My legs... my legs! The past two days have been nothing but a physical beat down. Actors do some serious work; don't let anybody tell you different. Yesterday we did boot camp training exercises from the Marine core, learned basics in stepping/marching, danced for an hour, and did Neutral Man... you don't know what that is and I couldn't even begin to explain, but if you do it right you're a sweaty, exhausted lump of Play Doh by the end. Today we did Callanetics, more Neutral Man, mask work (which, in my scene, required a lot of physical movement), and some bizarre meditating exercise which essentially turned my body to mashed potatoes. I can hardly feel my legs. During rehearsal today I was primarily on the sidelines, fortunately. The conspirators and Caesar worked on stage combat, and we have the most gory, grotesque, disgusting murder of Julius Caesar conceivable. It's visceral. It was a little silly though, because the conspirators needed something to hold in their hands before they started practicing with the "real" daggers, so they were all given switch-blade combs to temporarily use. Haha. But yeah. I could/can not move my legs of their own free will; I need to hoist them up using my arms if I want to sit or stand. As I'm typing here I've got a heating pad on my thighs. My thighs! Oh my thighs. It's ridiculous; they are nothing but dead weight.
Like yo mama!
Mask work was fun today; that is, when done well. You could tell some people didn't prepare at all, and it's always a little irritating to see people scrape some ol' thing together when you've been working on that project for days. But hey, that's not my issue, am I right? My scene went all right, I guess. I wish I could've thought of something a little more creative. But my mind got blocked and the idea wasn't terrible, so I ran with it. My scenario was a dude walking along, and he sees a mysterious button sitting right in the middle of the floor. He inspects it cautiously, presses it, and his arm begins shaking uncontrollably. Slightly panicked, he presses the button again and the shaking stops. Fascinated by this, he then presses the button again. This time, both his arm AND his leg shake uncontrollably. It starts to get a little out of hand, so he presses the button and all the shaking stops. He decides the button is dangerous so he stomps off... but stops, curious about what would happen if he pressed it one more time... but he can't! It's a bad button. He soon gives into temptation however and runs over and presses the button again. This time his entire body shakes like crazy. He has no control. Pretty soon he is writhing on the floor, panicked and terrified and OH so confused. He struggles to press the button to stop it all but he is shaking so much he can't quite reach it. FINALLY he lands on the button and the shaking stops. The man is quite literally and figuratively shaken and he storms off.
Simple but easy to convey... It seemed so much plainer and short in my mind, but I guess when you write it out it gets some length. But really, it wasn't nothin' too special. I performed this scene to the song "Inside The Mind Of Simon" by Tally Hall, my favorite band.
Cool, huh? Yes. The answer is Yes.
Tomorrow we're going to be doing a heavy duty acting exercise called MIA. It's not my place to disclose the details here, or to anyone for that matter. All you need to know is that it's not for the faint of heart, and it can be traumatizing for some. *raises hand* I'm excited for it though. Excited for the Track Ones, who will be doing it for the first time. I have faith in them.
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