Learn Your Lines! And Learn Them Well!

I learned a valuable lesson today... Learn your lines! And learn them well!

For Auto-Course this week we did the Petruchio/Katharine fight/love scene from The Taming of the Shrew.

PETRUCHIO
Good morrow, Kate; for that's your name, I hear.


KATHARINE
Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:
They call me Katharine that do talk of me.


PETRUCHIO
You lie, in faith; for you are call'd plain Kate,
And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;
Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,
Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.


KATHARINE
Moved! in good time: let him that moved you hither
Remove you hence: I knew you at the first
You were a moveable.


PETRUCHIO
Why, what's a moveable?


KATHARINE
A join'd-stool.


PETRUCHIO
Thou hast hit it: come, sit on me.


KATHARINE
Asses are made to bear, and so are you.


PETRUCHIO
Women are made to bear, and so are you.

~

It's a fight, in which they fall in love, but they don't know it. We have to see the pleasure to fight. It can't be nasty. The characters might be unhappy but the actors are happy!

~

Sophia and I worked together. We were a really good match - we have quite opposite energies. And what we showed was actually pretty good. But I let us down but not learning my lines well enough. I put it off until Wednesday (shouldn't have gone to Poker night on Tuesday), and then I was sick on Wednesday (lines just would go in my head and then straight out again), and although I felt I had them by Thursday - actually doing the scene with Sophia proved I didn't. And then Friday is too late. Stressful and scary. It's no fun not being able to trust your brain. And I felt really bad for letting down Sophia. Because she was ready, but because I kept searching for lines, neither of us could really commit fully to the scene. Which was a shame because we really could rock this scene.

We were considering not presenting today, and as we were running late and nearly didn't make it to school on time (we ended up hitchhiking from Bourg La Reine), but we did perform.

I liked what we put together (in the rush that was this morning). We set up an 'apartment' set with a couch and table. The scene started with me lying sleazily and seductively on the couch with two glasses in my hand with the music 

'Harlem Noctourne' by Earl Bostic

 playing. This helped set a fun mood for our piece, and then when Sophia entered so against the rhythm of the music it was very funny - the audience liked us immediately.

Then I went over to Sophia and handed her a glass, which she splashed in my face. Now the audience were in our hands in a way. After teasing her about her name, I clicked my fingers to change the music to 

'Lover' by Frank Sinatra

which I sang to for a bit, and it set a good jovial mood to play with.

We both had good feisty energy - playing with each other and giving a lot. This was an issue with most groups today - not enough energy and not giving enough. But our instincts from the get-go were to make this scene really alive and exciting. It needs to have the passion of love and life in it!

Then, after lots of bickering and fighting, I clicked my fingers again and changed the music to 

'Tea For Two Cha Cha' by Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. 

This gave a great, slightly silly, rhythm to play with in my speech about how gentle and sweet Katherine is (even though he's totally lying). I actually totally screwed my lines up here (partly because I got hit in the face a little too hard by Sophia a few times!...but mostly due to my lack of knowing the lines...but it didn't matter. I just made them up and it turned out okay.

Philippe's feedback was okay in terms of our scene as a whole. We got a really great audience reaction - cheers and all. But Philippe criticised me for horrible movement (like an American construction worker) with really bad fixed point. This was totally true - I was all over the place - but I frankly I wasn't thinking about much other than my lines and being alive with Sophia. But he also said that for me I have good pleasure and game, and that they are always on - not 'on and off' like some actors have. So I was happy about that. I feel like the movement/fixed point issue can be easily fixed, and hopefully I'll get a chance to if we perform again, which I'd like to do.

After we performed, 'Steve Terrorist' (a nice Irish guy from 2nd year who I went to Hamlet with in London) said what we did was close to Vaudeville because of it's fast pace and gaggy-quality (e.g. water in face).

~

After the showings (which went surprisingly quickly - Philippe was harsher today - but he killed us by playing uplifting classical music - so it didn't feel as bad) Ben worked on Julius Caesar again. He got him to speak like an Orator, and like someone speaking at a funeral. These are the keys to the speech. He also got him (as his character) to speak to us - the audience - and then (as himself) to his Dad and say "look at me!" I understand what this little exercise does now. a) It injects the actor with pleasure - because it's a bit of a silly and fun thing to do & b) it removes the actor from the character and makes what he is playing clearer. By switching from yourself and back to a character quickly the choices you make to play are clearer. "Watch me as I do this low and sombre voice..."

"In tragedy you can't touch your body...it makes you smaller."

~

Franck also got up to work on text (Finally! He hasn't done anything all workshop I think!). Philippe worked with him to be really simple. He was doing too much and losing all his power because of it.

"You fight to do to do to do. You do so many things. You do too much."

"You have to be simple and have good timing. Many times it's enough."

"Fixed point and our imagination does a lot."

~

This evening I went to a mime show with Erin and Eli (and others) called La Chambre de Camille by a company called 'Hippocampe' which featured a friend of Maria's (who was in the sexy park bench scene with her in their mime show).

It was dancey and physical - inspired by love and Rodin's sculptures. I liked seeing human bodies portraying sculptures onstage. Really beautiful shapes. And it's a really satisfying sensation when a mimed movement 'clicks' into place. Not totally my cup of tea. But good to go and sit in a dark room and watch a show with friends at the end of a big week!