Thursday 3 – June 14th Day 10

I was too tired to write this last night.

One thing I missed telling you about on Wednesday was one of the games during the “clown” session. He got five people to sit on the floor in a row. The first person was to get the second person laughing and the second person was to pass it on to the third and so on until it got to the fifth person who was to hit a ten on a 1 to 10 scale of laughing. Sound dumb? That’s being a clown. Anyway, the first group got everyone in the group laughing. I mean really laughing. I mean like pee in your pants laughing. And they kept laughing and kept on laughing and kept on laughing for minute after minute after minute. Every time the laughing slowed down, someone would start up again and in a second everyone was back laughing at full volume. This kept on and on. While they were doing this we were laughing too – it was just so funny watching the laughing start to quiet down then take off again. After several minutes the instructor pointed to three more to join them and then we had eight people laughing their asses off. In less than a minute he had the entire group sitting on the floor laughing. On my right was John – a director from NYC, on my left was Pia a director from London. They were both laughers. Just listening to them kept me laughing. After several minutes the laughing was slowing down except for the ones on either side of me. They were trying not to laugh but that made me laugh so off we were again – the whole group laughing . I don’t know how long it lasted but it was a long time.

Now there are a few misguided directors who have put together a plan for the whole group to do this on the plaza in front of the theater.

On Thursday we had the second days of the same three people we had on Wednesday.

Master Teacher Ron van Lieu.

As directors, we use adjectives as shorthand to communicate with our actors: Be funnier, sexier, bigger, softer. This puts the actors concentration on how to do that rather than what they are on stage to do. If the actors finds it themselves, they will own it and it will be more real to the audience.

When he was directing the actors in the scene from Streetcar Named Desire, he asked the actress playing Stella to describe the apartment after the party the night before. She described it in unbelievable detail right down to the way the room smelled (stale beer and man sweat). I was blown away by how much detail and how much work she had put into a room that was just a table and three chairs. Beware the next time I direct you in a scene!!!!

You (the actor) need to have your own opinions about statements made by the other actors. For example, In Streetcar, Blanch tells Stella that she went to Florida over Christmas. Do you believe her? Do you believe what she said she did in Florida?

To an actor: Before you do it for real, you have to throw it out there – over do it – make it over the top, so you can pull it back inside you and make it right. (Note: This is very different than the people I direct who keep taking baby steps and may never be big enough or over the top.)

There is a danger in complimenting an actor:
It puts an obligation on the actor to do it again
It makes the actor self conscious of it.

Compliment in general and correct specifically. (Don’t know if I can do this!!!)

“Lets do it one time badly.” Gives the actor permission to experiment and try things and do things that are clearly not right.

The actors who did Death of a Salesman on Wednesday were not available on Thursday so he invited another pair of actors. They did a scene from Ibsen’s Doll House. The guy in the scene was nothing to write home about. I was very under impressed with his first read through. Then Ron worked with them and they did it again. The guy was much better. I could see and so could Ron, that the actor wanted to do things but he was afraid to try. Ron gave him permission and they did the scene again. This guy blew my socks off. What a change just giving him permission!!! (Which is exactly what I would have done in that situation.)

In the afternoon we did more Clown stuff. I finally got up and worked but it just isn’t my thing. He kept saying “Commit to the stupid stuff”. Well, I’m sorry, I’m just not into stupid. I tried but I really didn’t enjoy it.

In the evening we did more vocal stuff. I learned one big thing. Telling an actor to be louder (ever heard me call “volume”?) doesn’t accomplish anything. It means that the actor doesn’t have enough support from the diaphragm and just trying to be louder with a chest voice just strains the vocal chords. Actors need to learn to speak from the diaphragm.