Words of Wisdom

Only you can think clearly; only you can briefly make a portion of the world make sense; only you can preserve the memory of that moment. These thoughts will not comfort you, but they might make you free. Neither art nor thought is comfortable. I am here to make you nervous. Only when we are anxious, and when we know what to be anxious about, do we have a chance of entering the history of our work.

-Hollis Huston

a little frustrated

I was just wondering how everybody else was doing on the research portion of their Realism scenes because I have tried to find American mannerisms around the turn of the century but I have come up almost completely empty handed. I have found some great pictures that I believe will help; however, when I searched on jstor, the internet, and the Lilly library for a book, I could not find anything that really could help me. If any of you have any suggestions let me know please. Maybe I just overlooked somethings that would be beneficial. I guess I will just continue to look.

Repetition

I can definitely see what you were talking about now, Clay. The more James and I concerned ourselves with the beats within our performance, the better things got. By letting our beats flesh themselves out better, we allowed the rest of our scene to fill in behind. But in the bigger picture, we are still no where close to what the professionals would call a ready Comedia show. Just as Professor Phillips said, repetition is the key. If we had another couple months to work on these pieces I'm sure they would become consistently better and funnier. But as we are already moving on, that will not be the case for this particular scene. It was a damn good experience though. This is a form of acting I have had little to no experience in previous to this class and I am glad to have been exposed to a new performance style. My hope is that i will find areas in my other acting endevours where techniques and ideas born of comedia can slip in. If i spot any before the semester is out i will let you all know here on the blog. In conclsion I say we play the magic if game for the duration of today's class period.

That's excellent news Clay! I am glad to hear it came together so nicely for you and Spec. James and I still haven't had near enough rehearsal time on our scene with our respective illnesses but it is good to hear that I have something to look forward to. I am still uneasy with regards to our scene but your post has given me (and hopefully James as well) a healthy dose of hope. It becomes increasingly clear with Professor Phillip's tips, our continued rehearsal, and now your post that the beats are what make Comedia, Comedia. I can easily see that if you've got the beats down the dialogue and minor action will fall into place. I am excited to move forward and perform for you all here soon, not to mention see the rest of you all's performances. How is the third crew doing? Any revelations of the such?

realization

From the very beginning of this, I have felt very uneasy about creating a scene. I have trouble coming up with something simple for a character in a show, so I had no idea how we were going to put together a scene that I felt would work and run smoothly. The very first day, I was just worried about making it close to the amount of time needed with a plot that would make sense. However, I realized during out last practice that everything has seemed to come together on its own. Each time we practice, I became more and more comfortable with what we are creating. I believe that I was worried a lot about what I was going to say and how I was going to say it, but now I am able focus on the beats that are happening in the scene. I make sure I know exactly when each physical action is going to happen and a basic idea for a lot of our speech excluding a few exceptions. I know that when I go on stage and have an audience it will be different and more difficult than it has been with just the two of us, but I feel much better about this than I ever thought I would have.

Improv Vomit

I hear you on that one Spenc. The desire to be consistently funny, especially within improv, is incredibly strong, and when you aren't getting any laughs, the panic mode sets in. This is what I think my and James' problem is currently. We'll get goin in our scene and hit a mental block or a rather unamusing moment and we go into overdrive. We start spitting out as much as we can as fast as we can to produce humor. The problem with that is that it completely stifles anything that was actually funny within the torent of verbal one-uping and physical randomness. It leads to a lack of motivation for the characters which makes everything even less funny.

When Professor Phillips said to slow it up a bit, it made sense. If something isn't working then its ok. If you relax and calmly move to the next bit within the scene you can produce humor out of the character's motivated actions. One way Professor Phillips told me to fix the speed of a bit was to draw it out. Take more, longer steps to get to the punchline. A joke in physical comedy is like a volcano. Kinda. The more tension, difficulty, and steps that go into the eruption, the bigger it will be. So the more tension, difficulty, and steps that go into a punchline the funnier the actual moment the joke is delivered will be.

Fight or Flight

Have you ever completed acting out a scene, presenting for a class, or participating in a sporting event; stopped and thought- I have no idea what just happened? Every time I step on the stage my nerves put me into "tunnel vision" mode. I rely entirely on the preceding weeks of preparation to get me through- the lines I've memorized are so ingrained that, despite my fear, I still deliver them. However, when I'm asked to improvise I panic and consistently draw mental blanks. My initial instinct is to quit, run away, and hide.

The inevitable rush of adrenaline that performance provides can cause one to fight (it may even lead to heightened senses) or panic and fly.

I've been trying to understand the core psychological causes of my reaction. After talking with Professor Philips I've concluded that I'm chronically afraid of failure. This desire to be perfect, in order to perform Commedia, must be overcome. Commedia's rehearsal process is based on a series of failures. Simply put, you have to be willing to put yourself on the line to be funny. It's a process of perpetual discovery. Of trial and error. I'm still deathly afraid to fail, but I'm going to push through.

How do you guys react to high stress situations? Do you fight or fly? How do you overcome fear?