Establishing Invisible Partner and Fourth Wall
Lesson Eight: Establishing Invisible Partner and Fourth Wall
Objective: Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of partner connection by working in pairs to establish the invisible other.
- Informal. Accurately explain “Invisible Partner” and “Fourth Wall” in group discussion.
- Informal. Share examples of these concepts with a partner.
- Informal. Demonstrate invisible partner connection and fourth wall in practice of their dramatic monologue in small groups.
Facets: Interpretation, Empathy
Standards: TH.CR.3.HSI c. Explore physical, vocal and psychological choices to develop a performance that is believable, authentic, and relevant to a theatrical work.
TH.RE.7.HSI a. Respond to what is seen, felt, and heard in a theatrical work to develop criteria for artistic choices.
Hook: (5-7 minutes)
Finger Follow game:
For this activity, you will need to find a partner in the room. In the partnership, pick someone who will be A and someone who will be B. Everyone, meet your partner, so you are only touching at the fingertip of your pointer finger. Partner B, close your eyes, and partner A, lead them around the room. Make sure to keep your partner safe as you lead them around. Don’t let them run into things (avoid the stage and chairs) or people (watch the students around you), and don’t move too quickly, or you will lose them. After about 2 minutes, switch leading partners (have partner B lead as A closes eyes).
Or Columbian Hypnosis:
Have each student pick a partner. Each pair decides who is A and B. Have partners check in with each other about any physical needs or limitations they might have today (“Getting up and down off the ground is hard for me”). Set space parameters so students know where they can move in the activity to keep their partners safe. Then, ask Player A to hold the palm of his or her hand about six inches from Player B’s face. Ask Player B to imagine that her or his partner’s hand has hypnotized him/her and that s/he has to follow it anywhere it goes, keeping the same distance between her/his face and the palm at all times. As Player A moves around the room, Player B follows. After about 2 minutes, switch and let B’s lead.
Side coaching: work on connecting to another person, getting them to do what you want, moving in different ways.
Come back together as a group and talk through questions: How do you get your partner to move the way you would like them to? Did you feel like you were connected, even when you couldn’t see your partner? Does your partner always respond the way you expect them to respond? How might this apply to monologues?
Check-In: (5-7 minutes)
Check in with students on how they are feeling about the things we’ve covered so far and where we expect them to be. Ask students to hold up 1-5 fingers based on how confident they feel about each topic (memorization of dramatic mono, memorization of comedic mono, understanding monos, contrast between monos, tactics, objectives, etc.). 1 finger means that you don’t know what this is, or don’t feel comfortable at all. 5 fingers means that you feel ready to perform. If many students respond with low numbers about a particular topic, stop and ask them for questions or what they need help with.
Comedic Monologue Practice: (5 minutes)
We haven’t spent a ton of time with our comedic monologues, so we’re going to take some time today just to practice. Ask students how many of them have paper copies of their comedic monologues with them. Take a few (like 5) minutes to have them write them down. Have them leave space between each written line (like you’re writing a double-spaced paper).
MORE Comedic Monologue Individual Practice: (7-10 minutes)
We’re going to do a similar exercise to something we did with our dramatic monologues, to help with memorization and to get comfortable with the words. When I say go, everyone stand up and find your own spot in the room. You can take your comedic script with you, but only look at it when you need it.
First, say your entire monologue as fast as you can. When you’re finished, sit on the ground.
Next, say it as loud as possible. When you’re done, put your hands on your hips.
Next, say it like a pirate. When you’re done, put both hands on your head.
As you go along, encourage students to stop looking at their scripts. Continue in this general vein until students seem more comfortable with their text, or it stops being useful. Transition back to seats.
Individual Practice: (5-7 minutes)
Remind students that some of their monologues come from scenes, and in all of them, their character is speaking to another person. We call this person the Invisible Partner or Invisible Other. What do you think that other person might say if you give them a chance?
Take 5 minutes, and have students imagine and write in dialogue lines at three or four places for their invisible partner in each of their monologue scripts, and if it makes sense, add in a line before your character starts speaking.
Questions to help students think of helpful dialogue: Think about what someone might say in response to your character’s lines. Also think about what someone else would say that might make your character say those lines.
Recap: find three or four spots in your monologue scripts and write in dialogue that your invisible partner might say. Don’t worry too much about this. Just write in some quick thoughts that might fit into your script.
Once you’ve finished, read through your monologue to yourself as if it were a scene script. What do these new lines change? Do any of your lines make more sense? Do any of them make less sense? How does your relationship with the other character feel now that they have lines too? How does this affect your tactics and objectives? (does the other person say something that makes it so you need to change tactics?)
Transition: (3-5 minutes)
Hand back the exit slips from last time. Take the tactics that you wrote down and find places you can use them in your monologue. Share an example: (In my analysis, this one uses encourage, reason, and scold as the tactics)
Juror #8; Twelve Angry Men–
(encourage) It’s very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And no matter where you run into it, prejudice obscures the truth. Well, I don’t know what the truth is. No one ever will, I suppose. (encourage) /// (reason)Nine of us now seem to feel that the defendant is innocent, but we’re just gambling on the probabilities. We may be wrong. We may be trying to return a guilty man to the community. No one can really know. But we have a reasonable doubt, and this is a safeguard which has enormous value in our system. /// (scold)No jury can declare a man guilty unless it’s sure. We nine can’t understand how you three are still so sure. Maybe you can tell us.
Make sure you have 2-4 tactics (too few is boring, and too many is confusing), and that you are always using a tactic (you are always trying to accomplish your objective and using a tactic to do so). Maybe the dialogue you added in will split up your tactics, and maybe not.
Activity: (6-10 minutes)
Split the class into pairs (pair up with the person next to you) for this activity. In pairs, practice your monologues as if they were scenes. Take turns delivering the monologue and being the invisible other for your partner’s monologue. Give your partner the copy of your script with the new lines in it, and practice speaking and responding to each other. Remember to use your tactics and objectives that we learned about last time. Have them each practice both monologues, but make sure that they work quickly. (Have each partner deliver their comedic monologue because it’s fresh, and then strike your best superhero pose. As most people finish up, encourage students to move on to dramatic. When you’re finished, lie flat on the ground)
Discussion: (3-5 minutes)
What did you notice in this exercise? Was it harder or easier when you had someone to talk to? Did you feel like you won or lost your objectives? Did your tactics work when you had another person to try them with? What did you do to connect with the other person?
Remember that these are monologues, so you’ll be alone on stage. How can you keep that partner connection when you don’t have someone to play off of? I usually find something in the room that’s about person-height to look at. I choose a different thing for each monologue to differentiate my characters further. This way, I can focus on something keeping the fourth wall between me and the person I’m auditioning for. Can someone tell me what the fourth wall is? (If not, discuss the invisible wall between a performer and an audience).
Individual Practice: (3-5 minutes)
Let’s try it. Everyone stand up on your own, pick a spot in the room that’s about at eye level, and imagine the face of the person you’re speaking to on that spot. Do one of your monologues looking at this spot. Imagine there is a person standing there, and you’re looking them in the eyes. Everyone will be speaking at the same time. As we go, try to keep that connection, as if you were speaking to an actual person. Once we’re finished, find a new place to stand in the room, and pick a different spot to practice your second monologue to.
Discuss:(3 minutes)
Come back to seats. Was it challenging to keep a connection or tension with someone who is not there? What did you do to keep a connection with your invisible partner? What was the hardest part? Did you find things that made it easier?
Instruction: (3-5 minutes)
One simple trick to help you keep that connection is called Connect-Respond-Speak (CRS). This is a method that helps trick your brain a little bit, and it makes it look like you’re speaking with a real person. So, before you begin your monologue, Connect with your invisible partner. Look at them. Then Respond to their presence or the line that you wrote in for them. Make some sort of non-word sound (scoff, huff, breathe in, etc.) or physically move. And then finally start to speak. Do this for each monologue. You can start thinking about how your character would do this for each monologue, and we’ll practice in just a minute. Have each teacher model a CRS moment, or one teacher model a few.
Individual Practice: (2 minutes)
Stand up. Find your spot again. Try a few different CRS’s for each monologue. Just practice the Connection, the Respond, and the first line of your monologue. What are different ways you can connect and respond? Does it work better in a different order for one of your monologues? Try something really silly.
Wrap-up: (5 minutes)
What things worked well for you? What did you notice during this practice? What questions do you still have? What are you going to work on over the break?