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Post by snivellusfriend on Aug 25, 2008 1:56:20 GMT -4
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQJjlGfCOBQI didn't see this posted; Apologizes if it already has... I think Michael did a very good job, acting as though he knew how to sew; I thought he knew how to do it, especially because he was a theatre actor! ;D My grandparents were a seemstresess and tailor;  My mother could've told Michael stories about how they worked, especially her father, all the rolls of cloth they had, etc. The thing I don't like about acting is that the roles, especially plays, don't seem very interesting to me. The exception was 'Parts Unknown;' That is how I thought plays should be written: short, direct, ect. I'd grown up thinking that theatre plays were Shakespeare and boring and had fallen asleep at a community play about a historical person when I was a kid, so when I read Ian Mairs' play I thought, 'Oh, theatre has changed. I didn't know plays are now written like that!'  What a letdown, that plays written like that seem to be rare. It drives me crazy when there's a lot of dialogue, unnecessary dialogue; I feel as though I want to or would have to rewrite the play, myself, but perhaps it's my own personal preference. I don't understand why writers write so much (for plays). It bores me and puts me to sleep; I enjoy short dialogue and action at a quick pace. I'm so grateful when I do read a play like that or very similiar, like, 'Finally! Someone feels the same way I do! Someone knows what I'm talking about!' Maybe I just don't understand them, but I've read Shakespeare plays and contemporary plays and they seem straightforward and the characters seem too simple to play, not complex or meaningful. I feel as though I've heard the stories before and I'm disappointed because as a kid, I used to be surprised and amazed at how clever writers were. I want to be surprised, but I don't see what's so special or different about the characters; Sometimes there are certain lines or moments I like, that I think are funny or clever, but they are few. A lot of the characters seem one dimensional, to me, where their only objective seems to be to have a guy fall in love with them. I guess I have to invent a character's personal history, myself, and make it more interesting to me.
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Post by Edith S. Baker on Aug 25, 2008 10:57:06 GMT -4
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQJjlGfCOBQI didn't see this posted; Apologizes if it already has... I think Michael did a very good job, acting as though he knew how to sew; I thought he knew how to do it, especially because he was a theatre actor! ;D My grandparents were seemstresess and my mother grew up knowing how to mend buttons, make clothes, ect. I didn't have the patience for it when I was a kid, it took too long to make a pattern with different colored threads, but I recently took it up again, to shorten my brother's old jeans to fit me. It's actually quite fun to turn something that was worn or torn and make it look new. I realized that I only like sewing when I have to fix something or when I want to wear my brother's old jeans, not sewing pictures of a beach scene, ect. The thing I don't like about acting is that the roles, especially plays, don't seem very interesting to me. The exception was 'Parts Unknown;' That is how I thought plays should be written: short, direct, ect. I'd grown up thinking that theatre plays were Shakespeare and boring and had fallen asleep at a community play about a historical person when I was a kid, so when I read Ian Mairs' play I thought, 'Oh, theatre has changed. I didn't know plays are now written like that!' What a letdown, that plays written like that seem to be rare. It drives me crazy when there's a lot of dialogue, unnecessary dialogue; I feel as though I want to or would have to rewrite the play, myself, but perhaps it's my own personal preference. I don't understand why writers write so much (for plays). It bores me and puts me to sleep; I enjoy short dialogue and action at a quick pace. I'm so grateful when I do read a play like that or very similiar, like, 'Finally! Someone feels the same way I do! Someone knows what I'm talking about!' Maybe I just don't understand them, but I've read Shakespeare plays and contemporary plays and they seem straightforward and the characters seem too simple to play, not complex or meaningful. I feel as though I've heard the stories before and I'm disappointed because as a kid, I used to be surprised and amazed at how clever writers were. I want to be surprised, but I don't see what's so special or different about the characters; Sometimes there are certain lines or moments I like, that I think are funny or clever, but they are few. A lot of the characters seem one dimensional, to me, where their only objective seems to be to have a guy fall in love with them. I guess I have to invent a character's personal history, myself, and make it more interesting to me. When you act, then you will know the reason for the dialogs. Sometimes, they are there for scenery's or costume change. Sometimes a tiny spec of the dialog has an important reason for being there. It introduces something that another character will be doing or basing on later on. For example (I may have given this example once before), in The Sound of Music, in act 1, the Baron von Trapp arrives from one of his trips and Frau Schmidt (the housekeeper) comes in running apologizing for being late and explains that she was answering the telephone. The Baron then asks what did the party want from him and Frau S. tells him that it was for Franz, the butler. Then the baron and Frau S. go on with their dialog, which you could say is long and boring. But the purpose is to introduce the audience to the family’s background. The audience is informed how the children misbehave and how no nannies stay with them because the children are so incorrigible. Fifteen minutes later, the Baron dismisses the Frau and the butler has his dialog with the Frau. Now you ask, what was the importance of the previous paragraph? Well, I found out one day when I was in the play and had the Frau's role that the dialogs were very important. The person who played the Baron forgot to ask the housekeeper what the telephone call was about. Hence, the housekeeper couldn't announce that the phone call was for Franz, the butler. No big deal, right? Wrong. I realized that I couldn't say my next line, "Actually, sir, the telephone call was for Franz.” When my dialog with the Baron was over, and as Franz was about to approach me, I knew that he was going to say, "Who wanted me on the telephone?” So, I had to step on his line (for which I was admonished later, till he learned why I stepped on his line) and say, "That telephone call was for you, Franz." Why were these lines important? Because the audience learns from what ensued from the subsequent dialogs between Fraz and Frau that Franz was a Nazi sympathizer. In Fiddler on the Roof, there is a whole scene (that was not in the movie) in which the chorus and Yenta sing about the people of the Shteitel. The scene is done in front of the curtains and most people could think that it is useless. But there's an important scenery change that needs to be covered up and the audience needs to be entertained. |
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Post by snivellusfriend on Aug 27, 2008 21:22:45 GMT -4
..."Actually, sir, the telephone call was for Franz.” "Who wanted me on the telephone?” "That telephone call was for you, Franz." ... I don't mind lines like that, that are necessary for the story; Those are exactly the kind of short lines that I'd prefer all contemporary plays had because there's a short pace, it's easier and more fun to read and I feel as though I want to act it out. The lines that drive me crazy are, (I'm making this up) "Perhaps I would like to enter the drabby, green, quintessentially delectable, fabulous European food shop, today, with it's spooky, dark-tinted windows, open-aired door, and quaint, tiny, romantic cafe, in which shoppers can mingle about, eat, drink, and be merry as though one at Christmastime, but perhaps today shall not be the day, for it may rain, heavy bouts of rain, like a hurricane, sweaping people off their feet, into the dusty, dingy street, as they prepared to meet, screaming, heard by no one and our little pudgy dog might bark and the not-so-friendly neighbors wouldn't like it one bit, so call the police, where we would be in trouble, might have to pay a fine, and end up in a dirty cell with other not-so-friendly people." The best way I can explain it is a young child, around 3 or 4 years old, trying to tell a story or explain something to their parents or adults and they're having trouble telling it, faltering, trying to talk or describe it, but can't define it exactly. It's as though the playwrights wrote sentences the way that your elementary schoolteacher told you not to write because there was a better, simplier way to write your sentences, that would make their meaning more clear to the reader, something like, "Don't use too many adverbs," or whatever they're called, the ones that are called empty words, like "likes," "thats," that don't mean anything. Those are the types of dialogues that I've read. Except for the one community play that I saw as a kid, where the actors kept speaking a lot in the same, even, monotonous voices, which lulled me to sleep, I'd never had interest in theatre plays because I thought all of them were performed like that, were dull, and were Shakespeare or historical pieces only, for grown ups; I was excited when I read 'Parts Unknown' because I didn't know plays were allowed to be written using modern language and I liked and related to that story. I'd do plays if they were all written like that, in that style. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2008 4:30:55 GMT -4
I never really had an appreciation for marriage of good screenwriting and good acting until I read the screenplay for "Glengarry Glen Ross" after I saw the movie. My jaw practically hit the floor when I read it. That's when I realized Mamet wrote only what was necessary and left the rest to the director and the actors. And what they did in the film version = (Alex Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, Alan Arkin, Jack Lemmon and Al Pacino) — Oh, my goodness! Sheer genius on the part of every one.
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Post by snivellusfriend on Aug 30, 2008 14:57:58 GMT -4
Yes! David Mamet!
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My mother could've told Michael stories about how they worked, especially her father, all the rolls of cloth they had, etc.
What a letdown, that plays written like that seem to be rare.
