Backstage at the Riverside, waiting to go on for another preview, I had to squeeze past some actors poncing about in the corridor, as I made my way to the loo. Whilst my preparation for the show involved emptying my bladder and briefly looking over my notes, they were in full theatrical mode, doing vocal exercises, reciting their lines over and over again and in the case of one of them just staring intensely at himself in the mirror. Is all this posing and externalising really necessary. Fellow comedian Dan Atkinson who was going on after me admitted that he had never done a vocal warm up in his life, and whilst comedians have microphones to assist with projection, they do talk continuously and uninterrupted for an hour or so at a time and never seem to get into too much trouble (I have lost my voice in Edinburgh a few times, but it's usually because of shouting in smoky bars, rather than die to unwarmed up vocal chords.
I am not against the idea of warming up my voice and do so occasionally and did so quite regularly as a student, when we were being a bit poncy and taking ourselves too seriously. I just wonder if this intensity is really necessary or if the actors were just being like the younger me and showing off to each other a bit.
It was funny to be one of the comedians taking our job less seriously as well as being mildly awkward having to step in front of the guy staring in the mirror in order to get to the toilet.
I hope their show went well. Mine was a bit slow to get up and running, so maybe I should have done some warm ups. But I think I had won the crowd round by the end.
When I left my dressing room and headed back through the corridor to get to the bar, the actors were still out there, pacing around, although presumably their play was in progress by this point. They were still wound up and intense and one was quickly running through his lines as he walked, mumbling them out loud. I thought about saying, "If you don't know it now then you never will!" but resisted the temptation. Different strokes for different folks hey?
