Coarse Acting

Coarse Acting

The concept of Coarse Acting comes from a book by the author Michael Green. (Revised 2nd Edn published by Samuel French, costing about 7 quid. ISBN:0573190291) And it's pretty much guaranteed to reduce anyone who's spent any time in amateur dramatics to tears of laughter.

Coarse Acting is a style of AmDram much favored amongst the MUGSS faithful. It involves over acting in a grand manner, building your part whenever possible, and ensuring that no matter who is supposed to be the centre of attention in any scene it's you that the audience notices. Props play an important part in this ethos. Many's the time that I've left the stage and overheard mutterings from the supposed stars of the show that "the audience was laughing so much at the bloody chorus that they didn't hear a word of my big speech!"..... (Not that it's just the Chorus that do this sort of thing)

Good examples in recent years have included:

• Freddy the Puppet in Gondoliers - attracting the attention of the audience by admiring or otherwise various principals as they walk past.
• Matt Lees turning his one line (something like "It's over there...") in The Sorcerer (1999) into a complete monologue about where exactly the principal who'd addressed him could find the beer tent at the village fete.
• Rob Garson's frizzy hair in Ruddigore (1996), which grew to such huge proportions that it's a miracle any of the other principals could fit on stage with him.

But of course the secret of being Coarse is never to do any of this in rehearsals..... *grin*