-16.4-

I believe the Shakespeare workshop, taught by James III, was my first pure acting workshop in STAC. I enjoyed it, but felt a little shy because I'm not usually an 'acting' person.

As I discussed when writing about the Shakespeare documentaries, Shakespeare IS about debating the meaning of the work, and presenting your results on stage, but it's also about making sure the audience can see your actions (it's also about getting used to speaking in iambic pentameter.)

During this workshop, we mainly focused on making our actions big (as if people in another room had to see us present Shakespeare.)
Before the workshop, we all chose a sonnet (it couldn't be the more popular sonnets). I chose sonnet LXV (65) because I thought the rhythm of the words was calming.
After warming up and introducing ourselves, we reviewed how the iambic pentameter sounds, then read the first line of our sonnets in this way. For some, breaking down the syllables was a bit harder than others, but we all managed to say our lines smoothly.
Next, we focused on action. We chose words in the sonnet that stood out to us, then thought about actions that suited each word. When comfortable, we silently performed the actions, then added sound effects to the action.
I was used to focusing on action, rather than getting into the mind-frame, from Luke's acting advice, but yesterday was different since we had a physical "script" to act from.
Acting individual words out of context seemed a little strange to me, but when people started to present their sonnet to the group; the actions fit the meaning of the sonnet!
After the initial performance, James started to go over making movements bigger (be big because you can always pull back if needed), and adding in context. For example, Brian's sonnet was directed towards a love intrest, so James had one of the girls stand next to him, and the rest of the guys stand up, so Brian had actual people to refer to while acting. Since many people had sonnets that involved antithesis, James encouraged them to emphasize the differences in order to get the meaning across even clearer.

When I went, I was nervous, but I tried to speak clearly and with the iambic pentameter in mind (people before me had some trouble with destressing words commonly stressed. The night before I didn't have time to go over the meaning of the sonnet, so I acted blindly. It went all right, and after we discussed the meaning of the sonnet (although time erodes everything, I hope my love for you in this letter withstands time). Without meaning to, I emphasized the meaning of "rocks impregnable"by pausing before doing my action for rock (James said the pause interrupted the rhythm, showing how even the words were stopped by the strength of the metaphorical stone.)

After I went, we ran out of time, so we recapped what we went over. While recapping, I began to think about how hard acting Shakespeare is. There are many ways of approaching it, and it's easy to get caught up in your approach to acting. However, when it was my turn, almost everything went blank. I suppose in the end it's as Charlie Parker says: "Then you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail."