The Rookery

I haven’t been home much today. Ian and I had a voice lesson, which was a really great one for me. Our teacher talked about incorporating more air and practicing slides to allow for relaxation in the throat and neck. It will be fun to try these things out to see what emerges.

This afternoon Bob and I had a meeting with a friend who is interested in helping Bad Alien with marketing. It was a good conversation and helped me think about marketing in a different light. We don’t yet know just what direction we’re going, but our friend can help us with that.

This evening I attended a glass armonica concert with another friend. A parent at school plays viola with the Odeon String Quartet, which partnered with Dennis James, an organist and glass armonica player to present a unique program of Mozart, Philip Glass and another contemporary composer whose name I don’t remember. Who knew that Mozart composed for the glass armonica?

My mind is full of some of the things I heard and saw tonight while watching two more episodes of Playing Shakespeare, which I mentioned in a recent post. The first of the two dealt with creating a character. Patrick Stewart and David Suchet each demonstrated their interpretations of Shylock from “The Merchant of Venice“. (Each played the role in different productions with the Royal Shakespeare Company.) It was fascinating to watch because they were both so different but wonderful in their unique ways.

John Barton, the RSC director who also provides instruction and commentary during the acting workshops, commented on the role of the director vs. the actor in a production. He seemed very generous when he said that as a director he can have his own interpretation of Shakespeare’s goals and intentions in a play and he can pose questions and offer comments to actors playing the roles, but in the end once the production is staged it belongs to the actors and their unique embodiment of the characters.

The second of the two episodes I watched tonight focused on “set” speeches and soliloquies–those parts of the play where one character has a long speech either to other characters or alone on stage. A number of different actors performed a variety of these speeches. With all of them Barton emphasized the importance of actors speaking the lines as if they were just discovering and needed to say the words, finding the complexity of the character but also striving for simplicity in their performance. He talked about the infinite ways an actor can interpret and deliver a speech and how each actor has to ignore previous interpretations and performances and discover a character and speech for the first time.

One of the set speeches is from “As You like It“–the “All the world’s a stage” speech. Since the episode didn’t name the play it is from I looked it up and found an online Cliff notes-like site that reprints the first few lines of the speech and then goes on to analyze how the speech would be delivered and what Shakespeare intended with it. How ironic in light of John Barton’s comments about the importance to the players and the audience of discovering the plays, characters and speeches as if for the first time.

The acting workshop series is awesome for me and anyone who’s interested in the craft of acting and directing and the power of theatre in general. Watching masterful actors try out different things in front of a camera–all of it fascinating and much of it moving–intensifies my admiration and awe for the skill, hard work and willingness to be vulnerable that good actors demonstrate. I also appreciate anew the magic of live theatre because every performance is different and fresh if the actors continually work to learn and create each time they perform.

Usually I come up with a title and then start writing the post. Today I’m going to write the post first and see what title emerges afterward.

This morning five people were here to record voices for an independent short animation project. It was the first time Bob used the sound studio to record for someone he didn’t know at all. He responded to a request for studio time on NW Film Forum’s callboard. It went well and the producer, director and actors were pleased with the space and the result. Bad Alien will get a credit on the film, which they hope will be picked up by several film festivals. Having seen a bit of it, I think they have a good chance.

It was good to establish a contact with other people in the local film community. The producer, in particular, seemed pretty savvy and knowledgable, so he’s a good person to know. One of the voice actors retired a couple of years ago from sales of heavy electrical equipment. He is not at all afraid to put himself out there, thanks to his many years of experience calling people constantly to try to sell them stuff.

He told a great story of calling the Fischer flour mill purchaser once a week for three years, just to check if the Fischer guy wanted to buy any of his products. No sale–for three years. Then one day he called and got a different guy, whom he knew a little from his frequent contact with the company. The salesman asked about the Fischer purchase manager and was told that he had retired. The guy on the phone was the new purchaser and immediately told the sales guy that there were some things he wanted. This former salesman commented that it never hurts to keep asking, keep yourself in the picture. You don’t lose anything by continuing to knock on the door. I liked his story and his philosophy.

I’ve been putting off filing state excise taxes for Bad Alien Productions and Fleebag Studios, but got it done today a few days before the deadline. It’s not that hard, just a little time-consuming and boring. At least I don’t have to worry about that for another year. The next big task is filing for Bad Alien’s trademark through the federal trademark office. That will be a little more involved.

Ian and I watched a rock documentary, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster today. It was fascinating and ultimately hopeful. It basically tracks the band’s journey of tribulation and self-discovery over almost three years trying to make a new album in the early 2000s. I was especially jazzed to see a short bit of footage of James Hetfield (lead singer and guitarist) doing vocal warmup exercises. They never show that in rock documentaries. It demonstrated that rock gods have to practice and take care of their voices (if they want to sing for the long term) just like every other singer.

This evening we chilled out and watched Amelie. We haven’t seen it in several years, and it was just as delightful this time around. It was good to sit and relax this evening for a change. I baked some oatmeal/dried cranberry and oatmeal/chocolate chip cookies that I stirred up earlier in the day. Delicious!