could everyone spare 20 focussed minutes a day? That's the best way of doing it and is much better than making desperate efforts to learn lots of lines suddenly. So that's what I'd recommend.

2. when I'm learning lines I make sure I understand everything and can see how one thing leads to another - if I can see how it all connects I can learn it more easily. With Shakespeare there's often a rhythm to the verse and if you can hear that it can help you to fit the words in (as people learn the words of songs along with the tune).

3. It's helpful to identify key points in a speech or scene. Once you've got those in your mind, you can start stringing stuff together.

4. Some people find it helpful to write their lines out or to make a recording of it.

5. I think it's always better to say it aloud and to act it out properly - to speak it with feeling rather than to parrot it mechanically. Preferably to a real person who's listening, if you have anyone to perform such a service for you. The most obvious people are other people in the cast, so why not collaborate on a spare evening some time? This will all help to make it stick.

But the main thing is diligence. Most people who complain of not being able to learn lines don't put enough time into it and end up rushing."

I might add Jerry Seinfeld's productivity technique - should be unbeatable..!

Paranoid Choruses

in situ: The Winter's Tale - week 8

Two weeks out and I'm itching to get back, which perhaps prompts me to return a little too early. Tonight we work on the "paranoid choruses", taking the text originally spoken by one character and attempting to present it in different way.

I foolishly agree to speak Leontes's lines (because I'm a boy - not exactly breaking the mold there) in "Too hot! Too hot!" while Rachael and Tanya interject while stood facing each other in front of me and cutting off my contact with the audience. It seems to work well from early on, though I'm starting to cough within 15 minutes and begin to lose my voice by the time we come to perform the "finished" piece. I'm relieved when we break and sit down to discuss what we'll be performing in two weeks for the work in progress showing.

The Bohemian section we did before has been extended with more introductory dialogue included, but I'm not Florizel this time around. The perils of being ill. Instead I will be Leontes in the opening section, something we haven't worked on before. This will mean reading the dialogue from books, something we haven't done before in performance.

As usual the picture isn't entirely clear what will happen in two weeks' time, but these things have a habit of being worked out satisfactorily over the weekend prior.

Seeing RED at Cambridge Arts Picturehouse

I've been stuck in the house with laryngitis and a chest infection my doctor says could be pleurisy, so I jumped at the opportunity to get out as soon as I was starting to feel better. "Jumped the gun" might be a more accurate description as I turned up on Sunday thinking it was taking place then. A smirking usher put me straight.

Run by the Film and Digital Media Exchange, presented by 4K London who have one of the first RED One cameras in the UK, this was a chance to see RED One in action, followed by a hands on
demo at Anglia Ruskin University. Having heard the latter was full up, I'd committed to leaving after the initial event, so I was a little peeved when they announced the invitation-only session was now open to all. Having said that, the pros in the audience were talking a language a little beyond my understanding. Perhaps it was just as well I didn't turn up and embarrass myself.

The demo impressed me; apparently shot in the City of London at the weekend in a variety of light conditions and with no sign of the noise I noticed in the 2K version of Blade Runner projected here before Christmas.

"The Audience are morons"

in situ: The Winter's Tale - Term 2, Week 5

I arrived this evening whereupon the whole class stopped and sang "Happy Birthday" to me. I don't think this has happened since I was six years old, so it was unexpected but very cheering.

We continued our exploration of the vaudeville style as a way to represent Bohemia, using the modern-day US-style situation comedy as a reference point.

"The form of acting American sitcoms are based on is 100 years old," director Richard told us. He further explained how you must speak slowly and clearly, accentuating dialogue with actions that literally portray what you are saying: "[it's as if] the audience are morons."

One day voice workshop with Noah Pikes

Richard our director has decided we need some help with our vocal work, so this term includes a one-day workshop with voice teacher Noah Pikes, founding member of Roy Hart Theatre.

We spend the day working on selected exercises from Noah's workshop The Whole Voice, chosen for their relevance to the scenes we've developed in the previous term and the past few weeks. I find I'm regularly tempted to locate my voice in my chest to increase the power, but Noah tries to encourage me to find something lower, in the stomach. By the end of the day, I'm starting to understand, but I doubt I'll be using that voice at any upcoming conference appearances.

I spend the following week repeating Noah's "uuuuuu-ooooooo-iiiiiiiii-eeeeeee-aaaaaaa" exercise, causing my eleven month old daughter great delight, before succumbing to laryngitis five days later.

I hope it's just coincidence.

The Winter's Tale: Term 2, Week 4

The Winter's Tale: Term 2, Week 4

More varied work on the paranoid choruses

Exit, pursued by Simon Smith and his Dancing Bear

in situ: The Winter's Tale - term 2, week 3

I wrote about our brush with Judy Garland and vaudeville last week.

This week we took a turn into Dennis Potter territory, trying out "This Year's Kisses" by Nina Simone and Alan Price's version of Randy Newman's "Simon Smith and his Dancing Bear". The latter has some particularly nice beats which a bear-suited actor can fill with a few nifty dance steps.

We spent the majority of our time focusing on the paranoia choruses which we've only fitted in at the end of previous sessions. Different partnerships came up with imaginative ideas... perhaps it's just my impatience that makes it seems things are moving slowly. It's only week 3 of nine, after all...