Give Me The Book
One of my best friends Jim sent me an email the other day saying how he’d love to be a fly-on-the-wall at my acting class. Thank god he isn’t as I’d never live it down. Each week when I arrive I have to check my dignity at the door. It’s a liberating experience… as long as no-one I know EVER gets to see me.
Jim also asked me to furnish him with details of the exercises we do in class. He’s only interested for his own gain. It’ll arm him with anecdotes for the pub… fueling conversation next time he meets Tim and Taff for a few beers. I completely understand and am more than happy for them to have a good laugh at my expense. I would do exactly the same.
So this one’s for you lads. It’s quite complicated to explain but here goes…
As it’s only week 4 we haven’t started working through scenes yet. In preparation we’ve been learning about the objectives of an actor. In any given scene the main character, that’s you, will have an objective. In order to achieve this you’ll make a choice. Each choice is a different action which will have an effect… this leads to more choices, or actions. By the scene’s conclusion you will get or not get what you want. Simple!
So, with the above in mind we’ve been doing an exercise where we’re given an objective and then we choose actions to achieve it. For example, one person holds a book and the other person’s objective is to get them to hand the book over. In order to do this there are endless actions to choose from… you can demand, cajole, befriend, belittle, beg, persuade… to name but a few. When we do this exercise however, we are only allowed to use one sentence: “Give me the book.” So you repeat this line to the person holding the book in a soothing way, or a friendly way, or in a challenging way etc. etc.
So far when we do this I’ve managed to get in the zone and have been one of the star pupils (like I’d be anything but). Not so this week. You see, since Jim’s email I can’t get the thought of him watching me ‘act’ out of my head. In fact, it’s worse than that. He has a very distinctive and infectious laugh and I swear I could hear it at class last night. At times I saw his face too; creased with laughter lines. At one point he even started to chant: “Loser, loser, loser, loser,” while holding up both hands… index fingers and thumbs forming L shapes.
As these thoughts invaded my head I couldn’t help getting the giggles and my performance levels only ran at around 80% (still the best in class tho… obviously). I know I’ll beat this imaginary invasion. All great actors have their obstacles. And what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger… there’s a tired and lame old cliche if ever there was one.
Deep down I know that the real reason Jim’s interested is that he wishes he was going to acting classes himself. And you know what, he’d be great. Almost as good as me.
I love you Jim!
