unexpected surprises, daring courage…

Wed, Feb 16th's Gathering at the Actors' Playground:

David (far right) tackles audition scenes,

Anna (next photo) courageously explores,

Zan (next to David) slips bewitchingly under our skin,

Edgar & Lorne (far left) face off in a Pinter scene.

So last night, when we finally got together, some interesting surprises happened. Zan was running a little late but I gave us enough time for us to wait for her. Then Anna suddenly got up as she had a desire to warm up her voice, so she gave a sudden presentation of 2 Shakespearean speeches (the intro from Romeo and Juliet and something I believe from Henry V), passionately given. Little did I know that what was happening here was a foreshadowing of something rather interesting to come.

David was up next as he was needing to prepare for an audition for an independent film he was having "tomorrow." He had just received the sides that morning, so this was the perfect venue for him to explore the text and find some interesting choices.

After working on his scene, Anna then went up and did some more work on a Tennessee Williams' monologue from Eccentricities of a Nightingale. She had been working on it the last 2 Gatherings and then at a workshop she had attended over the last weekend. What surprised me was that she departed from her intimate work and played with it in a more heightened state. As a result, there were some interesting and unpredictable discoveries that were being made, making us wonder what was going to happen next. Now Anna was not fully happy with how the first delivery went but she was determined that for her second exploration, she was still going to use a heightened, although different emotion. That's when I paused and remembered something I had read in Harold Guskin's book How to Stop Acting:

"In order to find out what a character is, I have first got to find out what he (or she) is not, exploring without fear or self-censorship. Exploring the role is like sculpting in marble… All the actor has to do is get rid of the marble that doesn't belong…

"If  I find a right choice for a character in my exploration, it still may not be the best choice. But if I find a wrong choice, one that doesn't work, then I know something about the character. The character is not that!"

So I realized that Anna needed to work with these choices and isn't that what the Playground's all about: to have the courage to be fearless in trying out choices that may not work? Only when we do, do we really know whether our choices are worthwhile or not.