Day 7

Absent: Tyler, Ash

Jean-Louis Barrault: "The greatest moments of drama happen in silence."
Harold Pinter: "Silence occurs when it suddenly becomes impossible to speak."
Alan Ayckbourn: "The best plays have at least silence."

We began to look at the moment of silence, its effect and structure.
Consider: Sound = Movement; Silence = stillness. By working with combinations of sound, movement, stillness, and silence we create greater or lesser moments of silence.

What happens in a silence? Suspense, Decisions, Reflection. The silence gives us all a chance to feel the events. When we listen to words, we are always on some level, in our heads, decoding the language and thinking of meaning and sense. In silence, we immerse in the emotions of the moment. The silence also gives the actor an opportunity to listen to the audience and to refresh connections between audience and stage and among fellow actors.

For the actor, the pressure of performance can increase our sense of time. The management of time, as we have seen, is important craft for comedy. Generally, the audience will stay with a moment of silence longer than we think if that moment is well-made and full.

We looked at invented moments-of-silence. Assignment: identify a moment in your scene for presentation on Thursday.