The Wrong Way, and the other Wrong Way

We went through Poor Alfie again last night. It’s going very well, I think. The blocking is great, the interaction is coming, the rhythm is starting to happen. The only thing holding us back, now, is these damn books in our hands.

Actors, like people, are different one to another. This makes being in shows interesting and fun. And, as with people generally, frustrating and annoying.

This is an awkward part of rehearsals, in between getting the blocking and getting off-book. For anyone reading this that doesn’t know the term, off-book means doing the scenes without holding on to the playscript. There is a rehearsal designated in the schedule as off-book, and anyone who still needs to hold onto the script after that is subject to scorn and derision. Before that, though, there are two very different approaches. One school has the actor focusing intently on the script, writing down any blocking, directorial note or dialect cue in detail, giving a bit of shape to the line deliveries and only the tiniest hint of the physical business. Actors with this habit tend to develop characters and scenes slowly, but when they are at last forced off-book, they know their lines and their blocking comprehensively, and are ready to devote full attention to the scene.

The other school has its adherents nearly off-book as soon as they can possibly manage it, glancing at the script only when they go blank. These actors spend this set of rehearsals trying out line readings, trying out bits of business, playing with as much energy as they can. Actors with this habit tend to develop their characters and scenes quickly but change their minds a lot as they try out this and that. When they set down their books and play with empty hands (or their hand-props), these actors tend to wander all over the place, getting their lines and their blocking only mostly right.

Both are perfectly good, and both are roads to good performances, or even great ones. Or lousy ones, I suppose. Neither is a guarantee of success or failure, although if somebody inclined to the one suppresses that inclination, it is as likely to result in failure as any path I can think of. The problem, and it’s not so much a problem as an annoyance, comes when a scene is between two actors of different schools. Then, during this (briefish) period between blocking and off-book, the one will be trying out this and that and hollering random words all over the stage, and the other will be standing stock still in exactly the correct place reading exactly the correct words off the page. This is perfectly normal, and excruciating.

Fortunately, Higgins, Pickering and I are all of the second school. This is probably the more irritating group in a general way, but for our Poor Alfie scene together, we’re more or less evenly matched.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.