Your one man show isn’t homework.
Do you want to hear a term paper read on stage for $10 or more? In The Mission? That’s almost two cups of hipster coffee in San Francisco. That’s like an Uber or Lyft ride to Whole Foods to buy $10 Paleo kimchee fried Brussels sprouts under buffet lighting prettier than small local theaters can afford.
Your Catholic high school English teacher Sister Mary:
- Thesis
- Three supporting examples
- Conclusion restating thesis
Or the college version a la Hegel:
- Thesis
- Antithesis
- Synthesis
Newer solo performers tend to tell a story in a derivative form of above. On a very large stage. Standing still.
How to transition from page to the stage?
We’ll pick a beat change, usually a line that’s a strong proclamation with wordy supporting evidence. What is happening right then and there?
A common approach is to use the senses to describe sounds, sights, smells, etc to drop into the moment. Shifting to sense memory is a good first step but can often quickly lead back into description and bullet pointed evidence of the scene. Like a term paper, dialectic, or a therapy analysis of what’s happening and the people involved.
Action. Shift into actions, from one moment to the next. Then shift from describing the action to being the action. Speak and move as the character. Really try to find what is motivating their words and actions. Moment to moment.
Expand your point of view:
A) your pov analysis exposition –> B) your pov in moments –> C) other character pov in moments –> D) be other character in moments
In the Bay Area, we joke about all solo performers having an alcoholic father. So then let’s play with a codependent mother.
A) My mom was codependent. And so naggy and narcissistic (another over used therapy pov in solo performance is others are “narcissistic”) –> B) Mom walked into my room without knocking. She looked at me all crazy, wagged her finger, but she wasn’t seeing me as usual. She bitched at me “Do your homework!” –> C) Mom walked into my room without knocking. She said “Finish your homework before your dad comes home drunk again.” She wagged her finger. And then screamed “Shut up! I’m so upset.” –> D) “Tommy finish your fucking homework before your asshole father comes home from Wiley’s. Fucked up as usual. Shut up! I don’t care. I should have never married him.” (show her actions walking into the room without knocking, wagging her finger, scowling, screaming, etc.)
Of course we want to keep your pov with exposition as needed. But instead of proving mom was codependent with supporting evidence, let the story do the work for you. Discover moments using sense memory, specific points of view, and actions. Even better, get inside her. Be her.
Physicalizing mom also helps. This is an outside-in method to finding characters. Discover their body, voice, movements. We’ll cover this in future posts. Along with an inside-out approach to get at what’s driving characters. Motivation. And their objective in a scene.
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