Annoyance Week Eight – Level One

This being our last class of the session – Dan wanted us to make sure each of us got the chance to do as many different scenes in as possible (more room for us to stretch our muscles and experiment) and of course make sure we grasp some of the core idea behind the Annoyance philosophy (more on what these are later).
However he also announced he planned to randomly pre-select a set time for certain scenes (anywhere from 5+ minutes to 5 seconds he told us) through out the class with out telling us before hand. So while some scenes would be un-timed and edited when he felt appropriate – he always kept his watch in his hand – and you never knew if you were in a timed scene (much less how much time you had) till it was over.

Now what this little caveat did (especially after the first few scenes lasting mere seconds) was to quickly ingrain in our minds the necessity (and power) of not only initiating strongly but also the importance of having something that you can sustain indefinitely (or at least 5+ minutes).
For me definitely it lead me toward immediately giving myself something the moment I stepped on stage: picking an emotion, physicality (how I walked or stood), or a few times even just making myself make a sounds as I stepped out (and once going out to grab/establish an object) and went from there. Now all those things very quickly lead to a character for me (which rocked) though at the moment I was stepping out I wasn’t ever really thinking in terms of choosing to e a specific character: I never thought “Oh I’m going to enter as the loud southern racist” or “Now I’ll play a Quasimodo/Igor rip off”, etc. Though I found characters like that from the way I walked (often the way I walked/stood in lead to a voice and an attitude or emotional response and thus to a character) and then armed with that little protection I would be in a great position to either initiate something with my partner (based on my character’s attitude, and whatever I might perceive off of them) or respond to any initiation my partner gave. And this, in a slightly convoluted nutshell, is the idea behind a lot of the Annoyance theory.

Through out the class it became very interesting to see how other people either coped with the possible time restraints that could at anytime occur. Some fell into the same thing I was doing, a few protected themselves by right off the bat endowing their partner as something (which in turn either defined themselves or quickly lead to it – for example right as we enter the stage someone saying to me “Mom I need..” sets up our basic relationship context).

I use the word context because in my mind Mother/ Child isn’t so much a real relationship (neither is, doctor/patient, husband/wife, etc in my mind) but a context in which to define and clarify your relationship. To me at least the relationship comes from basically just how the two characters feel about each other and then can be further defined by how they express that emotion and further by their context (for example: I might decide I love my partner’s character – they might decide to hate me. That’s our basic relationship. If I openly show my love for them, and they secretly seethe in hatred – that further defines our relationship – and then if my partner is my parent and I’m a child – bam there is our context, now we get to play in it). As you can see I still think the context is important as hell – but at the end of the day what I personally am most interested in finding is how I feel about the other character and vice versus (then, how we show it, then yada yada – though it rarely goes in such a nice concise order as that). The trick of course is the context is easy – call someone mom and bam there’s that layer … the emotions you have to show.
This idea also touches on my own definition for the idea of what the “Game” is, but that’s another whole post topic and I’m already digressing enough.

Other people came out with their preconceived opening lines, characters, and even premises. A few came out occasionally with little more than energy and the expectation that their partner would do something and then they’d build off that. Still the majority of scenes were surprisingly entertaining.
In the end though I know I preferred working with the other players who had decided to lay the groundwork for their characters when they stepped out.

After class had ended Dan again quickly went over a few of the core ideas we should hopefully take away from this class (they are below) – and told us we rocked and invited us out for drinks (first night he didn’t have rehearsal directly after our class).

So far after one level down I definitely like the Annoyance approach.

Advice we took away from Level One:
How you do what you do is who you are
Finding a Character is as easy as taking a step or making a sound - (it's all in How you take that step or make that sound)
The best way to protect everyone on stage is to first protect your self - by finding a character/attitude/point of view to stick with.
Playing in character is playing in power
At the top of a scene do something, anything ASAP (no one cares what) then figure it out
When you step off that back line enter like a shotgun blast*

And of course:

Always Challenge Yourself


*Enter like a shotgun blast doesn’t mean every scene has to start with you leaping on stage with incredibly high energy and play really intensely – but instead enter (and initiate) with that authority, that power. You can’t deny a shotgun blast – and no one’s going to miss it when it goes off in front of them.
My little alteration to this is to think of your self as being a gun. When you’re in a scene every thing you do (every offer, every choice) is a bullet. Even when you first step on that stage your trigger is pulled and a bullet is fired – that’s your first shot… the shot that let’s you know what type of gun you are. What type you are in any given scene depends on how you do your thing – the important part is coming off that back line come out shooting – (and after you pull that trigger you’ll find out what type of gun you are).