Theatre has quickly climbed to the top of the list of my favorite classes—I'm already looking forward to the next two years. Having been a patron of the stage for a relatively significant portion of my life, I am incredibly excited for the opportunity to finally integrate my love for theatrical production and performance into my education!
...and, I feel like I'm already learning more. Our dialogue exercise was a great opportunity to acquaint myself with not only the expectations of the class—and the seriousness with which all exercises are treated—but also with my classmates, and their abilities as actors and directors.
It was very interesting to observe the different tones and styles with which four simple lines could be translated into small scenes:
Person A: Hi.
Person B: Hi.
Person A: Have you been waiting long?
Person B: ... forever.
Though today I've only viewed one other performance of this dialogue besides my own, I already acknowledge the significantly varied means of dramatic interpretation with which it can, has been, and will be treated.
The first duo to perform interpreted the four lines of dialogue very dramatically—and worked, following their first performed run-through, to perfect personal character development. It’s imperative to know one’s own character physically and emotionally, and to have a perfect understanding of the “stakes” and physicality of a situation.
The physicality of any situation for a stage actor is particularly important for, unlike an actor of film, a stage set is rarely if ever a real-life physical representation—stage sets almost always creatively work around space and financial limitations to better represent the concept of location.
After multiple run-throughs, the first duo nearly perfected their interpretation of the scene—that of two people, who care deeply for one another, meeting for the first time, in a long time, at an airport. They convincingly suggested through body language and inflection that they’d not seen each other for a long time, they were both slightly anxious about the meeting, and that, perhaps, they had deep emotional ties to one another.
My partner and I, instead, settled on a much more comedic interpretation of the scene. We established a medical waiting room of sorts with a reception desk (complete with receptionist, me), a seating area, and a patient suffering from the H1N1 virus.
After an initial run-through, it became clear that perhaps our characterizations relied too heavily on caricature to comically depict the situation. While this is accepted and applauded in situations of sketch-comedy and improvisation, we readily decided to assign our characters greater complexity, and, while still preserving the scene as a predominantly comedic one, we allowed for greater empathy from the audience. What started as clownish play soon developed into a scene of greater finesse and emotional range.
In characterizing my part as a waiting room receptionist, I settled on an interesting (and perhaps common) character trait amongst many members of the profession—an impatience and delight in others’ suffering. And yet, conscious of the respect every actor must give his or her character, I was careful to empathize with my receptionist’s plight, and, during our second run-through, attempted to depict a phone conversation during which the receptionist experienced chatisement or rebuke. I then transferred the negative emotions delivered to my character to the patient in my waiting room, in an act of reciprocation and retaliation against my sense of helplessness. While my character’s delight and admitted sadism in his decorum with the H1N1 victim are rude and alarming, I hope that my characterization partially explained his plight and condition to the impartial audience.
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