PHASE #4. a Cinderella story

When I grow up, I wanna be a princess.

Ever dreamed of being a Prince Charming or Disney Princess? I got my chance in theatre class. Today’s theme was the various ways to tell a story. Andrew picked a familiar tale and left us to reconstruct it in groups. His rationale? That we already knew the story by heart and could be free from recalling details and instead focus on how we wanted to tell it.

We began by picking a single moment from the famous fairytale, and then worked outwards to build a series of moments that would serve as the skeleton to our little performance. Eventually, we reconstructed the entire story, from the renowned fairy godmother scene through the oops-my-glass-slipper scene, all the way till the very end.

And from there, we learnt that chapters are instrumental in dividing the story – or play, in context – into actor- and audience-friendly segments that would also allow the director to pick out scenes to focus on.

Zhengliang was hilarious as the Prince Charming waiting in his castle as he idled by doing nothing. But thanks to him, we learnt about how to create a shopping (or a to-do) list of actions, to express emotions or otherwise. Contrary to popular (and my) belief that we should act out emotions, Andrew put it quite plainly that you cannot, as amateurs, effectively act out emotions. In verbatim, ‘What if I’m supposed to pretend to be sad, but I’m actually not sad?’

/combs hair /breath spray /mirror check

It was thoughtful, and all the more thought-provoking. An emotion is intangible and spontaneous, so how could one so simply pretend to have a lightbulb moment of sadness? From where could that imaginary sadness possibly stem if you’re not in fact sad? It’s like saying we could pretend to be the creator of lightbulbs and give an accurate firsthand description of the invention process. I.e. we cannot, unless we are, or we are extremely skilled liars (a.k.a. actors).

Therefore, it would be easier to act out a list of actions that symbolize or constitute a certain emotion, quote unquote. Every little action contributes and is part of the action on stage, and therefore we have to all the more be psychosomatic – a constant awareness of everything we do in front of an audience. For example, to act out ‘happiness’, you could be 1. throwing your hands in the air just because; 2. grinning from ear to ear just because; 3. bouncing about with a spring in your step just because, etc., etc.

Shopping - for actions

We tried it out in a replay of our Cinderella stories. It worked like magic, no pun intended.

It’s amazing how a moment of clarity like this could affect our pre-conceived notions of how we should be going about doing something. I’ll be sure to teach this nifty trick to my very own cast.