Verb

So... I've been singing and using my voice a lot lately, not that I'm complaining. I've been dying for opportunities to sing my ass off in college and I've gotten myself some pretty good ones. : )) My voice is doing well. It's not fading away or dying... it's doing quite well despite my excessive use of it. Well, actually I treat my daily voice usage as practice. Life in college is going well... better now actually... : )) I'm happy... I really am.

So... I'm gonna cut the crap and get to the chase. Class started at usual with Mr. Rey's morning talks. Yes, sir... I learned that acting is reacting, that you never try and act out emotions. You act out a verb and that will automatically tell you how to feel. I also learned that if a director tells you to "give me more anger!", he's an idiot. My job as an actress is to act out the verb... not the emotion. Then, we talked about characters. How to get into characters and stuff like that. Same thing applies here, you become the character and not feel the character. I don't think I'm explaining it in detail enough here... but I understand the concept very well and it's forever engraved in my head.

Then... we got up and did our warm up. We did random movements at first like hopping around and running. I don't know about everyone else but I turned sideways and flapped my arms like a retarded ostrich. WHAT? He said RANDOM movement! Then, we had to play Malaysian characters, any Malaysian characters. I played my mother at first... ordering people around and stuff. Then, we had to be specific Malaysian characters in Pavilion. I turned into this Chinese lady who was busy shopping around for clothes. I imagined the Chinese ladies I see in shopping malls who come to see branded things. When it was my turn to portray her, I went all "Woaaahhh... Ni dit dou hou leng woh!". That means "Woaaaahhh... these things are really pretty too!". I even carried a small handbag on left arm and walked around like I was too busy checking out the stuff. Then followed by Lih Seng who was a dad in Pavilion taking care of his devil spawn of a child. Josh did the same thing too but I think Lih Seng was better. He portrayed a dad well. Joshua's this kind of I-couldn't-care-less-if-my-son-got-hit-by-a-truck kind of dad. After the Pavilion thing, we portrayed characters who were in preschool. I played this crazy little hyperactive girl who was too excited to sit down. I was jumping up and down and waving my hands about... going... "FLOWERS!!! FLOWERSS AND PRETTY THINGS!!!!" Sometimes I wonder if that was me in preschool. HAHAH!! Then, we froze. Mr. Rey told us to act out our characters but we would switch to the same characters all grown up in Pavilion. So, Joshua started, on the ground. He was balking about not sending him to school and he actually used his legs to push him across the floor as if his invisible parent were dragging him. It looked cute actually. Then, Mr. Rey switched in to Pavilion and we laughed cuz Josh stopped for a while to think of how to do it in Pav. HAHAH! 

After that, we shook out and did some serious character work. Mr. Rey brought masks and wigs! He demonstrated how to be a character from the mask. First, you pick the mask you want. Oh wait... you don't pick the mask... the mask picks you. : )) Then, you look at it. You just look at it and let it talk to your heart. You go to the mirror and continue looking at it. Finally, you put it on and you look at yourself in the mirror. You let it completely take over you. Instead of just feeling it, you let it come inside of you and mold you into it. The feelings, the acting, the way of walking or whatever, will come after you surrender to the mask and become it. Lycel picked a woman mask and she became this really flirty, model girl with a high spirited attitude. She was all flying kisses and glitter. Lih Seng was like... Joker meets Spider Man. : ) Adam picked a happy mask and became this faggy guy who's always dancing and is extremely high with a permanent smile on his face. The way he put on his clothes was so funny. So, yeah... the mask told him what to do and he sold it. Adam was brilliant. I thought Sam was brilliant too. He was very feminine, having picked a woman mask. Sam was Alexis going out with the jock, Teck Sern. Sam was so good at being a female. Plus the blonde wig, he REALLY looked like a girl. I even started to think he WAS one. He really had his character down flat and he was crazy good. : )) I especially loved the last scene where Sam and Teck Sern supposedly kissed. When it was finally my turn, I went up with Vhina and Wilson. I actually found it hard cuz none of the masks I liked. I wanted the woman mask but it was still on Sam that time. So, between the happy mask that Adam wore and the sad mask that Muhammad wore, I chose the sad mask. When I was looking at myself in the mirror with the mask on. I didn't just feel sad. I was the girl who was depressed, she was insecure and always threatened. She was the misfit. I really felt that coming through the mask. Then, Mr. Rey wanted Wilson and I to be husband and wife in Paris. So, I had to improvise a little. From being the sad, high school misfit to the sad, wife. I was miserable in my marriage. The sex is bad mainly because I let it go bad. My husband and I are forever fighting and I know that this trip to Paris for him is just another way to get me and him to extend our marriage. So... that was my character. Every time he made me look at something, I'd just look at it... later. Then, something changed me. As I'm served some kind of drink, and I drink it, the liquid changes me. I jump into Wilson's lap and we make out. 

So, yes... I must say that I've learned a lot during today's class. No feeling of verb... only acting of verb. : ))