Woke up early - someone's birthday today! Pressie opening and general merriment before going to class.
First Spoon River class today and it turns out that 99% of the class have a little bit to learn about how to 'do' Spoon Rivers! Every word, every thought, every moment has a meaning which has to be expressed to its fullest. Nothing is casual (you could say that about all good acting) and everything is there for a reason. They are final statements from the grave, after all. If you could say only one thing, have one chance to say something from the grave and thereafter be silent for ever... what would you say? You have no idea because you're not dead, correct? But you can, of course, imagine what you would say. Remember, you're looking for real human acts of doing or emotion - things you can actually do. Each verse is told from the grave but just passed residents of a town. That's what we have to do in this class (and the ones over the coming months). Speak these and mean them as if they are the last chance we'll ever have to speak about anything to anyone. That's not just emoting... it's working out EXACTLY what each person was saying (that's not the same thing as reading into the text - don't do that! Good playwrights have written everything down for you... it's called the script and stage directions! Don't write your own story about what you think they meant! Don't read between the lines! Only bad actors and deconstructionalists do that). The meaning behind every thought, every moment. Personalising every moment from one's own life and/or one's imagination (or any mixture thereof) and applying them to the Spoon River story and experiencing the emotion so that one can feel and express the words just as the original storyteller meant it. Good class - lots of hard work to come!
Off to the callback for the commercial in SM. Was kept waiting just over an hour which means that we'll all get compensated (SAG rules say that you can only keep their members waiting a certain period). Anyway, I went in and the room had four others in there: the director, two associates (client or producer, not sure which) and the cameraguy. I wouldn't exactly say that I 'met' them as we weren't introduced! No worries though as you can't stand on ceremony at these things. Ran through the original audition skit and added another one. Took some adjustments from the director and ran the scene a couple more times. He was very specific and tried some different things. Maybe that's a good thing, maybe not. You really don't know whether or not you nailed until (or 'if' of course) you book it! There were 5 or 6 others going up for my role and we were all very different (ages, race etc.) which probably meant that they really didn't know what they were after and were trying different things. Let's hope I convinced them to go 'my' way!
Back home, more fun and games, more pressies and a little bit of cake!