My first class of the day was a 300 level Dialects class (with some of the 3rd year Acting students). Today was mainly just an intro to the semester's course, but man is there a lot of work to do. First up on the agenda for the next couple of classes is reviewing the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) before a test next Wednesday which they have to pass or they're OUT. I'll sit the test too, but as I've never had any exposure to the IPA I feel like I might not do too well... From a quick look at it today it seems like such a useful tool for mastering dialects and accents so I'm going to try to pick up as much of it as I can. And after that we move onto learning our first dialect of the semester (the only one I'll actually be here for): IRISH. Can't wait.
Next up was my 400 level (ie 4th year) Acting class with tutor Svetlana Efremova. Now, Svetlana was born and raised in Russia and was trained as an actor at Moscow's finest conservatory. In fact, there are literally two degrees of separation between her and Konstantin Stanislavsky. TWO. And man does she know what she's talking about.
Today's class was more or less a discussion of the work the students were set over the winter break: how much they actually did, what they took from it, and what they've learnt in the last couple of months. Now, we're going to be working pretty exclusively on Chekhov for the next month of classes, so the required reading before today's class was Uncle Vanya, The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, and Ivanov. And you must have read them at least twice each (basically you read them as many times as you need to until you can claim with any degree of certainty that you know them, so most students had read them more than that). I didn't get that reading list until today, so that's my homework between now and next Monday. Also, I'll be working on the head bandaging scene from The Seagull first up, so by Monday I need to know that play extra well, particularly that scene, and have lines down and all my prep work done and probably have had a rehearsal with my scene partner. Eeeeeesh.
Last class of the day was Camera Techniques. First thing we did was just learning how to use the editing software, so in groups we did an exercise editing together footage of a dog being washed in order to tell a story. It was actually a lot of fun, and my group edited a very joyful washing scene where the dog runs off at the end and gets hit by a car and dies. Good fun. For next class I have to bring a scene that I "could be cast in tomorrow as a paying role" - basically casting ourselves to type and bringing an offer of a scene to work on. John, the tutor, said I should try and work with a script from Australia or NZ to stay closer to playing myself so I'll be looking into that. After we've done that we'll take a couple of classes to film them all and then move into doing straight scene work with a partner.
So. First impressions of the training here compared with training at Toi:
- Discipline: these guys work hard. They have so much work to get through, so many assignments dues, and they don't stop. In comparison, I feel we're very lazy in our approach and try to see how little we can get away with doing.
- Technique: from what I've seen so far every class is highly practical, aimed at delivering tangible core skills efficiently and technically. Either an actor can do it or they can't. In that respect it really is classical actor training, rather than artist training. I love the fact that on my first day here I've been asked to read what seems like all of Chekhov in the next week (which never happens at Toi) , and I feel like that the best way to get better is to work with the best material.
- Competitive: these guys do their first 2 years of training in a largely prescribed course that gives them very little choice, and after that they audition to carry on. And it is cutthroat. Also, people are culled along the way for laziness, poor work ethic, poor attendance, just not being good enough, and this is really evident in the ones that have survived. They all have a real drive to achieve highly and to work hard. There isn't any sign of the same laziness or complacency that I often feel at Toi - which I can only think is brought about by an environment where it's hard to fail. The threat of failure is very real here - and it has very real consequences.
I haven't actually seen any of these guys work on the floor yet, so I can't talk about the effect of this type of training on the quality of the work being done, but I'm very excited to witness it in the coming days and to work alongside them and probably struggle to keep up.
Anyway that's probably enough about day one - I've got some Chekhov to be reading...
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