ON-CUE - Amateur Theatre - Acting chat - Telephone conversations

TELEPHONE CONVERSATIONS
A two-way telephone conversation on stage, such as those in "How the other half loves", are a doddle. The harder ones are those when you are on your own. Come to think of it, there are one or two of those in the same play. In fact hardly a play goes by these days without at least one of those 'one-way' telephone conversations.
Peter Barkworth, in his book 'About acting' thinks it is worthwhile to invent and write down what the other person is saying and then to give the other person time to say it, but only just. If you don't give enough time the coversation will have no truth in it and the audience will dismiss you, but if you give too much, they will find it boring.
What you have to do is bring the other person to life, so you are really doing the acting for the two of you. So let the other person interrupt you, if you can; then interrupt him; talk at the same time. This will make hime vivid to the audience.

If you do interrupt him, go a little louder, as you have to stop him from talking. If he interrupts you, let him do so on a consonant. It is much easier to stop on a consonant than a vowel. If your sentence is:
"I'm not sure I could manage that," and he interrupts you, it is easier to say
II"I'm not sure I could m...." than
"I'm not sure I could ma..."
I don't know why, but I think it's because "I'm not sure I could ma..." will result in a glottal stop and will not sound, or feel, nearly as convincing.
Try laughing, if it is apt, at something the unseen person says. It is hard to do and needs practice, but when you pull it off it convinces the audience that there is somebody there at the other end of the line.
Be careful about dialling. It takes a while especially if it is long distance and you can speed up the business by using all the lower numbers apart from the zero at the beginning, but the audience must think that you've actually dialled a number, or you've lost some of them.
Finally, as a general rule, hold the mouthpiece low enough for the audience to see your mouth. It looks so much better.

Peter Barkworth both studied and taught at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and sprang into fame with his performance as Edward VIII in "Crown Matrimonial". He then won television acclaim in the series "Telford's Change", with Hannah Gordon (I think). He won the best actor award on television for the "Crown Matrimonial" role and again for Tom Stoppard's "Professional Foul". The illustration shows him as Edward VIII in Crown Matrimonial.
The book 'About Acting' was published by Secker and Warburg.

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