Course Content (Syllabus)
Having as a starting point the book ‘Common speech’ (by Elli Papapdimitriou) , students will try to get familiar with narrative technique.
The book is about folk narratives, meaning oral testimonies, that Elli Papadimitriou gathered. The stories refer to a period of 60 years.
For the course’s needs there have been chosen texts which refer to the period 1914-1922.
In this "artless" language, which however is governed by secret artistic rules, one can find all those elements that define the narrator and his techniques. The actor is asked to discover these elements, find the reasons for their existence and finally reproduce them, with his own way. He needs to ‘cover’ the required distance between present and each story and find the rythmology needed so as to keep audience / listeners interest alive. He needs to comprehend the meaning and the use of ‘pause’. Above all, he has to dedramatize his acting, without losing the quality of emotions that each story requires.