2311: The First Lesson

The First Lesson

The teachers' acting skills might not necessarily be more outstanding than those of the students they taught, but they would surely know better how to teach to make the students understand and learn better.1

Seeing the disappointment on Guo Hai and the others' faces, Lu Man said, "I am also a student. There are many things I still have to learn. Saying that I can teach you is really too much of an exaggeration. During our usual practice, we can discuss things together. I will also share with everyone how I usually practice by myself.

"For example, when we choose a segment from a piece of work, we can discuss and act out the scenes together, then talk about our understanding of the characters. We can find the best way to perform our characters through discussions. If there are any inadequacies, we can all point them out."

It was not that Lu Man did not want to teach them; it's that she felt that her standard was not up to mark yet, and she felt she would not be able to teach them well. However, she was still willing to help them all out.

Everyone then heaved a sigh of relief upon hearing that. So they had misunderstood her intentions just then.

"But in this way, it's unavoidable that we may have conflicts because of our own understanding and beliefs, so when we are practicing, we can quarrel, but when practice time ends, we must put the matter behind us and not let this affect our relations with each other," Lu Man cautioned everyone in advance.

"Of course." Everyone nodded and promised.

Although they said that, Lu Man did not immediately believe them.

Once quarrels happen often, it would affect their relations in some way or another, so she would still have to test the waters first.

***

When afternoon came and it was 2 PM, everyone then set off for class together.

Han Leilei said on the way there, "The lesson today will be an analysis of a play by Shakespeare."

Lu Man was not yet familiar with where the classrooms were and just followed the others.

This classroom was more like a small theater room.

At the bottom was the audience seating area, and at the front was the performance stage.

"Every time we attended this class, the professor and the students would always be sitting below at the audience seating area, then everyone would draw lots to pick a character and perform the character on stage," Han Leilei said. "Before the end of each lesson, the professor would first briefly explain what we would be performing for the next class so we could go back and memorize the script well.

"If it's your turn to go up on stage but you didn't memorize the script well, even if you only stumbled a little, then in future lessons, you would not have a chance to pick any important roles or any challenging roles. If you performed even a little worse, then in future classes, you won't even get a chance to go up on stage anymore," Tan Mingxiao added at the side.

If one could not go up on stage, it meant that one would not be able to receive guidance.

Those who majored in acting had an interest in drawing attention to themselves.

But if they could not go up on stage, or if they could get only minor roles with a few or even no lines at all, they would not be able to attract attention to their role, and it would undoubtedly be frustrating.

More importantly, if they were not able to get an even more challenging role to test their own acting skills, they would not be able to examine their own shortcomings and receive guidance for that.

They'd lose not just an opportunity to show their capability; more importantly, they'd lose the chance to improve.

It was okay for them as exchange students.

Anyway, they were going to leave after studying for a period of time here, so no matter what their grades were over here, actually, it would not affect them at all.

So what they valued more was the opportunity to improve their own acting techniques, to be able to have more opportunities to receive guidance from these highly acclaimed performance artistes.

So given all these, they also wanted to memorize their scripts well and not lose the chance to go up on stage.

As for those who were students in the acting class to begin with, their grades were also involved in this.

So they valued the importance of it even more.

Lu Man nodded and said, "In this way, the foundational skills of the students here will also become very strong."

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