September 21, 2012

After warming up, playing one new game and reviewing another, we decided to get right into our Hamlet monologue. We decided to begin working with one person on stage and the rest of us in the audience. The first participant to read has been with the group since February. She gave a very confident reading, but she did not really connect to the piece. I asked her why. She said that she had just launched into it without taking a moment to focus, as we’ve discussed. She tried again, this time taking some time before beginning. This reading was much better. She said that she “stopped thinking” and felt more spontaneous, although she said that she didn’t feel she could truly be spontaneous without the lines being memorized. I volunteered that that is the case for some actors, who want to memorize lines right off the bat, while others wait until the last minute to get off book.

Another participant who is a “veteran” volunteered to read next. She, too, did not connect with the piece emotionally. I asked her what happened, and she said it felt “a little too read.”

Then an exercise popped into my head that I thought would be beneficial for them, since they are all having trouble getting out of their heads. Everyone put her script away and got a chair. I instructed them to envision that the seat of the chair was actually 6-8 inches higher up than it actually was. I did the exercise with them. Once we had “convinced ourselves” that the seat was higher, we circled the chair, continuing to focus on the imaginary seat. Then we sat, aiming for the higher seat – but of course came down on what was actually there. Not all of them committed to this and sat down far too easily. We did it again. This time everyone came crashing down. “Sit in that feeling,” I said. “Let it register with you.” Then I asked them what it felt like.

“It made my stomach feel weird,” said one. “It hurt to sit down so hard,” said another. “Okay,” I said, “So you feel the sensation of falling physically. Do you recognize this feeling?” They nodded. “We’ve all sat down too hard before,” I said, “But when else in your life have you felt this way that had nothing to do with physically falling down?”

“That’s the way I felt the first time I walked into prison,” said one immediately. Everyone nodded. “I felt that way when I first came to County,” said another. More nodding. I asked them if there were other times in their lives when they felt that way, and everyone continued to agree. We did it again, letting it sink in even more. We talked more about the feelings it brought up. Some said it made them sad or depressed. Another said it made her void of feeling – numb. “So why are we doing this?” I asked. “Because this is how Hamlet feels,” said one of them.  “Right,” I said. I asked them if they could see how this might be a more effective way of calling up the emotion in the piece than trying to just manufacture feelings by thinking about them. They said they could.

We then fell again, but this time we reached out for help, eventually giving up – because, again, this is what is happening in the piece we are working on. This clicked for them as well. We did it one more time, but this time after we fell, we spoke the first lines of the monologue. The pieces continued to fall into place for them.

We sat in a circle and took turns reading. The participant who had read just before the exercise read again, and the transformation was incredible. I asked her what happened. “It’s like prison,” she said, “It’s like the beauty of life is passing me by while I’m sitting here feeling this way.” She said that she had dug deeper with each pause, and she felt much more connected to the piece now. The others who read also connected more deeply and showed a greater understanding of the material. There was a feeling of discovery, of being supported while experiencing difficult emotions, and the bond between the women strengthened even as they gained confidence in their individual performances.

Everyone was very encouraged by the group’s progress today.

September 14, 2012

We began today with warm ups and some very silly games. All of the participants fully committed to the games, even when they clearly felt uncomfortable. As we played more rounds of each game, they became more comfortable. The recently added participants are clearly becoming integrated as a group, and we are ready to add more new people next week. We continued to work on our piece from Hamlet sitting in a circle rather than some in the audience and one person on stage. The first participant to read showed that she essentially understands the piece, but she read it with little to no emotional connection. When she finished, I asked her how she felt, and she readily admitted that she hadn’t “felt it.” She said she was disappointed and apologized. I assured her that there was no need to apologize – there is a learning curve, and each person is at a different point. We talked again about vulnerability; the need for it when working on this material and the difficulty of making oneself vulnerable in a situation like theirs. The veterans reassured the newer participants that they’ll get more comfortable showing vulnerability to one another as they progress through the program, and eventually that will translate to their performance in front of an audience. This participant then read again, and she did connect in a few places, but not overall. I asked her what made her connect, and she said she didn’t know. I asked her if maybe the words to which she connected brought up images for her, and she said, yes, actually, they did. I encouraged her to spend some time with the pieces finding images to connect with the words and phrases, and then to focus on those images rather than on “I should be feeling this.” She liked this idea a lot.

Then another participant read. She, too, showed a solid understanding of the piece, but her reading was rushed and general. In reflecting, she said that she was focusing on what she should feel. I cautioned again about this – that it’s tempting to play “I feel sad,” etc., but it works much better to focus on a character’s objective – what does Hamlet want in this piece? She read again with this new focus, and everyone agreed it was much better, but she still rushed. We’ve been talking about the “clues” Shakespeare gives us in his text, and I introduced here the idea that when he gives a character a lot of open vowel sounds, he’s telling the actor to take it slowly, lingering on those vowels. We’ve already talked about all the punctuation telling us to slow the piece down, but we hadn’t talked about vowels yet. She read again, allowing herself to linger on certain words, and then said that it had worked – she “felt it more.”

A third participant read next. Her reading was very fluent, but not emotionally connected. One participant said she felt like she was being read to, like it was narration rather than something active. The participant reading said she was worried about that but wasn’t sure how to get the connection she needed. I suggested she focus less on the words and more on her breathing – taking a breath at each punctuation. We talked about breath as it relates to emotion, and I could see a lot of light bulbs going on. She then read again, breathing more, and the piece improved. She said she felt like the reading itself was better the first time, and the emotion the second. She is going to spend more time working on it, on her own, and then read again for us the next time we meet.

One of the original participants then read. She took it very slowly, which allowed her to connect deeply. One of the others commented that, because she had gone slowly, she didn’t feel like she had to try to catch up to understand her. Another said that this completely makes sense for this piece: “When you’re heavy hearted, heavy thinking, you talk slowly.” We also talked briefly about how the participant reading said “Man delights me not” instead of “Man delights not me.” How much does it matter? I pointed out that the emphasis is different and changes the meaning of this phrase quite a bit if you change the syntax, while the more experienced participants brought up that it doesn’t necessarily detract from the entire piece or make it unrecognizable. We decided that we’ll deal with this issue as it arises, on a case by case basis.

Everyone left for the day feeling good and happy with the work they’re doing.

September 11, 2012

With most of our “newbies” back in attendance today, we jumped into some warm ups and silly games. Everyone was smiling and having a great time, loosening up together, with the exception of two participants who chose to sit out. They know that this is okay sometimes, as long as it doesn’t become a habit. We began to work together on the piece from Hamlet, reviewing what we went over during the last session when many of them were absent. One thing we discussed was whether or not one can ever truly transform into a character; what it means to tell the truth as oneself under imaginary circumstances – the circumstances of the character.

As we were working, a new participant arrived. We stopped what we were doing to orient her and answer her questions about the group. She is very enthusiastic, having done some acting before, and is eager for the new experience of working with Shakespeare.

We then returned to Hamlet. One of the participants who’s been in the group for awhile volunteered to read it to the group. She did a great job, and everyone complimented her for taking her time and not being melodramatic. One participant brought up, though, that at first she had seemed to just be reading. I asked them when they thought she had “fallen in” to the piece. They weren’t sure, but I had actually noted it when it happened – it happened on the word “nothing.” I asked them why they thought that. We decided that it was probably because, although she had an intellectual grasp on the meaning of the piece, it wasn’t until she got to a word that has the same meaning now as it did 400 years ago that she emotionally connected – and then the piece deepened greatly for her. She said she could definitely feel a difference at that point. I introduced the concept of a pre-beat – a moment before one begins a piece when one takes stock of “who am I, where am I, what am I doing, what do I want…”, etc. She did this, and her performance deepened again.

During this second reading, one of the participants who had been sitting out crept into the circle. She wanted to give feedback to this other participant – they’ve grown close in the past few months. Then she asked if she could read. She’d been feeling down anyway, and she poured her emotions into the piece, but she was very closed down in terms of her energy. I asked the group what they thought, and they said that, while it was clear that she understood and connected with the piece, they couldn’t connect to her. I asked her to try to reach out more and draw us in, get us to help her. The next time, she did.

We were then out of time, but everyone left feeling good. I’m hoping that more of our new participants will feel ready to read during the next session. They seemed really inspired by what the other two were able to do today. Our program was featured in the Detroit Metro Times this week! Check out the article here: http://metrotimes.com/arts/behind-bars-with-the-bard-1.1371708

September 7, 2012

We got off to a slow start today due to needing to resolve the logistical issues that were brought up at the last session, and due to a scheduling mix up that we realized happened when only one of our new participants arrived. That will be remedied for the next session. We did a nice, long warm up and played a couple of circle games and an improv game that the group has really taken to in the past. During the course of these games, the one new participant who was present loosened up quite a bit and became obviously more comfortable with the rest of the women present, who are already very comfortable with one another.

When we decided to move on to Shakespeare with the time remaining, the new participant volunteered that she had spent a lot of time analyzing the piece between sessions. She said that, though she’s not familiar with the play, she could identify with the despair, depression and frustration Hamlet expresses. She thought about how she would express those feelings if these were her words. We were all delighted by everything she said, and the group told her how wonderful it is that she’s already taking initiative like that and doing such great groundwork. I asked her if she’d like to read the piece, and she seemed hesitant, so I assured her that she could just sit in her chair and do it if getting up was too intimidating (we were sitting in a circle). She did that, and she gave a great reading. She took her time, gave weight to certain words that clearly resonated most with her, and was very truthful, albeit a little hesitant. The group applauded her and expressed how impressed they were by how her instincts guided her to such a great first “performance.” They also reassured her that her shyness and the bit of stumbling over the language she did would go away in time. It’s great, now that they are veterans and can speak from experience. We then talked about what Hamlet wants in the scene, as opposed to just what he’s feeling. She decided that he wants to get this person to help him. I encouraged her to “reach out” with her energy, to get that help. Her next reading was deeper, and she was clearly going after that objective for most of the piece. She said it felt more truthful to her that time, but it’s something she’ll need to work on.

We all were very happy with how this new participant did, and I was especially pleased with how supportive the core group was of her. It seems like they really like being in the role of mentor, and it will benefit the new participants greatly to be able to trust to their experience, even while these original members continue to learn and grow.

September 4, 2012

Since new people joined the group today, we began by introducing ourselves and talking about what we each bring to the group and what we hope to get out of the experience. Returning members described what the program has been like for them. We then went through the guidelines that the group came up with last week and explained how we came up with them. Everyone present agreed that the guidelines are reasonable, and they like them. We then did some warm ups and played a few games to get to know each other better and get comfortable around each other. The group did very well with everything, really diving in and committing to what they were doing even when they felt silly.

Then I distributed copies of “What a piece of work is a man…” since the group last session did so well with it, and it’s been a long time since those who have worked with it have done anything with it. The group did very well breaking it down and figuring out what everything meant and what Hamlet is talking about and feeling in the piece. I asked if anyone wanted to get up and perform it, and of course the participant who did Othello’s monologue in the last session volunteered. She is fearless now!

Unfortunately before we could get into an in-depth discussion about her performance and then get some other people up on stage, the group got side tracked into talking about some logistical questions about the times of the class and issues some of them may have with attending for the entire length of each session. This is an issue that we are going to deal with in the next few sessions, and it may be that the commitment is too much for some of them. It’s going to take a little while to get a solid group again, but that is par for the course. I hope that at least some of them stick with it. They all have great energy and positive attitudes, and they seem eager for the experience.