Willkommen. Bienvenue. Welcome.
I take a simple view of life: keep your eyes open and get on with it. ~ Sir Laurence Olivier.
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the Technique category with the tag(s) training summary.
1 Illumination »
My old drama coach used to say, “Don’t just do something, stand there.” Gary Cooper wasn’t afraid to do nothing. ~ Clint Eastwood.
I have decided to start memorising and studying poems in order to improve my skills in performance, dramatic interpretation, verse speaking and plain old memory. This is the first.
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,–so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the Verse Speaking category with the tag(s) Poetry, skills.
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I’ve figured out what to do so far, but it’s always the next thing you come to where the man with the bucket of ice cold water is waiting - whoosh! in your face. That’s why you work with directors who know what to tell you to do. ~ Dame Judi Dench.
Part 2 of Paul Brighton, of Audition Portal marvellous Actor’s Challenges, that I’m attempting.
May 15: How good you get as an actor depends on how well you can recollect your life’s history. Study your past.
May 16: Know Thy Prop! How much does it weigh, does it make you position your body differently? Study that Chair!
May 16: Today’s Actor’s Challenge: Studying dialects & regions can help you do better accents.There are many UK accents. Know the differences.
May 18: Today’s Actor’s Challenge: How do you look & sound when you sneeze or cough? Can you recreate it authentically, right at this moment?
May 19: Recreate a physical sensation. Remember what sunburn feels like, what a chill feels like? Relive it right now.
May 20: Make sure you work, paying or non-paying. We must constantly work to improve our craft.
May 21: Buy a book on acting. Any book. You will learn something new because you never stop learning!
May 24: Observe your friends & family and how they interact & have fun. Put yourself in the scene, be yourself.
May 25: Think about how you act differently every time you answer the door depending on who’s there. Take note with guests today.
May 27: Acting is a combo of imagination & grasping reality, with a desire to share them.Understand the differences.
May 28: Find a character to play. Practice learning their Rhythm, Metering & Intonations. It’s like listening to music.
May 29: Think of someone in your past. A tender moment, a sad day, or someone that passed.What do you feel at this moment?
May 30: Get physical. Crawl around from room to room & pretend you’re escaping a bad situation. Act with intent.
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the Exercises category with the tag(s) challenges.
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Some things you know about, you know what the ingredients are - maybe not all of them. But it’s up to you to put in the amount. It’s up to the director to nag you until you get it right. ~ Dame Judi Dench.
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the Technique category with the tag(s) training summary.
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Acting is not about being someone different. It’s finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there. ~ Meryl Streep.
- Acting doesn’t have to be threadbare misery all the time.
- People who are good at film have a relationship with the camera.
- So I just play the character, I play the lines.
- The energy released by it is enormous and it becomes quite addictive, the power between the audience and the actor.
- Theater is dangerously open to repetition. It’s exciting when you hit on a new way.
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the General category with the tag(s) Fiona Shaw, lists.
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The most precious things in speech are pauses. ~ Ralph Richardson.
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the Technique category with the tag(s) training summaries.
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My old drama coach used to say, “Don’t just do something, stand there.” Gary Cooper wasn’t afraid to do nothing. ~ Clint Eastwood.
A random selection of inpsirational, but mainly funny, quotations.
“What’s interesting about the process of acting is how often you don’t know what you’re doing.” Alan Rickman
“Writing is what you do when you are ready and acting is what you do when someone else is ready.” Steve Martin
“An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises.” Mae West
“Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” George Burns
“If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you.” William Hazlitt (v. v. interesting 
)
“Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation.” Bette Davis
“Half the people in Hollywood are dying to be discovered and the other half are afraid they will be.” Lionel Barrymore
“Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” Edmund Keene (on his death bed)
“As an actor there’s no autonomy, unless you’re prepared to risk the possibility of starving.” Ben Kingsley
“Acting isn’t really a creative profession. It’s an interpretative one.” Paul Newman
“Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” George Burns
“What was peculiar about me was what made me successful. I’ve seen good actors go into analysis and really lose it.” Bette Davis
“The ideas of the great playwrights are almost always larger than the experiences of even the best actors.” Stella Adler
“Actors are one family over the entire world.” Eleanor Roosevelt
“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” Buster Keaton
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the Quotes category with the tag(s) lists.
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I’ll always be there because I’m a skilled professional actor. Whether or not I’ve any talent is beside the point. ~ Michael Caine.
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the Technique category with the tag(s) training summaries.
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It is not good to cross the bridge before you get to it. ~ Dame Judi Dench.
The more work I do the larger my wishlist of things (would it be unreasonable to call them “resources”?) become. Omitting the big stuff, like 3 years at Drama School, here’s a realisic list of the achievable. (Well realistic-ish).
- Video Camera (Probably most important as I need to see what I’m doing)
- Tripod (Can’t do everything one-handed or bent over to table height)
- Microphone (Be nice not to have to shout at computor)
- Playing Shakespeare DVD - John Barton
- Tea With Trish
- “Vocal Arts Workbook” and DVD - David Carey and Rebecca Clark Carey
- “What’s My Motivation” - Michael Simkin
Think I need some work.
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the General category with the tag(s) lists.
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I take a simple view of life: keep your eyes open and get on with it. ~ Sir Laurence Olivier.
Did you see any of the BBC Poetry Season’s ‘My Life in Verse’ with Sheila Hancock? The whole programme was generally fascinating but the part at which my ears specifically pricked up (so to speak) was her chat to John Barton about verse-speaking.
If you’ve never heard of Mr Barton, he was the co-founder of the RSC, alongside Sir Peter Hall. He gave some little titbits of advice and then launched into Henry Vs “Once more unto the breach” speech - in an about 80% authentic Shakespearean accent! (His percentage, not mine). Bloody brilliant, it sounds so warm. To my untrained ear it was similar to a West Country accent but richer. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting but it sounded more modern than I’d have guessed. Much closer to us than to Chaucer, who was chronologically nearer (at 200 years vs our 400). How our language had changed in that time! Only the slightly different proununciations show it’s of the past. Tiger is prounounced ‘Tigger’! It’s made me want to hear so much more.
He did write a book on the Bard, “Playing Shakespeare” published by Methuen in 1984, and a series of workshops were also filmed for TV. Although they’re no longer available in the UK (typical - we’re denied all the great old BBC arts programmes) it’s being re-released on DVD in the US! For $79! Here it is.
Do you reckon it’s worth the extortionate price?
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the General, Shakespeare, Verse Speaking category with the tag(s) John Barton, Shakespeare, Shelia Hancock.
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Had 2 days of net-based muddling - messed up #FF, posted wrong blog, facebook 
) + looking up recipe for Cassoulet. 
