Comments on: 80 Cents on the Dollar http://blog.steppenwolf.org/2008/09/30/80-cents-on-the-dollar/ Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:46:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0 by: Marja Wilkens http://blog.steppenwolf.org/2008/09/30/80-cents-on-the-dollar/#comment-434 Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:55:46 +0000 http://blog.steppenwolf.org/2008/09/30/80-cents-on-the-dollar/#comment-434 "And any variations from the ideal were paid for with increased energy and spontaneity. Yet my confessional may illuminate the fact that in even the most seamless performance is an artifice disguising the dozen per second choices being consciously and unconsciously made " This is why I love to see previews... and maybe later in the run a more hammered in performance. It must be hell for an actor to realize he has forgotten a line and nothing is jogging the memory... but the rush of the disguise must be great! “And any variations from the ideal were paid for with increased energy and spontaneity. Yet my confessional may illuminate the fact that in even the most seamless performance is an artifice disguising the dozen per second choices being consciously and unconsciously made ”

This is why I love to see previews… and maybe later in the run a more hammered in performance. It must be hell for an actor to realize he has forgotten a line and nothing is jogging the memory… but the rush of the disguise must be great!

]]> by: Justin Palmer http://blog.steppenwolf.org/2008/09/30/80-cents-on-the-dollar/#comment-433 Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:16:08 +0000 http://blog.steppenwolf.org/2008/09/30/80-cents-on-the-dollar/#comment-433 there is absolutely nothing worse than being on stage and realizing that you've just screwed up a line. the aluminum foil taste is a very good description of it. one time, during a recent performance, i was doing a scene along with the great Brennan Buhl -- one very funny and playful actor! very competent at improvising inside a scene -- and completely and utterly forgot my line. i was lost. after taking a pause that seemed like an eternity so it would come back to me (no such luck), i repeated my previous line with the hope that it would jog the line i was forgetting. that didn't work. i was dying. so i looked to Brennan with a face that was something akin to "please for the love of God save me here! i might just collapse and die from embarrassment right now!" and he simply said (referring to my line i just repeated) "you already said that." at least you have Jon Hill. "Just fornicating my function," I like that. there is absolutely nothing worse than being on stage and realizing that you’ve just screwed up a line. the aluminum foil taste is a very good description of it.

one time, during a recent performance, i was doing a scene along with the great Brennan Buhl — one very funny and playful actor! very competent at improvising inside a scene — and completely and utterly forgot my line. i was lost. after taking a pause that seemed like an eternity so it would come back to me (no such luck), i repeated my previous line with the hope that it would jog the line i was forgetting. that didn’t work. i was dying. so i looked to Brennan with a face that was something akin to “please for the love of God save me here! i might just collapse and die from embarrassment right now!” and he simply said (referring to my line i just repeated) “you already said that.”

at least you have Jon Hill.

“Just fornicating my function,” I like that.

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