Published on Wednesday April 28, 2004 .
Tonight I finally finished working on the scene “One Sunday Afternoon“. My partner and I delivered two good performances which Tom was pleased with. But his approval wasn’t an enthusiastic one, it was more of a, “that was a good performance which demonstrates you understand the scene, the story, the characters, the circumstances and the emotions”. In other words, if this was a test we would have been given a “B” grade instead of an “A” grade. That is because there was still a couple of things we could have been added to the scene - tears of joy and more love. I’m a little disappointed with myself, but it’s time to move on…
Class was a little different tonight. Tonight we worked on cold reading and audition technique. I have actually participated in several cold reading and audition technique workshops over the years, but this time was different. This time I could apply my training and the “method” to break down the script and create a performance.
The class was run like an actual audition. We were all given the same scene and asked to study it outside. Then we were called into the room individually to read for the “casting director” in front of the camera. After we had all completed are “audition”, we were all called back into the room to watch the tape of the auditions. Tom then gave his critique on each performance and told us what we could do to improve our performances.
Watching each person audition was very eye opening. Overall, Tom was very pleased with all of our performances. I myself, was horrified at mine. Tom said that I had a very solid audition, but personally, I thought I looked very wierd. It had to be the lighting and the way I was sitting in the light. I don’t know, but I was freaked out a little.
Well Saturday I’ll have a second chance to not “look wierd”. We’re doing cold reading and audition technique for one more class before we move on to our FINAL scene.
BTW, for my final scene I have been assigned the play “She Stoops to Conquer“. I was told by one of my classmates that there are accents used in the scene. That’s just great. The only accent I can do decently is Jamaican and I highly doubt that is the accent needed for this scene…
Published on Wednesday April 14, 2004 .
Fawn and I performed our scene for Tom tonight and received a lot of notes. Basically, my major critique is that I am not Biff. Currently, my portrayal of Biff Grimes is too modern, too confident, too romantic, too refined and nothing like Biff Grimes. In other words, I don’t have a good grasp of my character. His compliment to me was that although my current performance is emotional and talented, I need to find Biff Grimes. He also said not to get frustrated because in reality, I would never be cast as this type of character. The character is too much of a stretch of who I am in real life, but is a good exercise for me as an actor and leading man.
I do feel frustrated that I can’t embody this character. I’m also frustrated that the past couple of classes and coachings that I have had, the other teachers didn’t work with me more in finding my character. Tom had a lot of very good points in his critique (as he always does) and wants to work on the scene outside of class to help me and my partner really nail the characters down. This is a good thing but I just wish I had been working more on this before…
Published on Wednesday April 7, 2004 .
That was the critique I received from one of my acting coaches tonight. She said my performance was seamless, organic and very connected - the best performance she has seen from me this year.
It feels good to get such positive feedback and know that the training is helping.
…But I know I can go deeper…
Published on Wednesday March 17, 2004 .
I’m so exhausted right now…
Tonight I didn’t have to perform my scene because one of my two scene partners is out of town. It was a nice break to just sit and watch the scenes tonight. Once again I’m very impressed with the progress people are making with their scenes. One scene in particular, from “Hatfull of Rain”, really touched me. The scene is between a husband and a wife. The husband has recently lost another job working at a factory because he has become addicted to heroine. The wife doesn’t know he has been on heroine but instead thinks he has been cheating on her for months because he is always out and never home. The husband can’t find the words to tell his wife that he now has a drug problem. In this particular scene, the wife confronts her husband wanting to know who the other girl is and the husband is trying to convince his wife that he is not cheating on her, hiding the fact he has been out doing drugs. The scene is filled with a lot of tension and emotion on both sides and at the end the husband says, “I love you but I have to go out tonight…” and he leaves. Great scene.
My scene is coming along pretty well. In Tom’s recent critique of the scene, he said that I am doing a beautiful job performing the scene as myself being the most humble and repentful. BUT, I have not yet embodied the character of Biff Grimes. Biff Grimes is awkward and kind of a “knuckle head”. My performance is too confident and does not show awkwardness. Although, the good thing is that I have found the emotions in the piece. I can actually get really choked up and emotional in certain parts of the script where it calls for me to be choked up and emotional. It’s pretty cool!