by Bel | Apr 24, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting
Sean Holmes, Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith, was interviewed in The Stage and spoke about his attempt to radicalise and disquiet the traditional model of British theatre through Secret Theatre. It was based on a speech he made in 2013 when he stated that “maybe the existing structures of theatre in this country, while not corrupt, are corrupting.”
Secret Theatre was about “forming an in-house ensemble of actors and creatives, deploying gender- and colour-blind casting as default, keeping show titles secret – almost to prove to British theatre as a whole that there are other ways of doing things.”
Holmes elaborated: “All of Secret Theatre was about one thing and one thing only, though I didn’t know it at the time. It wasn’t about being German and it wasn’t about new approaches to new writing. It wasn’t really about directing. It was about acting. It was about empowering the actors individually and collectively to reach their potential. Because the biggest thing that no one talks about is the deep conservatism in the choices British actors make, and the reasons – before they all come and kill me – are structural. It’s not their fault. It’s to do with economics…It’s really hard to earn a living in theatre, even if you work a lot. If you want a relatively nice life, you’re going to do TV and film meaning you’ll do your one play a year. That leads to different choices…You can’t affect the structures…[but] you can’t moan because the answer is “Well, do something!”
Audition Doctor has become the answer to many professional actors who want to be pragmatic. Like Secret Theatre, Audition Doctor is a space where the actor is truly allowed to play and where the actor is put first and foremost. At Audition Doctor, the actor is encouraged to shake off any preconceived notions of how Shakespeare should be approached or how a part should be played, and instead explore different routes that require imagination and lead to a genuinely original performance.
Audition Doctor has proven to be crucial for actors who want a quick brush-up before an audition but also actors who want to delve deeper into how they engage with acting as an art form.
Speaking recently in The Stage, Anthony Sher was asked whether he had pinned down what he considered to be good acting and he replied: “No, other than that you can smell it. You can see it, and feel it, instantly. I don’t believe there’s one way of doing it, and I find myself changing from show to show. I like that.”
The actors that come to Audition Doctor long-term are those that use the sessions to change and experiment. Speaking during his third week of rehearsals for the upcoming production of Death of a Salesman at the RSC, Sher went on to say “It’s ridiculous in this country. Six weeks of rehearsals is not nearly enough for these great plays. In Europe or in Russia they rehearse for months.”
The actors who have had the time to come to Audition Doctor regularly before auditions are generally those who have the time to eschew the obvious and conservative artistic choices that Holmes laments – not only within the work itself but also in terms of the type of work that they are offered. This is because Audition Doctor encourages every student to be an artist – something that Stanley Tucci described as “[taking] whatever is in front of you and [making] it into something else.”
by Bel | Apr 15, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting
A recent interview with the cast members of the upcoming production of Mamet’s American Buffalo revealed the intensive and challenging nature of the rehearsal process. Director, Daniel Evans, and actors (John Goodman, Damien Lewis and Tom Sturridge) all admit that the play is one that requires “forensic detective work. Because Mamet writes so elliptically. He says himself that his characters never actually say what they mean, but they always try to say that which they think will make the other person give them what they want. It’s all hidden…It’s an onion to peel. It has layers and layers.”
Audition Doctor’s success resides in the detailed process that students experience – that of close examination of the character’s actions, the intentions of other characters in the play and understanding the motivation behind every sentence. Such depth of research means Audition Doctor students become confident moving within the linguistic complexities of writers such as Shakespeare and Mamet.
Lewis said: “I think most people would leap at the chance to be in one of his plays, because the muscularity and the musicality of the dialogue can be such great fun – but it’s also very dense, so it’s not easy, either.”
Professional actors and drama school applicants have found Audition Doctor indispensable precisely because Tilly ensures complex dialogue becomes far less of a hurdle. Instead difficult speeches are used to push their own capabilities – they force an actor to bypass the obvious and the facile and plumb the depths of their own intellectual and emotional world. Chris Thorpe wrote in the Guardian of how “Theatre acts as a national laboratory for thinking about how we think and how we are and what we are”. Actors who attend Audition Doctor routinely land jobs because audition panels sense that their artistic choices contribute to this idea.
Goodman said: “It’s utterly terrifying. But putting a play on still has that very romantic connotation for me. It’s what I grew up doing, I went to drama school to learn how to get better at it, and all my ambitions lay in theatre. I took a turn – a couple of turns – and went off and did a lot of interesting and wonderful things that satisfied and stimulated me. But just being in a rehearsal room with guys, the messy nature of creeping towards an understanding of a play, then getting up out of the trenches together and crawling across no-man’s-land to the other side, hopefully roughly together… there’s something very romantic in that to me. You have to bring a level of trust, and just assume that trust will not be betrayed.”
The atmosphere at Audition Doctor is characterised by trust, especially the safe and encouraging space that each session affords. Students routinely find it an encouraging environment to road test difficult parts and speeches.
The most successful of Audition Doctor’s students are those who have indefatigably persisted in expanding the speeches that they have worked on, thereby improving their craft. This echoes Harry Shearer’s most recent advice on the BAFTA website to would-be actors: “Talent is good, luck is better but nothing beats sheer brute persistence.”
by Bel | Apr 8, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
The Times this week featured an article centred around the current crop of British male acting talent and the evolving face of theatre. Tim Piggot-Smith spoke of how “British theatre has been forced to become leaner, less complacent. “There’s not as much theatre around now which means there’s much more competition for less and less work.” This competition, in turn, raises everybody’s game. The result? A virtuous cycle of effort and ability.”
Mark Strong commented on the difficult nature of vying for the same roles as your peers: “It’s a complicated dynamic, a really odd balance because you form these very, very tight relationships with people. They’re your pals, but then you’re also competing with them for work. There are a lot of us chasing a few jobs.”
The rise of professional actors coming to Audition Doctor is evidence of actors being aware of the need to continuously push through their own creative barriers in order to be real contenders in auditions. Actors who come to Audition Doctor are conscious of the value of relentless practice.
As Helen McCrory said: “I’m aware that I have been very lucky but I have also grafted hard. Acting isn’t something that’s just in you. As with anything in life, you have to learn it, and work at it, and improve yourself all the time.”
James McAvoy also voiced the importance of actors being vulnerable enough to stretch themselves to emotional brinks – something that Audition Doctor students are pushed to do.
“The source of theatre is human sacrifice. The first time we killed someone in front of a crowd to make the gods like us better, that’s where we got our theatre. And I think there’s still an element of that, when it’s frightening and electric, and you’re watching actors who are giving themselves in such a committed way that they are almost sweating blood. And that’s what I always try to do. I’d rather people went out twice a year to see a really good, dangerous piece of theatre in which they were genuinely concerned for the actor on stage, rather than just going to see loads of dead-easy bourgeois f***ing pieces of s***, the dead-easy stuff that gets put on just to sell out quickly.”
Consequently, the speeches that students choose to work on are important. Speeches that give students a chance to commit and sweat blood are the monologues that Audition Doctor urges students to pick. The reason for the success of Audition Doctor’s students is the emotional depths that they plumb. These come as a result of rigorous analysis of both character and play.
Viggo Mortensen recently spoke in the Guardian of his legendary commitment to research when it came to approaching roles: “I just think that the more realistic and specific you are with the details, the more universal the story becomes.”
Audition Doctor students succeed in landing jobs because they give something more in auditions. As a spectator you end up not merely watching a performance but getting the sense of being actively involved in the story.
by Bel | Apr 1, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
Phoebe Waller-Bridge wrote in the Stage of the pressure young actors feel to unquestioningly take directors’ decisions as gospel.
“For years, the gratitude I felt for anyone who had given me an actual job, coupled with the embarrassment of disagreeing with them, meant that I simply nodded eagerly when I was handed an abhorrent costume or told to make a ludicrous entrance. I didn’t say anything because it’s not my job. I am ‘just an actor’.
It has taken me too long to learn that if you’re an actor and you disagree with your director, you are allowed to pipe up.…don’t be afraid to challenge things politely. Our job is about storytelling and if you feel like you’re not telling the story in the best way possible then crack on and politely shout about it.”
The originality of interpretation that results from an Audition Doctor session often rests on the creative debate that arises between a student and Tilly. Questioning and experimentation are viewed as essential parts of developing a character. Testing different approaches to a scene and contesting why some of them fail to work as well as others is strongly encouraged. Consequently the work that students end up performing at auditions is always wholly their own. Furthermore, during the discussions that sometimes arise after auditions, Audition Doctor students are unfailingly articulate about why they chose to stick to certain decisions and why they abandoned others.
Audition Doctor’s popularity with professional actors and drama school candidates rests on the experimental nature of the sessions. There is no mono-methodical approach, especially when it comes to Shakespeare. This is an advantage for students because style of delivery is in constant flux. The current trend for performing Shakespeare naturalistically is constantly being challenged.
For example, Maria Aberg said in today’s Guardian:
“I feel like it’s your responsibility as an artist to stop thinking naturalistically…I think that’s the main problem. We think realism and that trips us up especially when it comes to Shakespeare. It’s not realism, it’s not naturalism. It’s a metaphor, the whole thing is metaphor.”
The reason for Audition Doctor’s popularity with trained actors is also down to the fact that drama schools only teach their students so much. As Tom Hardy said in The Times:
“When you go to drama school, you get a certain amount of camera classes but nothing really prepares you for: ‘You’ll now be working with Steven Spielberg’s company and you’ve got to be on this mark’,” he said. “And you go: ‘What’s a mark?’ Though I didn’t say that. I said: ‘Yeah, course I’ll be on my mark.’ Until somebody said: ‘You’re not hitting your mark […] it’s this thing on the floor.’
“You never admit you don’t know something, do you? Not when you start out, that’s a sign of weakness. Only that’s what keeps you stupid. Make mistakes: that’s when you f***ing learn.”
Audition Doctor is the place where students make mistakes, get better and continue to challenge and develop the tools that drama school equipped them with.
by Bel | Mar 25, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting
The Stage published an article this week stating that “Spotlight recently sent a memo to agents informing them that 1,700 new performers are to graduate from Drama UK and the Council for Dance Education and Training accredited schools this summer. This is a staggering figure given the likely number of available jobs. The 1,700 figure is a conservative estimate. Hundreds more will flood out of the non-accredited schools to compete for the same small number of professional opportunities. The actual number of 2015 course completers is more likely to be 3,000.”
This, coupled with another article about Gemma Jones claiming that “a rise in entertainment and reality formats on television is limiting the opportunities for young actors”, does not paint an optimistic picture for those starting out in the industry.
Jones went onto explain: “When I first started there was Play for Today, Play of the Week – really good classic dramas were done on television all the time. Now, reality shows and game shows and all these series, however well they are done, mean that there is not so much choice. I was incredibly lucky to come into the business when I did because there was always work somewhere. You might have to go a long way away to a lonely rep theatre but there was always something. Now it’s much more difficult.”
Audition Doctor’s indispensability lies in the high number of jobs and drama school places that Tilly’s students get in the ostensibly overcrowded industry. Whether it’s a speech for drama school or for a professional job, the work undertaken at Audition Doctor unfailingly means that your performance will never be hackneyed or the most obvious option. The originality of interpretation that Audition Doctor students develop during the sessions is their greatest currency. It is this that makes them distinguishable from the other 3000 graduates and the thousands of others already working in the profession.
Luke Treadaway said in Ideastap: “Drama school is a great training ground and a great way of experiencing lots of things. It gives you the space to try out lots of methods of working.” Audition Doctor works in much the same way. Different approaches are taken with each actor to elicit a real and untheatrical delivery.
However, the work that an actor at Audition Doctor chooses has limitations on how far they can exercise head and heart ,which means picking the right speech is hugely important. Jenny Agutter recently said “You need to go after the things that excites you, there is great drama and you need to chase after that.” The more interesting the speech, the more students get out of the sessions themselves.
The most successful of Audition Doctor’s students are those that work on their craft continuously in the lull between jobs and auditions.
In Niamh Cusack’s advice to young actors, she said: “If you see a play and there is a particularly good speech in it, then get the play and learn the speech. Practice is what makes you a good actor. The more you’re prepared – learn speeches, try them out – then the easier it will be for you to walk in and do a good audition. Thinking you’ll get that big break without that hard work is a bit crazy. I don’t think there are that many geniuses; most people have worked really, really hard.”
by Bel | Mar 10, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
In an interview for BAFTA, Michael Shannon said: “The main thing an actor needs is a great script because you can be the greatest actor in the world but if you don’t have a good script you’re just a mime.”
Audition Doctor’s popularity with both professional actors and drama school candidates lies in both originality of direction and the selective choosing of speeches. The speeches that students pick have a significant bearing on the kind of impression they will have on the panel. A speech can be the vehicle through which actors can showcase their versatility and complexity of emotional intellect while simultaneously hiding whatever weaknesses every actor has. There is no one-size-fits-all speech and the initial stages of Audition Doctor sessions centre around finding the one that feels most suited to you. This can take a couple of sessions, however, the importance of putting aside the time to do so cannot be underestimated.
John Hurt described the sensation when playing Romeo: “I remember playing to complete silence when talking about death and realising that the words I was speaking were so powerful and extraordinary that I could understand Michael Bryant saying “I never want to do anything outside the National Theatre ever again because I only ever want to deal with fantastic writing.” I kind of understood that onstage.”
While actors at Audition Doctor are directed and creatively pushed, an actor’s primal connection to the text cannot be forced. Juliette Binoche spoke of the relationship between actor and director in last week’s Guardian: “I’ve never seen a director deciding for you how the character is. You can discuss things, you can guide somebody in a direction but there’s nothing imposed. Never. It’s too precious. It has to come in a very mysterious way because those words were written a long time ago and the connection you have to have to them belongs to you in a sacred place.”
Whether it is a text for screen or stage, Audition Doctor’s work on character, motivation and emotion is the same. While a huge amount of work is of course done by the actor, Audition Doctor provides a space where this incredibly personal and “mysterious” process is nurtured into fruition.
Binoche spoke of her part as an ageing actress in Olivier Assayas’ soon to be released film The Clouds of Sils Maria: “You know when my character is saying, ‘I don’t want to rehearse because otherwise all the spontaneity is gone…’ this is bull—t. Because you work a lot and then you find the spontaneity. This for me is somebody who doesn’t know about acting, but at the same time [Assayas] doesn’t need to know, it’s fine. It’s his fantasy about actors.”
Audition Doctor sessions are like rehearsals. Unpicking the same speech over and over again can feel repetitious but it is only through in-depth excavation that originality and the spontaneity that Binoche speaks of is achieved.
The hard graft that actors go through at Audition Doctor means their performance at auditions are unforced and instinctive which is why they often go onto landing the job.
by Bel | Mar 3, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
Last week, Juliet Stevenson spoke of her lengthy experience of playing Winnie in Beckett’s Happy Days in the Independent. When asked about the process by which she created her own interpretation of the oft-performed character of Winnie, Stevenson said:
“I think any character you play is a strange hybrid between the role that has been written by the writer and you. You make very personal choices and you are using your own experience, your own sensibility to shape what you find in the text, so there’s Winnie on the page and a Winnie on the stage – she is going to have quite a lot of me in it, but hopefully only the bits of me that connect to who Beckett has written. The job is to play the character as written, not to pull the character towards yourself which would have been very boring. What you end up with is always some strange, hybrid creature.”
Audition Doctor has become the first port of call for professional actors and drama school students because the character that is created with Tilly is one that remains true to your strengths as well as the text. The reason why Audition Doctor students succeed at auditions is because the regularity of the sessions give you the time to make well-known characters unique to you. Finding your interpretation involves an organic and unforced process of discovery and rehearsal which Audition Doctor expertly offers.
As Stevenson contends: “I don’t think I have known any character as well as I know Winnie now. We’ve gone on and on discovering new resonances, discovering new connections between different parts of the play.”
Audition Doctor has also proven indispensable with regards to finding the new within the old. Many actors come to Audition Doctor with characters by well-established playwrights; characters that have been performed ceaselessly since their creation. Audition Doctor forces actors to do away with the cumbersome historical baggage that comes with say a Shakespeare role. Attending Audition Doctor rids actors of entrenched preconceptions of character in favour of the creation of a new and believable human being.
Aside from professionals, a sizeable number of Audition Doctor students are drama school applicants. For those who come to Audition Doctor on the fence with regards to professional training, Audition Doctor always encourages students to do so. There aren’t many places like Audition Doctor where you can experiment and fail in private. Drama school gives you that opportunity and encouragement to make mistakes.
On the BAFTA website, Chloe Pirrie was asked whether she feared her vocational training at Guildhall rendered the possibility of her originality being forcibly trained out of her. She responded:
“There was such emphasis on who you were [at Guildhall]. You won’t suddenly not be that person. They’re not going to break you down and mould you in the image of one of their alumni…It can all be kind of mysticised….You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff we had to do…but all those things had a point, they weren’t pretentious.
She also spoke practically about getting agents at the end of drama school showcase. “You’re seen by some of the best people in the industry and that is the amazing thing of going to one of the top places, you get exposure in a way that is quite unique. I thought if I don’t go to drama school, I won’t get access to auditions, I won’t get in the room.”
Being practical and proactive within the industry is a must. Attending both Audition Doctor and drama school are ways that will ensure you amply increase your chances of not only getting in the room, but impressing the people who are in there.
by Bel | Feb 25, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
One of the many reasons why professional actors and drama school applicants come to Audition Doctor is Shakespeare. Harry Mount wrote in the Telegraph of the ofttimes default tendency to “treat Shakespeare with too much reverence, as an English literature exam question…” Shakespeare’s plays have become more associated with monotonous readings in English lessons at school than where he intended them to be – acted out on stage.
Mount went onto explain that Shakespeare’s unquestionable place in British culture has meant that “he has rightly become a mainstay of the academic world. [However,] that shouldn’t mean he should be confined to the classroom and the lecture hall. Shakespeare didn’t write for academics – or for the well-heeled, early 21st century theatre-going middle classes. He wrote for the rough and ready rank and file of Elizabethan London.”
Audition Doctor sessions don’t encourage the untouchable and venerational approach to Shakespeare. Instead, the Elizabethan language is tackled just as a contemporary speech would be.
This means that students at Audition Doctor avoid what Nick Hytner called “over-colouring”. He explained in the Guardian of the “overt musical poeticise which was very much what people wanted 30 or 40 years ago” going out of fashion.
“I believe that that poetic grace can come through and should come through, and we work on it, but it relies most importantly on people speaking it as if its how they think. If that happens, it’s comprehensible.”
Mount even cited Richard E. Grant’s Hamlet soliloquy in Withnail and I as an example of how Shakespeare’s language can be seamlessly and comprehensibly woven into modern day speech.
“The insertion of a Tudor speech into a film about late Sixties London seems entirely unstagey because Grant acts it so convincingly. He understands what the words mean, and communicates that understanding so expertly that the audience doesn’t have to strain to understand it.”
Hytner has admitted of Shakespeare productions that “The first five minutes is always tricky. But I think by 15 minutes in, most people have tuned in.” Audition Doctor’s indispensability to actors lies in the fact that students end up commanding the language so fully and using the writing to their utmost advantage that the audience is immediately drawn in. Initial auditions, especially for drama schools, are rarely longer than 15 minutes. There simply isn’t the luxury of time to allow the panel to ease into your performance.
The volume of drama school auditions mean that each candidate is given a very limited time slot. Audition Doctor sessions have given students the assurance that this isn’t wasted. The few minutes that you are given to impress your prospective future teachers can seem hugely intimidating.
Gemma Arterton recently spoke of how important her experience at drama school was in terms of launching her career.
“I didn’t come from a background where I knew anyone in the industry so I went to drama school and luckily here in the UK we have that opportunity that anyone from any background can apply to drama school. We have government funding to support students there so I auditioned…and then I got into RADA…I suppose it gives you a platform which is taken very seriously…and a lot of people come and see you when you’re there…I got an agent…but it was all thanks to drama school.”
Audition Doctor immeasurably improves your chances of reaching this platform and consequently, of forging a sustained career in the industry.
by Bel | Feb 18, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
Last Sunday Mark Rylance spoke on Desert Island Discs about how “acting is a mixture of reaching out to people, which I would call a kind of electric thing, you have to stir and engage their imagination at times and at other times you have to be more like a magnet and draw them towards you. It’s really about hiding and revealing.”
Professional as well as aspiring actors have found Audition Doctor to be vital in the quest for achieving an equilibrium between these two seemingly contradictory principles. Although difficult to achieve, its purpose is simple – as Shane Zaza (currently in Behind the Beautiful Forevers at the National) put it recently – to “say the words and make it seem real. Make it sound like it’s not part of the script and that what you are doing is the truth.” In other words, clarity of emotion and thought.
Many students come to Audition Doctor because of their fear of Shakespeare – initially speeches are seemingly opaque and incommunicable. Even Olivia Colman admitted a “sense of inadequacy” when it came to Shakespeare: “I find Shakespeare terrifying. When Simon Russell Beale does a speech I understand every word of it, but if I did the same speech people would be going ‘Huh? What?’”
It’s therefore gratifying to discover that Simon Russell Beale puts comprehensibility above all else. In an article in the Guardian this week, he said: “You can do what you like with [the text] – as long as you make coherent, emotional sense…I see absolutely no problem in throwing Shakespeare around”. The purpose of any play is to affect an audience, the reason why Shakespeare is still routinely performed is because the trials and experiences that the characters face are still recognisable to audiences today. Audition Doctor sessions make you realise that Shakespearean language is actually the actor’s greatest tool in “[making] these great literary dramas real and contemporary”.
In Audition Doctor sessions, nothing is immutable. Students realise session by session that Shakespeare speeches that initially started off being performed stiltedly and dispassionately cease being these untouchable museum pieces. Instead they breathe and come alive and fulfil their original intention of eliciting a real and true response from their audience.
The freedom to experiment that characterises Audition Doctor’s method of working reflects the attitudes of many established theatre practitioners. Deborah Warner encouraged actors and directors to “Do whatever you want … with the texts … You must cut to create new work.”
Rylance mentioned that “You must act exactly the same on stage as in front of the camera in terms of whether your emotions are truly felt, whether you are thinking things through and discovering things.” While there are variable technicalities that have to be obeyed when acting in different mediums, the authenticity of intention and feeling behind each line is a constant.
Mastering this takes an inordinate amount of learning and practice. There are places other than drama school, such as Audition Doctor, where this is achievable. However, many of Audition Doctor’s students are professional actors who have been to drama school and use Audition Doctor to continue to expand their abilities. Training at an accredited drama school is still viewed by those in the industry as the safest option.
In yesterday’s Guardian, Rebecca Atkinson-Lorde wrote: “The industry is competitive and, because of the cultural devaluation of vocational training for the majority of kids who want to work in theatre, the best way to build the skills and contacts you need is by training at a good drama school…” which is why Audition Doctor continues to be increasingly needed by drama school applicants and professionals alike.
by Bel | Feb 11, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
In today’s Guardian, Alan Rickman spoke of how his desire to act in Shakespeare plays had always been present: “You test yourself against great writing…What one’s aiming at is suitably impossible with great writing, which is to be absolutely disciplined and absolutely free at the same time. The two things have to work together.”
Both professional actors and drama school applicants have found that Audition Doctor has been critical in the process of striving for this quasi-impossible balancing act. Students come to Audition Doctor at different stages in their preparation. However, those who come well in advance unfailingly have the upper hand; picking speeches that will test an actor’s mettle and simultaneously exhibit intelligence and dexterity is perhaps one of the most fundamental aspects of the process. Inevitably, it is best to workshop different speeches with Tilly’s help as potential pitfalls and misunderstandings (especially with Shakespearean texts) can then be explained and evaluated.
Michael Grandage, who directed Felicity Jones in the past, said that she only ever accepted a part “because she has an innate understanding of the role – she never comes to the process not knowing what she’s got to do”. What follows, during the rehearsals, is a layering process, he says. “With each day that goes by, she finds more of the character and takes away what she doesn’t like. She is somebody who excavates a role very deeply and builds from inside out. It’s a fantastic thing to watch because you see, in front of your eyes, a character grow and grow.”
The layering process that Grandage speaks of is similar to what happens at Audition Doctor. With each session, the sculpting of the character becomes more defined so the human being that you have created is never a cursory sketch but a detailed portrait. The thorough work that is done on the internal and external emotional landscape of the character means that Audition Doctor students are always original and are never accused of being “too general” in their work.
Mark Rylance spoke in the Radio Times of how he prepared for his role of Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall: “I’ve watched lots of films preparing for this, and I was particularly struck by one of my favourite actors, Robert Mitchum, how his performances haven’t dated in the way that even perhaps more versatile actors, Brando and Dean and people of that era, have. I noticed how well he listens, how still he is, how present he seems. You’re drawn towards the screen – wondering what’s he thinking, what’s he going to do next. That’s always the best way to tell a story.”
Audition Doctor students value the sessions because they come to realise that they don’t have to “act” or “perform” to be truthful and have an effect. More often than not, the moments of authenticity and artistic ingenuity are achieved by simply being present – “simply” perhaps being an oxymoronic choice of word.
Students find Audition Doctor sessions indispensable yet challenging, but that’s as it should be. As Alan Rickman concluded: “I always think [of] the last image of The Tempest – when Caliban is held tight at the same moment that Ariel is let go and it seems to me that was Shakespeare writing about what it’s like to be a creative person – you have this impossible aim and whatever your horizon is you keep moving towards it and it relentlessly moves away from you.”
