Malapropisms (Classical Actings)

Kade, Abby, and I have picked the perfect scene! It is going to take some cutting down because it is currently a 4 person scene, but I think we can do it. It's from a show called The Rival and it is about this girl who falls in love with a soldier pretending to be a poor and lowly stature of a man. The scene that we are going to perform is when the girls caretaker--Mrs. Malaprop (played by myself) discovers that the young girl (played by Abby) and the young soldier (played by Kade) have been secretly falling in love and planning to elope. Well it then comes out that Kade's character is really the soldier and Abby's character freaks out because she feels like he has lied to her and it's just a huge mess.

That being said, it is also farcical, so it's hilarious! Everything is over dramatic and non-sensical. and Mrs. Malaprop has this habit of using the wrong words in her sentences. One of her lines is "make no caparisons please" when she really means the word "comparisons". In fact, a malapropism is a real word which means: "the mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one, often with unintentionally amusing effect, as in, for example, “dance a flamingo” (instead of flamenco)" and it came from this show and this character. How cool is that?

I love this scene because I never get to play these sorts of outrageous characters. I am usually the young lover character in scenes and shows. So getting to play this over the top woman was such a blast. I don't think I quite leaned into the absurdity as much as I could have--though believe me I did try--but I think we nailed the scene pretty dang close to the top of the head.

On top of all this, we learned how to communicate with fans. Which means I got to use one as a prop in our scene! I got to hide behind it or smack Abby/Kade with it to emphasize my points. I even fake cried behind it at one point. Fans are such a fun prop and I honestly had no idea that there is practically a whole other language written just for their use. How confusing that must have been back in the day. Certain gestures could mean more than one thing so how were you supposed to know which one the woman meant!?

Although, Ironically, you could argue the same point to today's society. Women, people in general really, have a habit of saying one thing while meaning another. So how do you keep it all straight?

Well, our scene is going to be great and I am loving getting to work on this project with Kade and Abby.