Word: stageful
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...analyze and understand it. Just who is this character you are trying to play--that's the problem your mind has to deal with. If you understand your character, then you can try to feel like it, figuring out for yourself the whole pattern of its stage life...
...extent that an actor succeeds in feeling like his stage role, he will be convincing on stage. What Cooper has tried to do with his cast in The Bonds of Interest is to get them into character not only through the mind--but through the "center" as well. If an actor can find his center and then make his stage role part of that center, uniting the literary creation with his own gut, he can actually become the character he is trying to create. For the few hours of the play, the transformation will be real. Acting will...
After about a minute of this, two of the actresses, playing a noblewoman and her beautiful servant, moved away from the rest of the people toward the corner of the room from which they come on stage to open the second act. As they moved, they talked to each other, half as their characters, half as themselves, improvising their lines. Then, as they stood arguing, Cooper said, "All right, come on. Come on." And, as the rest of the cast was silent, the two girls cut from their improvised dialogue to the lines which open the second act. This time...
...WARM-UPS, exercises, games, and improvisations that Cooper has used are by no means new to the stage. His play, The Bonds of Interest, is an imitation of Comedia dell' Arte--which grew popular in Italy and France in the 16th century, and later saw such variations as Punch and Judy shows. The original comedia were performed by troupes of players --who traveled from town to town with their entertainment. Their plays were never the same, however. What were constant were the roles that each member of the troupe played and a few basic plots and themes: true love thwarted...
Five or six weeks ago, when Cooper began work on The Bonds of Interest, he wanted to try something similar. He took the play, and wrote a synopsis of the action--a plot and character outline, which he then presented the actors: no stage directions, no cues, no lines--just a glimpse of the plot, and the characters who are in it. From these bare guidelines, he hoped the whole production could grow...