Is bard craft hard graft?
February 7, 2012
Yesterday we ran half of Twelfth Night. Unfortunately one of the cast was not there. It's tricky when someone is reading in, because the rhythms and the established teamwork kind of fall apart.
It set me thinking that, of course, when we run a play - particularly a comedy - without an audience it is absolutely as if one vital character is missing. Audiences have a direct effect on one's timing and the rhythms of one's exchanges with other actors that just cannot be exercised and tested until the first preview.
It's not just the laughter; you can feel an audience's energy and willingness to listen. You can sense a fidgetiness, eyes dipping into theatre programme, any relaxation in that energised attentiveness that we have to earn, provoke and stoke.
That's the trick of it, really: being at once fully in the character, freshly behaving as if you are that person in that moment, and at the same time sitting alongside your character assessing the effect you are having to modulate your performance accordingly.
I wonder if I make this bard craft sound hard graft? Actually I think there might be an ironic rule here. When it feels hard I suspect I'm just not doing it as well as I am when it feels easy. Discuss.
Photo: My fellow blogger, Ankur, proof reading this entry.
by Nick Day
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