Annoyance Level Three - Week Five

Tonight's class focused on the dual ideas of speeding up & slowing down as well as talking versus doing in scenes.

We started off with a two person exercise that had the players get on stage - one would be designated the "talker" the other was asked to simply focus on exploring their space and existing in it (aka the "doer"). The major caveat was the "talker" had to keep talking - constantly for the entire scene (about anything - didn't matter). Each pair were given a location to play in (Taxi cab, hospital emergency room, etc).

What basically ended up happening in all of these scenes was the audience began focusing more and more on the person exploring their space instead of on the "talker" (ok I'm tired of putting that in quotes...so I'm stopping - I don't know why I started).
Also the other player ended up slowing things down a lot - not acting in slow motion - but being more deliberate in their choices and seemed to have a much more even energy than the person just talking.
In short the person just talking became much less interesting the longer the scene progressed.

The rest of the exercises in class basically just centered around varying the energy both inside scenes and between back to back scenes.

From this class we took these ideas:
At the start of a scene do something - anything.
Examine the energy of the scene before yours - Decide to match or contrast that energy.
Control the energy in a piece (show) don't let it control you.
Don;t look to the audience to tell you that you are ok - Don't say or do something because of the audience.
Express yourself.
Your characters are whole people before you ever get a partner to play with.
Feel free to let anything remind you of anything in a scene.
Watch for the frustration of "when is it my turn to talk..."
If you are already showing the audience something - you don;t have to talk about it too.
We look at your energy not the rightness of your object work.
Your strength will become your weakness - so always seek to make your weakness your strength.