As I Sat, Watching

 January 14th, 2016

"I want you to walk through the scene and tell me what the most important parts of it are."

I sat in for one of the rehearsals, and listened to this conversation Kivan Kirk had with Ryan Weber and Madison Ogg. As requested, they walked through the scene and told him what the important parts were. The highlights. The turning points. The main topics.

While listening silently in the corner to all of the big moments of their scene, I couldn't help but wonder what the point of the activity was. They'd read their scene, so obviously they knew what the important moments were. I started to worry that Kirk was going to spend the entire rehearsal hitting the major beats of the scene, and making sure they were perfect.

I decided (a personal epiphany, really, because I'm all about those mind-blowing discoveries) that the big moments weren't important. In fact, they were rendered useless every moment and line and beat in between was taken seriously and understood completely and considered just as important as "THE" important moment. And from there, the big moments would flow seamlessly and be that much more important.

The entire rehearsal was spent working the first three lines of the scene, discussing the relationship between the two characters at their points in time, and working through how the feel of the atmosphere would be. Jimmy, sad and alone at the bar, drinking away his worries; and Sandrine, at her bachelorette party.

This took up more time than you would think. My fears of them rushing over the "smaller" moments were put to rest immediately; of course Kirk knew what he was doing.

Kivan Kirk (Director), Madison Ogg, Ryan Weber

Kivan Kirk (Director), Drew Wilson, Elizabeth Cowley

"Elizabeth, take the pillows and throw them down over there. Drew, pick them back up and put them back in their original place."

This ended with both of them running across the room in a rage, trying to win the pillow pile battle. The lines "What are you doing?" (Drew Wilson) and "What am I doing?" (Elizabeth Cowley) were the only things allowed to be spoken.

Performing is, of course, a natural instinct for an actor. The real challenge is being vulnerable enough to open up your entire being to the staged happenings around you and let them take their toll. Instead of performing the action of throwing a pillow from one side to the other, the ultimate goal is to forget that you have a task at all, and be so enthralled in what you're doing that you forget where you are, forget that you're acting, and it becomes as true to your heart as if you'd invented the entire pillow situation on your own accord.

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"Ali, I want you to clutch this pillow. Ben, I want you to take it from her."

The honesty of their scene, after forcing themselves to be in the moment, and feel the desperation, was phenomenal.

It's very easy to read the lines and say them dramatically and take every word written on the page and somehow try to string a bit of heart into it. The separation needs to be between the words and the character. We as humans are not our words. Our words express our thoughts and help us voice who we are. But we're living beings - unique with a mind full of thoughts. When reading a character, there needs to be the character, and then the lines on top, helping you voice what the character is doing.

I think once you decipher between those two things, acting becomes incredibly more real. Human. Relatable. Honest.  That's something I see happening at rehearsal right now. The director slowly breaking the barrier between the two.

Objectives. A way for actors to find the connection between their characters and themselves, the intent of their actions and the honest reasons for the character's actions. In pursuing objectives, we escape the risk of being young actors on stage performing lines, and we become people truly living on stage with one another. Unforced emotions and inflections flood the stage rather than cheesy words, unbelievable facial expressions, and loud, pointed jokes.

Ben Sulzberger, Ali Sandler

We move from the situation of Ali Sandler holding a pillow away from Ben Sulzberger, and it beautifully transforms into Glory desperately trying to keep her broken heart safe from East, who would stop the world if it meant fixing her heart.

Mabel McIntosh