Module 3- Part 2: Shaky elevators in Boston…
Benji
Shaky elevators in Boston…
First, let’s talk about how this idea of making your memorized deck ‘invisible’ ties into our overarching Skyscraper Theory.
I want you to cast your mind back and think about the WORST elevator you’ve ever had the (dis)pleasure of using.
For me, it was a particularly unpleasant piece of machinery in Boston.
Me and Jacob were visiting his soon-to-be wife in a student accommodation apartment. It was halfway up the building, and although there were stairs, the fastest way up was the elevator.
Now, I’m not exaggerating when I say this elevator looked like it hadn’t been upgraded since the 30s.
In fact, here’s a picture for reference:
See what I mean?
Every time we got into this thing, it shuddered and clanked the whole way up.
Frankly, by the end of the trip, I was just about done with it.
Every time I got in the elevator, I didn’t care about reaching the top quite so much as I cared about just getting OFF the darned thing.
And somehow, even though the logical part of my brain knew we were only inside it for seconds, I physically FELT each of them drag by until the whole thing felt far longer than it was.
Most of us have had a similar experience to this.
Now imagine you were in that terrible elevator while on your way to the top of a skyscraper…
Hundreds of meters up, and believe me—you’d feel each one.
But, as we’re all no doubt very grateful for, the majority of skyscrapers DON’T do this.
For example, the elevator ride up the Empire State was one of the most ‘chilled out’ experiences I’ve ever had.
In fact, it was nearly ‘invisible’ to me. By the time we were looking out on the view from the top, I’d almost forgotten that we took the elevator up!
I’d wager it’s a very similar experience for audiences.
When we utilize our own Skyscraper—our memorized deck—our goal is to give them one of the four core views we talked about in the previous module. This means the ONLY thing our audience should have to think about is that view. Our job as performers is to make the journey to that view as smooth as possible.
If we imagine our techniques, methods, and procedure to be the ‘elevator’ by which we take our audience to the desired view, we DO NOT want it to be one of those creaky, shuddering elevators we just discussed.
If you call undue attention to the procedure or method, it’s the equivalent of a cranky elevator—by the time you finish, your audience will care more about getting ‘off’ that ride than appreciating the view you gave them.
And like a bad elevator, the whole thing will feel so much LONGER since they’re acutely aware of every second that passes on the way up.
Instead, we want to ‘grease the hinges’ of our methodological elevator to the point that it’s invisible.
(Or at the very least, smooth as heck and playing cool jazz.)
They should never think back on the effect and remember the elevator, just like we would never think back on the view from a skyscraper and instead think about the elevator.
So, how do we go about ‘greasing the hinges’ of our memorized deck?
I’m glad you asked.
In this module, you’ll discover the eight core ‘greases’ in memorized deck work.
But before we get into the technical bits, a warning on one thing FAR more important than your technique…