From Thomasina's JournalsFebruary 1st 2008 |
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From Rebecca Pearcy
Chaos commences; Arcadia
First things first. I would just like to apologise for the deeply narcissistic moments that will occur in this blog. I strongly believe the life of an actor is all about me, me, me, or maybe I am the most self indulged person I know. I had hoped that this blog would be about the wonderful and magical creation of the art that is theatre, however I can foresee this plan failing. So, I apologise for any narcissistic moments in advance but, tough, they are bound to occur.
On that note let’s progress as I do not mean to go on. I would just like to take this one moment to say how utterly excited I am! This is to be my American Premiere!!! (Narcissistic moment) I am nervous as hell but soooooooo excited! The weird thing is, I have only performed in my own accent the once. I have spent the last three years of my life at a London drama College trying to perfect the various American accents that cover this huge country. And now I fly thousands of miles from England to America where I am to perform in my own accent. I feel I have the upper hand on everyone else in the cast accent wise but it feels weird!!!
Anyway, meet and greet. I believe it is essential to get to know your cast and crew as best you can. If you can not trust who you work with you are bound to be nervous and nervousness causes missed lines, bad acting and a smack in the face with the promise that you will never work in this town again! So meet and greet is essential! This was to be my first time of meeting the majority of the cast as this is my second production at Actors Guild and I immediately felt at ease with everyone on the first meeting. Everyone appears so welcoming and warm, certainly not like us stiff upper lipped Brits!
The rest of the week consisted of an educative journey. WOW! I have to proudly say that I feel like a genius. I have learnt so much in this week; Iterated algorithms, thermodynamics, chaos theory, 19th Century England, Lord Byron, romanticism, classicism, sex, drugs and rock and roll. I love it! I think that learning the facts and history behind the play is one of the most rewarding aspects for an actor in the process. You get to learn so much about things that may have never crossed your path before and because it revolves around this obsessive passion of yours; the play, the educative process becomes an obsession also.
It becomes clear from this week of research that our Mr Stoppard is a bit of a crazy genius. What a man! Arcadia is stuffed to the brim with so much that my head may indeed explode. My only concern is the audience. Will they know what an iterated algorithm is?(EDITORS NOTE: NO) I certainly did not until this week... maybe this just means my schooling was not all that good. But seriously, it took me three times of reading the play to even begin to understand what the characters were talking about. There is so much in Arcadia that I worry the audience will be confused by it all. I am in no means debating the intelligence of Lexington’s theatre goers. Please, no one take offence.
Ok, enough. I have realised I talk far too much. Blabber mouth Becky will be my new nickname.
P.s Apologies for the incorrect grammar... I have no excuse. Oh wait, this is they way we speak in England! Did I get away with it?
Week two
Time to get this baby on its feet. Woo!
I knew the majority of my lines when we began blocking. Now, this is not because I wanted to be a suck up but because it bugs me when I go into rehearsals and I have a flipping script in my hand. It’s just an extra annoyance and distraction! You are doing fine and really getting into the action, when wham! You want to use both your hands or you doubt yourself and scour the page for your next line which in turns makes you late for your cue and you turn into a babbling apologetic idiot as you still continue to scour the page in vain to find that line which you roughly knew anyway. You have so much to think about; positioning, voice quality, breathing, trying to be live in the moment, so, a script is just annoying!
You may think that it helps at times where the mind stutters over a particular line but the presence of a script in my hand just makes me want to throw it at someone’s head. I do not have anything against the presence of my script on stage, such as on the table in front of me. I can casually and briefly look over the pages and remain in the action but in my hand. AHHHHHH!!!! There will be no script on the day we open, thus it just frustrates me when its there in my hand during rehearsals! Now, I do not mind other actors having scripts in their hand because I do not have to keep track of what line I am at on their script. It’s just my own personal concern. No script in my hand please. This is why I NEED to be off book as soon as we start blocking or I will go insane in my own little Becky bubble. Sorry if I have shocked you with my passion about this. It has now become apparent that this ‘anger’ and frustration about this issue is something cemented deep in my unconscious that has scarred me for life and will forever haunt me. Maybe I should see a doctor?... see narcissistic, me, me, me.
Back to the issue in hand! As I did not have to stop every five seconds to look at my script, I felt good, I felt on my toes, but it was my voice that made me want to scratch my eyes out. I do not understand why but I find my own voice really annoying. Especially as I am playing a thirteen year old and so I have raised my pitch just slightly. But oh my god! Why is my voice so annoying? I wonder why Ave does not throw a pencil at my head and demand I have plastic voice surgery. WOW. I am really agitated today. Look at me go with my moaning.
Ok enough moaning. More positivity. SO this week felt good... why am I so agitated then?! Actually seeing as it 2 months away from the date we open, I feel amazing about where we are at. We plotted scenes one and three and despite my annoying British accent, it’s going quite well. Ave is a director that not only excites and encourages me but demands my input and insight, which I love! Adam is great to work with. The eye contacts there, he’s nearly off script and he is such a caring Septimus with a wonderfully soft British accent.
I had fun this week. Especially when I get to scream ‘I hope you die!’ rip some paper and dive through the French windows in a huge dramatic way whilst knocking Kody over. Ave if you are reading this I really feel this is something we should rehearse and see if it works, no offense Kody I just think that knocking you over would create a wonderful sub plot to the play. Why is there tension between Thomasina and her uncle? Hmmm... ok, enough excuses, I just want to be violent on stage. See, anger, again! Oh, my. Ok, next week, I promise will be about the wonderful creation of theatre! I will end it here as I fear that I will continue to vent myself and all of my psychological disorders will spill out onto this public blog.
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