Red Flags

This morning we started a read through of the first play I'm a part of. It is called There Goes the Bride. All the characters have British accents which is not an easy thing for me and I'm very uncomfortable with it, but I'm sure I will get used to it and this will ultimately help me grow.


I thought once we started working on the shows and I got to act - which is what I came here to do in the first place - that I would like it better here. But we open this show in a week. And the other actors don't listen to each other. They just wait for their turn to deliver their line. It's awful. And the director only creates an atmosphere that fosters such carelessness by encouraging us to highlight our lines. I am going to attempt to disregard this instruction. He says highlighting our lines will help to keep the speed of the show up, but how can I live honestly on stage if I am not permitted any time to process what has just been said to me. I'm not asking for an hour. I don't even want to use as much time as one might take in real life, but no audience member will believe anything we say if we're jumping on each other's lines and not hearing anything the other says. That is one sure tell of not listening to your acting partners: when you try to react/respond to something they haven't even had the chance to finish saying yet.








I understand that we have only done half a read through and I should give it some time, which I will. But I also have watched the first show - one of the two I am not in - now that it is all put together and up on its feet and the same thing is still happening for them. This is not the kind of theatre I want to make.








And the accents completely detract from any character work we might do. I am wary of this and so I think I will be able to avoid sacrificing real character analysis for the sake of my accent, but the others seem to just be mimicking the British dialect instead of finding the ideas behind the words.








I'm very worried about the rest of the summer.








I'll keep posting. Hopefully things will start to look up soon.








W






PS - This blog is going to be invaluable to me this summer, because no one else here seems to even notice the harmful things that are going on. This will have to be my outlet, because the people here are actually proud of the garbage we're making and it would only serve to ostracize myself if I were to speak out about it.