3. Diving deeper into homework for comedic timing/ building a character
Pacing/ Beats
This week we worked on taking our pacing/beats to the next level. Because Ella's acting instincts are getting SOOO GOOD we now are able to add things to make our scene flow better - while still keeping it slow for things like comedic timing, understanding of the scene by the audience, and to ultimately make the character feel real by inserting pauses where the character would naturally have to think or slow down. Our pacing now not only includes adding beats or natural and unnatural pauses through out the scene. We now add a few different dynamics that add in the fast parts of the scene as well - rounding out the scene and making it more interesting. The reason we wait to add the fast parts until the slow beats are mastered is because of every actor's natural tendency to speed scenes up way too fast - disregarding beats and not giving the scene the time it needs. When adding this dynamic - we make sure that the scene is still slow and the beats are still there (and sometimes even longer than we would make them before), but we add things like talking fast through certain lines to add anxiousness, cutting into other character's lines to show either a more natural interaction - or again, to add a sense of urgency to the scene. By adding this side of pacing, we round out our scenes while not rushing through them. Ella did SO GOOD!!!
Character shifts/ Diving deeper into homework for comedic timing/ building a character
We also worked on our character shifts on a new level. While still making sure there are distinct moments in a scene where the character acts differently, talks differently, shows different motivation - pairing each shift with a distinct physical action to emphasize the character shift - we now smooth the character shifts so that they can still be extreme while feeling a little bit more natural.
We do this by diving into our character development and mapping out the characters internal process a little bit more.
For example - when we get to the line "green" and the lines leading up to it, that Galinda is listening to Elphaba talk about something that is deeply personal and sad to her - before we would have added a character shift by connecting some physical action to the line "green", and possibly changed our vocal intonation so that it sounded different.
This week, we talked about how Galinda was so excited that she figured something out - that she didn't care that it was deeply emotional for Elphaba, but only cared that she sounded smart and she was going to show it! This gave us the opportunity to show the thinking process (by squinting eyes, using our fingers to show we were trying to figure something out), and a eureka moment (when she figured out 'green' - gasping a little bit, and sounding excited) - all the while adding to the character development by showing something important about the character instead of just showing action and a voice shift.
By adding in this process of a more developed character shift, we are able to add things like more natural comedic timing to even the biggest and most ridiculous of characters, pausing for effect, cutting off lines of other characters, and showing the "thought process" of a character - rounding the character out even further.