Rehearsal #4: Metaphors

Last night we worked on using metaphors. We generally work a lot on metaphors when we do Shakespeare, and during the last run the “metaphor game” became a staple of the show. What’s the “metaphor game”? Well, boiled down to its simplest form, you take something, for this example we’ll use an emotion such as anger, and then you take a random object such as a towel, then the improvisor has to justify why anger is like a towel: My anger is like a towel, it chafes and makes me dry.

Why did we work on this? Well, metaphors are common in Bollywood movies, not just in the songs but also in the dialogue. We played some rapid fire games where people had to justify metaphors combining random emotions and objects, and then moved in to doing scene work wherein we incorporated metaphors whenever we remembered.
We did scenes with mixed puppet and people casts really for the first time in rehearsal, and they went very well. Personally, I need to work on varying my character choices more. I immediately fell into my comfortable stock character choices both as a person and as a puppet, but that’s why we rehearse: so we can push past those habits.

I also need to work on my mouth-sync. Even though I’m right-handed, I tend to be a left-handed puppeteer. That is to say that I use my left hand to work the mouth and my right for the hands. A few months ago I had surgery on my left hand to remove a cyst. I don’t think the muscles on my left hand have fully recovered yet. I’m not sure if I should keep working left-handed and assume the muscles will come back, or if I should try switching to my right hand.

Time will tell, but fortunately we have time.

Unfortunately I am going to miss both rehearsals next week while I’m out of town for a work conference. They’re going to work on singing and dancing without me. I always hate missing singing rehearsals. I always feel like I need the practice, and lately I’m enjoying them more.