May 12 下北沢 Workshop - Obstacles
A great little workshop fulled with returning champions for May. Everyone very busy, but very excited about participating.
We started off with passive obstacles - doors that are difficult to open. These obstacles can be external (the door is locked) or internal (you are afraid to open the door). After that we moved on to active obstacles - people who don't want to let you pass. These obstacles can also be active (the person is a guard trying to keep you from passing) or internal (the person is someone you want to avoid).
Finding a mixture of two of those obstacles is usually what you are looking for in an important scene. There are a four combinations for one obstacle:
Passive and External
Passive and Internal
Active and External
Active and Internal If you've got two obstacles, the number of possible combinations jumps to ten. And that number just jumps up and up as you add more characters with different obstacles.
At least one character will end up overcoming an obstacle or being defeated by it around 4/5 of the way through any important scene. Knowing that gives you something to do when you face a new script with little time to prepare.
Remember that obstacles are good! If your partner makes you an obstacle, do not try to be kind and remove the problem. The nicest thing you can do is to make things difficult for your partner - until you're 4/5 of the way through the scene.
After the break we took on a scene from The Truth and An American Werewolf in London. Great work on both - with very different obstacles.
Looking forward to June. But before then . . . remember that our show - そして誰もいなくなった - is up on Thursday! If you have the chance, please do come by - we are very proud of the work done here!
Tickets at: https://stage.corich.jp/stage/98795