"Unrelated Activity" Exercise

The other day, I wrote: "But then in contrast, with each role, I've noticed how sometimes [Molina] communicates something he's feeling or thinking simply with his eyes. He remains beautifully still, and just through his eye movements you see what's going on inside of him." And I realize that Tobey Maguire has this beautiful stillness as well...but the difference is, with Maguire, I don't see him thinking. I see and feel him feeling incredibly deep and honest emotions, but not thinking. At least that's how it seems to me in this particular movie. I haven't really seen any other of Maguire's movies.

I also tried out the "Unrelated Activity" Exercise which I described in Wednesday's post. The activity I chose was loading the dishwasher, (which really needed to be done, dishes piled up all over the kitchen counter!) The exercise felt a bit akward, because I was dividing my mind between two things...no, four, actually: finding space for the dishes in the washer, remembering the lines of the monologue, and focusing on the action I chose for it, and imagining the other person that my character is supposed to be talking to. I think a lot of the awkwardness I felt was because I hadn't really rehearsed the activity or the monolgue before hand, I just spontaneously tried it out because I'd been procrastinating all day. But beyond the akwardness of it, I could feel that having my mind split between the activity and the monologue allowed me say the lines more freely and naturally, instead of focusing my logical mind on how I thought the lines should be said or performed.

My character, Luellen, is a mentally unstable, physically abusive mother who held her four year old son Jimmy's hands on a hot stove until he had second degree burns, and then abandonded him. The court has taken away all parental and custodial rights to the boy. In this monologue, Luellen is telling Mary, the social worker in charge of her son's case, that she's going to get herself together and take care of Jimmy properly. The action verb I chose at first for this monologue was "To Persuade", because Luellen is literally trying to persuade Mary. But when I ran the monologue with the activity, the words came from such an earnest place inside of me, and Luellen is not earnest in any way, she is manipulative. So I've been looking for other actions that convey persuasion from a dishonest place. I think so far "to con" is the best I've come up with, although I'm not entirely happy with that choice. I'll have to try it out.

But when I started to really dig into this piece, something I'd forgotten about began to happen: I began to feel intellectual excitement at the creative problem-solving process, which sent wonderful tingly & tickly energy through my entire body. I haven't felt that way about my acting since 1992-1993 when I was taking classes at the South Coast Reporatory Adult Conservatory classes...This is why I want to act! The intellectual discovery process and then the expression of those discoveries in performance! I didn't feel this way with any of the scenes I did for my acting classes at the local community college these last two years, but I wasn't digging very deeply into those scenes either. I had forgotten how to dig. I'm so glad I'm relearning that skill!

I was watching Alfred Molina in "Chocolat" the other day (there have been several of his movies on cable lately). Another excellent performance! :) But I learned something new again watching him in this movie: There's a scene where Mr. Muscat, one of the towns people, goes to the Mayor (Molina), talking about the fire that had burnt the gypsy boats. Muscat is talking in a way that suggests he set the fires. Now, if it had been me playing the Mayor (okay, never mind that I'm a woman, suspend your disbelief for a moment, I'm looking at this from a purely intellectual acting choice perspective) the acting choice I would have made in response to hearing Muscat would have been to start to become suspicious about what he's saying. However, the way Molina played it was he didn't believe a word that Muscat was saying, he was more or less brushing it off, until Muscat specifically said, "I set the fires." Then he jumped up in horror and realization. Molina's performance was much better than mine would have been. So I've learned that if another character is trying to tell you something important, not to believe a word until the last indisputable fact is in. The "Ah-ha!" moment is more dramatic and powerful than suspicion & slow realization.

I'm very happy about everything I'm learning! It's so exciting!!