Today started off rocky, but ended
up being quite successful. We started off with something called Colombian
Hypnosis, which is when Person B must stare at and follow Person A’s hand as
Person A moves around. This is effective in terms of concentration and building
a connection between actors. It’s also just really fun. Then, I had them do the
exercise as Person B, but with an invisible Person A. If someone had walked
into the room just then, it would definitely looked like they were crazy-
because they weren’t trying to be. The hand is so real to them, butt he
audience doesn’t see it. That’s how we should have played ‘crazy’ in Sweeney
Todd.
Next was the ‘Question Game’, which
I adopted from Whose Line is it Anyway?
(great show). All they do is have a conversation, but only using question. It
started off pretty horrible, but they really got the hang of it after a while.
Several times they got stuck or started laughing, but they really pulled
through it.
We established all the official
turning points of the show- as in the literal points in the text where they
must walk around the table. It’s looking a lot better. I’m having them really
play to everyone (it helps that they’re shifting in a circle). One critique
that, oddly enough, works for Mariah is ‘Be happy’. It’s not as if her
character actually needs to be happy
per se, because it isn’t actually happier
that I want Megan to come across as. It’s more of an energy type of thing. Whenever
I tell her to be happy, I get exactly the PERFECT result from her character.
Same thing with Steve when I tell him to think about what he’s saying more, and
say things differently.
We finally worked the banana scene!
It looks fantastic. Poor Steve went through FOUR bananas, but he’s got the
whole effect down. I honestly thought it would be harder, but he knows what I’m
looking for and certainly can deliver.
I can see that they’ve both put a
lot of effort into studying the script and memorizing the lines. The meaning as
well. It’s really working out, I’m impressed. I’m getting them munchkins for
next rehearsal for all their solid work.
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