Blog week 15

week 15: What are your goals for your scene? How have you progressed so far? How have you improved over your first scene and monologue?

My goals for this scene are probably just to give my best performance of the semester.  As Carlos and I rehearse, I find myself having an easier time noticing when something is off with our set up, in terms of positioning props and ourselves.  At the end of our scene, we arm wrestle on the table.  After a few rehearses, I realized that the way the table was set up, and the way we were arm wrestling left me with my back facing the audience.  When I realized this, I turned the table (literally) so that when we arm wrestled, the audience will be able to see the sides of both of our faces.  This is something that I feel has improved since the first performance we did in this course.  When Aaron and I rehearsed, things like facing the audience didn’t even occur to us at all when rehearsing. As far as memorization goes, we don’t have much free time outside of class to rehearse, considering the point we are at in the semester.  So we took the opportunity in class yesterday to make an audio recording of ourselves performing our lines, so that we may listen to it outside of class, until we have it memorized.  Another main goal for this performance would be for it to flow very naturally.  As of yesterday, we began rehearsing with me actually grabbing Carlos’ zipper.  I imagine it’s probably looking a little awkward and not flowing naturally right now, but it’s a start.  Carlos also has had some good ideas for our performance, as well.  When our characters accidentally wake up their father, Norm goes to check on him.  We were not exactly sure what Arthur would be doing while Norm is doing this, and Carlos suggested that Arthur be right behind Norm, trying to see in over him in a comical manner.  Seeing as how this scene seems to have a humorous vibe to it, I think it is a pretty good idea.  We have also considered what sort of attire we will be wearing for this performance.  Arthur is said to be wearing a Mauritzio suit, which apparently isn’t even a real word according to my spell check.  Norm, we decided, will also be wearing a suit.  Seeing as how we will be arm wrestling in these suits, we have decided to wear suits from a Salvation Army thrift store in case they rip or something.

Blog week 14

week 14) How did you incorporate beats, tactics (aka intentions), and obstacles into your scene this week? How do you think you improved in this area since your first scene?

I think that beats, tactics, and intentions are becoming easier to recognize when reading scripts than they were when the semester first began back in January.  This particular performance still does have some confusing parts as to where certain beats and tactics are.

Norm: You actually got that to work?

Arthur: Got all this baggage.

N: You need to go through it.

A: I could beat you if we arm wrestled.

N: Can’t even talk to him.

This is just the first of several lines where I am confused on what exactly is going on.  Usually, when reading a script or a book, it’s relatively easy to read the lines in a certain tone.  With this script, the men seem to be talking all over the place.  One of the main obstacles that these men must overcome is the zipper on the pants of the Mauritzio suit that Arthur is wearing, as it is stuck and will not close.  Arthur eventually fixes the zipper, and their next obstacle is discussing taking care of their father.  They first avoid talking about it, and Norm doesn’t ask Arthur to help out.  During the arm wrestle, they confront the new obstacle, Norm even goes to the extent to ask Arthur to move from New York to Georgia just to be able to help take care of their father.  I don’t believe that this obstacle is overcome in the end.

Blog week 13

How did your monologue performance go? How did you improve from your scene? What do you think was the strongest aspect of your performance? What was the weakest? How do you think this monologue performance demonstrates growth in your acting overall?

I think my monologue performance went pretty well, however I think there was definitely room for improvement.  I had always rehearsed this monologue sitting in a chair or a desk, but as I was sitting in class watching everyone else’s performances, I thought it would be interesting to try the performance with no tables or chairs, and to just be sitting on the floor.  As fictional character Solid Snake once said to a naive and young Revolver Ocelot, “Testing a technique you’ve only heard about in the middle of battle wasn’t very smart.”  I knew if I wanted to perform sitting on the floor, I should have rehearsed it first to get the feel of it, but I just felt that it would work.  And it probably would have worked even better if I had rehearsed it that way, as I realized when I was sitting there.  I felt like I was a little awkward with my drink can, I kept setting it down, and would forget when I was supposed to take a drink, until I was supposed to. I then would pick up the can and instantly drink from it, which I felt was a little awkward.  But I think I did a decent job performing tipsy.  I would hiccup at times where Austin would repeat himself, it just felt natural.  When Tasi asked later if I did that on purpose, I said no, but that was because in my head I thought she was asking if it was an accident.  I know that sounds dumb, but it’s true.  I think this performance has displayed growth in my overall acting because I didn’t rush through my lines as hardcore as I usually do.  I noticed myself getting nervous around the first “tooth laying on the mattress” line.  Usually my response to this feeling is to speed through everything awkwardly to get back to my seat faster.  But somehow this time I just thought to myself, “Dude, chill,” and it worked.  I never had a fear of public speaking until I took a course on public speaking in 2013.  We first learned all the ways people get nervous and why they get nervous when speaking in public, and why such a huge majority of people get nervous. Then we gave our first speeches, after learning how everyone is terrified, I got up in front of everyone and suddenly got the dry mouth and fast heartbeat we had learned about.  I knew I had learned to fear this, since I took a public speaking class in high school in summer school, where they never taught us why people are nervous or that people are nervous, and I did fine.

TL;DR: I think I may have overcome my recently learned fear of public speaking.

Blog week 12

week 12) What progress have you made in your final week of rehearsal? In what areas have you made the most improvement? In what areas do you think you still need to make growth before your performance on Monday?

The final week of rehearsals seems almost like the first week of rehearsals to me.  This was the first time I was able to recite the monologue without having to read it, which is good because I kind of lost the script at the moment.  I suppose the areas I have made the most improvement in is understanding the play.  The first time I read it, I had no idea what the point of the story was that my character is telling.  It just didn’t make sense until I read it over a few times.  From being absent for a week, I tried to gather the mood of the monologue on my own, and when rehearsing it yesterday, Vic informed me that he had just watched Thomas, who also has the same monologue as me, perform the monologue with a rather serious, angry tone.  The way I had presented it was with a more humorous tone, like telling some ridiculous story about their father traveling to Mexico to get his teeth pulled out.  Vic said that the performance seemed to work both ways, it was just interesting to see it from different perspectives. I think I still need to get down a lot of movements that the character will have throughout the monologue.  The characters have been drinking, so it’s going to show on them when they talk.  Having insanely strict parents and still only being 20, I honestly have very little experience being drunk.  I’ve been about twice in my life.  So I’m going to have to study other people acting drunk to gather this information, rather than being able to draw from my own life experiences.  But I’m not complaining, it just gives me a reason to binge watch Comedy Central’s Drunk History.

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9. How are your rehearsals for your monologue going? What have you done to memorize? How much progress have you made? How well have you incorporated action and blocking into your monologue to date?

Rehearsals for the monologue is a bit harder than rehearsals were for the scenes we did.  The monologue is about as long as my scene, but instead of only saying half of the lines, I now have to say all of them.  The first time I read through the script, I was very confused.  After reading through the script about 10 more times, I am only slightly confused.  So far, I have really only read through the script in class to memorize the words.  I plan to record myself reading the script in an audio file, then listening to the file until I have it memorized.  Because I work two jobs (that totals up to working 40.5 hours a week) and attend school full time, I unfortunately have to use my time that I’m not at work or school to do things that require full attention like class readings and writing papers.  When I had to memorize an eight minute speech last semester, I recorded an audio file on my phone, then listened to that file on repeat while I worked at Jewel, bringing in carts.  Hearing your own voice for hours at a time is enough to drive you bat-shit-insane, but it did work out.  In the end, I memorized the speech, and gave a great presentation on eminent domain solutions.  I plan to do the same for this monologue.  Fortunately for me, this monologue will not be eight minutes, and should not take as long to memorize as did my speech.  As of this moment, I have not incorporated action and blocking into my monologue very well, however I do plan to improve on it with time.

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8.) Evaluate your performance in your first scene. Were you happy with your performance and the audience reaction? How well do you think you created a physical performance for your character? How well did you and your partner work together? How successful do you think you were about establishing clear tactics for your character? What would you do to improve your performance? What did you learn that you will apply to later assignments?

Overall I feel my performance was done pretty well, but there were some parts that I would change about it if I could. About halfway through our scene, Aaron’s character insults mine, by saying, “Why does everything you say sound like it crept out of your ass covered in cellophane?”  Some of the audience found this remark amusing, as I had when we first read the script weeks ago.  Hearing other people find it funny though weeks later kind of threw me off, and I sort of laughed at the joke too, before saying my next line.  I’m not sure how noticeable it was, as I did try to blend it into my next line.  Honestly, I’m still not sure how Marty was supposed to react to that comment in hindsight.  The chair we used in our performance was on wheels, while the chairs we rehearsed with did not.  This was a miniscule problem, only when I shoot up out of my seat when I see Aaron holding the box of ashes and is about to dump them. The chair kinda rolled out from under me and I may have lost my balance a bit.  I think I created a pretty good physical performance of my character.  I was experiencing a pretty bad day on the day of our performance, but Marty is also having a pretty bad day, too.  I think already being pretty angry ahead of time made it easier to be angry in character, I was already comfortable wearing a frown and screaming when the lines called for it.  Aaron and I worked together pretty well, I’d say.  I think we got along pretty well, even if our characters didn’t.  I feel I was relatively successful displaying tactics for my character. I managed to change my tone throughout the play through sarcastic, angry, and apologetic.  To improve the performance, I would probably have spent more time on my last big paragraph I had at the end of our scene.  I had spent enough time on it to memorize the lines, but I feel I could have spent more time deciding on how to deliver the lines.  I learned to expect audience reactions and to not let them distract you from your performance.  I also learned to spend more time on perfecting delivery, even if perfection is a cruel mistress.

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7.) How are your rehearsals going with your partner? What has successful has your collaboration been? What have you done to contribute to the success or failure of your collaboration?

Overall I would say that our rehearsals have went quite well.  I truly feel that Aaron and I are going to be able to give a good performance.  Collaborating with other students was actually very helpful.  There were certain parts of our script that I wasn’t completely sure of how to act out, and my classmates were able to help us out with those parts just by witnessing how we were doing them, and then told us how we could improve it.  Louis was particularly helpful.  For the part of our scene where Aaron takes our dad’s box of ashes and threatens to dump them out in the lobby, I never really knew how to react to that.  Mostly because I’ve never been in that situation myself.  At first, I just shot up out of my seat and shouted, “Put him down!” while Aaron stood several feet away from me.  Louis made a good point that if I really wanted those ashes, I would be trying to get those ashes from Aaron, and Aaron would be trying to keep me from getting the box of ashes as well.  It was pretty much like playing keep away when you’re a kid.  It helped that Aaron is taller than me, too.  Louis also gave Aaron some advice on maintaining eye contact with me during out scene.  I understand eye contact can be weird, I can barely hold it myself typically for more than a few seconds.  Louis said the trick to appearing to keep eye contact is to look at the bridge of my glasses.  That way, we don’t feel awkward, and to the audience, it still looks like we’re maintaining eye contact.  Witnessing other group’s presentation rehearsals was interesting, too.  It kind of made me realise how much more prepared Aaron and I were compared to everyone else we witnessed, and that we had a skit relatively shorter than most of the other groups, too.  Carlos and David’s rehearsal showed that they needed to memorize their lines better, but they did have a lot of lines in paragraphs, and a lot more of them than do Aaron and I.  Overall, I think Monday’s performances will be on point.