Friday Session: Creating tie sequence

This particular Friday session was very fruitful; not just for my work on Enron but my development as an actor. The two main focuses were creating the tie-sequence that me and Claudia do before we engage in our sexual activity.

Me and Olivia created the base movements mostly through exploration and improvisation with the tie. We managed to create a string movements very quickly and the movement itself was simple but effective. However when we repeated it, it was usually always the same and wasn't very instinct driven after a certain replication. So when Ben came in to watch he made us be more playful, he wanted us to forget the movement components and just focus around the feeling of it. This in turn made us change the dynamic and pace of the movement based around what was happening in the moment. This made the small sequence more interesting to watch and definite a little more "sexual" in a good way. This is also a good way for when we are actually running the show in the common ground season to always remain reactive and responsive to each other's bodies; keep in the moment; and actually listen to what Olivia (and anyone else for that matter) is giving me. That's what is going to make the acting exciting and fresh.

We also did some unrelated monologue work for my speeches for Drama school auditions. However within this work I made some discoveries that I can apply to my acting in Enron. Ben introduced me to his "Good acting triangle". One side is motivation (What I want has driven me to wanting to do this in the scene) my objective (What I actually want in the scene) and my instinct (What I want to do in the moment). Knowing that I'd done all the prep work and I could simply relying mostly upon my instinct was a huge revelation to me. Instead of trying to play all this different things, I could just think what's my motivation and objective and then just go with whatever my instinct in the moment is. Having the visualisation of this triangle also illustrated the simplicity of the method, it most importantly helped me to start simplifying instead of complicated everything making my performance messy and hard for an audience member to understand at points.

Overall these Friday sessions are undeniably aiding the rehearsal process and making my performance stronger. They have made me engaged with myself more as an actor and connect with Skilling. The way to make these sessions better is to encourage my other scene partners to come in and work with me in the same way. I'd like to treat scenes like Scene 8 with Kai which I am currently struggling to connect with on the same level as the rest of my scenes.