Making An Entrance

Friday at rehearsal the director says: there's something wrong with Father's big entrance scene.

I'm playing Father and I had been thinking there was something wrong. I'd been thinking my daughters weren't greeting me with enough excitement. (It's "Little Women.")

Then it occurred to me - DUH - that maybe it was my own fault. It was my entrance. I had most of the actual lines. Maybe MY excitement level was low. So we replayed the scene, and I was more energetic, and the director was happy.

Afterwards I asked myself WHY I had made such a mistake, and I realized I had fallen into the SICK trap.  My character is sick. And I have to convey that. But the temptation is to play sick by projecting less dramatic presence. Wrong!

Dramas low on excitement
deserve a bill of indictment.