Everyman - Benji's Actor Log

In today's rehearsal we started by doing our group warm up. I can already feel the benefits of doing this warm up as soon as our rehearsal starts. It makes us all in tune with each other and its like the whole company is warming up as one body. We started by looking at how to act drunk. You start by putting one foot in front of the other heel to toe and bend your knees slightly. You start to feel a slight wobble in that position and that is the wobble you have to utilize and is the key to acting drunk. We looked at other drunk tendencies such as: Pad perception of distance, short attention span, never spilling a drink etc... We mingled for a bit as 'drunks' and it turns out it is something that is a lot harder than it sounds. There are so many things to do at once and its hard to keep up with them all. We also looked at the fellowship scene when Everyman goes to ask his friends for help. To try and keep Jacob (Ev) in that scene on his toes, Ben decided to put me into t...

We started with a warmup called 'Sidestretch'. This will be the warmup we carry out every session. Firstly, we clear the space in silence so that our performance space is clean. This is an exercise Yoshi Oida would use when training actors. In all of Yoshi Oida's rehearsals, he would get him and his actors to clean the space they were going to use. This cleanses the space of any pre-existing ideas and acts as a clean slate for a new day. We then begin to fill the space and make the spaced balanced, bringing a focused energy to the space. We then squat slightly, tilt your head up slightly and release a natural sound, raise arms straight and face palms to this the ceiling. This enables you to plant yourself on the ground. We all eventually face the same way and take up the position called 'warrior pose'. We wait for everyone to assume the position. You lean to each side 4 time, breathing as you lunge. We go to a lower stretch (sometimes a spiderman lunge): ...