Here's where the improvs, the theory of opposites, and the rest of the weapons in Marshall's arsenal are put to use. After all, Edison said, he was playing a soldier just coming back from the war and would likely be tired. As is customary for the Day of Scenes, The Fox elicits a rowdy round of applause and bleacher stomping. Also customary is the next move. Marshall calls out.
L ike any art, acting contains a wealth of contradictions.
Thought and action are frequently at odds, and all the improvisations, scene work, and soul-searching that actors do in private won't amount to anything if they can't present the fruits of that labor onstage, in two minutes or less, within the confines of a brief introduction and a single monologue. It is the latter lesson that Lowry Marshall sets out to teach her students in their final project, the mock audition. Your wares are your intelligence, your imagination, your sensitivity, your voice, and your physical prowess. And, like a dog after a bone, you must look tirelessly for ways to display your wares in a comely manner. Filing obediently into Stuart Theatre, these stubbornly individualistic actors look like bedraggled temps.