Mutant Cat

I have another class tonight in the Meisner Technique. I still need to think of an activity. So far I haven't got a single idea. Well I have a single idea but I don't want to use it for several reasons including it not being any good.

I'll probably think of something by this evening which will be really lame and it won't go well at all. The teacher will drill me afterwards and tell me everything that was wrong with it.. which I can handle except that it's all shit that I know, I know I know!!! I know that it's not specific enough. I know that it's not important enough I know my time limit wasn't believable I know that I didn't answer all the questions on what would happen if I didn't do it, and I know I didn't fucking believe it because it's fucking made up alright!!!

I mean, fuck! There simply isn't anything that I have the materials for that is difficult for me personally, which I can plausibly convince myself that it has to be done within a certain time limit in order to obtain some desirable outcome, without which I would suffer great consequences.

I just doesn't fucking exist! It doesn't matter how much I try to come up with something, how much I stretch possibilities, outright make shit up about my life my activities are always going to suck.

And that's not even getting into the fact that I never believe it. It's always just me, sitting in class waiting for someone to knock on the door, knowing that there isn't anyone coming over to get the rent in 20 minutes, or anyone who needs to be emailed immediately, or my mother showing up any minute.. it's all fucking made up!

I don't know why I bother.

Labels: acting, activity, grumbling, meisner technique

That I think I might go frolic in the park. A guy from my class and maybe some more people are joining me. He he.. actually it's what we call "rehearsal" but we only say that because we like to make it look like we do something resembling work sometimes...

It's Friday. I think I'm gonna get drunk tonight.

Labels: frolicking, park, random blathering about nothing, rehearsing

Bush is visiting Europe and this time he's decided to visit my fair city. It's about the American plans to deploy a missile defence system in the Czech Republic, which most of the country is against, or at least slightly over half according to polls. I was planning on doing my bit for the free world and going to visit the Castle where he's speaking to show my displeasure at him being in any position of importance.. let alone the one he's in.. but I'm lazy. And I had to deal with a drunken person with an infection from a bad filling going to the dentist. I did get to watch him blather on about the Cold War being over on telly a while ago though..

Labels: dentist, george bush, missile defence, prague

Or should one say.. one did it again.

Another playreading. This time the Mutant Cat read the part of Yesica, a little girl. Actually a little brat, well worse than a brat really, an evil little imp is more like it. The play is in the style of a fairy tale, but a modern one, for grownups and it's on the sick side.

The play is set in a forest and centers around 2 girls/young women who go looking for their dog in the forest and come across a young, studly forrester/hunter.. something like that. They both seduce him and have sex with him.. not at the same time and screw with his head, and argue and are generally mean and nasty with each other. The little girls are supposed to be them as children and they treat their father in a similar nasty way.

If it doesn't make so much sense it didn't when I was reading it either. It was fun playing a brat, and the whole thing is a bit over the top so I overdid it, piping up petulantly being mean to my sister and father. It would actually be a fun one to put on for real, with all the actions and sets and stuff. It's quite a violent play.

Labels: acting, playreading, Prague Fringe Festival, theatre

Oh my the life of a working thespian is tough. I had to get up at 8:00 this morning, to do a lunchtime playreading for the Prague Fringe Festival. And I have another one tomorrow. I didn't even breakfast, except for one coffee between the rehearsal and the actual reading.

I read A Short Play About Globilization. That's the title, and naturally, it's a short play about human trafficking. I had what you would call a supporting role (or roles) and was working with some real life professional actors, which was a bit daunting, I was afraid I would suck and the woman who organizes the thing would regret ever offering me the role. I read the stage directions, a woman's voice and another small role. It was a wee bit confusing, to me if not to the audience. I wasn't originally supposed to do the stage directions but the person who was going to didn't show, as happens here in Prague so I had the work of juggling different roles, and the parts I read were in the sections that were heavy on stage directions so I had to use my skills to switch sharply from one part to another.

I'm doing another tomorrow, which is a kind of fairy tale in which I play a child. It should be challenging. Or it might just be a laugh.

Labels: acting, playreading, Prague Fringe Festival, theatre

I don't usually approve of corporal punishment, but some people just go to far and deserve a good whipping. I speak of course of people who can't spell. There are certain words I keep coming across that are just wrong! One of them being "rediculous". This pisses me off, what is it about that word that so many people get it wrong? And more importantly, why haven't all those people been round up and shot? There are others. I'll probably think of some later.

I'm also just a tad bothered by bad punctuation and English in general. I won't go on about the various ways of writing the words which sound like there, your and too because it's been written about a lot already, except to say that anyone who uses "ur" for "your" needs to stop it. It's not a frickin text message! You're not writing on a frickin phone! You have a whole frickin keyboard at your convenience! Write the whole word for fucks sake! If you can't frickin type you need to get off my internet and leave it it the big people!

I realize abbreviations are really popular these days. They used to really piss me off because I didn't know what they meant. As time went on I learnt what some mean, and now when I see "lol" I just think my that's silly. I've also learnt the meaning of rotfl, imo, imho and others. There are still some I don't know. Like fwiw. It pisses me off when I see it because people just write this shit like you're supposed to know what it means and you can't just interrupt a discussion to ask what it's about and you'll look like a dickhead anyway, so if anyone knows what that or any other of these things mean please let me know. When I know them all my internet browsing will be much less frustrating. I'll still think that anyone who uses them are bad people though.

Labels: grumbling, internet, spelling, whipping

Life is hard when you're a dedicated thespian. I had to work both Saturday and Sunday this past weekend. I'm worn out.

Saturday I had a rehearsal for the upcoming film I'm starring in. I played one woman's rational part. I am supposed to be all logic all the time, because two other women play the other aspects of her, the emotion and the morality. It's kind of a make it up as you go along deal, the director has the basic plot of the movie, about a couple where the woman is played by the different part of her, and we improvised the rest. We were supposed to rehearse this past Saturday and film next Saturday, but we only managed to finish one scene so far. By finish I mean come up with what's in the scene, not necessarily be ready to film it.

Of course now I'm (partially) trained in the Meisner Technique I had to argue with the director and the other actors about how we should all be playing our characters. I felt it was my duty to my art.

Yesterday I went to a meeting about the upcoming playreading I'm doing. I'm exaggerating a bit calling it work, I know. It was brief, the woman running it gave us a rundown of what's happening and gave us our scripts. I will be doing two, one on Thursday and one on Friday. I read the scripts last night and I'm not sure what to think. I'm a bit confused as to who I'm playing in the first one, there are so many characters who come and go, and only 2 described, I'm supposed to be playing "video woman" and there are characters called "woman" and "woman's voice" in parts who I think might be my role, but I'm not certain. I'm sure I'll find out. My character in the second play appears to be a child, not sure what age but it's a bit of a stretch all the same. Most of the people in the playreadings appear to be professional actors here for the Fringe Festival. The roles I have are minor ones, so I'm not terribly worried about it, though I may be later in the week.

Labels: acting, film, playreading, prague

Labels: cat, flickr, photo

Oh shit I've built it up too much. It's not that interesting really.

I was just on my way to "rehearsal", which is really practise in this Meisner thingy I'm doing. We are supposed to have these rehearsals regularly to prove that we're all dedicated and stuff, so I went to meet this guy at the park in Karlovo Namesti at 4:30. I hopped on a tram at about 4:22, easily enough time to get there, as it isn't far. Usually.

For some reason today the tram just wouldn't move. Well it did, but then it stopped. For a long time. When it got to Namesti Miru, the stop just down the road about 5 minutes later a lot of people got off. I thought, I ain't getting off this thing, I've already committed myself to going on the tram and I'm gonna get there on the tram dammit!

I changed my mind as soon as the doors closed and decided then that I wanted to get off and walk, but being a tram in motion, at least officially if not in the traditional sense of the word, that being "moving", the doors were closed. So I had to wait until we got to I.P.Pavlova, the next station which is a couple of metres from the Namesti Miru. During that time I got a message from the guy I was meeting, telling me exactly where in the park he was, so I wrote back saying that I was stuck on a slow tram, and would be there soon. He wrote back saying he was going to go ahead and start his activity. Brilliant.

It took about 10 minutes to move between those two stations. As soon as it stopped and opened the doors I ran out, and had to wait to cross the road as the light just went green for the cars as I got there. I waited, and crossed the road, then I ran until the next crossroad where naturally, the cars started moving just when I got there.

I took off my shoes, my little heeled sandals which are no good for walking in, let alone running in, and took off the overshirt I was wearing, oh and did I mention it was hot? It was hot. I ran, barefoot carrying my shoes, my shirt and my bag on the dirty hot street.

I got there pretty quickly, feeling hot and flushed with a red face and no shoes, and dived straight into what was supposed to be my door but was really just me coming straight from running barefoot in the heat. We rehearsed and went home. The end.

I told you it wasn't that interesting.

Labels: acting, grumbling, Karlovo Namesti, life, meisner technique, rehearsal

Last night.

You're like a wee puppet on a string without a master to pull the
strings.

I didn't exactly overhear it. This was in last night's class. The funny thing about it is that we're not supposed to have conversations while we're doing these exercises. The Meisner Technique is all about stripping away all the faking it and using language to cover up what we're really feeling, which is why the total of our communication is (or should be if we're doing it properly) calling out our partner's behaviour, as in "you're distressed" and they repeat it back to you and show how they're feeling by the way they say it, like a question if they don't agree, or angrily if they feel offended etc. Either that or they mention something about you like "you're concerned", and it goes on.

What you're not supposed to do it explain yourself, try to be witty or make strange poetic statements with quaint Irish colloquialisms. Which is what this guy did. It was entertaining though. Last night most of us were kind of spaced out and the class was kind of slow going which we blame the heat for, but it was nice to finish up with something that made us all laugh.

And though studying the Meisner Technique might be great for refining one's craft, it's not that often that you get memorable quotes out it.

Labels: acting, meisner technique, theatre, wee