Along the Lines of Acting
Year and year again, the thespians memorize lines and set the stage for the fall play. With limited time to perfect the show, they prepare, especially when it comes to a Shakespearean play. Two longtime theatre students, junior Sarah Davenport and senior Nicholas Turrentine share their success with The Tempest despite the difficulties of Shakespeare’s language.
One of the most difficult tasks in performing arts is executing the art of acting. “You have to actually study the dialect for it to make sense,” claimed Turrentine. Studying and memorizing the lines is time-consuming, but how so depends on the type of play. “It took about two and a half weeks to memorize that play,” said Turrentine. “The English wasn’t what you would expect it to be. You have to change the way sentence structure is in your mind,” Davenport explained. With a bigger part than she has had before, Davenport had a little more difficulty remembering her lines. “For the Tempest, it took me a month to get completely off-book, because our actions were very ‘to-be-determined’ until last minute,” stated the actress. As her actions were undecided for most of the practices, memorizing lines was more difficult for her. Despite such a difficult language, all actors successfully perfected their Shakespearean selves.
Aspiring actors all have their own methods of memorization, even those in bigger productions. Some repeat lines, while others may have to look through the script once or twice. Davenport likes to make an “intentional bunny trail,” meaning she lets the lines connect themselves, with keywords or actions within the play. Her actions not being decided until later made her bunny trail harder to create. Turrentine uses the method of repeating his lines, even if he is interrupted. When people walk into his practice, he elaborates. “ I tell them why I’m saying the line,” he expressed.
Actors use their book up until two weeks before opening night. “We can get out blocking and acting down, and lines are just muscle memory by that point,” shared Turrentine. Blocking consists of a rough run-through of the play, when actors do not completely know the script or show.
Once lines are retained, they stay memorized for much longer than needed for the performances. Even after shows, many thespians still remember all their lines and songs, whether their parts were big or small. “If you asked me to perform the song I came singing up the aisle, I could sing it word for word,” laughed Davenport. Long after plays have closed, they still have the shows memorized. “Sometimes we’ll go out and we’ll just start speaking our lines,” revealed Turrentine.
Through the learning of lines is a lot of hard work, it is definitely worth it. These students have worked hard to change and improve the face of the theatre program. These words will remain with them for many years to come.
