You may have seen a couple of articles on this site about some stage and screen masterclasses being held in Frome by Mark McGann. Well, back in August Jake, Ian & Joss signed up and went off to have their acting skills stretched.
Here's what went on...
After an early start we arrived at the Merlin Theatre in Frome not knowing what we'd let ourselves in for, so we spent a little time playing while we waited for the rest of the group to arrive. Mark showed up first and we were able to dispel the fear that he might be too 'arty', as he turns out to be a down-to-earth chap who loves performing.
The group consisted of 14 people from all kinds of thespy backgrounds - there was one couple who did nothing but local Pantomines, an older couple of ladies who had a long history of am-dram, a young couple who were keen as mustard and another lady who had travelled from London to take part with hopes of pursuing a professional career. And us.
The day began with a series of workshop games, initially meant to get us comfortable with each other, but all of which had ulterior motives. Generally they were meant to practice thinking on our feet with exercises like '1,2,3' - where pairs had to recite the words '1,2,3' alternately as quickly and smoothly as possible, before the '1' was replaced with a clap, the '2' by a stamp and finally the '3' by a Saturday Night Fever pose! Sound easy? Wrong! We all found it tricky to keep up the rhythm at first because we kept laughing and breaking the moment, but when we really focussed on each other we were able to get a good speed going.
Other games played on short term memory, clarity and coordination.
The day with Mark was well beyond my expectations. I had expected something quite stuffy and pompous but Mark's workshop was quite the opposite. It was welcoming to all abilities and experiences and Mark's enthusiasm was infectious. Many ended the day with a much needed confidence boost and would welcome the opportunity to participate in one of his workshops again. Jake GoodenoughAfter the games were over Mark talked to us for a while about his views on the role of an 'actor' and the way they should behave. Couldn't relate all of it, but the things that stuck with me included...
- No one actor is bigger than the performance - Sir Ian McKellen got quite a roasting over this.
- Corpsing in a performance may make the audience laugh for a few minutes, but it will take a good half an hour to get them back into the performance again.
- And the main one, about 'targets', which encouraged you to be aware of where the shifting target of action is at any time and that you perform accordingly to enhance the performance and not detract from it (such as by corpsing or overacting and drawing attention away from the target)
Something like that anyway! It was all very interesting and made a great deal of sense.
The main focus of the class was some pre-assigned scenes that Mark had sent out in advance for us to get familiar with. We were working in pairs with partners who we didn't know - which made everything more exciting! Who would we be stuck with? Would they be any good? Would they show us up? Would we have to carry them?
At first I felt rather apprehensive and didn’t know what to expect from the day. But Mark made us all feel so comfortable and at ease. I never thought it possible to learn so much in just one day. It was great to get feed back on my own performance but it was also good to watch Mark give advice and direction to the rest of the class. As the day went on you could see how everyone was gaining so much confidence and the improvement in each performance was huge. What a great day! Joss WyreAfter half an hour of quick practice in our pairs, we had lunch (during which most of us frantically tried to learn our words) and then into an afternoon of performing and deconstructing.
Each pair would take to the stage and perform their scene and then Mark broke it down and did the whole 'director' thing, working on our timing, interpretation and emotions! It was great!
We were all working with scenes that were dripping with tension - we were all a bit worried that it would be a bit heavy for those of us mostly used to musicals with jazz hands, but this turned out to be a fantastic chance to work on something we normally wouldn't get the chance to do.
This class was based on stage acting, but he also runs a class on screen acting as well... Maybe that'll be next!!
If you want to find out more about the masterclasses, or if you'd like to book up a class then get in touch with Drama Direct by clicking here for their website!
