DAY 13

Since Rey told us that today’s class would be about characterization I felt a bit nervous. However, as I saw what he brought I felt a sense of relief. He brought various masks with various expressions. Each of us was to put on the mask and become a certain character which is suitable for the mask. Since we put the mask on our face it helped a lot to make me to become another character. Yes. This is PERSONA! I vaguely remember others’ mask but Adam’s. Adam’s mask looked a bit childish and naughty. With the help of Adam’s comic body movement, Adam could become totally different character than him. He WAS NOT Adam! God! All of his actions were really brilliant and I imagined myself to put mask what Adam put on. Obviously, my character would be totally different than his one. I chose pink-colored feminine mask with wig. Jesus Christ! I have to act as if I am a girl again! After acting of being gay, I totally became a girl finally. Fellows named me as Alexis. Wow, such a pretty name for me. However it was really fun. And I could realize becoming another person requires a lot of energy and research.

DAY 12

Random words performing :Filza and Wei Lim

Firstly, I thank Filza and Wei Lim. Actually, they are all from Wednesday’s section but they attended my Friday’s section for me who cannot join Wednesday’s section due to the Biology Lap. We practiced a lot. You guys would know what I mean. 😀 However, rehearsals carried out very successfully and performance itself was quite good I guess. In order to act gay fellow, I had to put on manicure on my fingernails which I never get used to do! First time I put manicure on fingernail was really messy. However, surprisingly, my techniques became almost perfect (for me) when I reached a little finger. Rey pointed out about my performance for gay. He said not every gay are not like me. Yes. I was stereotyping about gays. L But he added “otherwise, yours was ok.” Finally OK sign came out. Haha!

DAY 11

Hold your poodle!

Will you go out with me on Saturday?

I hate your gut!

What did you have for your lunch?

The car just took a corner hundred miles an hour.

Have you taken you pills yet?

Why the game is so fun to play with?

I enjoy singing in the bathroom.

I look into the mirror.

I am about to go on stage.

Enter sandman.

Officially missing you.

Bad teacher.

I will never give up.

Such a puzzle!

How can we act with these lines above! This came out from THTR 102 Class. Rey asked us to write down questions, expressive sentences, names of songs and informative sentences. He mixed those sentences and took them out VERY randomly. The result is sentences above. Frankly, I have nothing to say because 2 sentences what I wrote are there: “What did you have for your lunch?” and “officially missing you.”

This time Filza, Wei Lim and I formed a group since Lycelle, my partner was absent. We, after a long discussion came out with an acceptable result. The scene is about 1 man, 1 man’s GF and 1 gay drove in the car saying those crazy words. Since Filza acted as a drunken girl, what she said did not have to be MEANINGFUL. 😀 In my opinion, the purpose of doing random word is to increase our control over the voice and expression in order to deliver full emotion to audience

DAY 10

Lycelle and I were to perform neutral scene in mental hospital. I am pretty sure that Rey liked it. He mentioned that we had something to work on. He asked me to act more vigorously like a rapist. He said it is better to show that we are in mental hospital by locking me up in the cage rather than counseling on the table. By doing this, we managed to show the change in status and verbal dynamics. I kept moving my eyes and talking to myself in order to show that I am a schizophrenic patient. And, sometimes I shouted like a REAL CRAZY GUY. Actually, after doing this scene, my throat became so hurt. L However, since Rey gave me a great remark, I will consider it as a medal of honor. Frankly, I was a bit depressed doing this course because I felt I am not heading a way to achieve something really good. Since English is not my mother tongue, it is more difficult to follow the course and perform a certain scene. Even though I am trying my best to improve my pronunciation, still Korean is much easier for me to speak. I can’t help it. Today, fortunately, I became somewhat confident as Rey paid me a high compliment- this is just my opinion. 😀

DAY 9

Lycelle and I gathered as a group. Since Lycelle had course of THTR 101 under Mr. Vijaya I felt a sense of relief a bit. Neutral scene was given by Rey. Neutral scene was:

A: Please

B: I can’t

A: Just try

B: I don’t know

A: Please

B: Can you

A: Don’t even

B: But

A: No

B: You are mad

A: Please

B: Alright

A: Ready

B: You know

A: What’s that?

B: Here

A: Okay

B: Great

Even though other details were not given, I could guess what the situation is like. 😉

However, changing status between us was a bit challenging to me. He told A to be dominant while B had to be recessive to A. It was quite weird because B was seemed to be dominant over A but as we act out it became more natural. What is more, he told us to say it out as question and shout. By doing so, I could feel that script itself kept changing. It was a brilliant moment! By changing accent and tone, we could express same script with different meaning.

DAY 8

DAY 8 –MIDTERM-

Bringing up an idea for the midterm was done in 10 minutes. We have decided to do the phone conversation between call taxi company and a man who is in rush for his date. Rehearsal was done in good mood with Wilson. Almost everything went very well even though I was late for an hour on Tuesday. Car accident and traffic jam were horrible. I should have left home earlier. Since Wilson was too nice to me, I was really sorry. We met up for 3 days to rehearse. Wilson took part on script while I took part on beat sheet. We decided to time every single moment to adjust the length of script. Finally we succeeded to make it- 2 minutes and 46 seconds. A lot of props had to be prepared compare to previous exercise.

Midterm began in rather calm mood than enthusiastic atmosphere. We were told to perform at last. I was really nervous. Other groups were really awesome. I realized that all other groups’ performances were much longer than us. It made Wilson and I became more nervous. Since others performed for long time Wilson and I added some ad lib. Wilson did good reaction on my ad lib. I was in cold sweat top to toe. Besides that, Rey gave us critical comments. Fortunately, Rey kept time for performance. We were the only group which didn’t go over. Rey added that we have to learn characterization. That’s why we were to choose a character we are familiar with. From next class, we are going to go through the characterization with 10 minutes plays. I expect it 😀

DAY 7

DAY 7

What I performed was about a phone conversation between 3 people who are ex-girlfriend, current one and the boss of my company. It went almost as I rehearsed. I think Rey also liked mine. He said I used “theatrical word” such as ‘undersleeping’. This time I successfully created 4^th wall by pretending to see a clock hung in the wall. However, Rey added that my conversation between company boss was not quite clear to understand since I merely said “Yes, sir.” Or “No, sir.” I had to make it clear. Besides that, when I acted as if I was looking at the mirror, I should act more theatrically; shaking butts or whistling. Since I rehearsed with other friends it was much easier to act out.

DAY 6

Day 6

Today’s exercise was about expressing different classes. This is status of actors. Rey added that status of actors can be changed. The situation given was quarrel between customer and jeweler. With the help of pose, tone of voice and facial expression we could express the difference between statuses.  We acted as if we became rich kids in school and smart students who are dominant group while acted poor kids and students with lower grades too. Surprisingly, I felt a bit depressed when I acted lower status group while I felt like I became really something so it was quite easy to act out.

DAY 5

Day 5

Rehearsing a phone conversation was quite difficult for me. However, after I rehearsed with a partner it became doable task. My phone conversation is about the call from a group mate who recalls the group meeting I almost forgot. Because of this performance I wore skinny jean which makes phone hard to take out. Almost everything went out as I have rehearsed. However, Rey never thought that I was in taxi because of the table in front of me. I used table to describe taxi’s infra look but it failed. Moreover, I failed to use 4^th wall properly. Anyways, I think I should work more on 4^th wall and establishing background.

Day 4

Assignment 2 started after a brief warm-up. Actually, I find this exercise very difficult in personal. Because expressing myself, the space and time without a single line was a challenging task for me. I prefer acting with a lot of fellow actors. However, I decided to enjoy it since we cannot avoid it. As Rey said, I rehearsed 1 hour for 2 minute long play but it did not go well as I rehearsed. In my opinion, I should rehearse with friends or partners who can criticize me while I am rehearsing. Rey was very critical. I like somebody to criticize me. He said that I try to do TOO MUCH. I think I have to reduce unnecessary things to make it simple yet much more developed performance. Rey added that acting is BEHAVIORING TRUTHFULLY IN AN IMAGINERY CIRCUMSTANCE. Next task is a phone conversation. This time, I should rehearse with somebody else as if I really have a conversation with a person. All the beats must be written down in detail. Especially, there must be three columns that object, obstacle and point of concentration.