horrible acting scenario - what would you do?
Wed, 8 June 2005, 01:38 pmWalter Plinge13 posts in thread
horrible acting scenario - what would you do?
Wed, 8 June 2005, 01:38 pmIn my experience as an actor, there's nothing worse than one of your castmates forgetting their lines - and I know that I'm a regular offender. It happens, and I think getting out of one of these situations is one of the skills that separates a good actor from a great one.
What do you think should be done in this situation? Two actors are on stage, someone goes blank and in the confusion a page of dialogue gets skipped. The page is important - a lot of what happens in the rest of the play relies on the dialogue that was missed.
Should the actors attempt to reintroduce the dialogue at an appropriate point down the track, potentially saving the story but running the risk of spoiling a second scene? Or should they ignore the error and concentrate on making the rest of their performance go according to script?
This situation happened to me last week, and we made a decision to reintroduce the dialogue at a particular point in the following scene. It obviously wasn't perfect, probably spoilt the flow of the second scene, and our deliveries were not as good as they ordinarily would have been, but at least the rest of the story made more sense.
Ever since then, I've been wondering whether we did the right thing or not, and I'd value some feedback about this in case it ever happens to me again. What do you think?
What do you think should be done in this situation? Two actors are on stage, someone goes blank and in the confusion a page of dialogue gets skipped. The page is important - a lot of what happens in the rest of the play relies on the dialogue that was missed.
Should the actors attempt to reintroduce the dialogue at an appropriate point down the track, potentially saving the story but running the risk of spoiling a second scene? Or should they ignore the error and concentrate on making the rest of their performance go according to script?
This situation happened to me last week, and we made a decision to reintroduce the dialogue at a particular point in the following scene. It obviously wasn't perfect, probably spoilt the flow of the second scene, and our deliveries were not as good as they ordinarily would have been, but at least the rest of the story made more sense.
Ever since then, I've been wondering whether we did the right thing or not, and I'd value some feedback about this in case it ever happens to me again. What do you think?
Re: horrible acting scenario - what would you do?
Wed, 8 June 2005, 02:14 pmEvery show and their narrative is different, so I would find it hard to generalise a rule regarding what one should do.
I think one of the most important things to remember is...don't make the solution too complicated or you risk affecting everybody else's performance.
Maybe the solution itself is to just get on with it and forget what has just happened.
I have done shows when pages of dialogue has been skipped or similar and some cases the audiences haven't noticed. In other instances, friends have seen the goof onstage and blamed it on 'poor' writing by the author - hehe, sometimes ignorance is bliss :)
Look, I wouldn't dwell on it. Rather than focussing on what to do when it happens, perhaps you should focus on what you should be doing during the rehearsal process to make sure that it doesn't happen at all.
Cheers,
Crispy.
I think one of the most important things to remember is...don't make the solution too complicated or you risk affecting everybody else's performance.
Maybe the solution itself is to just get on with it and forget what has just happened.
I have done shows when pages of dialogue has been skipped or similar and some cases the audiences haven't noticed. In other instances, friends have seen the goof onstage and blamed it on 'poor' writing by the author - hehe, sometimes ignorance is bliss :)
Look, I wouldn't dwell on it. Rather than focussing on what to do when it happens, perhaps you should focus on what you should be doing during the rehearsal process to make sure that it doesn't happen at all.
Cheers,
Crispy.
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