Final Friday

So I've just returned from my final class here at Cal State Fullerton, and it was a really fantastic way to end my time here. I went through the wringer. There were moments of good, moments of bad, moments of really bad, and even one or two moments of really good. Svetlana is still really sick but made the effort to come in today, so I thought she might be a bit lower on energy and perhaps go a bit easier. I was wrong.

My partner and I were supposed to be the fourth group up today, but after the first group Svetlana said that as it was my last day she wanted to make sure I got to work, so up we went. We started our scene, and I did waaaaay too much - I was fussing about and just being generally very busy and bad. So we got stopped and told to start again. This time I came in and was a little bit better, but Svetlana stopped us and pointed out that the stakes weren't high enough from either of us and we'd lost our sense of history and relationship. Reflecting on these moments now, I think that I'd lost the core of what I was supposed to be doing in that moment - relating, taking it all in, trying to find a way to talk - I just left all that behind, and what remained was just the outer behaviour from when I did do it, so it was very hollow.

So I took a moment to focus myself on what I really was supposed to be doing, and we cracked into it once more. And this time it was good. I was actually there and responding to what was happening and doing things for the first time. It felt good. We listened to each other, the relationship was there, we played our objectives, we played the obstacles, and we played actions towards each other. Until, at the turning point of the scene, I went and messed it all up again. I had what Svetlana called "an absolutely beautiful moment" with my partner as my character confesses his love to his mother, which I ruined by rushing right through it into the next line. And it's so obvious looking back - it felt awkward at the time, I just didn't know what to do about it. I had forgotten about my objective and gotten carried away with my good acting. Dammit. I fell into the trap of not living in the moment but playing result, playing for the final outcome that I know is going to happen. Svetlana called this a "sign of fear and insecurity. You want to be in control, but nothing can happen with control. Creativity comes from God, you cannot control it. So when you try you are putting middle finger to God." Sounds pretty spot on.

Then we entered a period of struggle and bad acting and yuckness. As I tried to work on this moment and make it work, I kept making bad choices and generally getting it wrong. I would go too fast, and the words meant nothing. I would move too quickly around the stage and make dumb choices about where to go. And I would do these things several times, albeit in slightly differing manifestations, all the while Svetlana getting angrier that I wasn't taking on her notes. It was a horrible feeling to just not be able to do it right, and not know how to change what I was doing. And every time I started again or tried to do it in a different way and make it work, it felt so manufactured. I just felt so fake and dishonest but didn't know how to fix it - the harder I tried the worse it got. And the worse I got the harder Svetlana pushed me to work and be better.

At a certain point I just slowed myself right down (in accordance with Svetlana's direction), and I stopped trying so hard and I just was. I found what I needed to find, I let it come to me rather than frantically and spastically pushing for it. It's such a hard difference to describe or even quantify, but the effect it has on the quality of the work is profoundly massive. Suddenly I was able to discover things in the moment again. My choices and actions were specific and directed at my scene partner. And they were born organically from what was happening. I stopped kicking my own ass to work hard and just let myself work with what I had. The frustration and anger and disappointment at not being able to do it right were all still there, but they weren't blocking me any more they were just part of the experience that were acknowledged and allowed to exist. They were harnessed and became useful. I was doing good acting.

There's a point in the scene, the very climax of it, where my mother screams a final hurtful name at me and in the stage directions my character is supposed to break down and cry. Last time we did the scene I forced it, I manufactured it and I rushed it. It was bad and Svetlana hated it. I was doing it because I knew I had to, because it was in the script. Svetlana's direction at the time was to forget about crying - if it happens it happens - just take it in and let it hit home and let whatever happens just happen. So when we got to that point in the scene today, I was determined not to ruin all the good work that we were doing. I took Svetlana's direction: I just let it hit me, I took my time, I suddenly felt like I needed to sit down so I did, I sat and looked straight ahead and just let myself breathe. And suddenly WHAM. It was like being hit by a wave - something in my body just went click - and out of nowhere I was crying and shaking, and I wasn't manufacturing it. And the most important thing was that I didn't just give in to it, I didn't just revert to self-pity wallowy acting and show everyone how good an actor I am because I can cry onstage. Yuck. No, I remained within the circumstances and still played actions and tried to pursue my objective. And the scene just worked. I could feel the effect I was having on my scene partner and the effect she was having on me. And we made new choices in the way we ended the scene that we hadn't made before and they were right. It stayed specific and it stayed truthful right through to the end. And all because I didn't push anything and because I played clear and specific actions.

So we finished the scene and Svetlana was really pleased with the work we did in the end. We had a quick chat about what we'd learned and the way we need to be working and then the next group was up.

And then all of a sudden my classes at CSUF were all done. What a massive four weeks here. I've worked in ways that I never would get a chance to at home, with amazing, insightful and generous teachers. And I've worked alongside some really talented and hard-working actors, who also happen to be extremely friendly and generous people. I've been warmly welcomed, and I've been pushed hard and challenged. It's still probably going to take a wee while to fully digest all that I've gotten out of coming to Fullerton, and to be able to articulate it with any clarity, but I know I've gotten a lot. I feel that the acting technique and skills that are so clearly the focus here are exactly what I needed at this moment in my training. And it's made me extremely excited to move on to Paris and to work in a totally new way, and even more excited to eventually take it back home and start to make sense of it all and put it into practice in the context of my training at Toi Whakaari.

So that's me for now. I'll take a break from the blog - barring any mind-shattering moments of inspiration that need to be shared over my small vacation - and get back to it once I start at Ecole Philippe Gaulier on March 4th. Over and out.

The penultimate day

Started the day with my last Shakespeare class with Evelyn, and it was a really good one. The first thing we did was to learn and run through the elements exercise that I've done many times before, each in a slightly different way, and Evelyn's version was different again. The same basic principles apply to the physical positions, and the positions themselves are more or less the same with a few differences, but Evelyn runs through it fast and many times, rather than just once or twice at a slower rate. We had to run through the whole thing 25 times with a partner before class even started. It brings you to a place of being "your quintessential self." And I like that.

Next up was an exercise called a punctuation walk - which Evelyn had never tried with a third year class but wanted us to be her guinea pigs. Again, I've done similar exercises before, but there were many differences in the way Evelyn does it and I really got a lot out of it. Basically you walk your lines of text, one step per syllable, and for every piece of punctuation (or capitalised word, or proper noun, or long spelling etc) there is a physical action or change of direction or something that you must do. And there is a lot to do when you look at the text in that way. But they aren't just arbitrary actions - like every time there's a semi-colon roll on the floor and imagine you're covered in maple syrup - but they seek to get to the heart, in a physical way, of whatever direction or help that piece of punctuation is trying to give you. It takes the sense of the punctuation away from your brain and puts it in your body, so it's not such a daunting thing that you must think about but it represents something that you do. I really noticed how helpful viewing the punctuation in this way can be during the afternoon session on Twelfth Night. Reading the text with it in mind, using the punctuation as a sort of road map, there are so many concrete cues as to how to move through the text that it's amazing. I think the biggest revelation for me was in Shakespeare's use of the colon, which is used frequently - the action that Evelyn assigned to it really made clear to me the progression of thought through both sides of a colon and what kind of action it implies within the character. Awesome.

The last exercise of the class was one where we started to look at the scenes that people are going to be working on in partners. In the exercise one set of partners sit very close to each other and connect with one another, while two others each act as a 'feeder' for one of the pair, whispering the lines to them blankly so that they can then take them in and repeat them to their scene partner. It was a cool exercise to do at a point before anyone had started learning the lines for their scenes at all, and I found that it really shifted the way you experienced the text. As the person being fed the lines you weren't concerned with remembering text or sense or doing a good performance or anything, your job was just to listen, absorb and then send the text to your partner. And while it is nowhere near a performance level by any means, it helped me to experience moments of genuine connection with the text and with my partner in a scene that I had done literally zero preparation for. In that way it's a very cool tool, and it made the text very immediate.

So that wrapped up my classes with Evelyn, and I then moved into the last of my classes with David and the graduates. We started off with another self-led Fitzmaurice warm-up and I continued to find out more about my own understanding of the exercises and how I can make it useful for myself. We just did a shorter warm-up today because David wanted to spend more time on the Estuary dialect, so we then moved down to his office to continue that work. We went through all the signature sounds and sound substitutions methodically, practising as we went, using the handout David created as a guide. I think I have a reasonably good handle on this dialect, and I think it's probably partly down to the exposure we have to British TV and film in NZ. And it's one of those accents that once you start doing it it's actually hard to stop. So we watched some clips out of Rock n Rolla for a bit more reference material, which was really helpful, then talked some more, and then time was up. The end of my last Voice/Movement class.

So then we went on into Twelfth Night, picking up where we left off near the start of Act 1 Scene 5. And again we moved slowly and meticulously through the text, with David leading everyone in being very disciplined in the way they work through it. We often stopped on single passages for extended lengths of time, discussing the devices, the sense, reading and re-reading, all the while growing a greater understanding of the play and characters and text. I really love this kind of work, and as I said before, the work I'd done with Evelyn this morning gave me a sort of fresh lens through which to view the text, and that was really exciting.

A couple of things struck me today about the differences between the actors here and actors at Toi - well I mean they're things that have struck me for a while now, but today I became a bit clearer about what it was exactly that I was being struck by. So many of the actors here work so hard and really apply themselves very studiously to what they're learning. But while they're doing this, a lot of the time I feel that what they are searching for in their education here are very concrete skills and tangible tools to use, even at times rules that they can apply to their acting work. And I am not in any way trying to imply that that's a bad thing, because we absolutely need that stuff (and at Toi it's the stuff we go a bit lighter on perhaps, the core technical skills). But what strikes me is the way in which they apply these skills or tools at times. It's sometimes like they look at a problem or question in their work as having just one answer, and the answer to that problem must lie within one of their tools in their kit they've accumulated, but they struggle to find which one to use, so they use too many of them. Or they can latch onto one of these tools and seek to apply it in too many situations, in places where it's not quite right. It's like they haven't developed as keenly their ability to read context, and to invest in reading what exists in a problem in order to solve it, rather than just band-aiding it with a patch of technique. It's something I've noticed a lot in my classes with Svetlana and the seniors too: she will ask a question to the class about what's wrong with a scene or something, and if the actors don't know the answer they just rattle off a bunch of these technical buzzwords in the hope that one of them is the right answer, that it's a quick-fix to the situation. Problems (or opportunities to learn something) can become multi-choice questions that they just have a stab at because they want to be right. It seems to come from a desire or need for there to be one way, one answer, right or wrong, and to be able to get it right. While this isn't a bad thing, and in many ways makes for really hard work and discipline in these actors, it makes me really appreciate the ability to not know something that at Toi is held so important. The skill of not knowing, and of sitting there anyway in the discomfort until you can figure out what needs to be done. And, from that, the ability to find a way forward that is suitable and organic and that fulfills what is required in the best (not the right) way. And that's one of the major differences I think I see between the two schools.

So now I have one class left: Acting with Svetlana tomorrow where I'll get up and perform my scene from the Seagull for the final time in front of one of the world masters of performing Chekhov. So no pressure. There is a real chance that the class won't actually happen though, given how sick she's been over the last week, and I haven't heard any updates since Wednesday. So who knows? I hope it goes ahead, because that would be a very anticlimactic way to end the Fullerton leg of the journey. And what better way to end the trip than with a good old fashioned Russian ass-kicking.

Feb 20

Started the morning with my last junior-level Dialects class, which began with the usual half hour of Fitzmaurice voice work. After that we moved on into more work on the Irish dialect, which is always good fun. We started by revising as a group (in dialect) what some of the characteristics of the dialect are, and I was pretty happy to be able to identify most of them. Then a bit of quick revision of some sound substitutions before reading aloud a bunch of purpose-built sentences designed to familiarise yourself with these signature sounds. One of the sounds that the class had to practise most was the 'th' sound, which becomes the semi-tricky slightly dentalised version halfway between 'th' and 't'. A lot of people struggled with this sound, often just straight substituting a 't' sound in, as is the stereotype of the dialect. David pointed out that if you can't do the dentalised version then it's much better just to stick with 'th' rather than 't' because it sounds so glaringly over-the-top.

Then we practised cold reading aloud in dialect, with David giving us a monologue from the book to read through out loud, each person taking one line. We did this with two monologues and then with a scene from another play that David put up on the board. I was pretty happy with how I did in these three, I didn't get corrected at all and felt as though I had a pretty good grasp on it. The last part of the class was then for a quick look at how to transcribe a sentence in dialect using IPA, in preparation for the test next week. While it won't be necessary for me, since I won't be here for the test, it was still interesting to watch and learn and a good skill to be able to have. Oh, and I found out more about what my test mark in the Deep South quiz meant: the oral portion of the test is worth 60% of the overall score, so David writing 60 next to that part of my test means I got 100% in the spoken section. Very happy with that.

Next class was Svetlana's, so I got all changed and ready to go and psyched myself up, only to get to class and find out that she's really ill (like seriously sick) so class was cancelled. That was a bit of a disappointment as it means I'll be performing on Friday, which puts a bit of pressure on my very last class here at Fullerton. Oh well, I'll just have to deal with it. One group used the time to rehearse and we watched and gave them feedback where we could. My partner and I discussed whether we wanted to rehearse or not, but eventually decided not to. We decided that we both know the scene really well now, and what is required of us is to just deliver what we know we need to when we actually get up, and running it a couple more times with feedback from classmates wasn't going to help that. So I went and got a nice sandwich.

Last class of the day was my last Camera Techniques class with John. One group was filming their scene today, but before they did that we all watched together the first edit of my scene with Nick from last week. It was really cool to watch actually, and it was really well shot and I was very happy with it. After we did that, the group went off to film and Nick and I got to go to the editing bay to sit and watch all of the footage we filmed last week, instead of just the one cut, and have a look at what we were doing. It was really great to be able to watch take after take of myself, and think back to remember what direction I was being fed and then to see it coming into the next tak (or not - mostly it did though). First impressions were that I do too much on screen, but as the takes go on I chilled out and was more easeful and I think I did some really good work. The first edit that got put together used some of the best takes anyway, so that was good. It's great to be able to see so clearly when what you're doing is working and when it's not, and then to be able to register for yourself what to do to make that happen. And it was very cool to see the one take we did with my American accent - I agree with John that it's about 90% there, but there are a couple of vowel sounds every now and then that are just a little bit off and they stand out.

Then John came in and spent about 15 minutes with Nick and I giving feedback, which was on the whole very very positive. He said to me that he was extremely happy with what we got and he thought the scene was 90% nailed, and the notes he did have were just small quibbles. He pointed out some moments to me where I perhaps overplayed just a little, or made a choice that gave just a little too much away, and it was great to have him show me that. It's the kind of thing where you instinctively feel from watching it that it's not quite right, and then John talking you through it just makes sense of that feeling for you. Some really really positive feedback included: "This is really nice work, I'm very impressed. You've got a lot of potential in film, and you're obviously leading man material. You have the kind of look that means people will want to cast you. Even if you're just ok they will want to cast you - but you have the potential to be a lot more than ok." He then went on to say that if I ever decide to come back to LA and have a go at it here then I need to get in touch with him, and he will do whatever he can to help me. Awesome.

So a pretty good day. Now only two to go. Scary, I'm starting to have lasts of things now. And from now on every class I have is going to be a last. Time sure does fly.

The beginning of the end...

So I spent much of my long weekend curled up in a ball of self-pity on the couch, more or less immobilised by sickness. Not much fun. I did manage to get some things done (like Knott's Berry Farm - FUN), and more importantly I got over whatever was wrong with me in time for my last week of classes here at Fullerton.

First up for the week was Shakespeare with Evelyn. We started with the last of the 'Basics' presentations, followed by a quick discussion of the value of this kind of work and what we've learnt from it. This was on the whole pretty good, except for the reflections from some people being more of the gushy-self-discovery-and-acceptance type rather than really to do with Shakespeare or acting. Which is absolutely fine, just not what I'm there to do personally. Overall though it was a positive block of work where I learnt some things about an initial 'way in' to Shakespeare, which is probably different to how I would've normally looked at it.

Then we moved into a quick block of work on a physical exploration the Humours/Elements that are so present in Shakespeare's work. It was similar to other work I've done on the elements before, but the introduction of this concept of Humours and the melding of the two I found very interesting. Basically we were led through a physical exploration of these four archetypes (or states, or elements, or humours, or whatever) by a series of prompts from Evelyn, and it was up to us to individually explore within the confines of what she was giving us. I enjoyed it and could easily appreciate how it could be practically applied to character or scene/monologue work.

Then we got into some more gritty text work - analysing punctuation, meter, apposition, intellectual/emotional argument etc. We started by looking at "To be or not to be", which we'd done some analysis on for homework, and it was really great to discuss with Evelyn all the observations we'd made within the text and speculate as to the potential significance of this and then what it means for an actor playing this text. The next bit of work was to do with verse and breath - and while I enjoyed it and can understand the learning on a technical level, I'm not sure I totally agree with it. The Shakespeare world (if you will) is pretty well divided over the issue of whether you are supposed to breathe at the end of every verse line, or where the punctuation suggests, or just wherever you damned well please (this last one is the least popular view). Evelyn is of the former school of thought, while David, who I've been doing other Shakespeare work with, is of the second. And I've gotta say, I think I'm with David. Even after trying it out in class today, for my mind taking a breath at the end of each and every line of verse - even if you are mid-sentence - just doesn't help to make sense of the text at all, and seems often to introduce confusing pauses and emphasis to thoughts that are often confusing enough all by themselves. The only function that I can see that it serves is to preserve the form of the verse, but why should that matter at the expense of the sense of the text? My understanding of it is that verse is a device employed by Shakespeare to serve the actor and the story which he is putting to his audience, not to serve the verse. So in this way I find it far more useful to breathe where the punctuation suggests I should, but to let the form of the verse be a guide for me in my delivery, giving me useful clues and hints of where to go but never making me slave to it. Obviously there are minds far greater than mine who disagree, but there are also great minds on my side of the argument. Who knows, with more experience my mind may change. But, as David said during one of our sessions, "Why not just try both ways, because they're both options for you, and pick which you think serves and helps you best?" And I think that's what I've done.

A 20 minute break is then followed by my Voice/Movement class. First up is our usual Fitzmaurice voice work, but today David asked us to each individually lead ourselves in our warm up so he could observe what we were doing and help us and make individual corrections where necessary. I found this incredibly useful, as it made me kind of search through all the exercises I've done in David's classes over the last three weeks to find ones that I could remember, that I could do properly, and that I found useful. And that was a really great process to go through, especially at this stage as I look to make sure I have a firm enough base of knowledge in this work to take at least some of it back and incorporate it into my work at Toi. I found I was able to fill the time easily with a number of exercises, and not only that, I found that without David's guidance I almost got more out of some of them. It was like it made me actually think more deeply about what I was trying to achieve with the exercise, and then concentrate my efforts to achieve that without relying on David to guide me through it. At the end of that, David observed how well we were all working within our individual warm-ups, but also invited us to avoid the temptation to just be loud, especially early in a warm-up, and to play more with different pitch in the voicing we do. Good advice.

We then did a quick bit of work on finding different kinds of resonance in your voice, based on some work David had done with a teacher called Richard Armstrong. It turned out to be the Violin/Viola/Cello/Double Bass exercise that my class had done in our first year at Toi with D'Arcy - basically about finding different qualities in your voice solely through imagery of elves and dukes and bears and the like. It was great to go over it again with this group, especially to remind myself how it can be useful. I feel like I did it so long ago that it had kind of just become one of those warm-up things I did because... well, because it was just one of the warm-up things I did. Going through it today though reminded me why it's useful and how to make it useful, so I'll probably start using it more again.

The last part of the class was for our dialect work - starting on the English Estuary work. Before we started that, David handed back our Deep South quiz from last Thursday, and I scored an A with 99%. Stoked. I got one answer wrong in the written section, and I didn't quite understand the way the spoken section was graded, but with a 99% mark I figure I did reasonably well. So that's one dialect going straight on the CV. Anyway, we then moved into the Estuary work and it was very fun. We watched some clips of Ricky Gervais and Jamie Oliver and from that we together went about identifying key features and signature sounds of the dialect (in dialect, of course). After listening to a few more clips and talking a bunch more that was all we had time for. An exciting start though and I'm a bit sad i'll only get one more lesson on it before I go.

Last session of the day was Twelfth Night and more in-depth Shakespearean text analysis. Again I really enjoyed being privy to the meticulous yet fun way that David led the group through the work, growing understanding and ability through repeated discussion, debate, practise, drilling, and just teaching. While at times it's a slow process (I think we got through two-and-a-half scenes today) it's definitely very rewarding, and makes you realise how rich and complex the language is - there's always something more to be mined from it. The last section we worked on today was the first scene in which Feste, the fool, appears, and his use of language is so extremely complicated that we were talking ourselves in circles and tying our brains in knots trying to untangle all the different threads of meaning and figure out all of its complexity. Confusing and frustrating but also kind of exciting and deeply interesting, and when you feel like you finally understand a line that seemingly made no sense whatsoever it's gold. This kind of work gets me really inspired and excited to work on Shakespeare again and soon, and to do it thoroughly and properly with a group of skilled people committed to doing the same.

So three days and seven classes to go. It's not a lot at all. Tomorrow I have my last Dialects class with the third years and my last Camera Techniques class with John, and it will probably be the last time I get up on the floor to be worked by Svetlana. Man oh man. Let's hope it's a happy parting memory. We'll find out tomorrow.

Throaty Thursday

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?

Big Wednesday

Today was a big day. Felt like I did a lot of work and worked hard. Came home at the end of the day and basically collapsed on the bed and have only just now got back up.

Started off with my Dialects class, which admittedly wasn't too taxing (other than the 9am start time). Half an hour of Fitzmaurice voice exercises to begin and then into the Irish dialect work. We began by just reviewing all the signature sounds from last time, and repeating after David words containing these sounds. Most of the rest of the class was watching and listening to clips of Irish dialect speakers, and identifying and imitating the features of their speech consistent with what we're learning. There was an audio clip of David's auntie, a 70-year-old from a small West coast Irish town, that was great to listen to, in terms of her rhythm and idiomatic phrases particularly (she was also just very funny). Then we watched clips from a movie called The Secret of Roan Inish, which had some good and some bad dialect work. Then to finish up I suggested that we look at some clips of Dylan Moran, which actually ended up being quite helpful (plus he's just very funny).

Then was Svetlana's class. Overall, today was a really good class - much better than Monday's - and I learnt a lot, but I left feeling disappointed with myself. And she was much less gentle with me today. We were second on the floor to work today - the first group worked really well and were the first couple to be told to move on to a new scene - and we started off really well. We incorporated pretty much every note Svet had given us last time, and we were about halfway through the scene and hadn't been stopped at all. It was great. It felt great to be a part of. Then we were past the point that we'd made it to last time and we were still going, still doing really good work. And then we got into the start of the argument part of the scene and I got carried away - I let the feeling take over and just went way too far way too early. Svetlana stopped us straight away. "No, Jack. No, no, no. Why do you make that choice? You cannot go there, gives you nowhere to go for rest of scene. Is wrong." And she was right of course. She did praise the work we did at the beginning of the scene, saying it was beautiful, but it was only really to emphasise how bad that choice I made really was, because it undid the good work.

So we got to try again from a few lines back - she was happy enough with the start of the scene at least that we didn't have to start over. And I made sure I didn't make the same mistake again. But mistakes - or rather bad choices - came from both me and my partner more regularly now. Maybe it was because we were into the part of the scene we hadn't worked with Svetlana before, maybe because that part of the scene gets really difficult, maybe we just got a bit thrown, I don't know. But we were stopping far more often. We were  falling into the trap of doing the same thing each time, or not sending specific action to each other, or not finding the words in the space truthfully. There were patches when it would come right - and it's a really tangible thing when it's working - but then a bad choice or just sloppiness or something would derail it. Svetlana was all the while growing less patient (and she's not a very patient person to begin with). Eventually we made it through to the end of the scene, but it was a very mixed bag. Svetlana had a lot of criticism and a lot of things for us to work on. To me she said: "You are too much in self-pity as Konstantin. It is passive and ugly to watch. Don't go to self-pity, go to action. When I have to watch man with self-pity on stage it is horrible and I don't like him." And when she put it like that I knew exactly what she meant, I just hadn't known how to make the right choice in the moment of performance.

So we finished after about 40 minutes of working, told to rehearse more and show it again next time. Then there were two more groups who got to go before class finished - both were now on their third time up on the floor, and both did really well and are now moving on to new scenes. The first pair particularly were just absolutely stunning to watch. Through their whole long scene they were only stopped a handful of times by Svet - and these stops were just for small nudges in the right direction. It's so hard to put into words other than to say that it is just so obvious when Chekhov is working, and that when it is there isn't a lot that's more compelling to watch. Many people in the class were in tears by the end of the scene. They finished and Svetlana simply said, "Now that is how you act Chekhov."

After the last group we had time for a quick discussion of what we'd learnt, and much of the discussion was around the work from the pair I was just talking about. I was talking about Joey's work in that scene, and how it made it very clear to me what she was talking about when she said "don't go to self-pity, go to action". He did this beautifully in the scene, there was always a sense that he was fighting, looking for something, not just sitting back and complaining. Svetlana agreed with me and said "You are very talented actor, is obvious, but right now you make weak choices and scene becomes shallow."

One thing in particular that Svetlana said today really stuck with me. She was talking about the difference between theatre in America, England, France, Italy etc and the theatre in Russia (as she is wont to do), particularly talking about Chekhov as a writer. She said: "I do not choose to do theatre to be entertaining. I choose it as my platform to wake people up. That to me is valuable."

Then into Camera Techniques class with John, and filming my scene from Rounders. I was already pretty drained from Svet's class, and was developing a headache, but just had to dive into it. And it really was good fun and I learnt a lot. It's so great to work on film here with proper equipment and support and a department that has the resources to make practising film work easy. Even just the ability to have a convincing set, appropriate lighting, and props on hand at the drop of a hat really makes a huge difference to the work I believe. And John and the technical tutor, Ross, have so much experience that they just make things happen quickly and easily.

So after a while we were all set up and ready to start filming. We were beginning with all my coverage (ie: the shots of me), so I had to be on my game straight away. John's first note to me was "I love what you're doing, but do less", which I've had before. His way of directing the scene was really great - he just kind of nudges and pushes gently in the right direction, giving little manageable and specific notes one at a time so the actor is really able to take it in and put it in practise. Slowly, over a couple of takes, he kept giving me little notes and adjustments until my performance was in an easeful place that he really liked, at which point his advice was "Now you've got it, I want you to forget it all. It'll still be there, everything I've asked you to do, but now within the limits of what you've got just let loose a little and play."

And that was great advice. I think at points I was really able to do just that and find some great stuff. By the time we finished my coverage and started setting up to do Nick's, John came and said to me "I'm really happy with what we got there, and I think you will be too."

So then we did the same for Nick. It went a bit quicker now coz we were all in the swing of things and the scene had really found its feet. It was funny - and a bit annoying - to notice in myself how much more ease I found once I knew I wasn't on camera any more, but just supporting Nick. I was able to play a lot more freely inside the limits of the scene. Then, once we finished all the coverage and we thought we were about to pack up, John got up and said he wanted to do one more thing quickly before we finished. He swapped me and Nick around so I was on camera again and then said "Ok, just for fun, we won't actually use it in the edit, but let's give Jack something to take home and show everyone how much of a Yankee he's become - I want to do one take with you in your American accent." And it was such great fun. I don't know how it will come out in terms of performance, but I kept so much of the ease I'd found during Nick's coverage and then found some more, I think the accent somehow allowing me to play more and be a bit freer. And I got overwhelmingly positive feedback about my accent from everyone, and it was very cool how genuinely delighted some of them were to see me do that.

So all in all it was a BIG day. Tomorrow isn't quite as big but there's a still a bit I need to do to prepare for it. Phwoooar. Bring it on.

Tuesday the Twelfth

First up today was back into more Shakespeare with Evelyn, and today's lesson was just to finish the initial text connection work with the people who didn't get to go last time. Two of those people were away though, and Evelyn didn't want to move on while we still have that work to do, so we did the remaining three and had a conversation all together.

It was a mixed class for me. By the very nature of the exercise it needs to be very personal and there is a basic requirement to share with the group, but a couple of times today it felt a bit indulgent from some people. It got to the point where they were no longer talking about the text or their connection to it, but just dealing with their personal problems. And that would've been fine if they then take that and put it into the text work. The whole point of the exercise, as I see it, is to get you to a place where you are deeply and truthfully connecting to some part of yourself and to the audience, and then to speak the text from this place. One person in particular got to this place (and stayed there for a while, I might add), but then when it came time to bring the text back in it was like they just stifled everything that was going on. I literally saw them shrug it off and steel themselves to just say the text from a place where there was not a lot going on, and then once the text work was done were they free to be a human again. I found it very frustrating to watch. However, I'm probably being a bit unkind - there was definitely good work done today by the people who got up - I think it's more down to a lack of experience of working in these kinds of ways. Still, it's always interesting to work with Evelyn and watch the way she works people.

In our conversation we then got a chance to talk about what we were taking away from this work. I managed to say something to the effect of I really like how it's about approaching the text from the point of view of humanity and connection, but that you need the other layers on top and other work to stop it just being wallowy-emotional-memory-type work.  It was more eloquent and phrased more positively when I said it in class. But Evelyn agreed with me and it turned the conversation in a more productive direction I think.

I got a chance to have a conversation with evelyn after class too, which was really great. we talked about how I could best further my training after this - particularly with reference to Shakespearean work - and she talked of companies and people she knows who she thinks would be great. She also said that she would give me a reference for any of them if I ask her to in future, which is super cool.

Voice/Movement came next, and we started with a game of Hug Tag - which is comforting and exhausting in equal measure. Then into our Fitzmaurice voice work, with a similar progression of exercises each time but becoming a bit more complex. And i'm still finding that my understanding of the work and my ability to experience it fully grows every time - there's always something new to find. And I really feel it has definite benefits and look forward to bringing it back into my work (particularly in terms of warm-up) in NZ.

We then continued our extreme voice use work with a quick lesson on shouting. It was great to be able to achieve a result so easily just by applying basic physical technique. We were all shouting across the room safely at each other in a matter of minutes. It's really just a matter of muscularly emptying your lungs until there's no air left, releasing that muscular effort which causes an effortless and massive inhalation, and then with a lengthened spine engaging muscularly again to produce the sound. It's a sound that you could make all day without hurting your voice. And then we wrapped up with some more laughing, applying many of the same physical concepts as in shouting and the rest of the Fitzmaurice work.

Then onto more work on our Deep South dialect. The first half hour or so was all about just speaking fluently in dialect, so we would all just take turns talking and telling stories and David would stop an correct us where needed. It was great, but somehow all the stories ended up being about people vomiting (the group unanimously agreed that mine was the worst). But it was very helpful to just talk and talk and to hear others talking too, just great to practise. And then we finished with some technical revision ahead of Thursday's quiz. Eeeek. I think this one is going to be a little harder than the IPA quiz in my other dialects class...

Last up was working on the Twelfth Night - straight into the text work. And it was so good to spend the first almost half-hour just discussing all the events that had taken place before the play starts. We clarified all the major action up to that point, everything incontrovertible and then speculation, and then discussed the implications of all this for the characters and the play, and discussed questions that still needed to be answered by the actors in their work. It was very thorough and really great to do it all together, rather than just assume that everyone will do it separately. Then we moved into the actual analysis of the script. And we worked through it so meticulously that we only got to scene two before we ran out of time. It was great. The actors read through, then we'd go back and analyse punctuation, meter, antithesis, references and many many more things to uncover so many layers of meaning. Then, David would get the actors (and sometimes anyone else who wanted to have a go) to read again and put all these things into practise, take them from being just concepts into figuring out how to use them and play them and how they can help you. Again it was very thorough and took a lot of time but I'm really glad we did it, it breaks open the text so clearly and gives you so much to work with as an actor.

Ok, that'll do. I think I need to learn to write less...