The beginning of this week I attended an Equity call for
a theater company that wanted a contemporary monologue of any sort. What
I've realized over recent years is that unless it is a classical
play about half the auditions have been giving sides at auditions. Since
that seems to be the case I've let my contemporary monologues either go
forgotten or gather dust. I decided that I would go with a monologue that I
began using almost 26 years ago and haven't used in over 10 years
because it seemed to fit the project.
Once I rattled it off to make sure it was all there I
began taking moments in my days leading up to it just reacquainting myself with
it. This is one that is special to me so it really is in my
bones. Vocally I always delivered it in the same manner and it never seems
stale or forced to me. I even have a lot of the (psychologically) gestures
planned ever since I performed the piece in the full play.
When I entered the room and began the monologue all
of a sudden the training we've been doing kicked in almost by surprise. I began
finding "dramatic" and how it went into "thoughtful" at the
beginning. Then the "blue wave" kicked in with one of my gestures shooting
the beam of blue out my hand as my usual gesture went over my head in
the middle of the speech with the "epic / direct
effective" . The next sections I felt the "retreating to
one's own ground" go into antipathy to end with "lyric/
thoughtful".
While all this is happening I felt a bit disembodied
and began hearing the words coming out of mouth. They came out in a totally
brand new way. A way I have never heard myself say that monologue before. I
would even say that the feeling stayed with me a little after I exited the
room.
Since this character, a preacher, is a bit on the
poetic side to begin with, I guess I was immediately able to relate the
work we've done to this piece. Regardless of what the auditor may have
thought or the final result of that audition it certainly left me with quite a
lot to think about. All of it good.
Thanks for letting us know about this Dennis, wishing you all similar experiences as we look for applications of the training as they surprise us in our work!
