"And as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet's pen turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and name." --A Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1, William Shakespeare 

Drop Curtain of "The Light Princess" at the National Theatre

I don't know who decided that having an imagination was childish, but obviously he was not an actor.  This week, through a performance of "The Light Princess" and in my classes, I've experienced the invaluable congealing of three important entities: movement, thought, and imagination.  These three pieces can only be useful to an actor if they're used in conjunction with each other; otherwise, an actor will simply be caught in his head, always thinking and never acting on impulses, or always moving without intention, or exploring so much with imagination that the embodiment of the character strays from the clues in the text.  Regardless of being an actor or an audience member, imagination is used by both sides in every show as we suspend our disbelief for an hour or two and enjoy a story about people, their struggles, and the relationship between the two.

On Monday night after classes, I made my way with two friends to see the National Theatre put on an incredible theatrical feat: "The Light Princess."  (Can I interrupt real quick: OMG I get to see amazing theater on Monday nights after going to acting classes all day.  This rocks!)  The word 'light' isn't referring to actual light, but to the property of being physically light, since the main character (Princess Althea) has lacked the ability to feel deep emotions since her mother passed away and from that time has floated in mid-air.  Yeah, I don't know how George MacDonald's original 1867 production of this fairytale compensated for having a main character who floats in mid-air, but I'm sure it was interesting.    

Advertisement for the National Theatre's "The Light Princess"

But I will tell you how the 2013 production of the mature fairytale pulled off this challenge:

 In the very first scene, Princess Althea is supposed to be descending in front of a very large, Wicked-reminiscent bookcase (I'm guesstimating about 20 feet tall) to about a foot off the floor.  It was clear she wasn't using one of those "whoops, I just saw the invisible string" wires.  No, no.  Instead, she was fashionably harnessed (it fit right in with her orange outfit) in the back to a movement man dressed in all black.  He was facing the bookcase and crawling down it very slowly (with a 5'8'' full grown woman attached to his back as she belts songs).  I promise you, I gasped out loud, pointed with my finger and remarked in a whisper, "Fuck!  Do you see him?" (very British with the "fuck") to my friend Victoria.  She nodded in agreement with big eyes and equal astonishment.  The Princess really looked like she was floating; I had to look closely to even notice the movement man since he was practically hidden behind her!  Throughout the play, the number of movement people taking on her entire body weight increased, and at one time there were four people dressed head-to-toe in black clothing on the stage, moving Princess Althea's limbs and torso with such flawless execution and fluidity that at times I forgot that she wasn't really floating.  At one point, one movement woman lay on her back on the stage, supporting Princess Althea with only her legs and feet.  As Princess Althea tilted her head and upper back down to the stage in order to float horizontally, the movement woman simultaneously adjusted her legs, placing one leg on the actress' spine and the other on the back of her upper leg.  I have no idea if the moves were choreographed down to the second, but I never once felt that Princess Althea was in danger of being dropped and cracking her head, even though all of her body weight was being supported by movement professionals that were essentially invisible to the audience members who bought into the story and used their imagination to believe in a floating princess.  When I can find another actress who can be so relaxed physically that she can convince me she's floating AND sing beautifully at the same time, I'll let you know.

Today in movement class I got to experience another mix of imagination, thought, and movement, but this time I wasn't in the audience.  Our movement teacher repeated that phrase that we hear all too often at drama school: "walk around in the space." (To be fair, walking is just about the most neutral physical activity a character can do.)  So we followed instructions, like obedient school children, and all 12 of us walked naturally and fluidly through the space (we had spent the previous 45 minutes stretching and soothing bodily aches, so we were all very happy to obey her orders).  Now Fey gave us another thing to do:

"I want you to pick a person in the room.  Be subtle about it!  I realize that's not an easy task for actors, being subtle, that is.  But, pick a person and notice their walk.  Do their shoulder rotate?  Do they swing one arm more than the other?  Do they stick their bum out?"

As I ticked through a whole checklist of that person's movement in certain body parts, their walk evolved into a predictable system, not just something random that a person does to achieve walking around a room.  Our walks reflect what injuries, tendencies, and inadequacies we've had in the past. We're constantly compensating for aches and pains.  Therefore, each person's walk is uniquely crafted for that certain somebody.  Fey recommended we don't share who we picked, so for this blog I'll call the person I picked Jenny.  Jenny's stride was pretty short, kinda like mine.  She swung her right arm a bit more than her left, but overall didn't rotate her shoulders much.  Her mouth formed a small, determined pout, and her head was slightly tilted back.  These are just a few of the characteristics I noted.  Then Fey took it one step further:  "As I count down from 10 to 1, 10 being your walk and 1 being the walk of the person you chose, I want you to embody their walk.  This is not time to impersonate somebody's walk or your opinion of their walk.  This is fact, and merely an embodiment of their walk."  Slowly I adjusted, remembering all that I had noted about Jenny.  My shoulders stopped swiveling, and became stiffer, my mouth turned upside down slightly, and my speed decreased just barely.  Then Fey asked us to create a character based off this new walk we had taken on.  Who would walk like this?  Where are they going?  Where are they coming from?

Joanna would walk like this, but everyone calls her Jo for short.  She's on her way to her flat from her job at a cafe, one of those little places that sells lattes and little breakfast pastries.  She's exhausted, and just scraping by with a meager job.  She thought she'd be someplace better at the age of 27.  She's going home to see her boyfriend, they've been dating for many years, but he hasn't popped the question. She's kinda one of those tough girls, she doesn't have many acquaintances, but the friends she has are lifelong and trustworthy.

So I came up with that whole character and background story in about three minutes of just walking like Jenny.  That's imagination.  That's connecting a movement with a thought.  It was surprisingly easy, to be honest.  So maybe I wasn't floating with the support of movement professionals like Princess Althea, but my imagination was floating and bright for the first time in many years.                

             

"Prepare for mirth for mirth becomes a feast." --Pericles 2.3., William Shakespeare.  

Acting isn't always about telling the saddest, most dramatic tale possible.  In fact, even in Shakespeare's most tragic stories, such as Macbeth or Othello, a fool or lighthearted character is inserted to keep the audience's spirits up and chuckling in between the oh-so-frequent death scenes.  During my study at LAMDA, I have two classes that specifically focus on creating a game with the audience, or adding a humorous take on even the darkest subjects.  Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, to Clowning class and Improv class.

1) Clowning.
Job: PLAY.

The playful entity an actor creates with a large red rose and innocent manner, commonly known as a clown, is really a manifestation of that actor's individual impulses and habits.  Some basic rules: the clown always tries its best to follow instructions and feeds entirely off of the audience's response to its behavior.  The common theme of maintaining contact with the audience or people you're working with also continues here, and will thread throughout all of my classes.  So, in fact, a clown is simply another character the actor must become.  The large red nose, the most famous accessory of a clown, creates a barrier between the audience and the clown through costume and conceals the identity of the performer.  The clown's job is simply to play, innocently but inherently incorrectly.  Whatever the clown does, it sincerely thinks it is doing what you've asked of it.  For example, if my clowning teacher, Michael (a native American and lighthearted fellow), instructs us (we have our big red noses on) to be as quiet as possible, we all may begin to bang on the ground or speak to one another loudly.  Thus the clown's accidental prank is meant to have good intentions, but fails so miserably it transforms into humor.  During clowning, all topics lose their seriousness and depressing content, and instead are funny since we know the clown is playing a harmless game with us.  Important:  the clown never makes us (the audience) into the fool, all jokes and laughs are done at the clown's expense.

Now to discover your own personal clown personality:

You'll need a semi-circle audience (we had 12 people watching), a simple chair or preferably a flat piano bench, and behind the bench you'll put a drapery/door/hidden place for exits and entrances. One person goes behind the door and puts their red nose on.  As they come out from behind the door, they find their way to the bench and should maintain eye contact with the audience the entire time, not acting.  It's important that the clown has an honest response to the audience's response; if the clown should accidentally stumble into the bench, and the audience snickers a little, the clown should be open to responding honestly (whether that's looking ashamed, giving an embarrassed chuckle, or blushing).  Just from these natural impulses and behaviors, Michael will ask the clown to investigate something further.  For instance, the French guy in our class happened to respond to the audience's responses with his fingers first, almost like his fingers got hit with a wave of energy before the rest of his body did.  Michael picked up on his energetic fingers and would give simple instructions, "Hadrian, now fall in love with someone in the audience through your fingers."  So Hadrian played along: he made eye contact with one of us in the audience and his fingers gave a little flutter and hovered above his heart, doing a kind of "jazz fingers" dance.  Michael continued to play with this clear trait and habit, and thus the beginning of Hadrian's clown's personality began to form.  Going back to the idea that all topics lose their seriousness in clowning: in our class one girl's clown personality was that of a killer.  When she was just organically responding to the audience, her eyes continually darted back and forth, sometimes zoning in on one person.  Therefore, Michael asked her to do everything like a killer (laugh like a killer, sit like a killer, fall in love with someone like a killer, and then ultimately get up and exit behind the door like a killer).  However, since the performer and the audience were invested in the playful manner of the clown, we all laughed at her killer demeanor instead of being frightened of it.  Interestingly, an actor's clown may change from day to day, since certain days we will have different reactions to things.

2. Improv
Job: Commit.

"Improv can either be hilarious or amazing, just commit."

These wise words were said by our substitute improv teacher, a young, small wiry man (he attempted to bulk himself up with a very puffy winter vest), who has a passion for the side-splitting humor of improv but also the deeper, more serious stories that can be told.  Let's see if you can avoid the trap he set out for us: "Alright, here's the scenario: two people are in a raft.  Go! Make a scene!"  Let's see which scene you prefer:

1) So two of my classmates got up in front of us and were in the supposed raft.  They spent the first minute of the scene in the raft and arguing about which way land was. They eventually decided upon paddling North.

OR

2) GET OFF THE RAFT, and find an ISLAND!!!  This island happens to be filled with a magical fruit, and is surrounded by mermaids, and also cannibals.

Hopefully you prefer option #2, or your sense of entertainment may have been dulled by years of bad TV shows.  As an actor, picking the right way when you come to the fork in the road between these scenes is dependent on knowing what the audience wants to see.  Chances are, the audience would prefer to see two people discover a magical island via their raft instead of watching two people bicker on a raft.  This leads us to another magical quote:

"If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.  Otherwise don't put it there."

Basically, don't tease the audience and then never get to the climax of the scene.  In one of our scenes in class, a man and his daughter wanted to purchase the Eiffel Tower.  I repeat: they wanted to BUY the fucking Eiffel Tower.  Therefore, in the scene the purchasing of the Eiffel Tower should happen.  The man and his daughter shouldn't just mention, "I'd love to buy that and put it in the backyard" and then decide that they want to buy a croissant instead.  Knowing that the audience wants to see the climax of buying the Eiffel Tower (the crazier the idea, the more important the idea is to the audience), don't backpedal towards safer ground!  Take the risk!  Either it'll be hilarious if it fails ("Improv is 95% failing") or it'll be amazing when the man who sells the daughter and father the Eiffel Tower goes around with a tiny hand wrench unscrewing the massive structure's bolts from the ground and then offers to fly it to their backyard in Ohio (this happened in our scene).  Usually when Improv scenes are ridiculous and hilarious this implies a large circle of expectation, or basically the number of possibilities is greater.  For instance, wanting to buy the Eiffel Tower increases the circle of expectation, and even more ridiculous ideas, like the offer to fly it across the ocean, enlarge that circle even more.  However, you can also have Improv scenes that have a smaller circle of expectation, and tend to be a bit more realistic in their story lines.  For example, we could have a scene centering around a nursing home and the seniors who inhabit it.  Maybe a nurse has to take care of an elderly man who just lost his wife, and he looks to the nurse for comfort.  Both of these scenes, the one about the Eiffel Tower and the one about the elderly man, are plausible and legitimate in Improv.

I feel like people in general tend to have a misconception about both of these arts.  People assume that improv must be hilarious and void of anything serious, and people assume that clowns are just creepy (Okay, that is sometimes valid--Krusty the Clown, anybody?).

See, he is kinda creepy. 

Improv and Clowning can be used to address serious issues, but they often turn to a veil of humor to make the topics more palatable for the audience.  Then again, nothing is wrong with buying the Eiffel Tower either.            

               

"Fair is foul and foul is fair." --The Tragedy of Macbeth 1.1., William Shakespeare 

Even though risky to insert my own words into the work of a genius, "easy is hard and hard is easy" essentially defines my two weeks working in a small 12 person group with my first (of three) directors, Dominic.  Full of energy like a coiled spring, Dominic's vibe was that of a pixie; a short, petite man, Dominic boasted eyes that seemed to be so full of magic and sparkle that I almost could have entertained the idea that he was an elf or fairy-like creature.  The staple of his wardrobe are forest green pants and a bright green watch (surely from the Elf Forest) and his voluptuous hair seemed to literally defy gravity.  But in all seriousness, Dominic's brilliance as a director comes from his ability to give depth and meaning to the (seemingly) easiest tasks and unite a group of twelve strangers.      


Most days we begin our three hour scene study session with ensemble exercises.  Especially for young actors, taking risks with Shakespeare's text will be only successful if you can dive 100% into the risk, and thus an environment of trust and respect is needed among those working.  Dominic gave us a simple task:

"Walk around the room and live out here with us."  Okay, sounds pretty basic.  However, so many of us are unaware of our tendency to look at the ground (Dominic: "I swear guys, nothing is on the fucking floor."  I would also like to point out that British drama teachers throw "fuck" or "fucking" around with the same frequency that they drink tea, so don't be alarmed.)  and our hesitancy to make honest contact, with eyes or smiles or bodies, with others.  Have you ever just wanted to hold eye contact for one beat longer than is socially acceptable?  Too bad, you're going to come across as a creeper.  Luckily, that instant response of disgust doesn't exist in a room full of actors.  If you want to look at someone for 4 seconds instead of 2, go for it!  If you feel the impulse to smile a little at someone as you walk by them, oh snap, go for it, you rebel!  This is what "living out here with us" means:  keep your head up and be open to communication with others.  After all, how can you feel emotion in a scene if you're not open to feeling it?  Once we mastered walking around in a space and not looking at the riveting and exciting linoleum floor, we challenged ourselves with tasks that seem simple but are actually kind of impossible.


Get into a circle.  As a group, you will raise your right hand together and simultaneously, then, when you feel the time is right, you will all quickly drop your right hand, sit down, have a moment of stillness, stand back up, and repeat.  But the trick is that nobody can lead and yell, "Okay, guys, on 3!"  Instead, you must be aware of all the movements in the circle and listen to your own personal impulse that whispers, "Goddamn it, put your fucking arm down." When in true cohesion, the movements are spot on and there is only one flicker of all twelve arms dropping, not twelve separate movements.  The other difficulty in this exercise is the deflection of the want to do superfluous movements, like adjusting your shirt or wiping your brow, or pushing hair behind your ear.  Learn to focus, and yet at the same time notice everything that your peers are doing too.  So after the previous exercise of walking to sprinting in the space, I had sweat literally dripping down my face.  You have no idea how much I wanted to wipe the burning, acidic sweat out of my eye.  But in that moment, that was not the task.  The task was to focus and raise my arm, and drop it, and sit, and stand.  It would not be fair to my peers, who are all invested in this goal, to get distracted now.  Discipline is pretty cool, actually.            

On Tuesday night, we attended Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, a space that has been triumphant in preserving a sense of itself from hundreds of years ago:  no roof, no microphones, a partially standing audience, and two notoriously large and obstructive poles on the stage that block the view for some unfortunate part of the audience.  I was standing three feet from the stage in the front of the standing audience, where all the peasants would have smelled of rotten vegetables and sewers, but still with an awesome view of the actors.  I could see the sweat fly from the actors' faces during a fight scene, could pick out the seam that connected the pieces of their old-fashioned costumes, and witnessed a second possible tragedy that was cleanly avoided as the person standing in front of me dodged being hit in the face with a prop (we were that close).  Once you've been working in depth with Shakespeare's neatly packaged yet puzzling language for a few weeks, it's almost like you don't have to untie the metaphors, rhyming couplets, and subtle (sometimes) sexual innuendoes of the time; everything just makes sense.  All the lines that would muster up only sighs of frustration and doodles of boredom in high school English classes now held importance and my utmost appreciation, because Shakespeare wasn't meant to be read like a book in an uncomfortable wooden desk.  It's supposed to be put up on a stage under a sky full of stars (and now planes) and acted with true emotion.  That's what makes Shakespeare timeless: the relationships between the characters and the emotions.  Any modern audience can relate to Macbeth's desperation to succeed and to gain power, or to Lady Macbeth's hope and certainty that her husband will in fact be victorious.  Nobody speaks in sonnets, or in iambic pentameter, be we all feel and connect on some level with others, and as theatre-goers we've been that way for hundreds of years.

The play closed in a semi-choreographed dance, accompanied by two violins and the clapped rhythm held by the audience.  But the dance was special:  the majority of the actors couldn't see their fellow actors up on stage.  They didn't appear to be counting beats in their heads.  They couldn't make eye contact or yell, "Oy, when I count to 3 we'll all raise our right arm!"  Instead, they proved that they had mastered the art that Dominic had been directing us towards in our class: feeling the support and presence of your peers.  So there I stood, my heels partially numb from standing for three hours, and I realized as these actors all raised their right hand to begin the dance, that they were doing what I was learning.  The dance continued, and the actors never were out of sync with each other.  Having struggled with it in class, I appreciated the bond and trust they must have created in order to pull off this act of ultimate connectedness.

When you think about it, life can always be a beautiful dance.  All it takes is some feeling, some trust, and the risk of making honest connection.

"With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come." --Merchant of Venice 1.1., William Shakespeare 

This may be the only week in my entire life during which I was sick (don't worry Mom, just a cold), sleep deprived, and dressed in all black but completely and utterly happy.  Let me explain:

I just finished my first week of LAMDA classes.  My morning starts at 6:45am when I grasp around on the floor next to my bed for my iPhone that is buzzing and jumping energetically, accidentally picking up my chunky rental phone, which resembles the indestructible but aesthetically unfortunate phone I owned eight years ago.  I shower, eat, pack my lunch, gather my books, check for my tube card, and head towards the elevator in order to catch the 7:55 shuttle that takes residents of the Nido apartment to the two closest tube stops, Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill Gate.  I'm dressed in an actor's "blacks," an ensemble of black pants, a shirt, and white shoes in order to create a feeling of neutrality in the classroom and discourage clothing distractions during class.  The shuttle has 16 available seats.  The bad part: there are 22 LAMDA students staying at the apartment.  Even though I'm not a math kid, even I know that I need to be downstairs in the lobby at least 10 minutes before the shuttle arrives to get a seat on the shuttle and not be one of the 6 who must find another form of transportation to school.  By 8:25 we've made it to school and get to hang out before class starts PROMPTLY at 9 (If you're late, they hate you.  Pretty simple).  In LAMDA's common room there aren't food machines, but instead tea machines.  Plug in 36 pence and within 2 minutes you have yourself a piping hot cup of green tea!

LAMDA (beautiful, huh?)

At 9 am I start off my first class in a small six-person group.  We have these small groups for classes that require a lot of individual work, like singing and Alexander technique (a technique that uses relaxation and cleansing of tension in the body to produce better vocal sound).  The first three classes of the day last an hour and 15 minutes, so coming from a high school where each of my classes lasted 45 minutes, I've had to work to expand my attention span. We then have 15 minutes to make our way to the next class, during which time you can eat your snack, grab another tea or coffee from the machine, or socialize quickly in the common room some more.  The next class is slightly larger, this time with 12 students, and is either acting, improv, historical dance, physical theater, clowning, pure voice, or applied voice to text.  I especially enjoyed the physical theater class this week; this class gets a lot of attention at LAMDA since the Academy focuses on producing actors who produce emotion and impulses from their bodies first and then their minds, instead of producing actors who are stuck in their heads and always thinking about what they should be doing on stage.

I've always appreciated having a long, Greek last name: it tends to be a good conversation starter, provided some ethnic zest to a typical Southern high school, and confuses people when I then tell them I'm Jewish.  Having said that, the Greek last name ended up being an AMAZING boon during the physical theater class since our 26-year-old teacher could easily have played the extremely attractive Greek man in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie.  Yorgos is from Athens, has eyes that are almost as blue as the famous Greek ocean waters, and has an accent with a romantic flare that resembles French.  When he saw my last name on the attendance sheet he began to ask me about my Greek heritage and my last name and all of that (all the other girls were quite jealous).  But, onto the actual work of the class: Yorgos led us through an exercise called the "Pleasure Exercise" where you lie on the ground, in your own space, and focus on movements that make your body feel good.  For instance, we first focused on our pelvis and our legs.  He encouraged us to breathe fully, do movements that weren't symmetrical, and block any distractions out of our focus (like what other people were doing, what we looked like).  It was the first time that I've been completely unaware of what I was doing with my body, what I looked like, who was looking at me...I've never been so content with freedom and obliviousness before.  At first, I was flat on my back, and stuck my leg straight out and then wiggled each toe, then the ankle.  Then I brought the second leg up and kicked the air quickly with my feet, doing whatever impulse came to my body.  We did this for probably 20 minutes, moving the focus up to our arms and chest, moving slowly and thoughtfully and then rapidly changing into quick and tiny movement, and then sometimes even just sitting in complete stillness.       

Then, the real fun came.

Yorgos blasted music.  Our bodies had already adjusted to the freedom of doing whatever made them happy, and the music was the catalyst for even more movement.  At first, the music was something you'd jump up and down to at a concert, fast and furious, full of energy.  Almost like a chord was connected between our bodies and the stereo, my body head couldn't help but beat up and down to the rhythm, and my legs bounced up and down, and then suddenly I wasn't sitting, but I was stretched across the top off the piano that was in the room, tapping my fingers to the sound of the song.  There were no boundaries, it seemed.  Then the music changed: one of those songs you'd hear during a sad scene in a movie.  Slow notes on a piano, where you could almost imagine the pianist with tears down their face.  Suddenly my body didn't move in jerks and bounces, but in streaks and graceful circles.  At one point I was just lying down on the floor with my eyes shut, with my right arm making strokes in the air above my face.  When we finished, Yorgos simply said, with his exotic accent, "Stay as long as you want.  I invite you to stay this open and relaxed throughout the day.  I'll see you next week."  And just walked out.  If he does this everyday, he must be the most relaxed man on the planet.  I stayed lying on the floor for the next five minutes, unaware of my hungry stomach, or the fact that my hair was probably not as straight as when I left the flat, or that the common room would be crowded for lunch if I didn't leave right then.  I didn't get up, I just stayed there, perplexed and satisfied by this simultaneous calmness and energy in my body.  Upon talking to people in the common room during lunch, I noticed my voice was clearer and lower, almost as if the dancing had stripped the tension from all parts of my body, even my voice and mind.  Kudos, Yorgos.

After the hour lunch break, the 34 semester students are once again split up into smaller groups, each with a different director, this time with approximately 12 in each group.  These are our scene study groups in which we analyze scenes from Shakespeare's romance plays and work on them purely for the benefit of our own experience for three hours a day.  We don't perform these scenes for anybody outside of class, which means we can spend as much time on one topic or objective as we want.  For instance, my director Dominic has focused this past week on making my group into a true ensemble.  Solidifying trust and communication between all 12 of us, when we go to act we will feel comfortable taking risks with each other.  His catch phrase is "stay here with us," which means that we need to be open to making honest contact with each other, and experiencing every moment with the group.  Often he'll give us impossible tasks to overcome together:

"As a group, walk, then run, then sprint in the space and work your way up to your fastest speed.  When you collectively think you've reached your maximum speed, stop immediately as a unit.  Then come stand in a circle with your backs to each other, and clap at the same time."

The hard part: you cannot speak during any of this.  You must achieve these tasks by maintaining constant communication with your peers, always making eye contact, and being aware of others' body language.  If I were to look at the ground (so many of us are unaware of this habit) or space out for a moment, I may miss the key to stopping at the same time as the others.  When you think about it, this tasks requires that you must be equal in the amount of presence and attention that you give to and receive from the group.  I must give my openness and communication, making sure to stay present and in the moment, but I must also be open to receiving the unspoken communication from others.  Acting isn't just about memorizing lines or projecting the words to the audience, it's about being a better human being.  It's about always listening to others in an honest way.

I'll try to focus on one class each week, and go into detail on something that really changed how I think about acting.  But trust me, every teacher at LAMDA is a genius, every student is so dedicated, and every class I come out more in tune with my body, mind, and heart than when I walked into the room.  

"He fell down in the marketplace, and foamed at mouth, and was speechless." --Julius Caesar 1.2.250, William Shakespeare

I wasn't exactly "foaming at mouth" in the Portobello Market on Saturday afternoon, but it was something close to an avid shopper's most excited face.  It was a testament to my self-control as I pinned my elbows to my hips and kept my fingers glued to my legs, making sure I didn't touch all the bobbles, clothing, and jewelry in the wide and expansive marketplace.  This well-known splendor occurs every Saturday, providing local vendors and artisans with the chance to show off their goods and talents yet another day a week!  The range of cultural food, set up in tents with big blown-up pictures of their dishes, could be witnessed simply by trusting your facial structure with the two funny holes.  Suddenly the nose became the most important feature known to man as the smells of Indian, Lebanese, British, French, and Eastern European cuisine wafted through the damp air (it rains everyday, literally).  I settled for the Indian food and was handed an aluminum tin filled to the brim with rice, salad, and lamb curry. NOM NOM (For all who are not aware and have not yet adopted this important phrase into their vocabulary, nom nom is synonymous with DELICIOUS).  

Moments before arriving at the marketplace, Sarah, Victoria, Maggie and I were told that the party we had been invited to for that night was themed "monochrome"; the hosts were hoping that the guests would dress in one solid color (and preferably not every actor's go-to color, black.  For the record, almost everyone wore all black to the party).  About half the marketplace is dedicated to vintage clothing, so we went trooping through the maze of racks of tacky fur coats, military jackets, hats meant for attending horse races with the Queen, and touristy sweatshirts.  Alas, London only has patterned and multi-colored clothing.  So while the monochrome clothing mission failed, we still witnessed some of the most outrageous clothing choices and fashion "experiences" vicariously through the worn pieces of cloth.    

                 

"Lord, we know what we are but not what we may be." --Hamlet 4.5.43, William Shakespeare 

I sure hope Shakespeare was right on this one, because I know I'm an actress, but right now I don't know what else I might become during my study at LAMDA.  Yesterday, the 32 students of the single semester course were introduced to three other LAMDA faculty members who will facilitate our growth in other disciplines that are just as important as pure acting training in a successful career.

1. Singing.  Our first warning came as I bit of a surprise to my ears, "'Ello everyone!  I'm Scottish, so sometime during the course you will have trouble understanding my accent."  I hate to admit it, but he was kind of right.  I felt as though I had to physically perk up my ears to grab everyone word his accent flung at us, but by the end of his personal background introduction, I was up to 95% hearing clarity. This urban-fashioned, casually mannered man was going to be at the front of our singing instruction for the duration of the course, with our personal lessons being conducted by two other singing teachers.  As we went around the room explaining our various degrees of experience and training, it became apparent how even the most seemingly confident of people were terrified about opening their mouth and croaking out a note and how many others claimed to be tone deaf.  When he was 13, his mother told him he should never sing because he sounded awful. Our teacher has been in several West End musicals and is a professionally and classically trained voice instructor.  Now, there's a man who overcame!

2. Movement.  Before we realized, she was ordering someone into the center of the circle to do 10 push-ups.   Stage directions: Enter movement teacher and fitness fanatic.  Handed the task to teach 32 actors stage combat, clowning, dancing (tap, modern, jazz, historical) and how to connect their minds and voices with their physical being, our movement teacher wasn't wasting a second. We played a fast paced game that engaged all of us into a big circle, and included different hand signals that went with vocal cues, and the goal was...to not mess up.  If you should pair up a vocal cue with the wrong hand signal--10 PUSH UPS!!!  If you should hesitate even the slightest---10 SIT UPS.  If you made a funny face--10 MORE PUSH UPS! (Just kidding, it wasn't that intense.)  Needless to say, I shall be moving quite a bit in her class.

3. Voice.  Stage directions: Enter classiest British man known to human kind. But really, if Britain had a version of What Not To Wear, he'd be the host.  He peered at us through his tortoise-shell rimmed glasses and adjusted the neck of his cashmere sweater a little to the left.  This man, so poignantly dressed, was also going to make sure we talked and articulated ourselves with the same degree of perfection as his attire.  First he would work with us on RP, or Received Pronunciation, the high-class pronunciation of old time BBC newscasters, politicians, and modern Shakespearean actors.  As a Southerner, I'll definitely be getting some extra help with the accent, since out of all the Americans, my basic accent was the farthest away from RP.  He'll also assist us with breathing, getting rid of tension (that gets in the way of producing a pure vocal sound), speed, and enunciation.

Below, an example (from a feisty comedian type) of Received Pronunciation:

"This above all: to thine own self be true."  --Hamlet 1.3, William Shakespeare

In my theater class today, we were supposed to be true to the feelings and movement of seaweed and a current.  If you're an aspiring actor or just someone who fancies experimentation, feel free to repeat this acting exercise once you've read the blog. 

Goal: relaxation, no active thinking, freedom of movement, imagination

Time: 10 minutes (5 minutes each)

Equipment: 2 people who are willing to ditch their hectic human lives for 10 minutes and take on the persona of (literally go-with-the-flow) sea organisms.    

I stood with my eyes closed in the middle of the room that used to be the practice floor for dancers of the Royal Ballet; no tutu, no shoes, and certainly no neat bun (have you seen these untamable curls?). Through my feet extended the wiry roots of a seaweed, my body was the bright green, flexible algae. With my eyes shut, it was imperative to the success of the exercise that I trust that my partner Sarah was in fact doing her part of the job: she was the ocean's current, sometimes calmly ebbing and sometimes rushing by me.  With her arms and hands determining the current's strength and speed, she touched me, brushed me, pushed me.  My task:  as honestly as possible, without making an active decision how to move, I was to react to the giving and taking of the current.  At times my shoulders would sway back and forth, adjusting to Sarah's nudge to my upper back.  Or perhaps my knees would quiver side to side when Sarah ran her fingers without a break across the backs of my knees.  My arms flopped and my entire body swayed gently in between Sarah's actions as I felt the roots of the seaweed extend through my hips, knees, ankles, and feet down through the floor boards.    

It's harder to be an honest seaweed (incapable of moving on its own, thinking on its own, making decisions on its own) than one would think.  We live in a world that is so dependent on active thought, from middle school we're taught to be thinking one step ahead, always brainstorming an idea.  This exercise, introduced to the western world by a Japanese acting master, requires us to turn off that switch that makes life hectic and complicated and embrace a quasi-improvisation mindset.  For those 5 minutes of seaweed world, I wasn't a girl thousands of miles away from my family, I wasn't beginning adulthood, or dreading the moment when my subway card would eventually run out of money (ironically, that happened later today).  For those 5 minutes I let the current dictate my life, a delicacy that is so rarely experienced in the developed world, and I relished the rejuvenation it produced in that class and for the rest of the day.                   

TRY OUT SEA WEED LIFE; IT ROCKS!