If you think that BM is too complex, forget about the Method Acting.
Questions
Where can I study BM? In Moscow. Also, Gennady Bogdanov and very few other instructors do tour USA.
Homework
Videotape your monologue, watch it -- and see what BM cycles are missing (or evelemts in each cycle). How definate are the steps? What kind of movement design do the create for your character?
Chekhov's one-act comedies I use for class projects in my acting-directing projects (finals): Wedding, On the High Road, Proposal, Bear. [public domain]
BM & Film Acting (2004) * Please, read acting for the camera pages in advance: Actors in Film Directing, Film in BM and Camera in Method Acting -- before we have video-sessions in class!
This page has to be developed into "Students Guide": how to use BM pages. "Notes" -- class notes. The same with Instructors Page. ...
Insecurity, commonly regarded as a weakness in normal people, is the basic tool of the actor's trade. ~ Miranda Richardson
Live UAF Students! Please go to: http://classes.uaf.edu + Log in to Blackboard, choose "THR 190 / Auditions and Portfolio Review" and complete the online Outcomes Assessment form under the "Assignment" tab.
The Actor and the Target 1559362197
Declan Donnellan is the first Director of the Royal Shakespeare Academy and is best known for his work with Check By Jowl, including As You Like It, and the recent production of Homebody/Kabul in New York. As Associate Director of the National Theatre his pro-ductions included Fuente Ovejuna, Sweeney Todd, and Angels in America. Abroad, his work abroad includes Le Cid for the Avignon Festival, The Winter_s Tale for the Maly Theatre in St. Petersbourg and Puskin_s Boris Godunuv for the Moscow Theatre confederation. He has received awards in London, Paris, New York, and Moscow.
2005: The purpose of my online production books was to assist myself, cast and crew during pre-production and rehearsal periods. After the show is over I use webpages for my classes: directing, acting, drama.
... 2005 * After so many years of webbing I cannot change the nature of my webpages -- they are what they were from the start; notes, thoughts, points I make for myself for classes and productions. Do they have an independent existence? Maybe, somewhere in the future...
I have to make this statement: they all in my class are my students, but not all of them are actors.
It's not about being or not being a major; it's about a simple thing -- a commitment. A life-long commitment.
Biomechanics as any other technique or skill requires constant training and advance. You can see it right away: who is working with you and who is not. No, I am not talking about doing the homework, texts and assignments, this is about being a good and bad student and about grades. Some do get good grades, because they are good students. They usually do not do anything extra. They go from Fundamentals to Intermediate and even to Advanced Acting without becoming actors.
If you have some background in gymnastics or even karate, it's good. If you don't, it's bad.
All right, I will say it. We live in the world that will never mature. The sound is too loud, the colors are too flashy, everything is at your face, because the money people understood that our attention span is no longer than of a monkey. This is not the way how artist gain mastery. What could I say? That Leo Tolstoy had 13 drafts of "War and Peace"? Many of my students didn't read it and many do not know how big the book is. Do I hyave to tell them that they should work on the monologue from "The Three Sisters" for the rest of their life and dying, maybe, there will be a revelation -- this is how I should do this line... but there will be no time left.
What should I tell them? Why Bethowen became deaf and Leonardo blind? They can put the CD on and listen, you saw the paintings. Do they think that they can enter into relations with Shakepeare the way they enter a shopping mall? Do you think you can BUY it? The Art. Why don't you go to the library, concert, theatre and enjoy it? Why do you have to get on stage next to the masters? Why do you think that you can get by next to the great talents who dedicated their lives to the craft?
Sorry, I have to do it.
Do you know what kind of bones you have in butt? No? Your body is your apparatus, even a plummer knows his tools. Are you a student? What do you study? Acting?
And who will be doing this acting?
Did you study yourself?
Here is the story told me by the Kirov Ballet dancer:
The choreographer told me after the rehearsal: "You are doing fine, but your forehead is dead."
What? My foreahed must act, when all I am focus on is the body motion?
"So, what did you do?" I asked my friend.
"For a month in the bathroom I was moving my forehead musles with my hands."
"And what did he say one month later?"
"Better," he said.
(pause)
"He said 'better' -- he didn't say 'great'," added Fred.
Are you there? Can you hear me? Do you understand what I am saying?
Sorry, again, folks, I have short fusses. But I do not understand many of you who would not dare to challenge a heavy weight boxing champ, but take a Shakespeare monologue without a second thought! What do you think is about to happened?
I am a loser. I get knocked down time and again. Do you know why I still do it, the theatre?
At the end, I do not mind to be put down by Shakespeare. I get from the canvas and say -- Thanks a lot, Bill! He is good. I hope I can learn this punch. How did he do it? Wow! I am on the floor again.
I am 52. I am not dead yet. Maybe I am too slow, but I want to learn. Go ahead, sir. Teach me, I know that you are gentle and I will live -- give your best, so I can learn.
... I feel that I will screw it again. I thought that I can write a simple textbook... No, my emotions, metaphysics have to get in! I am cursed, I guess. There will be no textbook on BM...
Get Site Info
2004: three places to explore for "The Taming of the Shrew" production -- BM directory (film acting), SHOWS directory (preproduction notes) and Film Directing class. For the finals film directors will shoot acting two class; the footage to be use in the live production in the fall.
Lessons of The Three Sisters, 12th Night and HamletDreams -- maybe finally all the pages (directing, acting, film, production books) could come together...
Nourish the Beast
by: Steve Tesich
Bruno:
(seated talking to a friend, blurting out roughly)
Let me continue.
(beginning again)
I don't know how old I was when I was first put in the orphanage, (re-thinking)
not very. And the first time I heard the word orphan I thought it was this guys
name Billy orphan (laughs). Then I found out that I was an orphan too, and I
thought, Billy and I were related (smile). (frown) and then I found out that we
were all orpans, and I thought that can't be right somebody must be lieing.
(inturrupted, impatiently waiting that shouting and standing...)
Let me finish! (Begining again) So we're all orphans, but I still didn't know
what the word meant except that we talked about (slowing) everything in the
terms of that one word. (gesturing to desinated space CL) The outside world
(?) was a non-orphangae, those that got placed were de-orphanated,
(frustrated) those that came back were re-orphanated. (with a laugh) For a
long time I thought only boys were orphans, (beat) so when I grew up I
wanted to be a girl.
(preparing again, this time to give a memory that cuts much deeper)
But (....) I still didn't know what the word meant, so I asked a gaurd one day:
(Looking up to where the ggaurd would be if you were about six, and the
voice lightened to imply an innocence.) What's an orphan?(returning to
regular voice, talking to his friend not himself as the orphan, lines said with a
saddness) he said that an orphan was somebody that nobody liked. (gainning
achild like innocence again with a power) but the other orphans liked me,
Billy liked me, (regained) I asked him if that made me a non-orphan. (real life
again) He said no, being liked by another (drawn out) orphan didn't count.
(picking up speed and moving, pacing)
So I started thinking that nothing in the orphanage counted, the only things
that mattered were on the outside. (turning, sitting) For the whole time that I
was there some police athletic league kept promicing to take us to a ball
game. We went to bed everynight hoping that tomorrow was going to be the
big day when we'd go to a (softly) ball game. (laughing) we didn't even know
what a ball game was, properly speaking, but it was on the outside so we
assumed it was something increddible something unheard of(gesturing to the
sky). Then one day this man came and took us (unworthly) to a ball game
(still in awe at the sky).
(beat)
The yankees won
(beat smiling very mockingly)
That was it. The Yankees won. (Angrily building) And all of us orphans sat
there scratching our asses thinking (pause, fourteen) you mean this is it, this
is the real world. (older again) That's why I still go to ball games, i keep
thinking one of these days I'm going to see it the way I'd thought I'd see it. You
know the ball game of the century (building) the ball game of all time
(returning to the previous ball game gesture).
(turning to friend "Sylvia)
And when I go I see some of the orphans I once knew, Billy's there every time.
(frustrated) I mean they're all grown up and everything but still looking
orphany (cut line: "as hell"), still (Climax as far as lines go) waiting for the ball
game! (!!!!) (building soflty, filled) You see don't you? You see how they
tricked us into thinking the outside world was so fantastic and full of wonders.
(recanting) I mean it's not like we thought it was all good but... we did think it
was full of.... extremes! (filled again, but slowly methodical now) That's it
extremes. The most buetiful and the ugliest things wer eon the outside,
nothing inbetween...
(Self Actualizing)
And that's why I became a cop. (say this as if this was why this topic came
about) I thought that by being a cop I'd be able to find those extremes.
(sudden pause and move in close, desperately almost a whisper)
And sometimes (beat) I think I'm close. (beat) sometimes I'll be walking my
beat and I'll hear this screaming, I mean (really going for it) I mean screaming
so painful that you heart wants to comit sucide. (beginnig to straighten) And I
think hotdog this is it this is it this is the saddest goddamned thing that has
ever happed. (returning) So I rush to the house and rush up the stairs and
what do I find
(beat, take this pause and leaving it open ended to what "fantastic and full of
wonder" thing is in store for the audience)
Some old lady is screaming her head off because her paraket ate something
foul and was vomiting all over the cage. (continuing) I swear to god Sylvie, the
parakeet was barfing like a truckdriver, the old lady screaming her head off,
and for some reason she turned the fan on
(giant build, coming close and pointing)
And (p.) there (p.) it (p.) was (p.)
(beat)
Bird barf, all over the wall paper (gesturing, to real world space).
(exuent)
Insecurity, commonly regarded as a weakness in normal people, is the basic tool of the actor's trade. ~ Miranda Richardson
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