I just got back from a lovely WorkieMcShopShop with my dear drama friends. We worked on all our shakespeare monologues. I was very privledged to be able to spend an hour or so on mine. Ren and Adam, and Jenko when he arrived later, gave me some seriously excellent direction...not too heavy, not too light, just right. I was really thrilled that they alerted me to things I just hadn't thought about. Their notes included:

- clump audience together to avoid having to turn my back on audience and so that I can up the intmacy.
- we discussed doing "friends, romans, countrymen" really quietly, instead of the usual bigness
- Build up over all the "brutus is an honerable man"s
- I have to be carefull not to trail off my sentances...annunciation wise
- use pauses to look at the grave
- hit BURY and PRAISE
- be equally as passionate about the good things Caesar did, as I am with the sarcasm
- bitter on so let it be with caesar...avoid the 'its a new car' syndrome

I enjoyed seeing everyone elses.

Jenko's was very full on - had a lot of energy. Once he started slowing it down it improved heaps. We talked with him about building his energy towards the end, instead of blowing it all at once. Acting through pacing - maybe slow the pacing down a bit. Show us each idea, tell each thing to a soldier.

Adam's - was very good. Had a lot of great things: the hilarity moment, the transition from the story to the supposedly thinking to himself moment. We worked out things with a chair, and the change from hilarity to the thoughtfull moment was so good the last time he did it.

Ren - she was frustrated with hers towards the end. But from the first time she did it, compared to the last time...ya, it had developed a lot. When she was doing it to Adam with him avoiding eye contact it had such a great energy...she came across as so angry, and frustrated, and hurt, and stuff...

Anyway, I'm just really glad we could do that. Thats what arcproductions was supposed to be about. Or maybe thats what drama is supposed to be about. I just wish we could have done that over the previous 2 and a half years of drama. Now its nearly all over.