Thursday

We ran through Ibsen last night, without a break.  Discussing subtext, and breaking the scenes down (only covered about 5-6 pages of text.)  It was great.  Before that, we'd talked about knowing the text backward and forward, and knowing your character and having made strong choices about them before walking into the room.  Being willing to defend your point-of-view (with text).  How good writing has no filler in it, every word is there for a reason.  How the "events" that happen in scene change the course of what happens next; about reversals, and gaps (where a character walks into the scene expecting one thing, and finds something else.)  The things that keep us all engaged (audience included), the specificity of choices, and why, because if you don't know why, neither will anyone else watching the performance.  Good stuff.  Love this class.  (And will get critiqued for acting next week, so scared about that, but it will make me better, so I just have to deal with it.)  Found myself getting jealous for Thea when I was watching Eilert and Hedda speak in code around her.

My back is killing me, and because it's heart awareness month or something, I keep worrying that I'm having a heart attack...probably a good thing I didn't go to med school, so easily influenced by stories.