I have read the second half of "A Challenge for the Actor" by Uta Hagen and have learned a lot more about acting and my craft. The second half of the book was all about exercises and things you could do to work on certain aspects of acting and characterization.
Most of the exercises had to do with being able to enter your character and not think too much about the character and just react like your character would. The exercises are all about not falling into any planned structure of acting because that is when it becomes too planned and unnatural. This is something that I worry that I do sometimes. Sometimes I worry that I think too much about what a character SHOULD be and what they are SUPPOSED to do. This is when you fall into unnatural movements. What I need to learn to do is just take on my character and just react to things. I will take what I learned from Uta Hagen's book and I will now be thinking a lot more about my character and not falling into the structured trap of acting that comes with doing what you are SUPPOSED to do. I have to start just feeling and reacting and with that, I will be able to act freely without any traps and blocks.
With what I learned this semester I know that I am more ready to enter the world of theatre then I was before the semester began. I am ready to start training with experience in roles.
I was a part of the last show of the semester at SDSU, Midsummer Nights Dream. The play was set in the 1960s and was Shakespeare like nobody had ever seen it before. The play incorporated 60s like music into it and became almost like a rock show at times with lights and everything. I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of this great show.
I played the part of Robin Starveling, the tailor. I was one of the workmen that were putting together Pyramus and Thisbie for the Duke. I am happy with how my performance turned out and with how the show as a whole worked out. All of the actors worked very well and the show came together great.
Everybody did a great job. Somebody, in particular I thought that did a great job was Gracie as Titania. Whenever she was onstage she owned the stage. She always knew what she was doing and she became Titania. As a cast we only saw our own groups work up until a week before tech week. When I first saw Gracie perform I was greatly impressed and thought she was doing a great job.
This show turned out great and I am very proud of all of my fellow cast and crew members with the show and how it turned out. They all worked great and the cast worked together well and know that it should be a show that is greatly remembered.
Today, Sophie and I performed our final scene for the class. In my opinion it went fairly well, but there are some small things that I could have changed such as not talking as fast. The scene did go very well though, and I am happy with how it turned out.
Today, I also did my final monologue, and it was a great improvement over the last time I read the monologue for the class. My energy started out great and it continued great through until the end. There are a couple of things I messed up with and I could have done differently but I am happy with how the end result was. I worked hard and am happy how it turned out. I do believe that I have grown so much as an actor and know that I have a lot more to learn but know that if I continue to grow like I have so far this semester then I know that I can become a great actor.
Throughout the course of this semester, I feel that I have definitely grown as an actor very much. Previously, I thought that I was the greatest actor ever and that acting for me was easy but boy throughout the course of this year, I have discovered that acting is really not as easy as I once thought. There is so much that I need to improve upon and I am know where near the level that I want to be at. Luckily I have learned a lot about acting this semester and I do believe I have improved from when I started. As long as I continue to grow like I have this semester, I can become a great actor.
The last scene that I am working on is the first scene from Rumors by Neil Simon with my colleague Sophie. I am playing the part of Ken and Sophie is playing the part of Chris. The play starts after two guests have arrived for a dinner part and have found the host, what they think to be dead. Chris is trying to get the doctor on the phone while Ken is trying to figure out how to cover up what has happened. The play is all about these party-goers trying to cover up the death of their host, so that so scandal will be caused or anything. It turns out that the host is not dead at all but just shot himself in the earlobe and passed out after having too many pills.
My character of Ken basically remains the same throughout the play. He is Charley, the hosts, best friend and is very stressed out about what has happened with Charley and how he is going to handle it. His relationship with his wife Chris is very interesting. Although throughout the play they seem to fight and argue a lot, they turn out to be a very secure and happy couple. They are just stressed out about the current situation at the party.
During our scene my characters main objective is to figure out what to do with Charley while not letting anybody know what happened. That is what he is focused on the whole time. He wants complete control over the situation and this is scene with the way he tells Chris what to do and what to say. He is focused on doing whatever to not let anybody find out what has happened.
Rehearsals for us have been going very well so far. We have been coming up with great emotions and great physicalizations for our characters. On the day that we worked on our scene in class, some great ideas were generated. The types of stuff that Peter told me to do really helped me and made me realize how my character could act, and I found a whole new way my character could view the situation. Its going to be great to see where the scene goes tomorrow when Sophie and I work on it.
We will be performing our scene on Thursday for the class so after that I will put how our scene goes and give you all the latest updates.
The most recent play that I read was Beyond Therapy by Christopher Durang. This is a hilarious comedy about two people that seem destined to be together because of how they are constantly accidentally meeting through the internet. Both characters have therapists and we see them interact with their therapists, and the reader sees that their therapists themselves are not really that stable. The play brings about the idea that everybody is insane in one way or another and that its not possible to be fully sane.
The play also brings about the idea that love is more of an impulse rather than a feeling. The guy character basically says that hes in love with Prudence after they have barely met. Later in the play he says to act on instincts and do whatever you feel. Thats another very interesting point. Most people do not do things on instinct but instead think about it and figure it out. Makes you wonder what the world would be like if that was the case and people just acted on instinct. Its hard to know what it would be like.
The play also talks about the concept of what sexuality is. Its really hard to give labels to people. If somebody has a gay lover, but then they want to start seeing a woman but still keep the lover. What does this make them? Its very hard to say. Its almost like there is no sexuality just preferences. In this play, it was hard to figure out whether the character of Bruce was bisexual, gay, or questioning. Its basically like you can't give him a label.
Overall I thought this was a hilarious commentary on people, sexuality, and love and would recommend this play to anybody. Although at times the play may seem strange or absurd, thats what makes this play unique and get its point across all the easier.
Stereotypes facing the Asian American community in our society has been problems for many years. The thing is, these problems tend to many times either not be seen or are overlooked. The movie "Better Luck Tomorrow" and the play "Hip-Hop Kim-Bap" bring these stereotypes and issues to light that really should make us aware of what we need to change in our own society. Hip-Hop Kim-Bap brings up numerous issues. First of all it brings up the problem of people lumping all Asians together into one group. For example, in the play, the Jury Clerk constantly calls the ladies the wrong nationality. Instead of Korean he calls them Chinese, or Japanese, etc. What the play is also able to do is create a individual identities of each character yet creating a common experience for their cultures. Although each character was completely different and had their own backgrounds, they find this common experience that they share through their culture.
In Better Luck Tomorrow, the problems that Asian Americans face really become clear. You see all of the pressure that gets put on them, and they get so much pressure that they are driven to let out their needs in unhealthy ways, such as drugs and being in gangs. There is a common stereotype that Asians are geniuses and have to grow up to be a doctor, or a lawyer, etc. This stereotype is what creates the problems shown in Better Luck Tomorrow. By feeling the need to be these smart perfect students they get driven to let our their frustration and stress in unhealthy ways that eventually ends in somebody getting killed. After reading this play and seeing this movie I now see a lot of things that I did not realize before and I hope that other people will watch these and possibly see things that they do that they can change to bring about less stereotypes in this society. By seeing the amount of pressure that gets put on Asian Americans hopefully people will begin to see that there is so much more to people then these stereotypes and that these stereotypes just create more problems.
I found this article very interesting and I am very happy that I stumbled upon it. The Alexander Technique is something that myself as a performer should really look in to. On stage, what happened to the people mentioned in the article tends to also happen to me. I will get nervous and then in an effort to have energy, bunch up my upper body creating a restriction for air and voice. I also lose my flexibility with my body and my ability to react truly and spontaneously.
This is something that I believe I should really look into and study. I believe I would learn a lot and would be able to fix so many physical habits that I tend to do on stage that are not good for either my voice or body.
In other news, today was the first day rehearsing Midsummer Nights Dream with the entire cast. It was very fun to see everybody and to see what they have been working on and I know that this will be a great show.
In my theatre of diversity class, we just finished reading the play "Children of a Lesser God" by Mark Medoff. This play is about a School for the Deaf, and one student in particular named Sarah who is bridging the gap between the "hearing" world and the "deaf" world. She ends up falling in love with and marrying one of the workers at the school, named James. James was assigned to get Sarah to speak, who is known for not speaking and many think of her as a lost cause. When Sarah gets together with James though, this creates quite a stir. Many of the students think of it as betrayal because she is marrying a "hearing" man who will never be able to understand Sarah. Throughout the play she is struggling about being part of both worlds. We find out that Sarah doesn't want to speak because she feels she can do just fine on her own and not have to be like all of those "hearing" people that do not understand her. The play also shows Sarah's guilt about needing her husband to always translate for her. She wants to be able to do things on her own and not need another person always helping her.
The play is all about how much help people with these disabilities need and with whom they should get the help. Can people who do not have the disability truly help people since they do not know what they are going through? And really how much help do these people need? This play brought up many things that really thoughts that I never really thought about and really makes the audience think about disabilities and how much people struggle with everyday life while having these disabilities.
The most recent play that I have read is Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello. I found this play extremely interesting and it brought up some very good views about theatre and what theatre is.
The play is about a group of actors rehearsing and being interrupted by this group of Characters with a complex story and fixed expressions. They are in essence the spirit of stories and written down words. These characters are looking for somewhere to show their story to an audience. The conflict that eventually pops up is between the Characters and the Actors. The actors want to perform the Characters play but since the Actors are not the characters and will technically never be the characters, the Characters do not think the actors are going to be able to do it.
The play brings up a very interesting point about the the idea of theatre and the idea of acting. It portrays the fact that characters in plays are real and that they are possibly even more "real" then the actors playing them since they are unchanging and have fixed stories. It also brings about the question of how much can actors really become the characters. As good as actors may be, they can never fully be the character since they are not them. The idea of the directors vision versus the writers vision is also a big theme. When the Actors were setting up the play, the Characters would laugh because the setting did not look like what it was supposed to look like. The fact that the Characters were real was reinforced with the way Characters said that their stories were real and that it had to be portrayed right. Really shows that the writer had a vision before something ever goes onstage or screen and that it should be considered when directing.
In other news, right now Midsummer is going great. We open two weeks from friday and its so crazy but I am so excited. I will also be performing my monologue and scene with Hannah tomorrow a final time and will update this blog with how that went.
So, as you can probably tell, I have been reading a lot of LGBT themed plays lately. One of the big reasons is because I am looking for one to produce and direct next year at state. And I believe I have chosen the one i'm going to do and that one is the play from my previous posting "Jeffrey" by Paul Rudnick.
My most recent play that I have read is "Love! Valour! Compassion!" by Terrence McNally. This play is about a group of friends, all gay, who decide to stay in a lake cabin during the three summer holidays. This play is all about there lives up at this cabin, and betrayals that occur, and love that forms between other members of the group. During the course of the show, while all of the personal lives of the characters are being made or falling a part they are putting together a dance routine for a benefit. This play has every type of gay man and does a really good job of portraying the gay community. Shows that we are no different then the straight community and that we go through the same problems and issues and that we too go through all of the same range of emotions that everybody else does.
So, currently I am reading the acting book, "A Challenge for the Actor" by the famous and influential actress, Uta Hagen. Uta Hagen is a very big follower of Stanislovsky and uses his method of connecting past circumstances to a circumstance of the play. Reading the book was very interesting to me. I had never actually read a book that was all about acting before, so reading it gave me many insights into things that I really need to do and things that I can try for my next character.
Uta Hagen talks all about producing real feelings inside of you that then translate outword. For example if your character is supposed to be upset she thinks that you should think of a circumstance when you felt particularly upset, even if it has nothing to do with the circumstances of the show, and apply that same feeling to the character. This will not only create a realistic feeling inside you but a realistic portrayal of that feeling to the audience. She talks all about what you should be thinking as a character, including your relationships to the other character. She wants everything to be well defined in your mind.
The body of course is also a major tool for the actor and Uta Hagen talks about the bodys use and how the actor should really familiarize themselves with the body and its functions to be able to get across a full range of emotions. The actor should be both extremely in tune to the mind as well as the physical body. These two must portray the same thing at all times in order to be real for the audience. The mind must always be communicating with the body and creating real emotions for both the actor and the audience.
Uta Hagen also stresses how important listening is to the actor and how its a very crucial detail. If you are not listening and you are just thinking about a bunch of other stuff, then you are not really acting, but saying words and lines. When you listen is when you really are able to react and act. When truly listening to your scene partner you are able to react naturally and the emotions will come to you a lot more easier.
I find this reading very interesting. Uta Hagen is a very talented actress and reading a book by her I believe is a must for all actors. I never really thought about all of the thought it takes to create an actor and just how much it takes to concentrate on stage. Basically everything has to be forgotten about on stage and only the character should come out on stage. Even if you are recalling your own memory to recreate a feeling, then you still have to really think and put it in the context of the play to make it work for your character. I am looking forward to reading the rest of the book and hopefully learning some exercises I can do to help myself concentrate and create these emotions that are able to realistically fit for the characters.
The play that I just finished reading was the play "Jeffrey" by Paul Rudnick. I liked this play immensely and thought it delivered a good message in a comedic way. Jeffrey is about this gay man who decides to give up sex because he just feels its too complicated. The play is a fast-paced show about Jeffrey living his life and meeting all of these different types of people and his interactions with these people that he learns from and realizes so much. His love interest of the show is an HIV-positive man, but Jeffrey is afraid to get anything started with him because of the man, Steve's, HIV status. Jeffrey soon learns just how fragile life is and that nobody should live afraid or unhappy, like Jeffrey is living. Why give up on pleasures because of fear. He learns that everybody should live happily and do whatever they want, so by the end, he realizes that he really does like Steve, and it ends with them kissing.
The play is a fun, comedic, but still very impactful gay pride play that breaks gay stereotypes, and celebrates the gay culture. It celebrates acceptance and every humans desire for happiness and pleasure that is always there no matter the orientation of the person.
For pride month at my school next year, I really want to do a gay themed play. I have been searching and searching for a good play with a good message to direct and currently "Jeffrey" is the one that I am leaning toward. If anybody has any ideas for any other "gay" plays it would be greatly appreciated if you send me the names of any plays you know.
The first scene of the semester that I will be in will be from “The Days of Wine and Roses“ by JP Miller with Hannah as Kirsten and myself as Joe. Now, I have had a moderate amount of experience with acting. I did six of my high school plays and of course I have done scenes while in college and other types of acting projects. Until I got to college, I thought acting was simple and that I was just amazing at it. Once I got to college though, I realized just how much work acting and developing a character really takes. It takes much more than just acting as a person. It takes emotional recall, and producing realistic emotions and motivations while on stage. It also takes an in depth look into the play and character to figure out just how the character ticks and what kinds of physicalizations they will have. I have realized that I have a lot to improve on, but am ready for whatever acting throws at me. The play “The Days of Wine and Roses” is about a guy named Joe and his story about struggling with being an alcoholic. The play is basically told by Joe at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Joe meets his wife Kirsten and they bond over liking to drink alcohol. The play is all about them struggling over this addiction and them living their life as an alcoholic. They have a child and they are not the best parents because of their addiction. In the course of the play, they then decide they want to try to quit drinking and during this scene, we see that they are not handling quitting very well. They are shaking and having a very hard time. Eventually they just get so desperate that they decide to resort to drinking vanilla extract which has alcohol in it. Eventually during the play, they are doing a lot better with quitting, but Joe mistakenly decides to celebrate their success with alcohol. This plan does not go over as well as it was supposed to and at the end of this scene they end up tearing apart Kirsten’s dad greenhouse looking for a bottle of alcohol. Eventually, Joe is able to succeed with quitting alcohol, but Kirsten ends up having a much harder time. Joe eventually has to leave Kirsten because Kirsten remains an alcoholic and gives up trying to quit. Joe realizes their relationship has been founded on alcohol and realizes that it can not continue until Kirsten also quits, so Joe ends up leaving her and basically tells her to come back to him when she has quit and recovered. The character I am playing is Joe and changes a lot through out the action of the play. What’s interesting about this character is that in the time of the play, he actually remains the same because the play is him talking at an alcoholics anonymous meeting, but Joe changes immensely throughout the story he tells. Joe starts out as a guy who is having difficulty with alcohol and at first does not really realize that he necessarily has a problem. But once him and his wife, who are both alcoholics, have a child and realize that what they are doing could be destructive to both themselves and the child, they decide they need to make a change. So at this point they are going to try to quit, which is the first big change. The next one occurs after they have been off alcohol for awhile and are starting to go through withdrawal. They end up giving in and looking for anything with alcohol, they get so desperate. Arnesen, Kirstens father is the next person who tries to make a change with them. He sees his daughter drunk and thinks Joe is a bad influence and decides to take them away for a little bit to work hard with no alcohol. Kirsten and Joe go and after this trip is when the next big change can be seen. For the first time we see them acting fine and healthy again. They are no longer going through major withdrawals and are finally happy. They also seem very comfortable since they decide to celebrate their success by drinking alcohol. It shows their confidence that they were able to quit. Another change occurs right after this scene when Joe tears a part the greenhouse looking for his last bottle of alcohol. This shows them relapse back into who they were before this scene. Joe makes one final, what seems like permanent, change at the end of the play. It seems that he sees how destructive the alcoholic lifestyle is and decides to really go for quitting and putting his life back together. By the end of the play we see that he has finally put his life back together and has given up on alcohol. In contrast his wife has stayed in the relapsed state and never is able to recover from alcoholism and gives up on quitting. The objective of my character in the first part of my scene at first is to figure out any way to get around having to tell Kirstens dad that all of the money he lent them was spent on alcohol. All the while he is also trying to compose himself for his business partner who is coming by to discuss a big deal. Towards the end of this beginning part, Joe basically gives up on trying to act “cool” and is now craving alcohol and is trying to find alcohol somewhere in the house. By the end of the first part he is ashamed that he is so desperate and is again trying to tell himself that his business partner will understand why he is so shaky and jittery. The second part of the scene has a whole different list of objectives. At the beginning, his objective is probably to sleep with his wife later on that night by seducing her with alcohol that he has obtained as a prize for them being so “good.” His objective gradually shifts to him trying to convince his wife that it is okay for them to drink just a little bit, but then shifts to obtaining more alcohol after they have had a little bit to drink. So far, the rehearsals for our scene have been going great. Hannah and I have been getting our blocking down. Performing in front of the class and getting Professor Cirino’s advice has also been very helpful. I also believe the exercise he did with me, where he had me run around to get tired for my scene and had me lifted and pushed randomly has also really helped me develop my character more. Through the rehearsal process, I have been experimenting with my character and ways that my character would move and I think it is really coming along. The last time Hannah and I rehearsed, I was really happy with the way my character was coming along and thought that so far the scene is going very good. The thing that we really have to think about now is props and using the props. Our scene requires a lot of props so we really need to find what we will be using and we need to start practicing with them. So far so good, and I believe that when it comes time to perform our scene, it will be very good and very entertaining for the audience.
Today, I went to see Tom and Huck and Jim at San Diego State University. This was a very good show and one that was a great tribute to the writer Mark Twain. Act 1 of the show was the story of Tom Sawyer and then Act 2 followed Huckleberry Finn with his story with Jim.
This play was a nice adventure with the characters from these books that included everything from singing to dancing. The actors that played these well known characters did a great job. The characterizations were phenomenal and each character created was different. The characters Huck and Tom, are younger characters, and the actors playing them did a great job getting the age across. This was achieved through use of voice, facial expression, and of course movement. These actors used a voice that sounded young, and used very big facial expressions and movements that are typical of a child.
What I really enjoyed was how while watching the show, I really felt that I was in the deep south. All of the actors used a southern dialect which I thought was both necessary for this show and very impressive. It built up the belief that the play was taking place in the south and that is where we, as an audience were going. Two of the characters that I thought were very creative characters were the characters of Doubletake and Topsy-Turvy. These are not real, concrete characters. These characters are more of the spirit of the book and tell the story rather than be characters in the story. These parts were probably exceptionally difficult for the actors. Since they were not solid characters, the actors had to create a spirit like character that was both physical but at the same time not a real character. These actors did a great job creating these abstract characters and I enjoyed these characters and how they told the story.
All of the characters in the show were great and very interesting to watch and I applaud every person in the cast for putting in so much work and creating such a phenomenal show.
On a side note, since I have not updated the blog recently, I'm just going to update you all on whats going on right now. Over the weekend I had another film shoot for a film. The shoot went great and I really enjoyed the experience and am very excited to see the final product. I'm soon gonna be called in to do the voiceovers for the film. Midsummer right now is also going great. We have a rehearsal tomorrow night and now that the blocking is over, we are going to be able to completely focus on characters.
Soon, I will be finishing up a play I am reading and post the review here. Well everybody talk to you soon,
The most recent play that I just finished reading is "Closer" by Patrick Marber. It was also a movie. This play was about 4 peoples lives getting intertwined due to betrayal and infidelity. There were two couples in the play that all ended up cheating on each other in some way, and all about the story of these people that leave eachother for somebody else, but then realize that they still have feelings for the other person. Honestly, this play was pretty hard for me to follow. Throughout the whole thing there were only 4 characters and sometimes it got hard to remember who is who and what person belonged to what person.
This play was still very interesting. Basically everyone cheated on somebody in the play, and there was a lot of emotions at play in this piece. Everybody in the play had their own problems so there was not really anybody I felt bad for. They all strived for something more than just sex, but they all just could not seem to find it. The play was actually rather confusing and hard to follow, but it would definitely be a play that I'd want to see.
On a side note, I did a filming for a graduate film yesterday and it went very well. I'm excited to see the final product.
So, today in class we did more character work with our characters that we created from our statues from last class. This time though we incorporated other people into our characters. First we used our partner and had to do all of theses activities with our partner that had to do with our character. Then we had to greet our partner like our character would, and then he had us walk around the stage and greet people that we passed as our character, with our speed gradually increasing. Honestly I found that this helped very much. I'm really creating a character out of this statue. I'm figuring out so much about this character and I know that this is how I'm gonna wanna create characters in the future.
Today, me and Hannah also read our scene in class and he told us what we could do and where we could go with the scene.
And on a side note, my first rehearsal for Midsummer was yesterday and it was a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to creating my character and bringing him to rehearsal. This will be a very fun show, and I'm excited to be working on it.
So, I just finished reading a play called Bent for my theatre of diversity class. It was a very touching and sad story about the Nazi concentration camps and homosexuals in these camps. Generally people associate Jewish people with concentration camps and you forget that there were so many minorities in these camps including homosexuals. The story was about a man named Max who gets taken to this concentration camp and meets another man there. Max tells the guards he is Jewish so gets sent there not because hes a homosexual but because he is "Jewish." He does this because he has learned that people in these camps for homosexuality get treated the worst. He meets this guy who is in there for being a homosexual and thus has to wear a pink triangle. They develop this friendship and eventually the man gets shot and killed by a guard, and Max is deeply upsetted about this and feels this guilt for not being who he truly was and in a way I saw that he felt like he abandoned his community (homosexuals) by not telling the guards who he truly is, so he feels like he must die just like his friend in order to make amends. He kills himself at the end while wearing his friends jacket which has the pink triangle on it. This shows Max finally being who he is and telling everybody that he is proud to be gay by doing what he realizes is happening to his community. Very powerful last moment because it shows him reuniting with himself and his community.
This story was a very touching and sad story. I myself am gay, so just reading this made me cringe and almost cry. I mean I could not imagine being taken somewhere like that just because I am gay. But what is very scary is how that was a reality at one point. People were taken away from their home just because they were different then another group of people. This play is supposed to shed light on the fact that not only was this happening to Jewish people during WWII but that this also was happening with gays. It tells the audience what it means to be part of a community and the importance of sticking by your community no matter what the hardships. It sheds light on discrimination and shows just how inhuman our world was at one point and its also trying to prevent this from ever happening in the future, and in a subtle way is telling us that the discrimination that we face in our country now could cause this horrible event to happen again. Doesn't want anything like this to happen again and does this by telling a story about two gay peoples experience in the concentration camps during WWII and what they had to endure and the relationship and community they had to build in order to survive.
So today in Acting Class we did a very physical exercise. We did some Suzuki method stuff in order to develop character and learn ways to create a physical character for our scenes that will be coming up. The exercise started with us just walking around the theatre and then Professor Cirino would say statue and then we would have to freeze into a statue without even thinking about it. It got to the point where I was not even thinking about what statue I was becoming and just went from one statue to the next. The next portion of the exercise consisted with each of us keeping one statue we create and continuing to do that same statue. We then had to create a character out of that statue. This was actually one of the most fulfilling experiences I have had. This was probably one of the first times that I felt completely into a character. This is definitely a method I will be using in the future for developing character. For the next couple of classes, Professor Cirino told us that we would continue to work with these statues and develop them further and then take this exercise into developing our character for the scene.
And on a side note, the Vagina Monologues at SDSU opens tomorrow. I am the light board operator for it and the show is going great. Tomorrow should be amazing also.
I also have my first rehearsal for Midsummer next monday which I am super excited about and the two films that I am in should start to be shooting fairly shortly.
So, todays class started out with the same ball game that we played last class. After that we started on doing our first readings of our monologue. We took notes on our classmates readings and what we liked. I was one of the ones to go today. I definitely need to have the monologue cemented in my mind much more. I thought I had it but I do need to memorize it a little bit more. And personally I didn't think my monologue run-thru went well today. I was not proud of the way I did it, and I will make sure I improve immensely before I go again and I know that once my monologue is fully memorized. Next time I need to have much more concentration and much more focused. I was distracted today during the monologue. I also need to do some character work for my monologue and that will be posted on this blog also. After the monologue, Professor Cirino gave me some feedback and gave me some ideas for ways I can do it next time I perform it. He gave me some very good ideas and will definitely use them during my final performance. A couple of the groups also read their scenes and then the Professor gave them some feedback also. Hannah and I will be reading our scene for the class next tuesday.
On a side note, I may also be getting into another film. I contacted somebody about a film, and they said it was between me and somebody else so I should know about that within the next couple of days and I will keep you updated.
So, I just finished the play Days of Wine and Roses by J.P. Miller and found it to be good and thought that it also did have a good message. This play was also a movie and it followed one guys story of being an alcoholic and his trip to recovery. He met a girl that shared his like of alcohol and they hit it off almost immediately. They eventually got married and they ended up trying to go into recovery together. They go through their ups and downs and they have their times when they feel the need for alcohol and other times when they feel they have done good keeping their desire for alcohol under control. They start to get distant though when Joe begins being able to fully not consume alcohol while Kirsten is struggling very much and continues to get dangerously drunk to the point of putting their daughter in danger. Joe decides to tell Kirsten that she can come back as long as she stops using alcohol, but she says that she can't promise that, and that she does not think she can stop, so Joe tells her that they can't get back together so the play ends with Kirsten and Joe seperating for who knows how long.
This play is all about how much drinking alcohol and an addiction like that can ruin lives. Their relationship was based on alcohol and the addiction and because of this it slowly deteriorated their relationship until they could not be together anymore. Not only was their relationship begun on basis of alcohol but also ended because of alcohol. It shows both sides of alcoholism also. The promising recovered alcoholic who is starting to make a new life for himself and the alcoholic who has ruined her life and will not be able to have her life back as long as she remains an alcoholic. The play was able to portray its message of the dangers of alcohol to both body and relationships very well and I would recommend this play to anybody else.
This play is also the one that Hannah and I will be doing our scene from. We had to do a little bit of cutting but we are going to do a scene where they are both desperate for alcohol and are needing it and then transition into a separate scene where they have been doing good with their recovery and have decided to celebrate with a drink. This scene will be different then anything I have done before and should be an interesting one.
And on a side note, I got into the film that I auditioned for last night and am very excited. It will be my first film and should be a great experience.
So, today in class first off we did a ball game where the person would start off by throwing the ball into the center and then they would call somebody's name and then that person would have to touch the ball before it touched the ground twice and then call somebody elses name and then it would continue. If a person was to not touch the ball before it hit the ground twice then that person would be out. I think the reason for this exercise was to help with listening and reacting skills. We really had to listen for our names and then react once we heard it.
We also talked a little more about monologues and scenes. I will be doing my monologue for the first time on thursday so I will tell you all how it goes. Right now, its in my mind but I need to work on it more to get it cemented in my mind. For our scene, Hannah and I have two ideas. We will either do one from Days of Wine and Roses or one from Closer and you will hear about both of those after I have finished reading them. We will for sure know the scene we are doing after class on thursday.
Also, today, I had an audition for a student film, which I thought went really well. They said we will keep in touch. I will also keep you all updated on that and if I get in it.
So, today I went to go see the musical “Birds of Paradise” at San Diego State University and enjoyed it very much. This hilarious comedy about an amateur theatre group putting on a musical version of The Sea Gull was written by Winnie Holzman and David Evans and directed by theatre faculty Paula Kalustian.
First of all, I would like to say just how much I enjoyed the show. I enjoyed all of the songs, while at the same time I really liked the story and the complex characters within the story. Each character was very different from the next and was showed very well throughout the play. Each character had their own set of physicalizations, problems, goals and thoughts about the other characters and I just found each character to be interesting and unique in their own way. For example there was the organized housewife, Stella who just seemed to have the perfect life and just wanted everybody to be happy but it turned out that her marriage was not as happy as the audience thinks and everything gets revealed later on. Also the relationship between Marjorie and her son, Homer is a lot more complicated then first thought. In the beginning we just think that it’s a normal mother son relationship but later on we realize that it has to do with Marjorie’s loneliness and sadness and her fear of letting her son go.
Each character also had very distinct goals they were trying to accomplish and things that they wanted while the other characters may have wanted completely different things. Homer, the composer, really just wanted to get his work out there and to “spread his wings” and get out into the world and he does this by using his friend Julia’s goal, which in the long run is to get out into the professional acting world. Homer’s goal is then fighting throughout the play with Lawrence, the professional actor’s actions, which includes changing the play that Homer wrote to reflect what Lawrence likes and what Lawrence wants. Everybody in the play had specific goals that the actors had to play, and what made it even harder was how each characters had goals that were crucial to story of play, so all actors had to make sure that the audience really saw what their characters wanted.
Another thing I really liked about the play was its parallel to The Sea Gull by Anton Chekhov. I previously crewed for a production of The Sea Gull and thought that it was very interesting just how much the play paralleled the show and how each character went through many of the same things that the characters from Chekhov’s play went through. The plot of “Birds of Paradise” was basically a lighter version of “The Seagull” and the characters all seemed to parallel somebody from the original show.
I enjoyed this show immensely and thought it had a wonderful story, superb acting and beautiful music that will remain in my head for many hours.
So, I was able to finish up the second part to Tony Kushner's Angels in America. This continued right from where the first part left off. Louis continued to feel guilty about his leaving prior and decides to fill the guilty feeling by going out and being with Joe. Joe eventually realizes that, once Louis makes the decision to go back to Prior, he loves Harper and really does want to be with her. The play ended with Roy dying from his illness and the two couples: Joe and Harper, and Louis and Prior not getting back together. The pain Harper and Prior both had to go through was just too much and they couldn't let Joe and Louis back into their life. In the end, this play went way beyond being a gay play. Not only did it include gay people living their lives but it also brought about the nature of love and what love is exactly. Another main idea of the play was getting across gay issues and the problems they have faced and to bring into view this disease that for years was thought to only be a gay disease and one that the government did not feel needed to be faced. It brings to light the intolerance against gay people that has gradually started to become more prevalent in American society and the prejudices associated with AIDS and those inflicted with it. The ending of this play is able to give us hope. It tells us to not just give up. That as long as America stays progressive and the minority does not give in we still have hope. Minorities can do anything as long as they remain strong and do not let the majority get in their way.
MONOLOGUE:
Prior:
"I'm almost done. The fountains not flowing now, they turn it off in the winter, ice in the pipes. But in the summer its a sight to see. I want to be around to see it. I plan to be. I hope to be. This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with living, and we are not going away. We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come. Bye now. You are fabulous creatures, each and every one. And I bless you: More life. The Great Work Begins."
Okay, so first i'm going to catch you up all on the film festival I saw at my school last friday. It was a collection of films made my both undergraduate and graduate students. I really enjoyed the film festival and thoroughly enjoyed seeing what my fellow students have been making. There was a large group of films, each very different ranging from documentaries to adaptations to narratives. My favorite film there was probably "Day Labor" which was a touching film about latino Americans who are trying to find work and support their family. I thought it was a very good story but also one that was sad and very close to what really happens. Its message is great and one that does want to make the audience take action and try to fix the conditions that some people in our country have to live in because of discrimination. Overall the film festival was great and I encourage everybody to go to the SDSU film festivals.
And then now I'm gonna talk a little bit about what we did in class today. First off, we did some stretching and warm up exercises, which afterwards I felt very good and much more relaxed and less tense then when I got to class. We also talked about who our scene partners for the first scene of the semester will be and I was paired with my friend Hannah. Professor Cirino then told us he wanted us to do a scene where we would be completely different then what we normally play or come off as, so he said I should do a scene where I am a rough and tough kinda guy. I'm really looking forward to doing a scene like this because I have never really played this kind of character ever so I can not wait to get to play that kind of character. Next he approved and told us which monologue he wants us to do for our first monologue. For me he chose the Nest monologue that I have put up in January. Well I think thats about it for now. You should all come see the Vagina Monologues on the 26th and 27th at 8 pm or on the 28th pm at San Diego State. And I will be doing light board operator for the show, so I hope to see you all there.
Okay, so the play that I read this week was Angels in America by Tony Kushner. I have been wanting to read this play for years and I am so happy that I finally did. I related to this play on a couple levels and it really spoke to me. I found this play very touching and one that I think everyone should read. I think it would really open peoples eyes to gay issues and the AIDS epidemic.
This play is about the lives of homosexuals in the time when AIDS was becoming a big issue. One of the couples portrayed was Prior and Louis. Prior had been hiding his sickness of AIDS from his longtime partner Louis, and when Prior eventually tells Louis about his sickness Louis gets scared and does what Prior was worrying about all along, leaves him. Joe, another character, is married to his wife, Harper, but has a secret that he has been hiding and feels ashamed of. Joe is a homosexual and eventually tells his wife, who gets upset and tells him to leave. Joe and Roy, an HIV positive man who sleeps with men but does not like labels and still considers himself heterosexual, meet through business and Roy needs help from Joe when his job is at stake, and even though Joe has developed feelings for Roy, he can't help him because of ethical issues. Part 1 ends with the sick Roy having a visit from his dark past come to haunt him. Joe and Louis, who is trying to figure out how he could have left Prior, meet up and discuss things that are going on and bond over some similarities. The play ends with Prior laying alone in his bed seeing an Angel descend upon him. This play touches on psychological effects brought on to a minority by discrimination. Also touched on labels and what labels actually mean. Makes the reader think about love and what love really is and just how complicated it can be. And finally it touches on how unexpected life is and that there is no way to run from something you are scared of. Eventually, you must face it and deal with it. You can't run away from something forever.
I found this play to be very moving and very relatable, especially for me on so many levels. I will now be reading Part 2 of Angels in America so be sure to keep checking back for when I talk about Part 2.
And like I usually do, I was able to find a monologue I liked and will post it here.
Roy:
"No. Like all labels they tell you one thing and one thing only: where does an individual so identified fit in the food chain, in the pecking order? Not ideology, or sexual taste, but something much simpler: clout. Not who I f*** or who f***s me, but who will pick up the phone when I call, who owes me favors. This is what a label refers to. Now to someone who does not understand this, homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men. But really this is wrong. Homosexuals are not men who sleep with other men. Homosexuals are men who in fifteen years of trying cannot get a pissant antidiscrimination bill through City Council. Homosexuals are men who know nobody and who nobody knows. Who have zero clout. does this sound like me, Henry?"
Okay, so today right we started class right away. We did not do any of the warm-ups beforehand that we usually do. This most likely had to do with the amount of stuff we had to do in class today. First of all we had to have some sort of monologue that we had in our repertoire prepared for class today, and we went right into the monologues. Each person gave a monologue and the purpose of this so that our professor Peter could see any bad habits we have while performing that he could help us get rid of. The monologue that I did was from The Misanthrope by Moliere and i'm really interested to see what Peter thought of it.
After our monologues, we finished up doing walks that we observed throughout our day to day life. I did the walk that I saw for the class today, and Peter said that my initial starting off point of the walk, would definitely be a very good gesture and position to keep in mind when thinking about some characters. This exercise definitely helps when it comes to trying to figure out physicalizations for a character. Observing people and finding something that works is a very good idea.
After the monologues and the walk, we talked about giving him ideas for monologues that we will be performing eventually. I have a couple ideas but I will post which one I actually get assigned to and then I will get to create a whole character paper and profile about it. I'm really looking forward to what monologue I get to work on next and even the first scene of the semester I get to work on. I'm looking forward to what Acting 2 has in hold for me next.
So today I went to see the new play Hip Hop Kim-Bop written by Elise Kim Prosser put on by the San Diego Asian American Repertory Theatre. First off, I just wanted to say how well written I thought the play was. It included contemporary jokes, which I thought pretty funny, as well as relevant information about Asian American history that I thought really helped pull the play along and helped to develop character.
The play was about a group of Asian American girls all with the last name of Kim, and all from different backgrounds, coming to jury duty and all meeting for the first time. They exchanged a lot of information and eventually through their exchange they created a bond and found that they really are not as different from each other as they first thought.
This play was very well put on and the production was great. I would like to say how I liked each of the actors and thought each was very believable and had their own set of characteristics. Basically, you could tell that each character was so different from one another. I also really enjoyed the character development that happened as the plays went on. At first each of the "Kim" characters seemed to be in their own world and thought that what they went through was the most important and that nobody is like them or knows what they have been through. As the play went on and as their was dialogue between the "Kims" each character started to find themself and identify with the others. This was a major step with each of the characters.
And although each of the characters eventually did identify with the others, they still were able to maintain their level of individuality they had when the play began. Each actor made their character unique even when the characters started to identify with the others. This play was able to remain funny and contemporary, while still giving the audience facts about what its like to be Asian American and some of the things they had to go through. The acting was great and each character gave a different perspective on being Asian American that when combined really gives the audience a feel of the experience. This play was a great example of Asian American theatre, and I applaud the writer, cast, and the crew for this great show.
Hey, so I know I just posted, but I have one other thing I would like to mention.
So, today the cast list for Midsummer Nights Dream for San Diego State University was posted, and boy was I nervous. I am very happy to announce that I was able to get into the show.
I am extremely excited to get started on rehearsal, and I know that this will be one great show.
Hey, everybody, so the play that I just got done reading for this week is "Six Degrees of Separation" by John. I found this to be an excellent play. I loved the way it was told like a story and how most of the actors broke the 4th wall and talked directly to the audience.
The story is about a young man named "Paul" who cons numerous families out of some money by making up a story about how his dad is a director and will making the musical "Cats" into a film. After the main couple that this happens to in the play finds Paul in bed with a hustler in the morning they get mad and kick him out of the house. They soon find out that this same thing has happened to numerous other families and they are soon talked to by a detective to find this "con man" so they can put him in jail. By the end of it, Ouisa, one of the people who gets conned finds herself bonded to the young man and convinces him to go to the police so that his punishment will be less severe. She as well as the readers realize that the young man is just a lonely kid who just really wants to be loved and to be a part of a family, and that is all he was really looking for through these cons. None of them just ever turned out the way he wanted them to turn out. He was just misunderstood and just really wanted to feel included.
And like I will look for with plays that I read here is a monologue I found in the book.
Paul:
"The imagination. That's our out. Our imagination teaches us our limits and then how to grow beyond those limits. The imagination says listen to me. I am your darkest voice. I am your 4 a.m. voice. I am the voice that wakes you up and says this is what I'm afraid of. Do not listen to me at your peril. The imagination is the noon voice that sees clearly and says yes, this is what I want for my life. It's there to sort out your nightmare, to show you the exit from the maze of your nightmare, to transform the nightmare into dreams that become your bedrock. If we don't listen to that voice, it dies. It shrivels. It vanishes. The imagination is not our escape. On the contrary, the imagination is the place we are all trying to get to."
Okay, so today in class we did some breathing exercises to work on our breath control for when we have long dialogue and I thought that this was a very good exercise for me personally. I, myself have always needed to work on breath control, so I think that this is a very good exercise that I should continue to do to help with breath control.
People also went up and imitated some things that they had observed over the past two days. This exercise is a good way to get rid of "yourself" and learn to pick up actions that separate you from the characters.
And as I said last post I will be posting things now, that I find that I do subconsciously.
Here are a few that I have noticed:
Open eyes wide. Pop the hip Rock back and forth Hold my hands together Rub my nose Twirl my hair Stutter
And thats what I can think of for now. Soon I will be posting a synopsis and another monologue from the next play I'm reading.
Hey everybody, so In Acting II today we did a lot of observation, physical and listening exercises. And these actually helped me greatly. The observation ones especially made me really think about some things.
One thing that I do know I need to work on is getting rid of these little things that I don't know that i'm doing but that I do anyway, and these things will actually be posted in my next post on thursday, but with these observation and physical exercises, I had to think about these things I do subconsciously and then change them into somebody else's actions through observation. Another exercise we did was taking a random pose, and then trying to walk normally while still maintaining some sort of semblance to the pose. I personally at first was walking too much like the "statue" and not "normal" enough, so I had to really think about making my statue semblance more subtle. This exercise really showed me just how much thought it really takes to just hide all little subconscious actions I make.
So I just read the play Nest and found it to actually be a very complicated play. Although it may have a rather complicated plot, this makes for a very interesting story, complex characters and a very interesting show. I will actually have an opportunity to see the show because one of the groups on campus will be performing it here at San Diego State University.
The play takes place during the early years in American history after the revolution, and when states are beginning to join the Union. The play follows two seperate stories that eventually meet up at the end. One of the stories follows the household of Jacob and Elizabeth who have their indentured servant, named Susanna. Mr. Drumble, a professor in Philadelphia, and Joe, a poet and student in philadelphia are also followed.
During the first half of the play, Jacob cheats on his wife Elizabeth with their servant, Shannon. The other story involved Mr. Drumble wanting somebody to create true American poems and literature, and decided to put his faith of being the first American poet into Joe. The two stories clash when Shannon kills her illegitimate baby that she had with Jacob in order to cover up the scandal between her and Jacob. Instead of it being covered up this action caused all of the society to find out about what she did and it condemned her to hanging and condemned Jacob to a lifetime of shame as being known as an adulterer. Joe and Mr. Drumble come in when Mr. Drumble wants Joe to write the poem talking about Shannon's scandal and what she has gone through. The chaplain in this represents the religious part of America and he makes numerous comments about what Shannon did and how it is looked upon in fundamentalist christianity. Shannon becomes known as an outlaw because of what she did and seeks comfort http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3562148687936382911with another outlaw Daniel Boone. Shannon eventually gets hanged, and the audience is left wondering what religion truly is, what really is out there, and whether or not right or wrong is conditional or not.
The play showed a conservative time in our history resisting change. Its when religion began getting questioned with Science but still winning out, sexual taboos being in full force and writers and artists making money off of tragedy. The main thing that is brought up though, is questioning right or wrong. Elizabeth could not have a child, so was it necessarily wrong for Jacob to try to have a child with Shannon. Most men at this time wanted their name to carry on. This was and still is a basic instinct of man. The fact that society made it such a "wrong thing" created a fear in Shannon, and made her do an even greater wrong. The question is, if the first thing she did with Jacob was not thought of as so wrong it has to be covered up, would she have still killed her child? Could Jacob really have been blamed for acting out such a basic human instinct?
Also with these plays I will analyze, I will be picking out one audition monologue I could use and will post it and comments on what you think of it is greatly welcome.
AUDITION MONOLOGUE:
Mr. DRUMBLE
"As of now, the English language contains only English poets. Shakespeare’s gone, he is theirs. Marlowe is gone. Chaucer and John Donne and Milton are gone. Theirs. And who do we have? We have the great authors of our constitution, a document I published myself. We have Mr. Charles Filsom the author of “The Adventures of Daniel Boone” which has sold most satisfactorily, but what we haven’t got is a Plato! Who will be our Homer? Who our Euripides, who our Socrates and Sophocles? I think we may do without an Aeschylus... I read a new play this morning, currently being performed in Paris. There is an American character in it. He is the villain. Murdered by a group of wealthy widows that he has failed to seduce, in the final act"
Thanks for Reading and more postings will be up shortly,
Hello everybody, my name is Ryan and I am a theatre arts student at San Diego State University aspiring to be an actor or have another career in the theatre arts.
This blog is going to be dedicated to theatre, and my thoughts about plays and shows that I have recently seen. I will be analyzing plays once a week that I read, and will be also talking about shows that I have seen and analyzing those as well. Other things may also find their way in here that seem appropriate for this blog.
Thanks everybody and you will be hearing from me soon,
