Session 4

In today's session we began blocking the first scene. We already knew that the show begins with a pre-set of mice exploring the space and dressing themselves. I am to be one of these mice and will complete an animal study on another post. The actually first scene involving the full company was already started in a previous session but only the physical side, we were now going to jump to the scripted part. We were already going to be presented with a few challenges because the scene involves multiple conversations happening at once. In order for this to work the dialogue has to be snappy and move from one area to another with good pace. This was demonstrated well in the way Kai would cut in quickly after Tatenda finished speaking. We need to make sure the first scene doesn't kill the energy that is built by the high adrenaline music and physical theatre framing it. 

As soon as we started blocking I was asked to deliver my opening mini-monologue, luckily the night before I prepared by learning the first 3 pages of the play off by heart. By being off book I was able to respond to my directors needs instantly without having to stop and grab my script. In this process I want to learn my lines as quickly as possible so that we can focus around development the quality of acting rather than just reciting lines. Also it meant that Ben could give me feedback straight away. I was told I need to work on the muscularity of the words I was saying. I can do this by doing an intensive vocal warm up before every session focusing on my facial muscles and the muscularity of my tongue. The American accent I use requires my mouth to "work less by working more". It is a very lazy dialect which requires me to use a lot of open vowel sounds that resonate in foreign places to my own accent. I will do more accent training to improve this and take on Ben's note. 

Before I came to the session I made annotations on my script. In particular I made sure to find what actions I was playing in the first 3 scenes I was in. This wasn't so I had strict parameters to act within it was just a way to start experimenting and understand what Skilling was actually doing in the scene. This also helped when Ben would throw out "What's your objective?" type questions so I could work backwards and by knowing what action I was playing I could figure out what was motivating me in the moment and what my character was trying to truly achieve. To improve on this I need to annotate my given circumstances and other Stanislavsky-esque techniques. Even though Enron is a very heightened play I need to always be working from a place of truth and realism. This is because if there's a disconnect from reality the play just won't work, the audience will not go along with it if they feel like it's not "real" within the parameters of the world we are creating. 

This is the session we attempted to blocked the infamous "naughty" scene. We tried to do it one on one with our director. At first I was determined to just get through it, no laughing or awkwardness however inventively it proved too difficult. In hind sight I can't tell if it would be be harder to do in front of a room full of my peers or a single solitary figure of authority. The way to remedy this was to do it on just us two and get the giggles out. This will mean there's no pressure on us to get it perfect without laughing. Even though I did expect this working with someone who I already had a close relationship with regardless it made me realise that I am going to have work hard throughout this whole process to not let my personal relationships affect the work.