Today I talked to the actor when he got to rehearsal - I pulled him aside and spoke to him one on one. I expected him to be defensive and flaky again, but he was actually very considerate and agreed that what he had done was disrespectful and not okay, and that he wouldn't do it again. Case closed. I hope I won't have to deal with this anymore. I told him that he was putting me in a very awkward position, because I just didn't want to have this conversation with him - and that I shouldn't have to. He's better than that, and I have more important things to do with my time. Then we went back into rehearsal. At first, our conversation seemed to strike within him a deep disappointment for his actions - which is good - but not when it affects his acting - which it did. I told him to snap out of it. What happened happened and it's over. Luckily, he listened.
Today we did this exercise that Britt had suggested to get the actors thinking about their 'actions' in a scene. An actors action is probably Rich's favorite phrase. The action is what the character is doing, or trying to do, or trying to get out of the other character. An action can't be 'happy' or 'sad' - those are emotions. It can't be 'intimidating' - that's an attitude. An action CAN, however, be 'to intimidate'.
The exercise went like this: first I started out with Daryon and Keihin, using their lines from the scene where their characters get into the fight. The lines were:
Daryon: You know what Tony? Sometimes I don't even know why we're friends anymore.
Keihin: It's weird, isn't it? I'm Mars, you're Venus. I do things, you worry about them. I sleep with girls - YOU persuaded Cassie to attempt suicide.
The point really isn't the lines they're saying - it's the way they're saying them. First I asked them to say the lines exactly how they normally did. This is center stage, both Keihin and Daryon standing right across from each other. No blocking, no movement. Just the two actors on a stage. Then, I asked them to change it up with actions. I told Daryon to employ the action 'to defend himself' and Keihin to employ the action 'to hurt Daryon'. This is difficult, because Daryon has the first line - he's defending himself before he even knows what's going to be said to him. The next actions I gave them were 'to apologize' for Daryon and 'to blow him off' for Keihin. That actually looked really great, the way Daryon was pretty much apologizing to Keihin for the way they had been drifting apart, and Keihin completely blowing him off.
I had Wes and Amber stand up onstage and do their two lines next. The lines are:
Wes: Oh. Were you a part of that?
Amber: No, but...they were my friends. The guys who did it.
Again, context is completley unimportant. Luckily, I had already sort of employed actions in these actors without directly doing it, so it was easier to get started for them, but once I changed it up (Wes: to ascertain [to get the truth], Amber: to lie, or Wes: to make fun of, Amber: to apologize), I think it was harder for Wes to see the purpose of the exercise. And the truth is, when I was an actor, I totally thought directors were insane for getting me to do this - but now that I'm directing, I can actually SEE the difference it's making. It's incredible. I don't know if the actors can see it, but I can see it.
Then I asked Daryon and Sierra to stand up and do actiony type things with two lines from their kiss scene. The lines are:
Daryon: I did just leave him. Literally. And then...I wanted to see you.
Sierra: Do you want to kiss me, Sid?
At first, it was going really well (I gave Daryon the action: to seduce, and we all had fun with that). Then, I gave Daryon a rather abstract action - to love her. Not to woo her or to kiss her or to hug her - just to love her. His action in that scene is just loving her. For some reason, Daryon had SUCH A HARD TIME gathering himself and getting to that place in order to do that scene. The other actors in the audience were getting annoyed, and yelling at him that it was so easy. I like that it was hard for him, though. Every actor has that place or that action that is really hard for him or her, and it's probably just for very personal reasons. For example: Keihin can absolutely not do 'to apologize'. It is literally the most difficult thing, getting an apology from him through an action. We're going to have to work on that.
The thing is, even though it was so hard for Daryon, when he finally did it (Sierra's action was to get the truth out of him), it was so sweet and so genuine and so nice. It was just SO GOOD. This is how I know that it was a geniune acting job - because it wasn't easy for him. Luckily for him, though, that's totally not Sid's action in the scene. Sid has just met up with the girl he thinks he's in love with after his best friend has tackled and punched him. He's a LITTLE preoccupied. Maybe his action will be 'to focus on Cassie', but we'll work on that. I gave Sierra and Daryon homework for tomorrow - to come to rehearsal and give me an action for Cassie and for Sid that will work in that scene, and then I get to decide whether I like it or not. Mwahahahhaa.
I just realized how awesome it is that as a director I can see the importance of these exercises even though I couldn't see it when I was an actor. That literally just made me so, so happy.
Today is my eighteenth birthday! My parents and my brother and I went to an Indian restaurant in Grandview and I had a wonderful surprise! A woman called Bibiche who was a great friend of mine last year when I was working for Community Refugee and Immigration Services now works at that Indian restaurant! She and I became close over the year as I worked with her one on one and I spent a lot of time with her then-four year old daughter, Emerode. She's from the Congo. I was so happy to see her that I stood up and gave her an enormous hug. At first, she was shocked to see me, but then she got really happy too. I told her it was my birthday and she started singing to me! Then, later on in the evening, she told me she wanted to buy me a drink, out of her pocket. She grabbed me the menu (at first I thought she meant just like a pepsi or something) and then showed me all of their mixed drinks and beers. Then I realized that EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD THE DRINKING AGE IS EIGHTEEN. I laughed for about an hour and then told her that in America, you had to be twenty-one to drink. Just the gesture though nearly brought tears to my eyes.
When we got home, my family gave me their presents - my brother gave me the third season of Family Guy (I don't care what anyone says, I love that show). My mom gave me (this is adorable - are you all ready for this?) a really pretty notebook in which she had written down all the lyrics of the songs she had written about and for me when I was a little girl. She copied the dates that she wrote them and everything. The rest of the notebook is obviously for my use. I was very touched. My parents also got me a faux leather jacket from Target. Score. After that, we all had Pattycake Bakery cupcakes. Double score.
I am full and happy and content and peaceful on my birthday, which is all anyone could really ask for. Also, I talked to Genelle today, and we didn't even say anything remotely productive, like, 'tell me about Austria' or whatever. It was a fleeting conversation on Facebook which involved us calling each other 'cat' and 'buddy' a lot (it's a long story) and saying things like 'will you be my cat in marriage' and 'love me?'. Then she had to go. I don't think I really realized how important my friends are to me until this year when I'm not going to see them for such a long time. I spent Sunday night with Tristan at his house. We watched Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and I met his parents and had gingerbread pancakes. Literally like, the best thing ever, right? And now I don't get to see him until May, because by the time he gets back from Washington, I'll still be in Israel.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
i love how upfront my tizzle is.
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