Tartuffe WordPress

Tartuffe: 

When we first began the rehearsal process, my immediate response to the stimuli was to learn the hidden meanings behind the lines. Frequently throughout the script, Moliere provides no directions on how they say their lines, just what they say. Through help from the director in seeing how saying certain words sounded, and trying out different physical postures and volumes. Given the play immediately starts off as high energy, I found delivering them unrealistic was a great way to see how I should say the line. To be more specific, a scene to highlight my process is the one between Mariane, Orgon, and Dorine. During this scene, I must switch between being suspiciously nice and caring toward Mariane and being incredibly harsh toward Dorine. What helped me with this scene was imagining we must push a ball down a hill. What I mean by this is making sure the energy rolling and never giving the audience space to breathe with how loud we are, how big our movements are, and the delivery of our lines. Alongside making sure we give very few gaps between lines so no energy dips, really helped me learn the script and get an idea of what sort of person Orgon is. 

For the production side of the process, getting into costume and moving around in it helped me both with the physicality of the character, and also the mental side of him. Seeing how glamorous and over the top, the outfit showed how highly he treats himself and the pride that he carries, but also how comfortable he feels in his own home to walk around in such an outfit. Physically, I made it a reflection of how he sees himself; long strides, high chest, loud steps, etc. The owner of the house, in all aspects. One other thing worth mentioning is how the other characters view him. With such a glamorous walk and outfit, it helps establish his control over the family and superiority complex.

Going back to the rehearsal process, learning how the other characters viewed him really helped me find the character and get an idea of how he sees himself. Given the outfit and established position in the family hierarchy, treating myself as the king, and somebody to be praised was definitely a big step towards finalizing the characterization process. On top of that, actually seeing how the characters thought of him made the farce elements even funnier. Moving to line learning, I found it quite difficult given the text. This is obviously due to the rhyme, something that was obviously a challenge from the beginning. What helped was doing it with my cast members, greatly helping me remember them, as I was assigning it to a movement, phrase, facial expression, etc. Also applying a tempo of sorts helped me pick up the rhythm of the lines, something which I realized was vital for the energy and progression of the play.

To sum up, I found the process fairly difficult, but quite interesting too. The play tackled me with something I haven’t really ever had to worry about in plays before which is rhyme, and helped me get a better understanding of acting overall. I think I would’ve changed the beginning process to dedicating more time to breaking scenes down with other cast members as one of the biggest difficulties was figuring out the character’s intentions in that scene and what they wanted to accomplish. I found that in the performances having a live audience really helped my confidence and energy, and gave me something to play to, making it much easier to upkeep the energy, but also make sure my comedic timing was good. One thing I think I struggled with was changing how I said a line to another cast member so that it made sense in terms of emotion or volume.

Digital:

I started off with learning the play. It was quite a drastic change in plays as obviously prior to this I was doing Tartuffe, which requires a huge amount of energy, but with Middletown, it is a stark difference; realistic characters, low energy, and subtle facial expressions. Learning the text was really helpful for me as it gave me an idea of what the play was like and the character I played. After getting a firm grasp of the character I was playing I started experimenting with different styles. The first one I picked was seeing how it felt doing it in a familiar place, my living room. Giving me a space I could openly explore and move around it at first was what I intended to do, but the more I went through the script the more I realized how in awe the astronaut was at his surroundings, so I opted to go back to sitting down. What I worked on next was capturing the reaction of seeing the Earth, simultaneously thinking of things that put me in awe, so I could capture the most genuine and real expression. The lines were the next area I moved to, using them as the medium to express my wonder and joy, all whilst trying to keep it realistic. The lines really helped me, as they gave me a direct way to turn my facial expressions into words, but also provided entertainment. Afterward, I turned to my partner to explore the dynamic between the two characters. One thing we focused on was the pacing on our line delivery. Giving each other a second to have the response ‘transmitted’ made it feel more realistic and gave both of us more time to react to the line. What also helped was the positioning of our chairs. Having us back to back made it, so we needed to project more so that they could clearly hear what the other person said, but also compositions wise it made it more dynamic. When it came to filming I wanted to make sure my expressions were clear and visible, using all the space in the room to express them. I felt it was necessary to not look at the camera so that I was truly looking at all the Earth’s beauty in awe. Overall I think we did quite well with the script and managed to capture all that we set out to do.