January 12, 2012

Lecturer: Gavin Maxwell
Lesson Three

When we came back into the Theatre after lunch, we were surprised to find the room set out completely different. There were chairs scattered everywhere and under each chair was a mug of black coffee. When I listened closely, I heard accordion music playing softly in the background, which instantly made me think of France or Italy. This made me very curious as to what was going to happen next. I was impatient for the warm-up to end and couldn't wait to get started on this next improvisation.

When the warm-up had finished, we had to sit in silence and imagine we were in a cafe in France, sitting at a small table outside with people bustling past. We had to imagine the cafe and get a really clear picture in our heads of our surroundings, the place, the people, the sounds and smells etc. I found this part really difficult at first because I just couldn't picture it for some reason. Then, when we moved on to thinking about something else, I subconsciously started imagining it on my own and then had a vivid picture of it in my head.

We were then asked to pick up the cup of coffee under our chair and explore it. Explore the feel of the cup and the handle, the smell of the coffee inside it, how heavy or light it felt in our hand. I found this strange, wondering why it was important to know how heavy the cup was. Now, looking back, I understand it was to help create the scene in our heads in the same way as when you play a character, you need to know every insignificant detail about them.

We were then asked to sip from the cup. This filled me with dread as I absolutely detest coffee, especially black coffee. But, I did it anyway, which made me feel very proud of myself, even though I nearly threw up.

I thought the exercise would be over after this point, but it wasn't. We were given a square of dark chocolate and told to eat it, thinking about how it tasted and felt in our mouths. Again, I tried it, knowing I hated dark chocolate. But what surprised me was that when I drank the coffee and ate the chocolate, I reacted how I would've if I really was in a French cafe. (Not expressing my dislike over it, swallowing it and trying to smile in case a waiter was watching)

Afterwards, we evaluated it as a class and found that everyone could picture the cafe by the end of it, and were all deeply immersed in the exercise.

I think my strength in this lesson was eating and drinking things I knew I hated for the purpose of the exercise so I could participate fully in it. My target is not to come out of roll if this happens because I let it effect my concentration.