I’ve talked to you before about my radio acting. Simulating a radio broadcast.
Right.
There I was reading from a script. But, just for the fun of it, I once took a course in acting for the stage — without a script — at a local college.
I’d like to hear about it.
We had two assignments. The first was doing a brief monologue from some stage show. I visited the town library and found the script for The Sunshine Boys.
I’ve heard of it. It was a movie too.
Right. I memorized the portion where one of the “boys” describes the time they performed on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Some of my part went:
“We did ‘The Doctor and the Tax Collector.’ You never saw that one? It was a classic. A classic. A dead person would laugh.”
How did it go over?
Okay. But then the instructor wanted us to pair off and do a scene involving two characters. A young woman and I picked On Golden Pond. I played the father, Norman, and she played the daughter, Chelsea. In the movie, the parts were played by Henry Fonda and his real-life daughter, Jane Fonda.
I saw it.
The two have had a strained relationship over the years. Part of the dialog went as follows. I’ll change my voice a little for Chelsea’s words. She talks first..
How’s your forehead?
What? This? Oh, not too bad. A lot of pain. Nothing to worry about.
Norman, I want to talk with you.
What seems to be the problem?
There’s no problem. It occurred to me that maybe you and I should have the kind of relationship we’re supposed to have.
What kind of relationship is that?
Well, you know. Like a father and daughter.
And so on.
How much did you have to practice?
Well, that was the problem. We couldn’t seem to find the time to get together to rehearse. So we each had to learn our lines separately.
How did you do that?
I don’t know how she did it, but I devised my own way to simulate the dialog. I did it with the help of my small tape recorder.
How?
With the script in front of me, I said her lines into the recorder.
Then I read my lines silently — twice, to allow enough time. When I had gone through the entire dialog that way, I rewound the tape and listened to it. And, whenever it came to the pause, I would say my lines without looking at the script.
And that worked?
Seemed to. After a while I had learned my lines, “reacting” to her lines, although they were in my voice.
And in class?
Yeah. Surprisingly enough, our two parts fit together well when we finally acted together in class.