Day 4: Yes, but how does that FEEL?

Day 4: Alchemy of Voice

            Acting Workshop

            Intro to Henry IV, Part 1

            Globe Stage Time

            Alchemy of Voice with Steven Pearce

            Steven Pearce is a god. I’d like to start with that. Now that the most important part of this is out of the way, I would also like for those of you reading to bear with me as I explain. Steven is quite the eccentric individual. Which is code for “a god.”

            He opened the class with a brief description of sound, particularly as it relates to our body. There’s a lot of construction going on next door, and he used that as a great example. He called it acoustic toxicity, which fights with your natural sound. This causes us to become unbalanced.

            He also explained that our voices have shifted into our throats and necks from our chests because of the world we live in today. We work from the bust up on computers every day. This is the part of our body we use and need. We have neglected the heart, the torso, the core.

            We did some work with chi, charkas, whatever you like to call the energy in you.

            My favorite part of the workshop though was after we’d finished our releasing and balancing exercises. We stood up and found our voices in the four elemental locations, from the bottom up: earth, water, air, fire. Earth is in our key, water in our gut, air in our throat, and fire resonated through our ears. Each element used a different vowel: earth used ho; water hu; air, ha; and fire, hi. It was amazing, I could feel the sound resonating so much in each part of my body. Obviously, fire would be an obvious one, especially for someone like me who has been vocally trained. But I’ve never felt my voice in my belly, or in my sternum. It was fantastic. Steven and Glynn talk about this a lot, living in your body. I felt like I had so much power, and so much command over my body and my voice.

            Acting Workshop with Jane Lapotaire

            Staging notes on the Globe stage: Shakespearean actors played from what is essentially the apron, but often played upstage, facing the tiring house, which would cater to the people sitting in the top of the first bay…the ones with the money. She also said we can never “un-learn” our proscenium technique. This is especially challenging, considering the two huge pillars stuck in the middle of the Globe stage. She showed us how to make a figure-eight around them. I don’t think I can apply it to my particular monologue, but I can definitely see how it would work for any soliloquy.

            She really stressed simplicity today. These characters don’t possess a 20^th century knowing onstage. She said you should discover things as you say them, like you “just landed on the moon.” She also said that “queens don’t move unless they have to.”

            Today was full of one liners! My favorite one: “Elizabethan words are like troubled friends; give them more love, not less.” I love this woman.

            She really liked my monologue today. She suggested I color the two exclamations at the beginning differently. I also tend to start a little high in intensity, which doesn’t leave me much room. The first thing she said though, when I finished my monologue was, “Well…she really told them, didn’t she?” Things are really starting to come together. I’m really proud of the growth I’m seeing in myself as an actor, and no doubt in everyone else—and in such a short time!

            Intro to Henry IV, Part 1 with Henry Schvey

            Main point: meta-theatricality:

·     Falstaff, in V.iv, in his discussion of what exactly it is to be alive or dead, and pretending to be either, respectively. What defines a man, spirit or body?

·     Hal embodies a prince, but doesn’t feel like one.

·     Prioritizing: is lying bad when it can save your life? What exactly is a counterfeit, and is it different than a liar? Is Henry IV a counterfeit king?

            We also talked about Hal’s interpretations. There are two guys in our group doing two different Hal monologues. They really helped drive the discussion. There’s the Machiavellian Hal, planning his turn around. There’s a reformed Hal, seizing the opportunity to change, and only pretending later it was “planned.” Then there’s the scared Hal, making excuses for his fear of not being good enough. I think he’s something of the second and third.

            There was a long discussion over the film “W” and Henry IV.  I’ve never seen it, but I imagine the comparison of George W. Bush to Hal would be a very interesting one.

            Globe Stage Time

            Last chance to do these monologues on the Globe stage! I realized today that at this point in the play, Anne is handing everything over to Elizabeth. This happens two different times to Elizabeth, once here, and once where Queen Margaret asks her, “Where are your sons? Where are our father?” referring to Richard’s bloodshed. This has a lot of weight for Elizabeth, and Anne is responsible for a change in her.

            Some great notes tonight: really landing the language, making full journey, stakes wonderfully high.

            I felt so in my head though. I kept thinking about staging, and who needed to see me from behind that hadn’t seen my face. I thought my movement, what little was there, felt unmotivated. But then I got great notes about the staging. I hate it when this happens—I just realize I can’t read myself onstage too much, I mean, without self-auditing. With age and experience!