"Do you know how fragile the human skull is?"

Work has now begun in earnest for Aussie Rules. Last night, we had the first rehearsal, in which Andrew had us do a theatrical exercise wherein I wanted to leave the room by a certain door and my costar was to block me. At first, we weren't allowed to touch, and Andrew told me to leave the room by any means possible. This lead to me uttering the title of this blog post, utterly deadpan and entirely serious to said costar. After that, Andrew said we were allowed to get physical and I walked right out, nearly clipping Tom's head on the door frame on the way out.
It's now been a long time since we I've rehearsed something (not counting 24 hour play), and I forgot how intense such sessions could get. I think a large part of this is due to Andrew, who is very confrontational in his directorial style (in no way a criticism), and the other is that this is my first part since, I believe, Vatnsdal which isn't mostly comical- I'd forgotten how difficult it is to be sincere and unaffected when acting (Tom quite correctly noticed I was 'blocking' during one exercise, when I couldn't stop laughing). But it's always a goal of Andrew's to intrude into people's comfort zones, and why shouldn't that include his actors?

For a role that is almost entirely comic, look no further than Emperor Joseph, whom I will be realising in Amadeus. Yes, things have come full circle (about a year early, I'm disappointed to say), and I am once again starring in Peter Shaffer's tale of jealousy and nipples; however, in a twist that shows how much I've advanced as an actor and a person, I'm no longer the shouty, pompous German but now the serene, foolish emperor. It was odd at the readthrough to hear the lines with which I was so familiar (in the way you're familiar with the living room of a house you lived in five years ago), with completely different accents, inflections, and, in some cases, genders to the voices that I was used to. Rik Hart, for example, the epitome of old-school British Gentlemanliness, was substituted for an Australian girl, and that was when I first felt I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Interestingly, David K. Barnes being replaced by a petite Aussie lass felt completely natural. I think maybe because Strack is quite effeminate himself.
Maybe.
As for my own reading, I'll admit there's more than a dash of Sasha in there, but fuck it, what's he gonna do? Tall me to death?

Above: Artist's rendition of Sasha preparing for battle.

In other news, I've exchanged Semantics for Language in Aboriginal Australia, which will hopefully be insightful and uniquely Australian.And, in First Language Acquisition, we are once again touching on Innatism versus socialisation theories, and I still don't understand Innatism because there just seem to be so many flaws in the theory. (Innatism holds that humans can acquire language without really being taught it- my problems with this idea are numerous). I asked my professor, and she just said 'exactly', which, although affirming because I was right, wasn't all that helpful. I'll have to ask Jimminy about it, I think he's an innatist (fool).

Bach Too's Cool

Uni started again yesterday.
I have now had a taster of the three subjects I'm enrolled in for this semester- Semantics, Phonetics and First Language Acquisition.
First up was Semantics, taught by David Thewlis in an oscar-worthy performance as Brett Baker, who also taught me Syntax last year. I'm trying not to hold that against him, I really am. Suffice to say we won't be studying pragmatics this year, which I personally think is one of the most interesting areas of semantics (it's to do with implication and context- which are absolutely fascinating linguistically). I'm currently trying to switch Semantics for Language in Aboriginal Australia, which for some reason is not offered at Edinburgh.
Next was Phonetics, and the professor seemed oddly nervous- I don't know if it's his first time teaching or he just had a bomb strapped to his leg, but he repeated himself a lot and at the...end just...kind of...faded... ...a....way. Sadly, he's up against the titan that is Patrick Honeybone as my previous professor in phonetics and, well, that's an extremely tough act to follow. Like Invocal. Or Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (Daniel.) As for phonetics, it's not my favourite field anyway, as it's rather dry- lots of science, TONNES of biology- but it's not as bad as syntax, as I can at least see the need to study phonetics, and it does have some interesting facets. 
Finally, I headed to First Language Acquisition- the Professor of which has the same name as my grandmother and only paternal aunt. What a small world. First Language Acquisition has always been one of my favourite topics cos babies are just so damn cute when they try to talk. Case in point:

 

I'm pretty sure he calls me 'Nony' in that clip. I dunno if that's better or worse than 'Ory', which was Sam's attempt. 

Anyway, in First Language Acquisition we have to go and record a child talking and interact with it, which will at the very least be a different way to spend an afternoon (though I essentially did exactly that every Friday morning for eighteen months). I'm quite looking forward to this course actually, especially since my professor said she was a sociolinguist by trade, meaning maybe in later life I can combine two of my favourite fields after all (if we can just work in watching penguins somehow I'll have it made).