Have you seen my red nose?

In the chapter entitled Movement Training: Dell’Arte International, I think the authors smugness and overvalued opinion gets in the way of the message. “The Dell’Arte International Theatre was founded in 1975 to bring the physical training tradition to the United States and to …blah blah blah.” As if Chaplin, Keaton, W.C.Fields, Red Skelton, Laurel and Hardy plus hundreds of other carnival and rodeo clowns hadn’t already established a clowning tradition in America. These American traditions naturally would have been based off former countries clown traditions but I digress. I enjoyed the chapter actor reminder, that regardless of how well you think you are acting and feeling in the moment ultimately you are being watched and judged off what your body is doing. As I was reminded in the class reviews.

I was glad to be exposed to the three second wait exercise. Standing on a stage in front of an audience, after announcing what movements you are about to make, for three seconds I image would seem like 3 hours for the actor. However I could see how those three seconds would  give the actor a chance to let their inner clown come out organically instead of forcing it out by saying “ ok self, put your clown face on”. I think the waiting would also connect the actor to the audience and the audience to the actor.