Alexander Monday

Yesterday I was teaching MA theatre students at ArtsEd. in the morning.
I foudn out what they knew already about arms, and then filled in the holes. The Anatomy Colouring Book is still very useful for getting them to subliminaly learn by colouring in the bones or muscle groups. I had borrowed the big skeleton from the pupil's school which sits and grins at them in their 'Quiet Room', so we left the hall and went upstairs to look at him (Big Fred) , His forearm turns very well, so is very useful. My little Fred is good at showing the movement of the shoulder girdle but his elbows are a bit wired up and stiff. (O why o why have they stopped making Little Fred? He is an 18 inch Johns Hopkins Skeleton which is the cutest and most flexible chap I have come across. ) But we also did some great creative work - another 5 minute 'Happening' devised entitle 'Trying to Get it right' which ends with the quote from Hamlet ' There's nothing right nor wrong but thinking makes it so'....., and we also played with not end-gaining when using text, imagining the words coming to you from the other person standing opposite. So picture if you will two people standing opposite each other, looking into each other's eyes, not doing anything except being in an Alexander directed state and one saying 'I love you' 3 times. Very powerful stuff. I changed the text, so we had 'I hate you,' 'May you rot in hell!' and 'Please don't leave me' all spoken solemnly three times each. Except for the two guys who couldn't hack it and kept giggling! There's always one. Too profound, and the defences come up. It's a jolly useful exercise to get actors out of the habit of poking their necks forward and pulling down everytime they have to utter an emotional torrent. Less is more and all that. I call that habit, 'doing the chicken' , and as we know terribly bad for the throat although it hasn't stopped Emma Thompson or George Clooney making a name for themselves....
After all that excitement, went home for a late lunch and a cancelled lesson meant I could chill out and watch The African Queen! I do love that moment when Bogart gets covered in leeches.... after the private lessons, I decided, free choice and all that, inhibiting my reactions for a new response, to NOT open up my laptop, but read and go to bed early. Hurrah!