Friday, 2-12-11

Friday, 2-12-11

Today in Acting we spent half the class performing Private Moments in Matt’s class, and the second half going through the Blind Date exercise with Ingrid.

Though we didn’t get through all of the Private Moments today, I was among those to go. I came into my apartment late at night after work, looked at a framed picture of my family, and then looked at an empty picture frame next to it. The idea being that Florence wants to put a picture of his girlfriend there, but doesn’t have a girlfriend yet. Then I played a few notes on the piano, and undressed for bed, taking one last look at the picture frames before cuddling up with a pillow.

I thought it was a successful story, and I think Matt recognized that, but what he pointed out was that we were all (myself included) agonizing over the story we were telling so much that we forgot to let the animal do the work for us, and lost some of the specificity. I need to work on maintaining more of an active flamingo-esque mask for Florence, and when I undressed I could have taken more time to be proud of myself with flamingo-esque vanity.

Getting more specific with the costume will help too. I like the idea of Florence needing glasses but I should try and find a slightly more flamboyant (if I can use that word without fear of over-interpretation) pair this weekend. I also can probably dispense with the blazer—the pink shirt speaks for itself.

Going over to Ingrid for the second half of class was fun; we were put into pairs and spent the rest of class getting to know each other in pairs through improve, as if we were having dinner together. They didn’t necessarily have to be dates, and indeed I was paired with a seven-year-old mandrill boy (Josh), and though it was a fun exercise and got me thinking a lot about how Florence interacts, I rather wished that we’d gotten the opportunity to switch partners at least once. I would be interested to try interacting in a more date-like scenario with a girl, because that gives very specific objectives, intentions, and relationships. It was sort of contrived to establish stakes between me and this kid, even though we bonded about our large families and grew to like each other quite a bit.

Though it was a bit of an off day, it made me realize where I need to solidify things. I have a better understanding of how Florence vocalizes and communicates now but I need to make sure that that physicality is always there as a solid foundation. I need to reestablish the mask as well.