Thursday 29 March 2012

One more thing about finding out more

More Words of Wisdom to add to last week's (actually because I forgot to put it in, although it's terribly important.) One of the best ways of exploring a text to see what you can do with it is by experimenting with changing the punctuation. Put in some imaginary commas, at random. Take out a full stop so that the words run on. Throw in a question mark at an unexpected place.

Some of the results will be nonsensical but it will be surprising if you don't find new emphases or new insights. Try it and see.

Thursday 22 March 2012

Use your voice to find out more

The Words of Wisdom this week are Use your voice to find out more. More about the character you are playing and more about your capabilities in relation to it.

When you are working on a part, unless a particular dialect has been called for, you will probably start off using something close to your normal accent and tone of voice. It's easy to get locked in to this and fail to explore the full extent of what the character might be about and how you might be able to deliver it. To avoid this, take a section of the text and vocalise it in different ways, for example:

Sing it (in any style)
Growl it
Moan and groan it
Bark it, aggressively
Change the pitch, up or down
Speed it up
Slow it down
Smile all the time you are speaking
Murmur it
Whisper it
Look in a mirror, trying to outstare yourself
Use a lot of meaningful gesture
Talk on the edge of tears
Laugh out loud

It is worthwhile taking time over this exercise. Listen to what is happening with your voice. How does it feel, physically? Emotionally?

If you work on it receptively you will find things you didn't know were there.