Woke up this morning with what seems to be a bad case of man-flu. Really sore throat, tired and light-headed, and generally just feeling poos. The thought that I only have five more days of classes at Fullerton got me out of bed, so I manned up and off I went to school.
First up was Shakespeare with Evelyn. Today's class was all about rhetoric and the way Shakespeare structures speech and arguments. Very technical and academic and I like it. We started off by going through little bits of our homework assignment together, which was to find examples of certain rhetorical devices in our everyday lives. We all shared some of those, which at times was a bit of a laugh, and then handed our assignments in to Evelyn. We talked about the kind of schooling Shakespeare would have had and how that would've influenced the way he wrote, and it was actually very interesting. After an exercise where we had to come up with as many different ways as we could think of to say "the sun is warm today", we moved into a more in-depth look at verse and rhythm. The way Evelyn talks about verse is great - it completely confirms and extends my thinking around the way verse is meant to be used, and gives me technical tools and vocabulary to explore it. We talked about feminine endings, trochees, spondees, foot inversions, and much more, and it really helped me to look at the text in a new way. Even though I was learning most of these things for the first time, it was kind of like just remembering something I already knew. Then we did some work exploring the differences between modern editions of Shakespeare and the Folio texts, and wow, that was eye-opening. Looking at the Folio texts there is so much more in there that has been kind of squashed out of the modern editions through various academic dissections. Even things like the way Shakespeare spelled certain words or capitalised them or used punctuation - which more often than not have been altered to fit with our modern grammatical sensibilities - can provide an actor with massive clues as to how the text is to be played. That was very cool.
Then into Voice/Movement with David and the graduates. We started off with Fitzmaurice voice work as per usual, but today, because I wasn't feeling great, I found the work much harder than normal. While the voice work didn't really place any extra strain on my sore throat (which was nice to note), something about the breathing exercises and the positions we put our bodies in and a combination of the two made me feel distinctly unwell. I persevered as long as I could, but eventually the dizziness and light-headedness won out - if I'd continued I thought I might just collapse. So I pulled out and went and sat to the side to gather myself, and it was very strange when, as my dizziness lingered and I tried to breathe deeply, I started to feel intensely emotional for no apparent reason. Like I wanted to just yell or cry or something. I went for a walk and got some water and that seemed to subside, though I still felt pretty light-headed and strange. I talked to David after class about how I'd felt, and when I mentioned the emotional reaction he told me that it was actually a good thing and often associated with the Fitzmaurice voicework, and that, if I could, next time I experience it I should try to stay with it to see what I find. It's something about the exercises helping you to open up that can allow you tap in to what's inside. He siad people have been known to laugh hysterically or start sobbing during the exercises with no prompting whatsoever. So that's good I guess. Even though I was nearly passing out I'm making progress.
Next David continued the extreme vocal work with a lesson on screaming. David and I agreed it was probably best for me to sit it out. But I watched and tried to take it all in so as soon as I'm feeling better I can start screaming with the best of them. It's a very similar technique to the shouting we did the other day, with a few crucial differences. The muscular work with the abs contracting and then releasing is the same, but the direction and stance are different. So you start legs apart and with your weight back slightly, and it helps to put your hands up a little bit near your head. Your spine is straight, but again the energy is going backwards. So once you've pushed all the air from your lungs you release your abs to take a "surprise" breath in. It's a very quick, full breath, and once you've done that you just let the sound out, trying not to be too concerned with how it will sound (higher pitch is often better and easier). So then everyone got practising their screaming in a little exercise where they all walked around the room and David would randomly give them each a fright. It was very funny to watch, but there was some very good screaming going on.
Then we moved down to David's office to do our Deep South dialect quiz. We knew pretty much exactly what was in the test so I'd done a bit of study and felt reasonably ok going into it. First up you had to phonetically transcribe your name (using the IPA symbols) as it would be said in the Deep South dialect. Part two was identifying five characteristics of the dialect that are not phonetically transcribable (such as the use of pitch modulation for emphasis). The final written part was then to write out 10 phonetic sounds of the General American accent and then the phonetic sounds they would be substituted for in the Deep South, and provide an example of a word in which that sound is used. Then we had the oral section of the test, where David handed us scripts from a Tennessee Williams play and we were all assigned a section to read, with him feeding in the other characters lines. I went first, and overall I was really pleased with how I did - there were a couple of times when I think I slightly mashed the vowel sounds together too much and I know I missed the aspirated 'wh' sound in the word "why" - but overall I think it went well. David congratulated me on my good dialect work at the end of class so I think that's a good sign.
By this point I only had Twelfth Night work left for the day, but I was still feeling dizzy and light-headed so I talked to David and opted to go to the pharmacy and home for a rest instead. I think it was a good choice. So now I've got a four day weekend ahead of me in which to recover - class tomorrow has been cancelled because of a drama competition everyone's at and Monday is President's Day - and hopefully do some more touristy things before I go next Saturday. Only four more days of class at Fullerton! How did that happen?
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