Acting - day 7 - Cold Readings
Today we had a second round of poetry readings in the form of a practice audition. I noticed how much more serious people were handling the few moments leading up to the reading of the poem, and how important the entry to the room was at establishing a sense of someone’s personality. For example, some people were extremely nervous and others like Jose were so confident. The difference in people was striking.
At one point David got up to speak and he delivered his reading in his customary voice which is a little high pitched, strained and thin. Florentina asked him to repeat it using someone else’s voice and the entire class was shocked by the deep baritone that he summoned. While the poem and the person moments earlier was tentative, and not to be taken too seriously, with such a slight change David became powerful, interesting and important.
I notice that I have actually at least two voices. Commonly in casual settings I speak with a head voice that has a high-pitched resonance. I’m thinking right now that I learned to talk this way from my mom. When I’m in a meeting or other manly situation though, I can feel a switch to my father’s vocal range. This area deserves more study.
Later I paired with Giovanni to do paired readings of the introduction to ‘Birds’. Unlike the poem this situation was easier to avoid the audiences reaction - we had to pay attention to each other and to the words on the page. But it was hard to do well. There were so many things to keep in mind - the line, my body language, the characters intent. What Giovanni was saying. There was so much going on that we missed the chance to use props to set the scene, and I missed the chance to speak directly to Giovanni and really listen to him. There’s clearly a lot to learn.