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Current Talk '02 I / Re: Was There Bad Acting on DS?
« on: June 04, 2002, 07:54:57 AM »Quote
It never made sense to me that stage-trained actors (with no television experience) such as Frid, Parker, and KLS regularly kept the overacting well in check while a handful of others did not, if the over-the-top style was what the directors truly wanted.
However, something that would tend to support your view are comments Lara Parker has made ... I'm pretty sure that in one the Pomegranate Press books she expressed her horror at being continually asked to blow things up to a point far beyond any realistic human emotion or behavior. If that's true, we can be thankful that she and many others were either unable or unwilling to produce such "acting" and instead gave powerful and nuanced performances. Actors like Powell, on the other hand, and the one who played Aristede (sorry I can't remember names), and a few others, apparently had no problem accommodating. As a result, their performances are viewed by many viewers to be quite wretched much of the time.
Maybe someone can put this question about what the directors wanted in terms of performance to one of the panels at the upcoming festival?
The subject came up at the DS tribute in L.A. last Spring. Jerry Lacy described working on the show as hard as well as fun since he had to get up for performances because every morning Lela Swift (who was sitting further down on the panel from him) would tell him, "We need more. More." He said that one day he decided to let her have it by really pouring it on for her and she reined him in, saying he should save it for later when they'll need it again, and that's when he knew what she wanted. Lara Parker agreed with him that directors always wanted more theatricality, saying that Hank Kaplan used to give out grades for it. She said he'd open the dressing room door and say, for example, "B minus".
Unfortunately, no one thought to pose a question about it to Lela directly.