Rests Are Music Too

Well, it's time to condense two blog entries into one...

On Shakespeare:

Parting is such sweet sorrow. Everyone's monologues and scenes were delightful, and it was a wonderful exercise in theatrical decision making to see five different actresses' takes on the same character. On a personal note, I came into class feeling sick, and my energy was pitiful. For some inexplicable reason, energy magically appeared for my monologue, then disappeared again, then reappeared for my scene, then disappeared again. I wish the little man at the controls would just leave the switch flicked on. My scene was great fun, but I wonder, since there were about three or four things in the performance which were completely new, what might have been with another week or so. Oh well.

To the present:

How interesting it is that the day when we were all so sniping with each other is the day when we start a play entitled, "The Misanthrope". Hmm.

While reading, I found myself getting sucked into reading the rhythm as dictated by the rhyme scheme. I was trying to let the punctuation help dictate emphasis, but I found myself getting drawn toward the singsongy rhyme scheme anyway. As an exercise, I'm thinking of rewriting the lines as paragraphs, just to see what that does to the reading and emphasis of things. All a part of playing with the text. I'm trying to think of the text in a spoken word sort of way. Now it needs execution.

Like a number of the group things we've done (set design for Electra, anyone?), there were probably too many people eager to lead, which is why I'm willing to sit back and follow. It's not so surprising that the times when productivity raced along were when we actually slowed down and gave the floor over.

My scenes seem fun, and Justin and I also both picked out an additional monologue that we're both going to do. I'm pondering the idea of something a bit more creative and interesting than just two people with the same monologue. Dueling Monologues? A Round? Brainstorming and honing is needed.

On the subject of Silverado:

I continue to quest for the perfect story, or at least a good one. I like the idea of the class interacting as "the class". That could be interesting (and by interesting I mean, interesting, with overemphasis on the first syllable).

Kumbaya