The Alexander Technique

Today, I found this article about the usefulness of The Alexander Technique in acting.

http://www.alexandertechnique.com/articles/acting/


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.

Children of a Lesser God by Mark Medoff

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.

Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello

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.