Line-Learning tips

Three quick tips – there will be more.

1. Understand
Following on from my last post about the Audition that Went Wrong, sadly not a hit West-End Play but an opportunity that I didn’t play well, I moved on quickly to thinking about how to move forward.

I decided that I needed a challenge. I knew that drying in the audition wasn’t related to any general ability to learn lines – I’m fine with that usually - I explain in the previous post what I think happened there. But it had happened and so our old constantly-waiting-in-the-wings pal Mr Nag poked his head out and mumbled, ‘Well yes but what if you’re just not up to it any more. You are getting on a bit you know.’

The challenge I set myself was to learn a monologue from scratch and record it. This would put Mr N back in his box and give me something positive and encouraging to work on.

I enjoyed learning the role and finding a way into it. This is one of the joys of acting. Yes, learning lines can be a mechanical and tedious business but when you realise that you’re not learning words but developing a role, it becomes a much more creative process; and creativity feeds itself -another wonder if you choose to see it that way because the act of being creative is so fulfilling and energising. It becomes fuel for a life beyond existence.

In my case the process of working on the script reminded me of all the little tips and tricks I’ve developed for learning lines, and helped me to find some new ones too. I don’t claim that they’re original, neither are they a fully formed process, they are just grab ‘em and use ‘em techniques and, in the creative way of things, they led to this blog.

You’ve already heard number’s one and two:
1. Understand the role and what you’re saying.
2. Challenge yourself with regular line-learning, just for the sake and fun of it.

3. Line learning: pictures
I got stuck on one phrase, ‘Make sure that…’ This often happens because it’s a kind of low-emotion, minimal-content interstitial phrase. Its not the dramatic heart of the matter, just a precursor to saying something. I found myself substituting ‘Be sure that…’ and ‘You have to…’ amongst others. Does this matter? Maybe, maybe not depending on the director’s take on accuracy v meaning but it certainly does matter if you find yourself searching for the right phrase and so losing your place, your character or both. It is best to get it sorted early.

In the often surprising and wonderful way that creativity works, I found myself dredging up an amusing childhood memory: I entered a sandcastle building competition on holiday one year and, being space mad I decided to sculpt a lunar landscape. Bad choice because at the judging it looked like nothing more than disorganised piles of sand and caused my family no-end of amusement! Later I watched it washed away by the sea. So it was a ‘make’ and it was on the ‘shore’ – make sure! It was enough of a strong memory and a bizarre enough link that it stuck in my mind and made that part unforgettable.

Another line was ‘watch out’ which might have been ‘look out’ or ‘be sure that’. A small picture of a watch scribbled on the script at that cue soon got that one nailed.

So pictures, mental or sketched can help you learn and remove that nagging ‘have I got this right’?

4. Line learning: gestures
Another trick is to find a way of prompting the first line of a speech or paragraph causing me to remember the rest of that block of text.

One paragraph of my monologue began with ‘So you…’ That’s easily missed because, as any grammar checker will indicate, you often don’t need ‘So’ in a sentence. I use exaggerated gestures to help me learn some lines. In this case I mimed sewing a piece of sailcloth with a giant needle (I’ve never done that but all you need is imagination), then jabbing the needle at someone in a ‘hey you’ gesture. Sew… You. That soon gets fixed into ‘So you…’ and the rest of the block flows on for there.

5. Check-out apps.
I use the free version of Line Learn, there’s also Line learner, Script Rehearser, Run Lines and many more. They offer a variety of script inputting and prompting approaches which can be helpful.

Today’s take-aways:
·         Make line-learning a regular practice, part of your actor’s toolbox
·         Understand before you learn
·         Develop your own playful and creative approaches