Voice and character

I will try not to blog too much about my acting class, but it makes for good posts and interesting musing. (By the way, remember when I was wondering about finding a muse for bloggers? Well, Thalia is the one with whom I work on these days.) It also matters a lot to me, so I blog more about it. This blog, after all, is called "Vraie Fiction", and there is maybe no form of more genuine fiction than drama. Okay, so I have my character, the pathetic hypochondriac Lomov. With my partners, we read The Marriage Proposal together at the last acting class and more importantly discussed with the teacher about the characters, what they are, what they do every day, what their relationships to each others are, etc.

It is slowly and surely taking shape. I can see Lomov, I can picture him as a person, feel his nervous twitches, his fears, his insecurities, I can understand why he wants to gets married and why he gets side tracked when he is about to propose. This is one of the most exciting moments about acting: when you are finding the character and it is making sense. It is difficult to explain properly. When I was on stage, years ago, I was the character, I was not merely playing it, the character inhabits you. This is what Lomov will do soon, he will be in me. When this happens, I will have succeeded. I can already hear his breathless, nervous voice when I read the lines, soon he will be able to speak through me properly. I find this particularly exhilarating.