Character Solos At Lunchtime

Running Time: 45 mins no interval

Following its success in May, Character Solos returns to the Studio at Lunchtime! Several magical pieces, invented, written, and performed by each actor and directed by James Kemp (whose students include: Stephen Wight (Currently appearing in McQueen), Emilia Clarke, Tom Hardy, and Michael Fassbender).

Originally Character Solos, or ‘Scenarios’ as they are sometimes called, were created after training with Master Teacher Yat Malmgren at Drama Centre London. Room One now presents a lunchtime with a colourful cast of wonderfully varied, old and new characters, directed by James Kemp, sole inheritor of Malmgren’s work. These lunchtime pieces will bring back ‘Scenarios’ that actors now working in the industry created during their training, and introduce new pieces created by current students of Yat’s work at Room One.

In each elaborately written solo scene, a character is portrayed in a situation where he or she is communicating with imagined scene partners and settings. The magic of these pieces is that the actor creates everything for the audience, their scene partner(s), the atmosphere, the room… and all just with their expressive psychophysical instrument.

About Yat Malmgren:

These ‘Character Solos’ are character studies embedded in the work of Yat Malmgren. Yat Malmgren although not as famous as some other practitioners of his time, was one of the greatest pioneers of acting training of the twentieth century. His trailblazing work in Character Analysis and Movement Psychology brought together the work of Rudoph Laban and Konstantin Stanislavski. Laban, regarded as the architect of European Contemporary Dance, codified a system of analysing and classifying movement in all its aspects, not only physical, but also in its expressive manifestations and psychological impulses. Yat extended these ideas to create a psychological typology of character. This fusion of internal motivation and expressive technique offers the actor a basis for constructing character.

Yat Malmgren founded the Drama Centre London with Christopher Fettes and John Blatchley in 1963. It is credited with being the first ‘Method’ school in Britain, but its true original gift to international theatre was Yat’s development of Laban’s Movement Psychology into his own study of Character Analysis.

“At the heart of the work is the concept that we think with our bodies. That our bodies are revelatory of our inner workings, our psyche, of our thoughts and feelings. Therefore if we could learn to harness and manifest our inner sensations and in a precise way control and express them through our bodies we would be able to share every inner desire, want, thought or emotion with a watching audience. And in turn that audience would be able to ‘read’ our thoughts, to ‘read’ our character and be thoroughly engaged in our dramatic lives.” –James Kemp

About James Kemp (Director):

James Kemp, after training at Drama Centre, was personally invited by Malmgren to become his assistant and share his teaching. He sat alongside him during his final years at the school. Upon his retirement in 2011, Malmgren chose Kemp to inherit his work and teaching and was keen that it found a permanent home and was able to grow. We are proud to finally provide that space at Room One.