In Which I Act Alone

About three weeks ago we decided that having acting class teice a week would be a very good thing. Rather than lose the energy of our performance within the span of seven days, we would be able to capitalize on it within three day's time and thus we would progress rather than fall behind or, at best, remain on par. So much for that idea.

Obviously I couldn't attend while I was in Portland, but this last Wednesday and again tonight I was the only person in attendance. Rose and Jeremiah were no-shows. Last Wednesday excuses were phoned in at the last minute. This week they didn't bother with that courtesy. Personally, I find this deplorable. Granted we are not paying for this class and there are no grades, but if we're not going to take it seriously, attend, work on our lines and try to better ourselves and our performances, we're wasting not only our time, but Jace's as well. And Jace is beginning to get frustrated and disheartened. We can do a class of just me doing monologues, but that only goes so far. *sigh*

Last Wednesday we worked on my two monologues from Pygmalion. I gave the second best performance of the first Henry Hggins monologue to date. This was in no small part due to my having done this monologue for Princess Rainy while I was in Portland and having her direct me in an improvised variation: I was to try the monologue again, but this time as an American high school student. "I doubt you were a typical high school student, but try anyway!" Princess Rainy said. I altered my stance and flattened my accent and after a few tries it came out pretty good. Working the lines in this way made me re-think their meaning. Jace was interested and a touch appalled: "Please don't do this monologue in an American accent!" My only trouble with this performance lay in allowing too much time to elapse between sentences.

Next we moved on to the second Henry Higgins monologue. My problem with this monologue is that it has always seemed too much of a piece. I could never manage to create enough variation in it ... it was always too flat, too begin-and-end. Jace and I broke the monologue down piece by piece, shaping and shading it until it came out very nicely.

Tonight we worked on my Iago monologue. We decided that it needed the dialogue preceding Iago's monologue to give it the proper shape and meaning. Jace played Roderigo, the second biggest chump in the play, and the whole scene and monologue took on an entirely new meaning. Once again we shaped Iago's monologue, even changing a chair because the other one was a little too deep. The improvement in one night was amazing!

We won't have class this week because Jace is going out of town. I hope the class won't break up entirely but there's hardly much point if no one can be bothered.