![To Wrong My Friend [Shakespeare For You]](https://elicamiwa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/a402050435f6ac04a5806556bbf206e3-scaled.jpg)
🎭To leave my Julia shall I be forsworn;
To love fair Silvia shall I be forsworn;
To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn.
— Proteus, Two Gentlemen of Verona 2-6
[ACTING TIPS]
Frustration. But do not play frustration. Visualise what would happen When you leave Julia. Visualise what would happen when you love Sylvia. And visualise what would happen when you wrong your best friend.
Bring your steaks higher and higher. Then you will naturally feel frustrated.
![All The World’s A Stage [Shakespeare For You]](https://elicamiwa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/img_8041-1.jpg)
Happy Birthday, My Dear Will!
Yes, 23rd of April in 1564, he is said to have been born, and died definitely on that day in 1616.
My acting lesson students wanted to have a monologue/soliloquy presentation, and I also did two speeches.
Here is one of them, Jaques. All the world’s a stage.
Do you know Jean Giraudoux, a French playwright of early 20th Century?
I will be in one of his plays called La Guerre de Troie N’aura Pas Lieu: The Trojan War will Never Take Place. The play is known and made into many stage productions in English as Tiger At The Gates, translated by Stephen Fry.
It is about the very day when the war is outbroken.
As Troy has just won a big war in Asian continent, Hector the General really wanted to rest, and came back only to find that his younger brother Paris has abducted the most beautiful Helen of Sparta into Troy, and the whole Greek army is on the way to win her back.
I am going to play Hecube (Hecabe in English), a 50 years old queen and mother of 19 children from Priam the King.
Giraudoux wrote female gathering scenes in which Hecabe was as a warm yet hilarious vigorous one, I think. She does her best to avoid another war, by wit and humour, while all “male characters who have never been at war because of their physical frailty” are eager to go into another war only because they don’t want Helen to leave.
The director and producer of the production has his theatre company, and is quite experimental and wants this one as a physical and musical performance with mixed genres. Thus among the cast, there are a Kyogen (traditional Japanese) performer, a mask performer from Jacques Lecoq, a film director, a ballet dancer, etc. There are also several young novice or student actors in the theatre company members.
The rehearsal is more like nonstop exercise-workshop, and quite in confusion. But we believe this will make some special one, for the positive energy we put in is enormous!
I will put more photos from the rehearsal. Wait for it!
It is Summer Solstice.
Do you celebrate, and how?
Japanese June is quite rainy, very different from Europe and USA.
Not much sun, yet very very humid.
Which prevents us from celebrate the day as a festival.
However, at Ise ([ise]), Wakayama prefecture, where AmaTeras [amateras] the Goddess of the Sun is worshiped, holds an important festival on the sea, and make a prayer to the rising sun.
↑ https://futamiokitamajinja.or.jp/event/guideline_geshisai/
I wish you spend a very happy midsummer, with your favorite fairies.
Don’t you find it hard to find information in English, on what to watch in theatre, except traditional performing arts such as Kabuki and Noh?
I do.
And I have been wondering if I could be of a little help in that area through my English blog.
Well, there are many things going on, in variety of styles and forms, in Japan.
Some may love ANIME, some traditional Japanese, some 2.5 dimension, musicals, operas, ballets. and straight plays.
I cannot cover all nor you’d not want to read in one page.
So, I will pick up something different, something you could only experience in Tokyo.
My country gradually opens and starts welcoming people from outside Japan.
Come enjoy my beautiful land and heart-warming culture.
Don’t miss my next blog/email!
I will also keep giving ideas on Zen Acting, the mind of Zen to be used in acting. Zen is the way of life; just like Yoga as the way of life; and indeed they are quite close to each other.
Laugh, Love, Live!
ELICA MIWA
Hi from Elica!
How are you doing in this world filled with so many problems?
First, take a soothing breath in by enjoying my little rose garden.
Now I have a question for you.
What is acting?
Many times I noticed that good directors tend to say “Stop acting!” or “Don’t act!”
What does this mean?
In Japanese language, “acting” has the same interpretation of faking things, faking their behaviour, or faking the feeling.
Isn’t it interesting?
Both in English and in Japanese, “acting” has the meaning of faking attitude.
But we actors, directors, and the theatrists hate to fake!
It’s OK to use the word “acting”, but sometimes we feel the need to add an explanation that it doesn’t mean faking.
I would say that we are character players, in plays, musicals, dance performances, ballet, opera, and movies: anything where there is a story and characters.
[Today’s ZEN for performing artists]
Acting is not faking.
Acting is living the character.
Before anything, I must express my heart filled with sorrow for the people in Ukraine.I am against any form of violence.
Though I know violence is quite a main and entertaining part of performing arts, the reason I am in the perfroming art is to make the world peaceful.
By saying that, today, I am going to show you peaceful scenes of spring near Tokyo.
The beginning of the spring of Japan is symbolized by plum blossoms.
Elica has been busy visiting many plum orchards and gardens.
Here are some videos of plum orchards.
Odawara: Very early.
Ogose: Middle Season
Fuchu: In Full Bloom
Feel the IKI (breathing) of old trees awakening.
For my international friends:
Acting skills of actors are not only for theatre practitioners, but also (and more so) for our general daily interactive communication.
【Live Interaction】
Looking into the mind’s eye.
I was performing on stage in Tokyo last week and want to share the beautiful photos with you.
The piece was written by Dea Loher, a famous German playwright, called “Ja, es gibt eine Vision für die Theater der Zukunft” (Yes, There is the Vision of the Future of Theatre).
How do you get the audience’s WOW! ?
Yes, you need a good story.
Yes, you need a good script.
Yes, you need good actors.
Even when you have a great story, great script, if the actor or the speaker do not understad the secret of moving audience’s emotion, there would be no result.
What is the secret?
In Zen, it is to wait.
Wait just a slight breath of time, the suspension does a trick.
So, don’t rush.
Don’t go for the result quickly.
Wait.
Just a moment of breath.
Well, the timing is the most difficult one, though.
So practice!
{Zen Acting}
A moment of breath.
