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Post by Phantom of London on May 19, 2019 19:57:03 GMT
So yesterday I was in Northampton watching Headlong’s Shakespeare’s Richard III and not for the first time I have been blown away by how an actor remembers their lines. I thought Tom Mothersdale was a brilliant Gloucester/Richard. Tom for example has to learn the famous ‘Now is the Winter of our Discontent made glorious summer by the son of York’, I reckon there must be at least another 50 lines to that and that monologue is in the first 5 minutes, you also ha e the other 2hr 30 of the script. Then take it to the modern day with something like Angels in America which is 8 charachters over 8 hours, so there are plenty of lines for actors’ to learn.
You cannot just rock up at rehearsal without learning your lines, so they must do this in their own time (unpaid) and if it’s a meaty role this would take many hours over many days. I really don’t know how actors do it, a brilliant feat by actors and one reason I take my hat off to them, but would love to know how they do it? What tricks might they use? Do they get any help? Do actors ever turn up unprepared?
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Post by oxfordsimon on May 19, 2019 23:37:28 GMT
Shakespeare - the verse can help give you a clear rhythm and structure to make it much easier to find your way through it. His prose - on the other hand - can be much harder.
There are various tricks - some record their lines and listen to them back (or get someone to record their cues and use that as a trigger), I often found writing them out long hand helpful - starting off just copying and then moving on to doing it from memory. Some people can just read it over and over to themselves and it goes in.
I know, when I am directing, I prefer actors to turn up familiar with their lines but not off book. That way we can explore the text together rather than working with the interpretation they have already committed to memory.
I now really struggle with lines. Lyrics (because of the music) are easier. But it has made performing a big challenge for me unless I have a long rehearsal period.
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1,127 posts
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Post by samuelwhiskers on May 20, 2019 10:29:56 GMT
Learning lines is a skill that develops though practice. When I was acting regularly I could read a monologue through twice and it would stick.
Some actors like to be off-book prior to rehearsals but most directors don’t like this, because of the risk the lines get stuck in a certain way that isn’t necessarily the way the director intended. Generally you learn lines during rehearsals just by doing them over and over.
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Post by Deleted on May 20, 2019 10:35:02 GMT
From an amateur perspective, I used to learn lines by osmosis. Simply by repeating them in the rehearsal room, I'd manage to have them firmly in my head by the time the director asked for books down. (And I expect for some lucky actors, that still works, as they're in the rehearsal room a lot longer than maybe four hours a week, and as it's their full time job, their brain is readier to learn.) It's not that easy anymore, and I MISS those days.
Although I have a few techniques, honestly the one that works best is to record myself saying the lines and then just listen to it over and over, joining in as I go, until I get to the point where I'm saying the words before my voice on the recording is saying them. It helps that I walk a lot, so I always have a couple of hours a day where I'm not actually losing any of my free time learning my lines this way, 'cos I can do it at the same time as I walk to work.
(I have friends who swear by the Line Learner app though, I might look into that next time I have a decent-sized part to learn.)
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Post by winonaforever on May 20, 2019 13:38:28 GMT
I learn them by repeating them aloud again and again, but it's obviously easier when you have cues. I was very impressed when I saw Avalanche - A Love Story recently, at Maxine Peake's being able to remember 90 minutes worth of lines in a one woman show. That would give me nightmares.
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