FINDING THE WORLD OF THE PLAY
Tutors Max Hafler and Roberta Nolan.
Finding the world of the play is very important if you want your character to fit into the frame of the artistic production. Without that frame we can often be at sea as artists. How often have we said, "Well this or that actor was very good, but not really connected to the production."It can be deeply unsatisfying
A good element in the Michael Chekhov approach is the use of General Atmosphere . Chekhov called it "the soul of the performance". The atmosphere affects everything the characters do, the style, the mood and weight of the play and most importantly the audience pick up this intangible feel from the performance which set design and lighting cannot sustain alone.
Finding the atmosphere gives the performance a wholeness (Chekhov calls it a Feeling of the Whole) in which your performance can grow and develop.
Using exercises and principles from the Michael Chekhov Approach and short early scenes from Hamlet, Roberta and Max will explore how atmosphere affects a scene or indeed powers an entire play.
Maximum number 16.
Day fee €50/ €30 students/concessions
Qualities and how to use them
When I was training as an actor bracketed adverbs in scripts were viewed with suspicion. Shyly, artfully,brusquely, fearfully etc etc were seen as something which imprisoned the actor’s creativity and prevented them from being truly open. This was of course, rubbish.
If a playwright writes sharply in a bracket, then that is what it means; sharply.if the actor puts it into their body and voice it is easy to find these qualities with authenticity and see if it feels right. If it does not suit you or your scene partner (or the director) things can be adjusted.
In this series of four online workshops with experienced Chekhov teacher Max Hafler,(author of Teaching Voice and What Country,Friends is this?) we will explore using qualities, for character, ways of being and motivation
We will embody qualities and put them into different parts of the body. And we will review the archetypal qualities of movement ,moulding,floating, flying and radiating through our own body and nervous system and those of the characters we play, to give us an anchor for our roles.
And we will be doing it online, in your own space.
Email chekhovtpi@gmail.com
Wednesdays. 25th June/2nd/9th/16th July. 5pm-7pm Irish Time