Exercise: Marionettes

For: Two Actors.
Aim: To help actors be comfortable keeping eye-contact and to work together for non-verbal communication.
How: The two actors stand comfortably apart facing each other. Keeping eye-contact, one actor moves the other by pulling invisible strings - hence the name of the exercise.
Variations:
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp -The actors can stand one behind the other - obviously a little difficult to keep eye-contact in this variation.
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp -The actors can stand on opposite sides of the stage and one can draw the other one across the stage to them using the strings.
Important Points:
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp -The actors should focus on making the strings 'real'. This means they should not be looking at the 'operator's' hands.

Exercise: Mirroring

For: Two actors.
Aim: To focus attention and improve interpersonal relationships.
How: Two actors stand comfortably apart but facing each other. The director asks one actor to start a movement which the second actor copies. The actors then swap leadership. Eventually, an audience should not be able to tell which actor is the follower and which is the leader.
Important Points:
-The actors should keep eye-contact throughout the exercise.
-The aim is not to do movements that the other cannot copy; we must contantly think of our scene-partner.
-The actors should be paying attention to the specificity of their actions; they should not just attempt to copy but attempt to copy EXACTLY.
Notes: I have used this exercise with three actors but it becomes a little more complex.

Creeping up Slowly

We have just had another rehearsal for Winter's Tale, Hector has improved greatly, and it was the first rehearsal with Florizel and Perdita.

Instead of running lines, we focused more on exercises to get the cast freed-up. This didn't quite go as well as it could have since the actor playing Perdita was at rehearsal on-time and - naturally enough - got pissed off that the others were late; we started our 1400 rehearsal at 1430 once it became clear some actors weren't going to show up. However there was great energy between the two throughout the exercises. We started with mirroring and, since this worked so well, we went onto Two Men in an Empty Space. Nothing much happened but the two had a fantastic potential space between them and we even discovered that the actor playing Perdita was definitely the dominant partner.

We followed these two exercises with Line Swapping. I could sense that neither actors were particularly interested but - with a bit of gentle prodding - we started to get somewhere. Instead of simply going over the same thing constantly and not getting any form of variation, I varied my tactics and threw in some side-coaching to keep the actors on task. The actors at least eventually varied how the lines were spoken. However, they hesitated to use their bodies when saying lines and I was forced to changed my focus again. I tried statues but again the actors would not give me any "big" offers so I mobilised the good old extend/advance, which got them working much better. At one point, one actor didn't actually make an offer for the provocation "bastard" but I could see the potential in her pose. After a few extensions she fully embodied the "bastard" who is alone, out-cast, and carries the weight of social opprobrium; from a simple nothing of an offer we can make a stronger offer that actually means something.

We then went back to working with the script. Florizel and Perdita are so in love that they should revel in each other's company. However, the two actors simply walked onto the stage apart and stood "chatting." I asked them to link arms and skip on instead; what a change in energy! Instead of just walking and standing around, the rest of the scene was imbrued with such life and bubbliness that the actors wanted to interact together more. It really is amazing how a simple direction can make wonderful changes to the resulting scene.

So inspired by the results with these two, I tried the exercises on the rest of the cast. I feel we now need to shift our focus to getting more action into the lines since we are getting far too much standing around talking; I am worried that if the actors don't start acting now then they will get into the habit of simply reciting their lines. To this end, I got them to do Line Swap and Statues. Hector surprised me exceedingly. Although he did withdraw at one point - by sitting on the steps during the exercises - I simply carried on rather than taking him to task for his withdrawal. He did join in the Statues exercise well and actually seemed to enjoy it!

I then asked to see the scene Hector and his partners had been working on whilst I was rehearsing with Florizel and Perdita. There was such a change! He was off-book totally - only needing a couple of prompts - as was everyone else! This, I think, gave him such confidence that he was more free with himself and endowed his movement with much more intention. Now, we just have to work on understanding the script more fully so the meaning can come across better.

Reflective Journals

During the last rehearsal [two nights ago] I, finally, figured out how to do a reflective practice journal. I was confronted with a challenge in rehearsal for Winter's Tale. One of my actors, let's call him Hector since this post will make very little sense if I don't name him and I don't want to use his real name (for reasons that will become, I hope, apparent), has only been in one play before and he is having trouble with personal inter-relationships. Hector is finding it difficult to be close with his scene partner, both physically and emotionally.

When I realised this problem existed we broke out of rehearsing the scene and tried some exercises. First, I asked him and his partner to do Blind Exploring. In this exercise, I ask the actors to sit in two chairs that are place almost parallel with each other - the aim is to allow the actors to be within comfortable reach of each other. They are then blindfolded and asked to take turns exploring the other's body with their hands. Hector was too timid and was very reluctant to actually touch his scene partner. Indeed, he seemed to be doing the exercise to please me rather than for his own benefit. Hector's partner - a current Theatre Studies student - took the opportunity to explore his partner physically.

The next exercise we tried was a simple mirroring one. Again, Hector hat trouble keeping eye-contact. IT is often hard for me to remember that some people have personal-space. I am also very comfortable keeping eye-contact with people for extended periods.

The third exercise we shall call Marionettes. I set Hector the task of physically manipulating his scene partner to make him walk from one side of the stage to the other. During this exercise, I had to side-coach Hector to move his partner gently as he was being rather violent - and not in a good, Anne-Bogart kind of way. Indeed, throughout rehearsal, he was either too gentle or too rough but had difficulty in walking the middle-ground. During this exercise, Hector informed me - rather bluntly - that these things weren't helping and he was getting irritated; his suggestion was that he was becoming irritated with the waste of time.

During a break later in rehearsal, I had a chat with Hector. He told me he was not used to the intense closeness required for theatre. This is understandable and, yet, I feel my skills are not good enough to help teach him what he needs to learn. That, and the fact production-week looms. This situation, however, is a good one in that it forces me to think of alternative ways of reaching an actor. I did tell him that on-stage is not the real-world - a concept so clearly taught to me by Hilary Halba in THEA252. As such, we have a greater freedom on the stage; the audience pays for us to do what they cannot because social convention dictates that they do not. I feel this is a point that needs to be re-iterated.

Hector caught me quite off-guard. During, all the plays I have directed, I have not had to help actors who had built so many walls around themselves. Even if people aren't good actors - or didn't have "talent" - if they have been involved in theatre - and this also goes for back-stage work - they are usually very open. With Hector, I am finding that there is a lot of basic work we need to to just to get him to open up. I also have to say, I didn't handle the situation at all well. I think I took Hector's challenge to be lack of respect. I don't demand that my cast worship me - as some, more "traditional" directors like to think they rule the theatre - but I do ask that they listen to me and be willing to collaborate. Of course, there are times when collaboration just doesn't work for whatever reason and we have to be mature and accept this. However, during last night's rehearsal, I found that I could not get back into the flow of rehearsal and this situation was between us all evening.

I think taking a step back will also help in this situation. Instead of focusing on the relationships directly, I think I will try to focus on other theatrical skills. Here, I have in mind Richard Huber's exercise, from THEA451, of Whole-Body Listening. Simply, an actor says something - usually a short piece of their lines. Their scene partner listens with their whole body and says: " I think you are X" - where X is an adjective. The actor then takes that prompt and acts on it, emphasising the way that his partner has told him he was acting. The pair then continue in this fashion for a while and then switch roles. This exercise is an amazingly good one because, surprisingly, the adjective changes and the end mode of acting is completely different from the beginning but there is a logical progression from one step to the next. It not only helps the partners work together - thereby building relationships in a non-threatening way - but also takes the onus of the actor since the does not have to come up with a way to play the line. It also provides myriad ways of playing the line, some of which could be brought into the production. Hopefully, this will help Hector open up.

This challenge is good for me. In the past my techniques have worked so I have not had to think about other ways of directing. Sure, I have brought in things from other directors that I liked/thought would work but my technique has remained pretty much constant. Now, I have to be creative in mobilising - or constructing - exercises to help this actor overcome his blocks.

Not only do I have to be creative but I also have to be careful. As a non-experienced actor, Hector could end up erecting more blocks if he feels I am personally attacking his skills or - even worse - his self. This is farthest from my objective! I do not want to take him down; he has done great work thus far and just needs to open up to improve further.

I think there is also a problem with motivation. Here I am using the word not in the sense "Hector is not motivated" but I don't think he understands why he agreed to undertake this role. Perhaps I should set him a homework task to write down why he is in the play and what he wants to get out of the experience. [Note to self: this would be good for me to do also!] I think those of us in the know why we do a project - fun, compulsion, desire, to grow/learn, need etc - but we often forget our reasons because they become second-nature. For someone starting out, however, these reasons may not be clear so there is less desire to strive. Personally, I would like to see Hector grow - both as an actor and as a person - since I think he has great potential. My job not is to find a way to let this happen.

There are two further complicating factors. The firs is that Hector doesn't know his lines. This, I believe, daunts him. He is too worried about trying to impress me, or rather not disappoint me, that he gets too mentally-oriented. I also think he is using not knowing the script as a way to avoid facing the challenges the part entails. The second factor, which I totally forgot about during rehearsal, is that this is the first time these two have rehearsed together; I even neglected to introduce the actors at the beginning of the rehearsal! That is something over which I had complete control and, I have to say it, something in which I failed.

Now, to return to my first statement. I have had to keep a journal for three of my theatre papers: THEA421, THEA451, and THEA453, yet each of these were a challenge. Particularly my 453 - the aim of which was "how to ethically stage gay relationships using the text of Shakespeare as a vehicle - an aim very similar to that of my production of Winter's Tale. There, however, I was using theatre students who were relatively experienced. Consequently, I found my reflective journal difficult as there were not so glaringly obvious challenges upon which I could comment. Now, however, I have met a real challenge which can guide me in effectively using a reflective journal for recording - and rehearsing - the challenges I face as a director and my solutions to them. I can also record my success and failures in solving those challenges. Hopefully, now I have been presented with a glaringly obvious challenge, I can see how to mobilise a journal to record the less obvious ones.

As a little aside, it was great to get back to using exercises to solve problems. During the rest of rehearsals I had kind of forgotten this way of working - although it has worked very well for me in the past - and fallen back into the old habit of more blocking the action. This is just bad directing; repeat after me: "I will not treat the actors as meat-puppets!"