Slow Down

Our future is now booked up for after the Easter break. We’ll take a week off round the Easter weekend, so there will be no classes on Thursday 5th and Saturday 7th April. Then we’ll start again on Thursday 12th April and continue till Saturday 28th July.

However, there is one problem date and that is Saturday 19th May. The Diorama is already fully booked on that day so we shall either take a week off or do a class at an alternative venue. If anyone can suggest a possible location I’d be very grateful as it’s difficult to find places which are available on Saturday mornings. Somewhere nice, near the tube and not too expensive, is what is required.

This week’s Words of Wisdom are deceptively simple: easy to say but not so easy to carry out. They are, simply, Slow down!

Slow down the dialogue and give the audience time to interpret what is happening. Remember that any play or film is a sort of puzzle. What you are presenting to the audience is not reality but a suggestion of a reality. If you go too fast for the audience they will lose touch and lose interest.

Slow down and give the audience not only time to work out what is happening but also time to react emotionally: emotions do not develop instantly, they need time to grow and flower
Slow down and observe the punctuation in the script. A comma is a short pause; a full stop marks the end of a statement and therefore is a longer pause. A new paragraph is a new idea and therefore needs a longer pause again so that the audience is ready to pay attention to the next thing. An instruction ‘beat’ or ‘pause’ in a script means that the action stops momentarily for dramatic effect.

Slow down and appear less nervous. When you are nervous you feel the urge to rush to fill any silence. When the words stop you feel exposed. Resist the urge to hurry.

Slow down and raise your status. Even if you’re playing a nervous, hurried character of low status, play the nervous rush between slower parentheses.

Slow down and make telling pictures. Next time you’re watching a film notice how many of the best shots are reaction shots where the characters are doing nothing, apparently, except thinking and feeling. Rely on the audience to do most of the work.

Slow down and add suspense. Not just the simple suspense like when the heroine is entering the haunted house and we are wondering what dreadful thing is going to happen to her, but the general suspense when the audience wonder, consciously or unconsciously, what is going to happen next. Instead of pushing the next thing at them you are making them want to draw it out of what you are giving them.

Slow down!