I tried to look into acting courses last summer, not because I suddenly wanted to act, but because I wanted to see what I might be able to do to streamline the line learning process, but I saw only one course devoted entirely to ‘memorisation’. Speaking to some actor friends, they all told me the same thing: it’s the same for every actor. Some find it easier than others but there’s no way around it. You have to burn these lines into your muscle memory. It’s what I am now having to do and it’s keeping me up. And it’s incredibly boring. I set the stopwatch on my phone, plonk the phone in its stand, and spend 30 minutes repeating each section.
I’ve also recorded each segment and on Friday’s run, was listening to the chunk giving me the most trouble on what was a difficult run. I know enough by now to know that for some reason, listening to material doesn’t help me learn it. I seem to have a block with audio as a means of learning which is weird, perhaps, given that I am a big radio guy and obviously have that long radio and podcast background. I have the same problem with audiobooks. I just can’t get on with them, so learning my lines is only going to happen by going over each line on the printed page.
There’s a problem with my eyes too which makes learning material harder because I’m constantly taking the glasses on and off while rehearsing. I find this enormously frustrating and I do believe it slows me down. Wearing three different glasses these days after failing to adapt to varifocals and that is a pain. At one gig last week on what was a very narrow stage, the mic had been left tangled up for me and it took a little longer than it should’ve to untangle it because of my vision and this is something I plan to look into in the next few months. If I wasn’t having to learn lines, I’m not sure I’d bother. I’d accept the age-related vision deterioration but I do believe it affects my work.
I have tried to make an effort with the sleeping the last two or three nights. Eight hours is always beyond me. I had nine and half hours last night, probably sleeping for six of those, before waking up to another issue I had to address in this c*** of a flat and losing a couple of hours on this morning’s planned rehearsals which is why I later had to skip the early football games.
I did manage to watch the Liverpool v Tottenham game this afternoon. Coincidentally one of my WhatsApp groups was comprised entirely of Liverpool and Spurs fans and I probably spent too much time in that instead of focusing on the game.
I did call it right though. Liverpool have been pants this season. I was not surprised at all that Tottenham got a late equaliser.
