Lately i've been thinking alot about what Matt & Don said about not being specific with movement and sort of sloshing around stage. i realized the other day when we did a speed through that when i was completely focused on a person and playing with the text that my movements were specific, smooth and concentrated. I only moved when it was right... but i never changed any of my blocking and i noticed that in some places other peoples blocking looked right for the first time. I guess what im saying is that as an actor i tend to be in my head quite alot always running through my homework. its time to be secure with the work ( i dont mean stop working, i will continue to do homework) but as soon as i walk in i need to believe i have the character and that i can make choices as sebastian. Instead of rattling off my tactics in my head I know i need to work on focusing on my partner in the scene. I've heard Barbara say it before but havent really understood it before now that, the!
great actor makes his/ her partner look amazing. If you poor everything into somebody else you forget your self and ease comes with... ease...? I suppose this is just me rambling but i understand now why i never get scenes and parts until a couple days before its time for them to start. i dont let go of the work until the last second. without knowing i've been holding my self back. So starting now do the homework but stop thinking about it as soon as i jump on that stage.
HOOZAHHHH FOR EPIPHANIES!
Ross
Monday, September 15, 2008
For everybody...
...but especially Viola
I found this article today ... and I think we have been already discussing a lot of the ideas they touch on. I just found it interesting how they frame the discussion in terms of aesthetic realism. I didn't really know much about Aesthetic Realism, and I still don't know much, but I am fascinated by the philosophies which were developed by the poet Eli Siegel. Wikipedia sums them up as the following: "-Beauty in art is the making one of opposites, such as order and freedom, logic and passion, strength and grace.
-Everyone's deepest desire is to like the world on an honest or accurate basis."
Anywho..... here's the article
The desire to have contempt—that is, to lessen the meaning of things in order to see one's self as superior--causes unhappiness and even insanity.
Passion and Control in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
By Ann Richards and Carol McCluer
In The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known #212, titled “All the Arts,” Eli Siegel writes:
Feeling and craft are the greatest friends in all the arts; and these correspond to passion and control… Every art asks care from the person working in the art; and every art also asks for adequate feeling or passion.
We're studying how acting has these opposites again and again; and Aesthetic Realism is teaching us this new idea: that the answers to the questions people have everywhere daily are in the structure of the art we love.“ What should I be passionate about, if anything?” “Am I too cold, do I have enough feeling?” and “Why do I feel I’m all over the place, and don’t have control of my emotions?” are questions that torment women and men all over the world.
We studied a scene from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will; and through a lecture Eli Siegel gave on this play, we learned about ourselves and other people as we looked at two women--Viola and Olivia. We had the thrill of seeing how opposites in the drama tell us about ourselves.
Twelfth Night has been called Shakespeare’s Farewell to Comedy and was written about 1600. It is wild and subtle, surprising and right, passionate and controlled. The story involves three sets of characters who intermingle as in a mad, strange, happy dance.
In his lecture on the play, Eli Siegel said:
This play can be said to be a lot about self-love trying to be love.
There is Orsino, Duke of Illyria who thinks he is in love with Olivia. Olivia has shut her doors on society. She is in a self-proclaimed seven-year mourning over her brother’s death. Then there is Viola. She has been shipwrecked on the shores of Illyria--where all this takes place, by the way--and she is disguised as a boy named Cesario. She falls in love with Orsino; but not knowing she is a woman, Orsino engages Viola as his page, and sends her to woo Olivia for him. What a situation! There is enough feeling in all these people to make one dizzy; but Shakespeare controls it all.
The scene we are studying is Act I, Scene V, in which Viola, as Cesario, the boy page, is to deliver Orsino’s declaration of love to Olivia. The scene is an intricate mingling of passion and control. Viola is controlling her own passion for Orsino, and hiding her true identity. Olivia’s passion is all for herself; she is in a fight between boredom and interest, a bad kind of control and passion.
Olivia is dressed in black, with a veil over her head. She speaks about her body as though it were separate from herself. She shows how intensely a person can feel this world does not deserve her passion; and her control is really contempt:
Viola. Good madam, let me see your face.
Olivia. Look you, sir. Such a one I was this present.
I, Ann Richards, have been studying the Olivia tendency in myself since my first Aesthetic Realism consultation, to which I wore black. I said my emotions had control over me: I did not have control over them. My consultants asked me: “What is the emotion that you are most against? I said, “I get very sad. I can cry at the drop of a hat.” And they asked, “Do you in any way treasure your sadness? Do you think it’s charming? Do you think it makes you more sensitive than other people?”
Aesthetic Realism consultations teach a person how opposites can be in a beautiful relation in life. Hearing Aesthetic Realism criticism has enabled me to see where I was largely the source of my own pain and, to my amazement, I have been able to laugh at myself. My gratitude to Eli Siegel and my consultants for the changes in my life grows every day.
In the lecture on Twelfth Night, Mr. Siegel says of Viola:
Viola represents energy; energy likewise with gentleness.
Energy with gentleness is another way of saying passionate and controlled. Mr. Siegel continues:
Viola represents the outside world coming from the water to stir up both Orsino and Olivia. She represents that third something.
I, Carol McCluer, love the character of Viola and feel it is an honor to try to give form to her. She stands for the world as criticism and encouragement. It is she, disguised as the young man, Cesario, who criticizes Olivia’s containment and bad control; she tells it to her straight, and for the first time, Olivia feels really loved.
An actress known for her portrayal of Viola is Julia Marlowe, of early 20th century America. She was also known for her portrayal of Rosalind, another Shakespearean heroine who disguises herself as a boy in order to both hide and show her passion. Reading a biography of her and reviews of her performances has had a large effect on my study of the character. I think her interpretation of Viola as deeply feminine, yet more of an idea than a human being of flesh and blood, has affected actresses since then; and I know Julia Marlowe would have loved what Eli Siegel said about this role:
Shakespeare uses people as ideas and ideas as people.
Even though Orsino, whom Viola loves, has sent her to woo Olivia for him, Viola does not have ill will for Olivia. Instead, she feels passionately that if Olivia is the woman who can strengthen Orsino, that should be. Viola pities the weakness in Olivia and criticizes her roundly. She says, “I see you what you are; you are too proud.” She also sees a beautiful possibility in Olivia which affects Olivia deeply, but not in the way Viola expected. The fact is, Olivia falls in love with Viola! Mr. Siegel explains the sudden passion of Olivia, when he says:
If one thinks that the first time Olivia sees Viola she’s going to be so moved that she has to send after Viola and do this business with the ring--of course, that’s unbelievable. Ibsen would never do it. It’s unbelievable. But if you see Viola as a sudden idea, a sudden awareness, then it is beautiful, like a sudden change of music.
In Viola, Olivia sees a world worth her passion.
It is Viola whom Eli Siegel quotes in his essay The Ordinary Doom as showing the desire in people to be hidden and not known. Viola is beautiful because she comes to see this hiddenness as a mistake, and later in the play, she says: “Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness.” The trouble in my life has been that most of the time I felt, “Disguise, thou art wonderful!” I was asked kind and critical questions in my first consultation, such as: “Do you think you have a question about how much you want to show yourself as such?”
CMc: Yes.
Con: You smile. Do you also cry? Are your smiles and tears in the same world or different?
CMc: Different.
Con: Do you feel you’ve fooled people?
CMc: Yes.
Through studying Aesthetic Realism, we've been able to change. In The Right Of #212, Mr. Siegel writes:
Every person, too, is a constant mingling of life unshaped and of life possibly shaped. A person is an art problem, cherished and a little feared by himself.
We love studying acting from the Aesthetic Realism point of view, and learning about the relation of drama to life.
I found this article today ... and I think we have been already discussing a lot of the ideas they touch on. I just found it interesting how they frame the discussion in terms of aesthetic realism. I didn't really know much about Aesthetic Realism, and I still don't know much, but I am fascinated by the philosophies which were developed by the poet Eli Siegel. Wikipedia sums them up as the following: "-Beauty in art is the making one of opposites, such as order and freedom, logic and passion, strength and grace.
-Everyone's deepest desire is to like the world on an honest or accurate basis."
Anywho..... here's the article
The desire to have contempt—that is, to lessen the meaning of things in order to see one's self as superior--causes unhappiness and even insanity.
Passion and Control in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
By Ann Richards and Carol McCluer
In The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known #212, titled “All the Arts,” Eli Siegel writes:
Feeling and craft are the greatest friends in all the arts; and these correspond to passion and control… Every art asks care from the person working in the art; and every art also asks for adequate feeling or passion.
We're studying how acting has these opposites again and again; and Aesthetic Realism is teaching us this new idea: that the answers to the questions people have everywhere daily are in the structure of the art we love.“ What should I be passionate about, if anything?” “Am I too cold, do I have enough feeling?” and “Why do I feel I’m all over the place, and don’t have control of my emotions?” are questions that torment women and men all over the world.
We studied a scene from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will; and through a lecture Eli Siegel gave on this play, we learned about ourselves and other people as we looked at two women--Viola and Olivia. We had the thrill of seeing how opposites in the drama tell us about ourselves.
Twelfth Night has been called Shakespeare’s Farewell to Comedy and was written about 1600. It is wild and subtle, surprising and right, passionate and controlled. The story involves three sets of characters who intermingle as in a mad, strange, happy dance.
In his lecture on the play, Eli Siegel said:
This play can be said to be a lot about self-love trying to be love.
There is Orsino, Duke of Illyria who thinks he is in love with Olivia. Olivia has shut her doors on society. She is in a self-proclaimed seven-year mourning over her brother’s death. Then there is Viola. She has been shipwrecked on the shores of Illyria--where all this takes place, by the way--and she is disguised as a boy named Cesario. She falls in love with Orsino; but not knowing she is a woman, Orsino engages Viola as his page, and sends her to woo Olivia for him. What a situation! There is enough feeling in all these people to make one dizzy; but Shakespeare controls it all.
The scene we are studying is Act I, Scene V, in which Viola, as Cesario, the boy page, is to deliver Orsino’s declaration of love to Olivia. The scene is an intricate mingling of passion and control. Viola is controlling her own passion for Orsino, and hiding her true identity. Olivia’s passion is all for herself; she is in a fight between boredom and interest, a bad kind of control and passion.
Olivia is dressed in black, with a veil over her head. She speaks about her body as though it were separate from herself. She shows how intensely a person can feel this world does not deserve her passion; and her control is really contempt:
Viola. Good madam, let me see your face.
Olivia. Look you, sir. Such a one I was this present.
I, Ann Richards, have been studying the Olivia tendency in myself since my first Aesthetic Realism consultation, to which I wore black. I said my emotions had control over me: I did not have control over them. My consultants asked me: “What is the emotion that you are most against? I said, “I get very sad. I can cry at the drop of a hat.” And they asked, “Do you in any way treasure your sadness? Do you think it’s charming? Do you think it makes you more sensitive than other people?”
Aesthetic Realism consultations teach a person how opposites can be in a beautiful relation in life. Hearing Aesthetic Realism criticism has enabled me to see where I was largely the source of my own pain and, to my amazement, I have been able to laugh at myself. My gratitude to Eli Siegel and my consultants for the changes in my life grows every day.
In the lecture on Twelfth Night, Mr. Siegel says of Viola:
Viola represents energy; energy likewise with gentleness.
Energy with gentleness is another way of saying passionate and controlled. Mr. Siegel continues:
Viola represents the outside world coming from the water to stir up both Orsino and Olivia. She represents that third something.
I, Carol McCluer, love the character of Viola and feel it is an honor to try to give form to her. She stands for the world as criticism and encouragement. It is she, disguised as the young man, Cesario, who criticizes Olivia’s containment and bad control; she tells it to her straight, and for the first time, Olivia feels really loved.
An actress known for her portrayal of Viola is Julia Marlowe, of early 20th century America. She was also known for her portrayal of Rosalind, another Shakespearean heroine who disguises herself as a boy in order to both hide and show her passion. Reading a biography of her and reviews of her performances has had a large effect on my study of the character. I think her interpretation of Viola as deeply feminine, yet more of an idea than a human being of flesh and blood, has affected actresses since then; and I know Julia Marlowe would have loved what Eli Siegel said about this role:
Shakespeare uses people as ideas and ideas as people.
Even though Orsino, whom Viola loves, has sent her to woo Olivia for him, Viola does not have ill will for Olivia. Instead, she feels passionately that if Olivia is the woman who can strengthen Orsino, that should be. Viola pities the weakness in Olivia and criticizes her roundly. She says, “I see you what you are; you are too proud.” She also sees a beautiful possibility in Olivia which affects Olivia deeply, but not in the way Viola expected. The fact is, Olivia falls in love with Viola! Mr. Siegel explains the sudden passion of Olivia, when he says:
If one thinks that the first time Olivia sees Viola she’s going to be so moved that she has to send after Viola and do this business with the ring--of course, that’s unbelievable. Ibsen would never do it. It’s unbelievable. But if you see Viola as a sudden idea, a sudden awareness, then it is beautiful, like a sudden change of music.
In Viola, Olivia sees a world worth her passion.
It is Viola whom Eli Siegel quotes in his essay The Ordinary Doom as showing the desire in people to be hidden and not known. Viola is beautiful because she comes to see this hiddenness as a mistake, and later in the play, she says: “Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness.” The trouble in my life has been that most of the time I felt, “Disguise, thou art wonderful!” I was asked kind and critical questions in my first consultation, such as: “Do you think you have a question about how much you want to show yourself as such?”
CMc: Yes.
Con: You smile. Do you also cry? Are your smiles and tears in the same world or different?
CMc: Different.
Con: Do you feel you’ve fooled people?
CMc: Yes.
Through studying Aesthetic Realism, we've been able to change. In The Right Of #212, Mr. Siegel writes:
Every person, too, is a constant mingling of life unshaped and of life possibly shaped. A person is an art problem, cherished and a little feared by himself.
We love studying acting from the Aesthetic Realism point of view, and learning about the relation of drama to life.
Orsino's 'Super' Objective
(Super as in "I'm Awesome")
I've been playing around with Orsino's super objective for a few weeks. It's slowly been changing from, "I want some one to love me" to a more specific, "I want some one to reciprocate the amount of love I have to give" to the unsuccessful, "I want some one to make me a sandwich." All of these ideas I've played with haven't felt really beneficial or strong or specific enough choices to really drive my intention throughout the play. But like a lightning bolt striking Sean Patrick Flannery in the film "Powder" I realized what my super objective is: "To have a family." This correlates perfectly with my back story being that of a boy who spent his life being raised by house servants and ascending to power before he became a man and grew to know his family. He sees Olivia for her status and beauty and believes that she is the perfect puzzle piece to fit in with his need for a family. By being with her he believes she can create the family he never had, because his servants (like !
that asshole Valentine) are not sufficient to what Orsino wants.
I've also included a picture of Paul Rudd when he played Orsino in Lincoln Center in 1999. I've included the picture for two reasons: the style of Paul Rudd's costume is eerily similar to my choice for my first scene, and I love Paul Rudd and one day would like to play his little brother in a film.
Best Blog Benefaction
Twelfth Night or...
What You Will
Sandbuggy
Impotent Umbrella
Andrew's Bent Stick
Get Your Tweed Dirty
Handling the Shuttlecock
Belching and Fadging
Grab Your Coin Pouch
Racquetball then Jazz
Wack Jack
Magic Theatre
Ellipses Question Mark
Running in the Rain and Long Walks on the Beach
Blowing Dolphins
It's Time to Make Some Bitches Laugh
What You Will
Sandbuggy
Impotent Umbrella
Andrew's Bent Stick
Get Your Tweed Dirty
Handling the Shuttlecock
Belching and Fadging
Grab Your Coin Pouch
Racquetball then Jazz
Wack Jack
Magic Theatre
Ellipses Question Mark
Running in the Rain and Long Walks on the Beach
Blowing Dolphins
It's Time to Make Some Bitches Laugh
Friday, September 12, 2008
missed connections
Goodnight My Somebody
I planned to be a writer someday but you already knew who you were. I was beautiful but too modest to possess the confidence that beauty permitted. You were strong and handsome and I treated you as if you were too good for me. I never said I loved you but I am sure you could see it when I looked at you and feel it when we kissed. Age and wisdom have taught me that your strength was my weakness and that very weakness was my downfall in your eyes.
For some reason I find it necessary to tell you now that I only seemed unsure of myself because I never fell for somebody as hard as I was falling for you. You never called that night we had plans. I never called you after that. It may have looked as if I were insecure, but at the absolute minimum I believe I deserve to be with somebody who wants to be with me. The fact that you didn't call me said all you had to say.
My suspicion is that you are married now. Since I have neither heard from nor pursued you since the last we met, it is strictly a suspicion. Still, somehow I know that you aren't happily involved with her, because you settled. She seemed normal and secure and after me, you thought she possessed the important qualities. The thing is, women looking for marriage know how to play the game. And women looking for a true relationship go into it as themselves. My cards were on the table and you tried to make me regret showing my hand. Now you think of me and fall asleep beside her.
I still plan to be a writer. You are still strong and handsome. I was never insecure and you know that now. If only once, I had fallen asleep in your arms, perhaps you wouldn't have let go
I planned to be a writer someday but you already knew who you were. I was beautiful but too modest to possess the confidence that beauty permitted. You were strong and handsome and I treated you as if you were too good for me. I never said I loved you but I am sure you could see it when I looked at you and feel it when we kissed. Age and wisdom have taught me that your strength was my weakness and that very weakness was my downfall in your eyes.
For some reason I find it necessary to tell you now that I only seemed unsure of myself because I never fell for somebody as hard as I was falling for you. You never called that night we had plans. I never called you after that. It may have looked as if I were insecure, but at the absolute minimum I believe I deserve to be with somebody who wants to be with me. The fact that you didn't call me said all you had to say.
My suspicion is that you are married now. Since I have neither heard from nor pursued you since the last we met, it is strictly a suspicion. Still, somehow I know that you aren't happily involved with her, because you settled. She seemed normal and secure and after me, you thought she possessed the important qualities. The thing is, women looking for marriage know how to play the game. And women looking for a true relationship go into it as themselves. My cards were on the table and you tried to make me regret showing my hand. Now you think of me and fall asleep beside her.
I still plan to be a writer. You are still strong and handsome. I was never insecure and you know that now. If only once, I had fallen asleep in your arms, perhaps you wouldn't have let go
Feste next episode
Today in Voice class with Joe, we did a really stimulating exercise that made me think of how to use the Rauh space with a sense of confidence.
We stood opposite a wall, just far enough away so that we could not touch it. We closed our eyes and Joe guided us through a series of events: sand under the toes, looking out on the horizon of the sea, preparing a canvas for painting, painting what we see, using the breath every time we would stroke, incorporating the entire body in the painting process, becoming the paint, noticing a storm in the distance, experiencing the storm, letting the storm die down, putting finishing touches on the painting while always including breath, and then rolling up our canvases and coming into the space, and opening our eyes,
I learned so much about personalization and specificity. By the time I finished my painting, I was so familiar with my image that I probably could have recreated it on an actual canvas. People were saying that they felt uninhibited…they were being active and seeing instead of being ‘the seen.’
I think that keeping this in mind will help me to find that ease that Matt talks about. The ability to simply stand in front of that audience as the character without actor tension.
Status
After rehearsing Act I, scene ii last night with the status difference between Viola and the Captain, I felt a giant difference in the way Viola sees things. I began to reevaluate my feelings and opinions of a lot of what happens in the play.
For some reason, I was looking at the other characters in Twelfth Night through a rainbow and sunshine filter through which my opinion of everyone had been pretty positive. Now, really implimenting Viola's status, much has changed. She certainly dislikes Malvolio and Valentine for how rude they are to her throughout the play, but it is more than that. They are servants and even though she is playing one herself, she is not used to being treated like that. The last person who was anything but sweet to her, she probably fired and never heard of them again. I think this will really help me change up and strengthen some of my tactics.
My biggest discovery was Antonio. Up until now, I had been playing that she pretty much stuck with her "Oh gosh, thanks for saving me!" opinion of him throughout the rest of the show with a few "hey, silly, stop lyings" thrown in. Now, however, it is clear to me that as soon as Orsino expresses his feelings of dislike towards Antonio, she is fully against him. Her opinion of him worsens throughout the play up until Sebastian is revealed, at which point I don't even think she remembers that Antonio is even still there. . . does anybody remember he is there? Sorry Jon-Michael.
love
Katie
For some reason, I was looking at the other characters in Twelfth Night through a rainbow and sunshine filter through which my opinion of everyone had been pretty positive. Now, really implimenting Viola's status, much has changed. She certainly dislikes Malvolio and Valentine for how rude they are to her throughout the play, but it is more than that. They are servants and even though she is playing one herself, she is not used to being treated like that. The last person who was anything but sweet to her, she probably fired and never heard of them again. I think this will really help me change up and strengthen some of my tactics.
My biggest discovery was Antonio. Up until now, I had been playing that she pretty much stuck with her "Oh gosh, thanks for saving me!" opinion of him throughout the rest of the show with a few "hey, silly, stop lyings" thrown in. Now, however, it is clear to me that as soon as Orsino expresses his feelings of dislike towards Antonio, she is fully against him. Her opinion of him worsens throughout the play up until Sebastian is revealed, at which point I don't even think she remembers that Antonio is even still there. . . does anybody remember he is there? Sorry Jon-Michael.
love
Katie
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