Learn your lines
Is there an easy way to get word perfect for your next performance?
Pondering on how to learn lines turned into a bit of a preview for my friend Rob Flynn’s new play The Honourable Gentleman on in Berwick-upon-Tweed at the end of this month. It’s a very good play. And I have a small role in it, so you see the causal link. Live theatre is precious and it needs - deserves - our support. Read on to find out more.
I have a recurring dream:
I walk on to a stage and into a spotlight. I am confident, relaxed. I smile at the audience sunk in their plush velveteen seats. There’s a tangible mass-settling and the rustle of paper, shuffle of feet, and orchestra of coughs are pristine against the anticipation. A red-faced chap in the front row blows his nose. Messily. I wait. I breathe in through my nose and open my mouth. Then I realise my mistake. The terror inflates through my chest and into my throat. I have forgotten to learn my lines. I have no words.
Luckily this has never happened to me in real life. Well, in a school production of Christopher Fry’s The Lady’s not for Burning¹, maybe a bit. I was Margaret Devize whose top line is: ‘Stay back, my husband is a master of hounds!’
At the time, I felt I had so few lines that it didn’t seem too important to ‘learn’ them. Of course, I quickly learned the arrogance of that. I just about got away with it but maybe it’s what seeded that nightmare.
Of course, not putting the time in to prepare and to learn lines, doesn’t just expose the performer as lazy and insouciant, it undermines the whole cast/team and disrespects the audience. I swore I would never walk on stage underprepared again.
But learning lines is hell! Surely there’s a tried-and-tested formula. Do you close your eyes and check in with the script from time to time? Do you get your best friend to endlessly practise with you? Help! Don’t stop reading, but I have included a survey at the end of this letter so you actually can help. But in a minute, not yet.
I currently have the joy of being in the cast of my friend and fellow playwright RJ Flynn’s new work The Honourable Gentleman.
The play explores the events around the Lord Antony Lambton (played on point in insouciant and laconic style by John McEwan) scandal of 1973. Lambton was MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed but his proclivity for sex and drugs and rock and roll outside Parliament meant an ignominious departure. Lib Dem candidate Alan Beith succeeded Lambton, winning the Berwick seat by just 57 votes. He was the town’s MP for 42 years, trumping his charismatic predecessor by 20 years.
It’s an extraordinary story and Rob’s script is jammed with slap-you-in-the face dialogue. His women are fabulous… strong women, wronged and damaged women, but resilient women. Lambton’s wife Bindy (Trudy Morrison plays her as the essence of reformed shattered glass) epitomises this resilience in her response to Antony’s pity-seeking assertion that his career is over:
‘Oh, God. Do you honestly think that anything could kill a man’s career? There’s always someone going to plead for forgiveness when it comes to men and power.’
Annihilated by the press, the male parliamentary establishment (they were all men), and by the public, Norma Levy the prostitute photographed with Lambton, didn’t stand a chance (it’s worth seeing Rob’s play just to witness the pliability and power of Bee Kerr’s performence as Norma).
So, I have wandered away from learning my lines. And that’s the problem. It’s really easy to find other things to do. Learning lines, after the first few reads through, is a little boring.
Personally, I use a range of methods. From sliding a sheet of paper down the page to reveal other characters’ lines and trying to remember what the hell my character says in response, to recording two versions of the sections I’m learning - one with my lines in and one leaving a line-sized silence.
I am still fascinated to know how actors and others prepare and learn lines before a performance. Why not give me your thoughts in my little survey below?
In my opening paragraph I said: live theatre is precious. I believe that to the core of my being. Live theatre is not just about collective entertainment, discovery and storytelling, it’s about engaging with the world from new and fresh angles, exploring the human condition through different lenses and letting our minds, hearts and souls run amok and return to us changed.
SO…
If you’re in or near Berwick on 28, 29 Feb and 1, 2 March catch The Honourable Gentleman at The Black & Gold, tickets in advance from The Maltings. Alternatively you can catch the play at Alnwick Playhouse on 13 March or at Duns Play Fest on May 3. Age restrictions apply and the play contains adult themes and language.
Till next time
¹Margaret Thatcher of course purloined and perjured the play’s title when she famously claimed ‘The lady’s not for turning’ at the Tory party conference in 1980. Although the words came out of the Iron Lady’s mouth, they were written for her by playwright Ronald Millar. Thatcher became leader of the Tory party, taking over from Ted Heath, in 1975 - two years after Antony Lambton’s departure.