A vital equation...

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It’s interesting that some weeks, despite the fact that I am working with a myriad of individuals from lots of different groups framed by many different organizations, a particular aspect of this drama business will emerge…

This week it’s all been about the way we respond to the day to day events in our lives.  I’ve talked about it in rehearsals with young actors, in training with professionals and in one to one conversations with both children and adults.  It’s created a fascinating pattern…

One of the most vivid examples of the how useful it is to be aware of the nuts and bolts of responsiveness was in our Hacktivists rehearsal.  Yesterday things got pretty heated as we tried to make the conversations and situations in the play come to life realistically in our developing portrayal of the events of the play.  When we began there was something unconvincing about the way the scene was shaping up…it was vague, lack lustre, unengaging.   The key, it turned out, was to allow the characters time to register the event (what they saw or heard), and then time to think and to feel in response to it and only then to react with a word or an action. Sounds really obvious and each step is only a fraction of a second, but so often this vital equation is missing in theatre.   It is sacrificed as actors concentrate on knowing the script and doing the scene competently rather than being in the moment and the centre of the character.


Once we focused on this the transformation of the fourth and final scene of Hacktivists was remarkable.  Over the course of the rehearsal the scene what was vague became defined, what was lack luster began to gain radiance and what was unengaging became captivating…but above all there was a very real sense of truth about both the story telling and the characterization.  The whole production gained some very important ground yesterday through the hard work of the cast.  I for one am looking forward to seeing the final results at the end of February.

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