The Big Man

We do an exercise called “Fast Food Stanislavski”, where each characters sits and the rest of the cast asks them questions. The character responds, and can use or not use anything that they improvise during the session. Usually about half the questions are show related “what do you think about your daughter getting married” and about half are just to help to fill out the rest of the character “what’s your greatest desire” “what’s your greatest fear”, etc. Today we did Falstaff, and we left the puppet attached to the ceiling (where he normally lives) as to not put too much pressure on Ron’s back (today was supposed to be a puppet free day). I usually think that everyone’s is rather funny, but I was amazed by the strong emotional response that I had listening to him. Falstaff talked about what it was like to be kicked out of King Hal’s court and a few other honest/sad things and I found myself really feeling for the guy – which is bizarre, as he was barely moving the puppet. It’s really impressive how much empathy we all had for him as he only moved his mouth – which ties into a lesson we’ve all been learning, sometimes less is more, and in a puppet show with TONS Of puppets flying around the stage, sometimes almost nothing is pretty powerful.