I believe that the best performances come from measured and calibrated dynamics.
Playing each scene at a energy/intensity of 10 and then at a 1, setting the possibilities, and then the team makes the decision for where one plays the final product from there.
Or in a show like the Collyer Brothers – what Langley’s arc looks like.
Hey Christina. Hey Kate. I’ve been conversing with the two of you in my head for a couple of weeks. Turns out I did a show. Turns out neither of you showed up to boss me around, so I had to wing it.Opening weekend I repped my last three towns: I wore them under my costume. It was Twelfth Night outside with a 90s edge. I did Sir Toby. You’ve seen pictures I’m sure. And lord above but the cut is all with Twelfth Night isn’t it? This cut is a lot like your short cut Kate, very lean and chooses to strip most of the venom from Toby. Which is the way I think I like him. It also cuts a lot of the foreign language gags which leaves a lot of space for it to stay ensemble comedy. So, honestly? It was a raft of problems from jump.
Live performance is a system of interlocking skills honed individually and together over time like any other muscle-building, and then deployed all at once. It is almost always desired that the edges of that displayed set of skills are folded under and invisible to the uninitiated, and, on the highest level, even to fellow initiates. So as one progresses, craft becomes more and more opaque. The skilled stop understanding how and why they do it and the very best seem to require no effort at all. One of those skills is line memorization. It is the favorite party trick of audiences at talk backs the world over and the bane of new performers taking on walls of text for the first time. It is also a performance muscle that isn’t really worked in tandem with other real world skills, so time away from performance really can decondition that system. And
