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.

blog 9

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.