I Do Like Green Eggs and Hamlet

This bodes some strange eruption to our state.” – Hamlet (1.1. 69)

Day 5&6                                                              (7-9/7-10-2016)

Exploring lines is a fascinating exercise. Two different instructors = two different ways of seeing. And we did it over two separate days.

Tim takes a more literary, academic approach. Doug takes a more visceral, psychological approach.

Tim led us through scansion of our lines (or breaking them down into metrical feet) and examining what the text offers us in the way of imagery, repetition, alliteration, etc. All of these explorations to many students in a classroom may seem just mundane (read: “useless”) academic assignments, but they help an actor – or any active reader – get directions into the sound and meaning of the text. Especially the “heightened text” that Shakespeare provides.

He told us that each speech was an argument, and should be delivered as if you were trying to convince a jury. That puts the lines in a new context. (I never thought of it that way.) He asked everyone the point they were trying to get across before they began.

Tim also encouraged us to play with the text.

For example, when Amy did a scene that showed inner conflict, he had colleagues run out at her and she would have to push them back to their seats while she continued her monologue. Tommy was advised to look at a different audience member each time he delivered one of a list of questions in his part. The reminder of eye contact was good advice for a couple of us, as we saw how it worked well to feed off the reactions of the audience and to engage the audience members in what each actor was doing. And when Thalia started wringing her hands as she performed a scene from Hamlet, she was directed to make it bigger, putting more of her body into it. She ended up sitting on the floor with her second take.

Some of the interns had time to perform a third time, but this time without the games that had triggered their better performance. This worked very well because, as Tim said, the previous performance was already in the actors’ muscle memory and can be recalled easily in a future performance.

When it came to my turn and I shared my Iago soliloquy, Tim stood Tommy beside me: “This is Othello. Now give him a big old man hug.” He then led Tommy away as I restarted my soliloquy, but brought him back a few lines later and directed me that Othello wasn’t really there but to imagine he was. I was amazed at how the silent person acted as a prop that I could work with. I scoffed in Tommy’s direction as I said, “He holds me well,/The better shall my purpose work on him,” and moved around to his other side and got close to his ear with, “After some time to abuse Othello’s ear,/That his wife is too familiar with [Cassio].”

These types of games could be interesting back in my own non-acting classroom.

On the other hand, Doug started with each actor asking about us personally. At times, I got uncomfortable with the private nature of the questions. But then I recalled a recent article in which actors on the new Suicide Squad movie said their director, David Ayer, in their pre-movie preparations would prod them with questions to reveal actors vulnerabilities and use this information later to elicit strong emotions. During a key scene, for example, he had one actor use profanity to call another actor names. “Some of the stuff she said really pissed me off, and that’s exactly what he wanted me to feel,” said Joel Kinnaman, who plays team leader Rick Flag. Ayers said he uses this method “to create memorable characters, not just actors standing around modeling costumes.”

With Doug, one intern admitted that his internal voice always second guessed his choices. When the actor recited his lines, Doug had him run to the corner and scream “Shut up shut up shut up” before coming back to continue. When Josh second-guessed his choice of soliloquies from Hamlet, Doug had him repeat “I’m a f------ genius!” and then cued Josh to say it at various points in his piece.

The result for each actor – as with movie director Ayer – was a more energized performance.

Doug also worked on our breathing, sometimes massaging their shoulders to relax their breathing or having them hold a hand on their stomach to feel their breathing coming from a deeper place. He made sure that we thought of each line from our monologues as individual thoughts, and breathing in between each line/thought.

I am constantly amazed at the depths that these instructors are getting out of these highly talented young actors. And me.

I actually thought the interns were putting me on after seeing the vast difference in their individual performances. It reminded me of handicap day in a bowling league, making sure to underperform to ensure the advantage of a better handicap for future matches. Difference here being that the interns’ first performances, I thought, were great. The direction of Tim and Doug, and the great adaptability of the interns, made the second takes just so much greater.

It’s the end of Week One. Wow.

While all of our work so far has been prefaced with the reminder that none of it is an audition, and that there is no right or wrong, the instructors have been looking at us to determine the casting for our production of Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing. They say that they will be casting parts based upon which they think will stretch us personally. The Teacher Me sees this as great formative assessment. The Student Me grows anxious to learn what I will be doing in the play. They gave us nice bound green-cover scripts of a stripped-down, hour-long adaptation of the play that Tim and Doug put together. I read through the full version in my Riverside Shakespeare. I’m excited to see the difference in this new one.

Looking back at my blogs so far, I feel a little like Dr. Seuss’ confused Green Eggs and Ham character. While everything here is so different from what I normally do and my first reaction is skeptical, I find that I’m loving it.

They say they will send us our Much Ado roles before we come back together next week. Whatever role I get, I trust that, like the rest of this experience, it will surpass my expectations.

You can see the full blog of my experiences this summer on the Saratoga Shakespeare Company website at www.saratogashakespeare.com and on my own Out of the Centrifuge blog at www.outofthecentrifuge.blogspot.com.