Possible costume idea? Me likey!
Friday, May 11, 2007
Verse and the Art of Heavy-Breathing
We’re now a couple days into rehearsals. We’ve done the slow-text work quickly followed by the uncommonly bizarre experience known as the “first read-through”.
What’s nice about doing Richard III is that unless your playing the man himself there are spans of text where you mightn’t show up at all. The benefit, of course, is crossword puzzles; the danger is Jim Carpenter going missing from rehearsal like the narrative in a David Lynch film. To be fair, both he and I are in one of those positions where we appear early in the play; give a particularly long, eloquent and purple-ish speech … and then drop down dead. And once you’ve died it’s understandable you’d think you’d be done for the day.
One aspect of rehearsals I’ve come to enjoy is our voice and text instructor Fonta. At first I misheard her name and went through our session calling her a mix of “Fanny” and “Fatwa”. She didn’t seem to mind. She’s one of those infectiously optimistic personalities, which helps in voice work, I think, since it’s a time when actors can easily become self-conscious. After all, when one’s bent over, pushing against a wall in the Facilities Office and yodeling into a Nicholas Nickelby poster of Danny Scheie posturing in false side-burns it’s self-possession that’s the first thing to go.
What’s nice about doing Richard III is that unless your playing the man himself there are spans of text where you mightn’t show up at all. The benefit, of course, is crossword puzzles; the danger is Jim Carpenter going missing from rehearsal like the narrative in a David Lynch film. To be fair, both he and I are in one of those positions where we appear early in the play; give a particularly long, eloquent and purple-ish speech … and then drop down dead. And once you’ve died it’s understandable you’d think you’d be done for the day.
One aspect of rehearsals I’ve come to enjoy is our voice and text instructor Fonta. At first I misheard her name and went through our session calling her a mix of “Fanny” and “Fatwa”. She didn’t seem to mind. She’s one of those infectiously optimistic personalities, which helps in voice work, I think, since it’s a time when actors can easily become self-conscious. After all, when one’s bent over, pushing against a wall in the Facilities Office and yodeling into a Nicholas Nickelby poster of Danny Scheie posturing in false side-burns it’s self-possession that’s the first thing to go.
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