{"id":758,"date":"2014-08-10T16:19:47","date_gmt":"2014-08-10T16:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/?p=758"},"modified":"2014-08-11T13:27:36","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T13:27:36","slug":"eyes-on-actors-chris-aruffo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/?p=758","title":{"rendered":"Eyes on Actors: Chris Aruffo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Aruffo is a Chicago-based actor and philologist. His book, A Rational Guide to Verse: Scansion Made Simple<\/span><\/a> (now in its second edition), discusses the use of natural rhythm in the production and interpretation of verse writing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: What made you decide to give Unrehearsed a try?<\/em>
\nCHRIS:\u00a0Lately I’ve found it difficult to commit to any weeks-long “process” to develop a show into production.\u00a0 The minimal demands of not rehearsing are, right now, ideal for me.<\/span><\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0With the recent Unrehearsed workshop under your belt, how would say this technique differs from more conventional acting? Does it differ?<\/span><\/em>
\nCHRIS:\u00a0It differs by making a direct connection between the work and the result.\u00a0 Far too often I’ve seen “work” done at rehearsals from which an actor gains a greater and deeper understanding of the play, its history, its context, or the characters within it, but which in turn fails utterly to influence the actions and text presented by that actor in performance.\u00a0 In Unrehearsed, the work is designed to always have an evident effect either on specific lines that will be spoken or on particular actions that must be taken.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0As a philologist who has published a book specifically about verse interpretation (A Rational Guide to Verse: Scansion Made Simple, now in its second edition), how does this technique react to your knowledge of blank verse? Do they seem at odds with each other, or complimentary?<\/span><\/em>
\nCHRIS:\u00a0Unrehearsed technique promotes natural rhythms.\u00a0 Edgar Allan Poe described a poet as someone who arranges syllables into verse.\u00a0 That is to say– different syllables have different natural lengths (<\/span>long<\/i><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>and<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>short<\/i><\/span>, also referred to as<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>stressed<\/i><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>and<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>unstressed<\/i><\/span>), and arranging syllable lengths into specific patterns produces rhythm.\u00a0 A skilled poet is, therefore, a writer whose lines, when spoken naturally, will automatically produce their intended rhythms.\u00a0 As an obvious example, saying out loud<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary<\/i><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>immediately conjures the rhythm<\/span>Poe wished to create.\u00a0 Shakespeare’s writing exploits natural rhythms in the same way, such that a naive reader will, if reading naturally, almost always unwittingly produce the rhythms of blank verse.\u00a0 Unrehearsed technique forces an actor to remain naive in speaking the text, because an actor ignorant of the “big picture” cannot confidently impose any interpretation other than the literal meaning of the words.\u00a0 Consequently, an Unrehearsed actor may be more likely to speak the words without unnatural emphases or pre-selected inflections– and, in doing so, will realize the natural rhythms of the text.<\/span><\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0What’s it like to prepare for a performance while knowing nothing about the show itself?<\/span><\/em>
\nCHRIS:\u00a0Very similar to preparing for a performance where I do know.\u00a0 In my own technique, I do my best not to anticipate or control what the other actors do, so I can respond to what they actually give me.\u00a0 Removing their lines from my script makes that pitfall easier to avoid.<\/span><\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0What (if anything) is your biggest challenge so far with this technique?<\/span><\/em>
\nCHRIS:\u00a0The scrolls– but perhaps not in the way one might expect.\u00a0 I read differently from most other people.\u00a0 When I look at a piece of text, I see whole paragraphs at once.\u00a0 Having such a large “chunk” in my head makes it easier to intuit, as I read along, how each word and every sentence fits into an overall message, which in turn provides guidance in real time for pace, emphasis, and phrasing.\u00a0 Only being able to see three or four lines on a scroll makes it more difficult to apprehend the overall flow of a speech.\u00a0 The narrow four-line window also makes it easier to lose my place, because I don’t have the full shape of the text.<\/span><\/p>\n

Come check out some natural rhythm with Chris! Check out…<\/em><\/p>\n

DOUBLE FEATURE
\nAUGUST 12
\nComedy of Errors: 7:30pm
\nJustin\u2019s
\n3358 N Southport Ave<\/p>\n

AUGUST 16
\nComedy of Errors: 7:00pm
\nDouble Falsehood: 8:30pm
\nMrs. Murphy & Sons Irish Bistro
\n3905 N Lincoln Ave<\/p>\n

AUGUST 19
\nDouble Falsehood: 7:30pm
\nJustin\u2019s
\n3358 N Southport Ave<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Aruffo is a Chicago-based actor and philologist. His book, A Rational Guide to Verse: Scansion Made Simple (now in its second edition), discusses the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performers","wpcat-5-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=758"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":762,"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions\/762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}