2. Adding a secondary acting focus to make for a more interesting character
Acting between the lines
Today we worked on the acting and actions that go on when you are not actually saying lines. When you are cast in a play or musical - even if you are the main character - a lot of your character development and scene work is done when you are not speaking - but rather reacting to someone else speaking. If you only stay in character when you are saying your lines - your character falls short, and is not only one sided - but utterly incomplete. Today we worked on building your character in reactions and filling and contributing to a scene even if you have only a few lines.
Now that we are filling in a scene, we are getting into really hard parts of acting It's hard to feel part of a scene that you don't have many lines in - but it's important for everyone in the scene to add to it equally for everyone's character development and the overall execution of the scene.
We then took each of these things and assigned actions to them.
Adding a secondary acting focus to make for a more interesting character
We started our work on this by giving each character a secondary focus - a physical tick or something that would enhance their acting by having a real objective that had nothing to do with the scene.
For Galinda: She wanted Fieryo to notice her highlights
For Elphaba: She wanted to be like the usual girls that back Galinda up - but has no idea how to do their actions or postures. She also does not want Galinda to know that Fieryo is into her - and trying to hold her hand.
For Fieryo: He wanted to very publicly hold Elphaba's hand.
We then created a backstory that would warrent some reactions from each of the characters:
Elphaba - knows Fieryo loves her. Wants to be a good friend to Galinda - the only friend she's ever had. Trying to draw the attention back to Galinda
Galinda - throws all understanding and caution to the wind - wanting Fieryo to love her and wants the conversation to be about her.
Fieryo - wants Galinda to know he loves Elphaba.
Here are our videos from today!
Before/End of our lesson:
An outtake that had me rolling on the floor laughing: