Process as an Actor (commedia style)

This week I began to think more about the process as an actor. Because this is the first time I’ve been in the role of actor is has been especially important for me to understand the process behind the performance. Although in dance, and especially in ballet there is usually a story and thus stage-acting and ballet mime used, however in order to fully grasp the concept between my character of Il Capitano I had to go a step deeper. This “deepness” in commedia however does not stem from the same place as it does in Stanislavsky’s naturalistic theory. However we do use an aspect of Stanislavsky; the use of supe robjectives to drive the motivations of characters in individual scenes and the play as a whole. To begin the process we worked in pairs and researched the different conventions of commedia dell’arte. Since we’d recently returned from seeing “One Man Two Guvnors” in London, we were able to compare and contrast between modern commedia and commedia dell’arte. After our initial research we had a session where we officially “met the masks” of commedia. This practical work allowed us to test out the characters and learn about the basic movements of the stock commedia dell’arte characters. By seeing the masks and trying out the physicality of the characters, it allowed me as an actor to connect more with the personality of the character. This process was aided when we made our own commedia dell’arte masks. By experiencing this theatre in the making, I gained more of an awareness of Il Capitano because I physically built his extreme features (*cough, nose…)

            Once we had our preliminary research, as an ensemble we wrote a basic scenario. At the same time we distributed acting roles, we also distributed tech and design roles. I was allocated control of acrobatics and choreography. Because dance and acro have health and safety risks involved, I needed to make sure that all the members of the ensemble understood the basic vocabulary I’d be using when choreographing. To achieve this goal and to teach them some skills, I ran a master class on acrobatics. This class gave me more ideas of what to do, but helped inform the others in the ensemble about the level of energy and physicality required in the performance. As an actor and choreographer I am now in the process of incorporating choreographed elements into the play. To continue working on the scenario the next step in the process was to take freeze frames of the different scenes. I found this step very helpful because the pictures give us a visual representation of the scenes, and act as a story board that we can work from but then reshape and rework.

            After the basic structure of the story was established, it came time to improvise and begin “playing”. I found it much easier to come up with fun ideas when the whole ensemble worked together and helped by offering suggestions. Although everyone in the ensemble contributes, it is also important to have a leader. To solve to problem of a lack of focus we decided to take turns being the director for the rehearsal. So far it has worked very well. For example, when we were rehearing the restaurant scene Lydia was the director. Even though we were all contributing ideas the scene was becoming unfocused. Lydia took control and came up with the idea for cheesy chat-up lines and refocused the group and the scene. For one rehearsal we wore the masks mainly to test them out, however we decided to rehearse without them to focus more on the story, dialogue, and our reactions (which are easier to do without a mask). However, after we have a more concrete story we are planning on rehearsing a few more times with the masks to make sure we have the physicality of our characters down. The most important part of the process of an actor is making sure that the performance concept is constantly informing your work. With that in my mind, one of my super objectives is to put on a funny, entertaining, and memorable show.