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.