Three or four weeks ago in my Acting in London
class, we had a class session on how to memorize lines. Basically the trick is
say your lines out loud, push yourself to memorize one line further than you
thought you knew, say your lines as different characters, say them in different
pitches of voice, say them with the lights on and then with the lights off, say
them with your cheek on the floor (how cheeky!), and say them how you would if were
a phone sex line operator. We did all of these things to memorize the Tommy
Knocker rhyme.
The week after that, my Acting in London instructor
brought in a scene. We did a cold read through. The scene did not have defined
characters, instead at every dash, a new person could speak the line. Because we
are all actors, we were all fighting for each opportunity to speak. The lines we
said in class were assigned to us. We took those lines home to memorize. That
was a bit difficult for me, but having an ensemble to play off of and lines
that responded to the previous line mitigated my difficulties. The lines seemed
to fit with the previous cue. It was also only a scene, 3 pages.
Currently, I am having a lot of trouble memorizing
my lines for my Performing Shakespeare class! For this class, we will be
putting on a show. This show would be a collection of our favorite, most daring
and influential Shakespeare pieces. We each had to choose two or three
monologues that we felt passionately about, that spoke about our beliefs, and
liked the verse. I chose one of Emilia’s monologues from Othello where she is angrily ranting that it is a husband’s fault
if their wives are unhappy because husbands (primarily hers since he is one of the
biggest, worst villains in Shakespeare history--Iago) are cruel, abusive,
peevishly jealous, restricting cheaters. I liked this piece, not only because
she’s awesome and hates men, but also because somewhere during her angry rant,
she has a brief line or two about equality. This is one of the only moments
where Shakespeare mentions equality between men and women. Back then women were
not allowed to perform in his plays, this made the thought of equality seem
like a joke back then. However, Shakespeare is a badass, ahead of his time. Emilia,
in Act IV, says “Let husbands know their wives have sense like them: they see
and smell and have their palates both for sweet and sour, as husbands have.” Not
only do I agree that men suck, but also my inner feminist drew me to one of the
only lines depicting equality in Shakespeare’s works. I am also currently very proud of myself
because I just quoted Emilia without having to look at my script! This means
that I successfully memorized Emilia’s monologue!
My second piece is much harder to memorize! I chose one of Rosalind’s monologues from As You Like It. I liked this piece because
it contrasts Emilia’s. Rosalind, in Act III, is playing a man. She is comically
trying to persuade Phoebe that she is not beautiful, no one wants to go to bed
with her with the lights on anyway, so she should just sell herself to Silvius
now while he is chasing after her. This monologue is incredibly difficult to
memorize because there are so many puns, weird negatives, Shakespeare does not
say things I would normally hear them said or say them myself, and the rhythm
has to keep in meter.
I was sitting in the kitchen with my ever so kind
flat mate Elieen. She was running lines with me and it was incredibly
frustrating. I would start my monologue and I would have the right idea but the
words out of order, I would just flat out not know what comes next, or not know
how to start the next line. The number of times I kept calling line was so
numerous, it was sad. For those of you that don’t know, calling line is a term
you use when you would like the person with the script to provide you with the beginning
to the next line. I felt incredibly frustrated that it was taking me so long to
absorb the ins and outs of the monologue.
I asked myself why this was so hard? Olin has taught
me problem solving, innovative design, the uses of technology, how to stimulate
my creativity, how to fight to the death for classes you want to take next
semester, how to be a good team member, how to learn, what recycled food in the
dining hall tastes like, but never ever memorization. Memorization is not one of the skills Olin
teaches its students. The only thing I have to memorize at Olin is the 3 digit
combination to my mail box and I failed to memorize even that! I just leave my
mailbox open and whoever wants to take my mail, can have it! I don’t really
need it anyway! But no one really takes my mail because it’s boring mail and
the honor code exists.
I find it so interesting that I’m struggling with
this. I guess this is the part of my curriculum here that is very important to
theatre majors, but will not be important to me when I go back to Olin.
However, I guess it’s nice to know that if I ever need to memorize anything, I
know how to do it…by pretending I have a phone sex hotline!
