So many of us look back at the work we’ve done and see choices that were safe, boring… predictable.
When reading a script, images start to come to mind of how we would play the role. Especially if the character is written in a way that lends itself toward stereotypes.
These initial images aren’t wrong, but they’re almost always boring, and lack life. In real life, “bad” people have good in them, “good” people have bad in them, and people surprise us constantly. A hardened criminal may cry at Hallmark commercials, a soft-spoken barista may fly into obscene road rage, a loving wife may also loathe her husband. Contradictions are so innately human that without them our work feels flat.
We will be working with A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams. Williams’ characters have recognizable “types”. It’s very easy for actors to slip into obvious, superficial traits. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Maggie could easily be played as desperate, Brick as apathetic. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche could be played as over-the-top glamour and hysteria, Stanley as a caveman. These portrayals lack the true depth of these characters and deny them their complex humanity.
Join us for an exploration of the other side. Come play with the unexpected, the unrehearsed, the uninhibited… and inject your work with the life it’s been missing.
Please download and read these plays before class:
