Today we worked on setting a scene - or building context for our character and scene without any physical objects or pantomiming. When doing a monologue (especially at an audition), it's important to be able to add as many things to a scene to make it more interesting, make sense, and build things to make our acting even more natural - like things to react to. For example, in our monologue today, there were directive lines written in like "picks up bottle" "sniffs perfume" and "peeks in room". The worst thing we could do for our acting is to pretend to pick up a bottle that isn't there, and pantomime walking into a different room - because doing these things creates an extra layer of unnatural behavior between the actor and the audience. The actor would be showing the audience that it is not only a made up scene - but that all parts of it are to be thought of as an extension of the physical person in front of them reading or reciting lines - rather than a character telling a story.
The way that we get around these kinds of direction without sacrificing the integrity of the writing - is we set a scene around us.
We can show that our friend is in another room by talking to them over our shoulder in the same direction every time and speaking as if they're far away. We can show that we are snooping around by simply looking around as if there were bottles and different things on different surfaces.
The difference is - the audience experiences the scene with the actor - seeing everything they're setting up - while the actor never does anything that shows or says "none of this could really happen because i'm holding an invisible bottle that you have to imagine is more than my hand".
We place things in the scene as if it is a room - with a mirror that our character is obviously looking at by how she is admiring herself, a several tables full of things she is snooping around - careful not to touch or disturb any of it, and a friend in another room whom which is her direct audience - or the other character in the scene she is talking to.
Character development: Building a story
Today we also worked further on our character development - giving our character motivations and things to react to that could explain her behavior, making our character more interesting.
The things we listed were:
1. She just got onto a committee with the other character - the meeting is a forced one.. she was reluctantly invited
2. 600 lbs while "crystal" the girl she's speaking to is thin, well liked, and kind.
3. Her main objective is for Crystal to know important she is and how she is an expert on everything
Buttons
We also worked on buttons - or how we start and finish a scene. By starting a scene with action rather than our first line - we tell our audience that the scene has started, while setting up the character and scene for success as soon as we start talking. We are able to immediately show if the scene and character is funny, dramatic, spastic, ect. And - It is a smooth transition between our slate (or introduction), and helps us get into character in a quick way.