Acting

I was talking with Brittney and Beth the other day about life revelations and what we want to do with ourselves when we graduate and enter the "real world". While Brittney and I are both passionate about theater, neither of us see it as very plausible for a job or lifestyle after school. Beth, on the other hand, knows that acting is what she wants to do and is determined to act or be in theater as her job. I really hope that she does go into theater and I hope that she is happy with it. It just seems like a lifestyle full of disappointment and always living on the edge as well as a ton of work, and yet since it is something that you really love isn't it worth it? Anyways, Brittney was saying that she could never act as a job because it is too selfish and doesn't make any difference in the world. But I totally disagree - I feel like acting is very selfless, it is putting yourself out there in a vulnerable state for an entire audience of people to watch and comment on and judge. It takes intense work and so much energy to keep shows fresh and new for the audience as well as making it seem real and believable. I do somewhat understand what Brittney meant by saying that you don't really make a difference as an actress. I know in the future I want to accomplish good for the world and not just have a job to make money. Acting is one of those things where you really can reach out and touch people. A great actor can make people ponder the show and want to make a difference. The limitation to acting is that you have to use the words in the show and not words of your own (unless you are a playwright as well). Thus, it is dependent on the show itself to make a difference, the actor can only either make the show come to life and work, or else make the show flop, but it is ultimately dependent on the show itself to be the words that affect the audience.

Acting classes

Next semester I am signing up to take a Beginning Acting class. I am starting to have some second thoughts about this class. I have never (before this class, Intro to Theater) taken any kind of structured theater classes or had any acting training. I have simply tried out for shows and acted in them. So, I was really excited about taking an acting class and learning about acting as an art and an educational process rather than just an extracurricular hobby that I do when I have the time. But now I am starting to have some second guesses about it. Why do I need training? Will I just start taking some same certain approach to shows because that is what I will be taught? Will the methods that I learn hinder me from really getting into the character or will they help me? Isn't it enough to just act from however you feel the character should act and using your own personal experiences to back up the character choices - or is this not the way to approach acting? I feel like I can pretty successfully find the nuances in a character just from imaging myself in that position and as that person, but maybe this is wrong? Is it wrong to put yourself into the characters? Maybe as a great actor you somewhat turn off yourself and turn on the character you are acting as? I am just worried that taking acting classes will turn me into a single-type actor who can really only play roles in one certain way because I have learned how to act in a certain way. Then again, this is probably not true at all, because the best actors go through a lot of training. Maybe I am just getting cold feet. Acting is one of those really intimidating things where you have to open yourself up to a room full of people and let yourself be vulnerable. I hope that it is a good idea to take an acting class!

More Antigone

So one of the major director choices that was made in our school's production of Antigone was the choice to make the entire show in the time period of Nazi Germany when Jean Anouilh actually wrote the play. I thought that this was great and really added a lot to the show. When the audience walked into the theater, they were first approached by actors in Nazi uniforms who would randomly search audience members or ask them questions. It was a little offsetting (which was the purpose) and really made one think about how we take for granted our ability to waltz into a theater and see whatever we would like. One thing that I wish was that the Nazi setting had been a bit more prominent. Since the director made the choice to put the play in the setting of the time, I wish that it had been taken even further. Even though I saw people getting searched, I, myself (nor any of the people that I was with) were searched or harassed, and the Nazis standing around were a little confusing. My roommate had also told me before I went to the show that there were people planted in the audience that were going to be searched and then kicked out. If I hadn't known this and been on the lookout for it, I would not have noticed it. But, since I knew that it was going to happen I watched for it and thought that this added a lot. It really transports the audience into a different world and different reality. The end of the show is what really worked, I thought. The actors all come out and take their bows and the audience is clapping, etc. for them, when an actress runs to the stage with flowers and the guards roughly stop her, and there is a great moment of tension between actors, Nazis, and the colonel/whoever the man was who was the Nazi watching the show (I forget his title). The way that the actors all left the stage glaring at the Nazis and completely unhappy and disgusted put an entire new level on top of the show itself. I thought this was a great choice and really let the audience see the hidden meanings behind Anouilh's version of the play and his commentary on the tyrannical government.

Antigone

I went to see Antigone on opening night because my roommate, Beth, played Antigone. It was really a phenomenal show, it put Superman to shame. The acting was solid, and the director's choice to create the atmosphere of Nazi Germany to show what it had truly been like when this version of the play was first being put on gave the show an entirely different feeling. (More about this aspect of the show later)

There were a few things that I did not agree with about actor choices in the show. After having read this version of Antigone in class, I had an entirely different outlook on the show. In highschool we read the original Antigone, and the dialogue between Antigone and Creon clearly made Creon the "bad" character, the unfeeling and unsympathetic tyrant, while Antigone was clearly the heroine, the brave young girl who stood up against authority and the tyranny of her uncle in order to uphold her morals. But, when we read Jean Anouilh's version in class, I understood the story in an entirely new way. Antigone seems a foolish and thoughtless child who sees only her own problem and doesn't look beyond what she sees right and wrong. Creon, on the other hand, is rational and is thinking about the entire kingdom under his rule. He is unable to think emotionally about all of his choices and has to make sacrifices in order to better the entirety of the state. Reading the play I envisioned him rational and somewhat pitying Antigone for not being able to understand the situation on his level. Antigone is adament about her beliefs despite Creon just wanting to save her and help her understand why he is unable to bury her brother. (Tangent - at the same time I recognize that Anouilh is actually saying that Creon is a tyrant - with choices such as his statement that he is going to kill all three guards in order to save Antigone. He is really just trying to save his status and position, keep his son's future wife alive and keep his power in its absoluteness.) Anyways, I felt that the actor playing Creon in the show did not really portray this side of Creon. He was truly a tyrant, scary and insensitive to anyone but himself. Especially at the end, when Creon's family has fallen apart, both his son and his wife have killed themselves - I felt that here Creon should show some emotion, some regret, or pain, and yet the actor chose to play it off as just business and seemed mechanical and inhuman. Also, in the long interaction with Antigone, Creon continually tries to save her, tries to convince her to listen to him and take his help, and tries to make her understand why he had to make the decree that he did. The actor playing Creon seemed to have two emotions: a passive, normal tone and an over-the-top angry. He would switch between one and the other without really building up anger which made it seem unrealistic. I wish that he had played a more rational Creon who had thought all of his decisions about the body, etc. through many times rather than a Creon with a temper who just yelled a lot.

Final!!!

Tonight is our final show! Very exciting. Thought that I would do a blog before we perform. Our last rehearsal was a little rough...there was a lot of forgetting lines, I told Troy that he cheated on me with a man (accidentally), then the rest of the rehearsal was a lot of laughing throughout practice...so we decided we are meeting early tonight to get everything down pact for the performance. We are all working well togehter though, I think our group has really gelled and now we need to just step it up for the performance. I really have not had energy recently and hope that I can really get into the role for tonight like I did last time...I have definitely not been feeling it the way I was before, I think it is a combination of it being the end of the semester so my heart isn't into it as much any more, as well as my getting over mono. Anyways, I hope that tonight turns out ok.

On another note, I went to see the director's shows the other night and it was a lot of fun. They were all one acts and all of them ended up being comedies. They were well performed and the staging was great as well. It really made me start thinking more about all the choices a director has to make and how it can completely change an act and bring things more to life or make things more comical, etc. For example, in Breast Men, every time one of the two main actors would say "Two Muskateers" they would both simultaneously do a little fencing move which was hilarious. I am starting to try to find little things like this as an actor that can be added to scenes and make them more engaging.

Last week of classes!!!

How exciting is it to be in the last week of classes?? EEK! Well, our group is doing well working on our scene for the final. It is a little intimidating because at this point no one in our group really has their lines memorized at all...but we have had some good rehearsals during class as well as having met outside of class to rehearse. So I think we will be in good shape. We decided to do the same scene from our midterm and just add onto it and include our entire group in the acting. This time around we are all more comfortable with each other and I think we are all contributing more to the group. When one person isn't currently in the scene, they are sitting and watching and giving comments. Pretty much we are all stepping up into the role of the director (although Brittney is still technically our director and calls all the final shots). I am really enjoying working with the people in my group and hope that the show will really come together. Our biggest challenge right now is maintaining focus with the threat of finals looming ahead and all the assignments we have in our other classes. I still think we will pull it together though.

End of Theater Labs

Although I really enjoyed the labs and thought they were fun and let us get in touch with another part of our creative sides, I don't think I really benefitted from them. I didn't ultimately learn anything new or anything that I used in my midterm production. I don't know if this is maybe because I have taken previous art classes ?? (the classes really weren't Bad, I just didn't really learn anything...). But overall I enjoyed the classes and think that they touched on the basic skills that are necessary for the artistic design behind theater productions, but I knew most everything without the labs...they were kind of a waste...but a great idea - I think it is hard to create a design lab for the most basic level there is, and in this sense the labs were great.

On another note, I saw the school's production of "Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love" and thought it was amazing. I don't know if it's the first Brechtian play I've seen performed, I don't really think it was, but it is the first time that I have been able to identify what type of play it is because we are reading Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" in my American Lit class and talking about Brechtian theater. The play simply blew me away. The actors were all extremely passionate about their roles and their characters (despite it being an over half-empty theater in the middle of the day with a second performance later in the evening...). They had to keep up intense energy and remain always completely in character because there was no backstage. The theater in the round set up forced them to be always onstage, even for costume changes, and the director had to use a lot of staging and lighting techniques to make sure that the audience's attention was always directed at the area of important action. I think that this worked successfully - I always found myself watching the show and then suddenly another side would be illuminated and the set or costumes of a character would have changed without my noticing. With such a simple set and a few props, the story was still truly brought to life by the intensity of the actors and the small blackbox theater really drew the audience in. We were close to the actors not only literally, but close to the action of the play as well.