Monday, August 18, 2008
Edinburgh Festival and little bit of acting (just a bit)
I haven't written much up on my blog of late so I figured since I was at the Edinburgh Festival there on Saturday that I'd write up about that. The festival was good fun as I went through with some of my acting pals and we all had a good day, one of the highlights being seeing our noted star actor Scott, perform in a Fringe play, Absinthe, which (careful what I say here!) was entertaining but very cheesey, sadly I missed most of Scott's performance (no thanks to British Rail keeping me late!) and saw the last third act which was without Scott, and it did suffer somewhat without him in it as Scott was as watchable as he ever is (I need to get his autograph!).
The rest of the day was fun too as we went and had lunch than drank some, and later we saw another play, The Magic Tree, which was written by a friend of Felicity's (fellow actress in our class, who isn't a fellow). The play was quite heavy in tone and the first act was quite impressive as the small cast, gave powerful performaces, as it centred on a girl who wished to seek refuge in a deserted house, but then she encounters a young man, who tries to befriend her, but in a twist two of his friends later show up with the intent to rape her, the young man then must decide whether he can let his "friends" go through with it. Thematically the first half is fairly complex as its not straightforward the intentions of the young guy, but the second half ruined it for me somewhat, as the reality of the situation was thrown out the window, when the young guy takes the would-be raped girl to Thailand for a holiday (most assault victims would most probably run a mile than be with the accomplice to a crime!). The ending also left me confused as to what actually happened, sometimes I think writers like to leave things ambiguous for audiences but this isn't always a good thing.
Anywayy the rest of the day was also good fun as we drank our body weights (ok not quite) and then headed for home, although it did take me until nearly 5 am to get home!
And on a final note I've been doing yet another acting class with the usual crew (and some new people who Scott worked with on a Citizens Theatre group class) which so far has been good but a little dissappointing at times. The Citizen group have been great and are a nice bunch of people to work with but our current tutor, Davey McGowan, who is a professional actor we've been getting for the past 5 weeks, isn't really a proper tutor in my opinion. Davey (no offence Davey) quite often spends too much time talking about the objectives of the scene we are supposed to do rather than let us work in our pairs, so much of the time in our classes has been wasted, with maybe 5 to 10 minutes of scene acting and improv from each pair and Davey talking for maybe about an hour and a half per average a night! I don't mean to criticise Davey, clearly he is an experienced actor, and it is good to hear the personal experience of a trained actor, but when people have paid money to show up and perform in a group and don't get a chance (as half the group have just sat and listened to him for 2 to 3 weeks in a row!) it is a waste of the group's time. Thankfully the last 3 weeks of our classes will see us return to Bill Wright, who is a great tutor and knows how to keep things simple without too much chat, he also makes sure everyone gets up and participates in the class, which is exactly the sort of thing you need in an acting class.
Anywayyyyy that was a big long rant, so that's all I have for now. More to follow later...
The rest of the day was fun too as we went and had lunch than drank some, and later we saw another play, The Magic Tree, which was written by a friend of Felicity's (fellow actress in our class, who isn't a fellow). The play was quite heavy in tone and the first act was quite impressive as the small cast, gave powerful performaces, as it centred on a girl who wished to seek refuge in a deserted house, but then she encounters a young man, who tries to befriend her, but in a twist two of his friends later show up with the intent to rape her, the young man then must decide whether he can let his "friends" go through with it. Thematically the first half is fairly complex as its not straightforward the intentions of the young guy, but the second half ruined it for me somewhat, as the reality of the situation was thrown out the window, when the young guy takes the would-be raped girl to Thailand for a holiday (most assault victims would most probably run a mile than be with the accomplice to a crime!). The ending also left me confused as to what actually happened, sometimes I think writers like to leave things ambiguous for audiences but this isn't always a good thing.
Anywayy the rest of the day was also good fun as we drank our body weights (ok not quite) and then headed for home, although it did take me until nearly 5 am to get home!
And on a final note I've been doing yet another acting class with the usual crew (and some new people who Scott worked with on a Citizens Theatre group class) which so far has been good but a little dissappointing at times. The Citizen group have been great and are a nice bunch of people to work with but our current tutor, Davey McGowan, who is a professional actor we've been getting for the past 5 weeks, isn't really a proper tutor in my opinion. Davey (no offence Davey) quite often spends too much time talking about the objectives of the scene we are supposed to do rather than let us work in our pairs, so much of the time in our classes has been wasted, with maybe 5 to 10 minutes of scene acting and improv from each pair and Davey talking for maybe about an hour and a half per average a night! I don't mean to criticise Davey, clearly he is an experienced actor, and it is good to hear the personal experience of a trained actor, but when people have paid money to show up and perform in a group and don't get a chance (as half the group have just sat and listened to him for 2 to 3 weeks in a row!) it is a waste of the group's time. Thankfully the last 3 weeks of our classes will see us return to Bill Wright, who is a great tutor and knows how to keep things simple without too much chat, he also makes sure everyone gets up and participates in the class, which is exactly the sort of thing you need in an acting class.
Anywayyyyy that was a big long rant, so that's all I have for now. More to follow later...
