"Community Theater"

So today was the first day of week 2...we've added yet another new student and the international side of the class is well represented. Our newbie is from the Netherlands and told us that she works on a soap opera there, so we'll call her Soap Girl.

The big to-do for me today was doing the scene in Sam's class with the Tall One. This was, in Sam's words, a "rehearsal." We still had scripts in hands and were doing a good deal of stop-and-go stuff. The scene in The Cherry Orchard we're doing is between the "perpetual student" Trofimov and the young Anya, who is infatuated with Trofimov's high political talk. My initial impulse was to give the scene a bit of awkwardness...Trofimov does believe what he's saying but is also attracted to Anya. Sam stopped us though, he felt Trofimov should be caught up in his political ideas and not really aware of Anya as a woman.

So that's a different interpretation, but I can make the adjustment. As we worked on the scene, Sam kept reminding both of us not to give a performance but to just talk. The scene was better that way....but at one point during Trofimov's impassioned monologue I (on an impulse) crossed away from her downstage. Sam interrupted at that point and said that he didn't mean for what he was about to say to sound cruel, but he thought that move was a little "community theater." I laughed out loud from surprise at his bluntness, and I guess that defused the moment a bit because everyone else laughed too.

I knew what he meant and I didn't mind. I had told Sam a little about my background, so he knew where he was coming from with the comment. This is a class in realistic acting, and I know have a tendency to go into a mode that could be called "stagey." It's a habit I've fallen into over the years, and I'm aware of it. But I need to get over that and stay with playing actions and looking for the truth of the scene, especially while I've got the chance to be in an exploratory situation like this. Whether this trait is "community theater" or not I don't know, but what Sam was talking about was a sort of an awareness of the audience that isn't necessary and not even really appropriate for this material.

After class one of the young women I haven't mentioned yet (we'll call her Big Voice because she can hold her "hah"'s longer than anybody) gave me a complement, so I'd like to think that the changes we made as we worked registered and that the scene is going somewhere. As I've said, I do feel like there is a good ensemble feeling in the group since we are after all in this together. It's too bad there isn't time for us to all do a show together, but the camaraderie we're developing in the "Composition" class will influence the scenes for the better. I've got memorization to do.....