The LAMDA Legacy – turning strangers into smiles

So the adventure is over… for now. Four weeks of laughing, crying, playing, living and breathing Shakespeare, practicing historic dance steps in swishy skirts, prancing around with childlike glee, slurping coffee on the way to school, contorting myself to avoid a faceful of armpit on the morning tube ride, dancing barefoot like there’s no-one watching, rehearsing, discovering, making friends, developing trust, exploring who I am and what it is I want, tasting the poetry of my lines, daring to give it a go, finding neutral, letting go, working out, exercising every muscle in my body, singing old lute songs, discovering my head voice, exploring tension levels, working, people-watching, demonstrating Laban efforts, experimenting with masks, throwing consonants at the ceiling, bouncing vowels off the walls, connecting mind, body, voice and soul, turning strangers into smiles, has come to an end. 

These last four weeks have changed how I look at things, how I approach my work, how I see others and myself, and have added fuel to the fire that was already  glowing there, so that it now burns brightly. I have had the pleasure of meeting, working and playing with some wonderful people, whose creativity and bravery I’ve found inspirational. I’ve experienced just a taste of what it is to train at LAMDA, an appetizer that has left me wanting more of what this wonderful school has to offer.

Although it’s now back to the day job, the fire still burns fiercely within. I will never forget this magical month I’ve just had, and all the people I’ve shared it with along the way. I’ve seen the start of friendships and creative partnerships that will last long beyond our brief time at LAMDA, and though the Shakespeare workshop itself has ended, this is really only just the beginning…

 

LAMDA week three – letting go

As the physical theatre classes have increased with intensity, the singing classes introduced me to the wonder of my ‘head voice’ (quite a revelation for me actually!), and the scene study sessions frustrated me more and more with my general crapness, I have discovered the importance of ‘letting go’. If last week I made the decision to be brave, this week I have been focusing on the result of being brave – letting go. Letting go of me, of my habits, of my fears and insecurities, of all the emotion pent up inside, straining to get out and be freeeeee. When I say letting go of me, I’m not talking about wiping the slate clean completely, just being able to get to a state known as ‘neutral’ and knowing how to return to that state before getting into character. Sitting on the tube, walking through London, eating my breakfast, I will remain as me, with all the wonderful (and not so!) little things that make me me. But in the studio, the rehearsal room, or backstage, before I transform into Viola, Rosalind, Portia, I can shake off me and find that neutral state, then let the character in.

During our work on neutrality with the wonderful John Bartlett, we had the brief chance to do some mask work. Normally this takes weeks or even months to work on and build up to, but given the brief nature of the course, we were given a sneak peak into this wonderful world and the creative possibilities it opens up. We each chose a mask, as much on impulse as possible, then spent a few minutes getting to know our mask. I ran my fingers over its face, felt the prominent cheekbones jutting out, the deep eye sockets; brought it close to my face and rubbed my cheek against its. I held it above me and looked up at the look of a parent; held it below in my arms – the look of a child; held it behind me – the look of a stranger; lay down on my side with it – the passive look of a lover. Once acquainted with our masks, we closed our eyes and put them on. Unfortunately, my eyes being stupidly close together, I struggled with some discomfort to see properly out of the mask; indeed at the end of the session, as I pulled the mask off, my left contact lens, which it had apparently dragged out of my eye, fell into my palm – ouch! However, this aside, the effect of the mask was a powerful one. We were told not to sink and pull it down to us, but rather to lift ourselves to it. Walking around in neutral, executing actions on impulse, listening to what our bodies wanted to do and where they wanted to go, and listening to what the mask wanted to do, we were transformed. I felt my body move automatically, without any conscious thought, as if controlled by some other power, some other force. It was a strangely liberating experience, that loss of conscious control, that letting go.

Our group chilling during a line run at rehearsal – first time using the panorama function on my new camera so the pic’s a little messed up in places!

In my physical theatre and movement classes my body is becoming more and more attuned to letting go, and in my voice classes too, as I drop all the tension I normally carry across my chest (seems all those years of ballet weren’t a good idea after all) and let my breath sink in deeper. The problem I’m facing is putting all this hard work into practice in the rehearsal room. Working on a scene with Viola and Olivia from Twelfth Night (me playing Viola), I’m finding it takes so much time in each session for me to open up and let go of myself. Once I manage to do this, the effect is obvious, and suddenly the scene has an energy and life it was lacking before. One can only presume that, through drama school training, you develop the means to put into practice all the techniques you learn without having to consciously bring them up and go through the exercise each time. I have faith that, if I work hard and open myself to every creative possibility, this could happen. However, for the meantime I need to get this scene nailed by the end of this week, and for this I just need to let go.

LAMDA week 2 – be brave

My second week on the Shakespeare summer workshop at LAMDA has been one of great discovery. I realise that in order to be a good actor and understand each character you play you must first understand yourself. Such has been the nature of the week – a period of real self-discovery. Naturally, I have unearthed not only positive things I never realised about myself, but also painful things that I normally keep buried deep inside. An exercise during one of our physical theatre classes had a particularly profound effect on me…

We started the exercise by lying on the floor in semi-supine (for those of you who don’t practice Alexander Technique, so probably most of you, this is lying with your knees bent and pointing to the ceiling and your feet flat on the floor – very good for lower back problems!). The teacher took us through a relaxation exercise with our eyes closed, moving down the body, concentrating on each muscle group in turn. Then, feeling relaxed and our minds free from the day-to-day clutter of our lives, we had to listen to our bodies and let them move as they wanted to. We started with the lower body, moved to the upper body, then brought everything in together. Gradually, as we became more involved in the activity, a few of us occasionally grunted, sighed or moaned, and all of a sudden three people began to laugh. The effect was unexpected and immediate – I curled up into a tight little ball and started crying. Although the laughter wasn’t in any way aimed at me and was simply a release of energy and tension from the people concerned, I hated the sound and wanted to get as far away from it as I could. It felt like an attack, and following my instincts I curled up to protect myself.

As the laughter subsided I felt the suffocating pain dissipate and the fear subside, and began to relax again as I unfolded myself up to standing. We were encouraged to open our eyes a little way once we started moving around so as not to bump into anyone, so I was vaguely aware of other human forms through the curtain of lashes, some upright, others lying with their feet in the air or rolling around across the floor. The exercise advanced further then as the teacher put on some music and we let our bodies react to the music and speak to us. This may all sound very hippy-like but I defy even the greatest of skeptics to do this exercise and not become completely involved. At one point I crawled into a corner, child-like; at another I started swinging joyfully form side to side, feeling the beat of the music fill my soul and forgetting everything but that moment, that sound, that feeling.

Eventually the teacher brought the exercise to a close as he lowered the music and told us to come to stillness and open our eyes in our own time. We wandered into a circle, wondering what exactly had just happened. I felt as if I had been to some long-forgotten place deep inside my mind and I took a while to come back again. As our teacher spoke to a few of my course mates I felt a sudden urge to cry again. Very much not wanting to lose control and exhibit such vulnerability in front of the whole class I very firmly told it to go away, but it wasn’t working! The urge overcame me and the tears spilled onto my cheeks. Moments later, when the teacher had asked the group for feedback on the exercise, I explained my vulnerable state and that it had mainly brought me pain, rather than pleasure. (He called it the pleasure-seeking exercise, as we let our bodies move how they want to and in a way that gives them pleasure, rather than restricting them as we normally do.) I was assured that any exercise can evoke different reactions in different people, and was reassured to hear that several people in the group had also experienced what I did, some feeling vulnerable, others just melancholy.

As I sat in my room that night I went over these events in my head, and realised that I had come to an important moment in these early days of my training. I was feeling vulnerable, and open, and receptive, and maybe a little bit scared. The exercise had been a difficult one for me because of the emotions it brought to the fore, and I understood what my singing teacher had meant when he said there would be times at drama school when you just wanted to go home. But I didn’t want to go home. I had a decision to make: I could stop there, protect myself, not get hurt, carry on the course but hold back when I felt myself exposed, and learn a lot throughout the remaining weeks but I may as well give up on being an actor right there and then. Or I could be brave. I could take a deep breath and plunge straight back in and open myself to it all and work hard and learn and take those risks of being in a difficult place, and at the end of the four weeks I would have started to move along the path to becoming an actor.

We are coming alive again. We are rediscovering what it is to be human. There will be tears of joy and tears of pain. There will be truth, and sometimes revelation. Being an actor takes great bravery, becoming one even more so. And I’ve made the decision to be brave.

Welcome to LAMDA!

Ok, so it’s the end of my second day here at LAMDA on the four-week Shakespeare summer school, or ‘workshop’ as they call it. I’m living in London for the month, renting a room in Finsbury Park, so not only is it a Shakespeare mini adventure, it’s also a London mini adventure. I’m getting used to just cooking for one rather than three (well, two, but my boyfriend eats enough for two people), and having a bit of ‘me’ time in the evenings, which at the moment is a novelty, but I’m sure I will soon be missing my other half and his not-so-tuneful renditions of Les Mis around the flat. He’s probably just enjoying the peace and quiet. And filling it with even louder renditions of Les Mis.

The first day of the ‘workshop’ was occupied with mainly getting to know each other, the staff, and how things work here. After a brief orientation meeting where we received our timetables and a list of the smaller groups we’d be split into (there have to be at least 40 of us on the course – a rather intimidating number to pile into one class!), we went off into our groups and started work on some scene study. The director working with my group is, of course, a wonderfully interesting character, with a colourful theatrical past and, I’m sure, more than a few fascinating stories to tell about the Industry. He seems to possess that other-worldly quality that many creative folk do, his mind floating in and out of the room as he recalls past adventures, or lingers on some element of Shakespeare on which he has a certain wisdom to impart. He also seems wonderfully blunt and with no qualms about telling you if you’re doing a crap job, which I think is absolutely crucial for an actor.

After scene study we had an hour’s lunch, which I spent with a delightful Icelandic girl, and narrowly avoided getting a stitch. We ordered food at a nearby pub but by the time it arrived had no time to eat it and five minutes to get back to the school, so they very kindly popped our meals in little Tupperware and we legged it back to class trying to wolf down our lunch as we went. I can tell you: eating cannelloni with your fingers whilst power walking through Hammersmith is no easy feat!

The afternoon was spent playing games, which although silly at first, you soon realise are actually playing some greater part in your training, mainly helping to sharpen your focus, improve your spatial awareness, and develop quick thinking. We had a fantastic time rediscovering our inner child in a game of tag, and despaired at our lack of coordination in a game I normally call ‘Zip, Zap, Boing’. After classes the school put on a few drinks and nibbles, a lovely little gesture that helped break any remaining ice within the group, and stuffed with flapjack, strawberries and red wine, I made my way home and fell into bed, happy and knackered.

Today’s classes have been more focused, with more scene study work and the first of our historic dance and singing lessons, and tomorrow we set off to Stratford-upon-Avon for an RSC workshop, three plays and a trip to the usual sites, returning on Friday after a meander round Warwick Castle. I shall report back on Friday, this time with pictures!