Drama, Monday, Period 2 [05/18]

[magdaofslovenia.livejournal.com]

"Welcome back. This week, we're introducing ourselves, and examining a little more behind the theory of acting: Method vs. Classical." Sophie sipped her coffee. "If you're unfamiliar with the terms, allow me to explain. Method actors follow the theories of Stanislavski and his adherents, that an actor can only truly act when they understand the psychology and sense-memory of a character, and draw on their own experience in order to portray their actions. Classical training focuses more on what is thought of as the externals: the movement, voice, verse-speaking, combat, theatre history, and understanding of the text. One, it's thought, emphasizes the internal, the other the external. We introduced ourselves last week 'in character'-- please do so today out of character, as yourselves, and also one more thing--"

"Voice." Sophie smiled, and said in a perfect Mid-western American accent. "Not just speaking so the people in the back rows can hear you, got it? But cadences and rhythms, timing and approach." In a heavily Serbian-accented voice, she continued, "People, they believe what zey hear, yes? Zey do not notice it so much. But! An impression, yes, it makes one." She switched back to her own BBC-and-RADA-approved British accent. "Emotion isn't the only thing that gets expressed and judged. So does your intelligence, your education, your geographical background, your likely motivations. Today we're going to play with this, using the Expert Translation game." She smiled, then pointed. "And you will introduce yourself first, and your take on what your voice says about you."

[ocd on its way is up!]

Comments

Re: Introduce yourself

[ancientbschamp.livejournal.com]

"I'm Gabrielle," she piped up in an irritatingly cheerful tone, "and I don't know what my voice says about me exactly, but I've noticed I tend to get knives held to my throat, or thrown into a prison cell, if I use it a lot . . ."

Re: Introduce yourself

[magdaofslovenia.livejournal.com]

Sophie laughed in surprise, and smiled. "Is wherever you're from particularly dangerous? You do seem to take those occurrences in stride, for what it's worth. And you sound American to my ears, but based upon your performance last week, I had guessed you weren't from the contemporary U.S."

Re: Introduce yourself

[ancientbschamp.livejournal.com]

She did, as a matter of fact, have just a touch of a Texas accent. Weird, that.

"Not from the U.S. at all," Gabrielle assured her blithely. "Dangerous? Huh! It's not that bad most of the time, really, if you know which roads to take to avoid bandits and when to make a detour around the local civil war."

Re: Introduce yourself

[magdaofslovenia.livejournal.com]

Sophie bit her lip in order to suppress a smile, and said, "And the ease with which you talk about those subjects indicate how common they are in your home country. Whereas within the U.S. or my home country of Britain, the highest percentage of students your age will never have seen combat, or been near a bandit, and the last civil war here was over a hundred and almost fifty years ago, and four hundred in the U.K." She gave a small shrug, with outstretched hands. "We could assume either danger of your home country, or that you are a remarkably blase' young woman. Which might also account for the knife threats," Sophie teased her gently.

Re: Introduce yourself

[ancientbschamp.livejournal.com]

"Well, I suppose it's hard to call a country safe when there's a warlord hiding behind every other olive tree," Gabrielle mused. Not that she seemed to see many olive trees in her travels, which was weird because she was sure they were there. Somewhere. Hiding behind the oddly Antipodean flora. "And it's not like my voice says 'yes, please, kidnap me and hold me hostage, I just love that,' does it?"

Her eyes went a little round and worried. "Does it?"

Re: Introduce yourself

[magdaofslovenia.livejournal.com]

"Entirely not," Sophie assured, unable to resist the smile this time. "However... it's entirely possible that your lack of intimidation may account for how well you negotiate with said kidnappers, since I take it you have emerged largely unscathed?"

Re: Introduce yourself

[ancientbschamp.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," Gabrielle said thoughtfully, nodding slowly and then with increasing amplitude and enthusiasm, "Yeah! That's it. I'm a very skilled negotiator, you know."

Lies. Lies.