David Chiu

Today was the first day my acting partner and I performed our scene “on its feet” complete with props, blocking and music. Luckily our particular scene does not require a lot of setup nor invlove a lot of movement. The only thing on stage is a park bench and when the scene starts my acting partner is sitting on the bench, then I walk in carrying a suitcase and wearing a fedora and suspenders - similar to Keanu Reeves in “A Walk in The Clouds“.

The scene went pretty well except for some of the awkward blocking that happened towards the end of the scene. At one point I went to ecstatically hug my partner and since she was sitting on the bench and I had my back turned to the audience, the audience saw nothing but my ass. I also happened to hit my partner in the face (ever so slightly) with my shoulder as I did it. Then as we were standing, I was holding my partners hand in an awkward manner and a bit too tightly. As the scene ended I also forgot to take my hat and suitcase with me as we strolled off stage.

Honestly, the scene felt a little awkward to me and I felt a bit disconnected. Tom thought the scene went pretty well but had a couple of tweaks on both sides of our performances. The major note was that our character relationship was not there. In other words, it did not quite look as if we were married. Tom’s suggestion is for my partner and I to really sit down and discuss the relationship of the characters in the scene and to also just become more comfortable and trusting of each other to allow ourselves to pretend that we love each other very much. Without being able to establish the emotional connection between the characters, the scene will not be as touching as it could be.

Tonight, Heather and I rented “The Story of Us“. It was interesting to watch because there are a couple of scenes in the movie which I think are very similar to the scene I am working on.

On another note, Tom was talking today about the “rhythm” people have in life: the way a person walks, talks, behaves, their energy level, their mannerisms, etc. He said that we always need to look at the rhythm of the character we are trying to portray in a scene.

Overall it was a very good class but I still need to work on getting those “tears of joy” - literally.