I was working with a friend actor, Narelle, tonight. She is working on a Monologue for His Majesty’s Theatre. That means she’s got to get up in front of a room full of people and strut her stuff all by herself. Her script is single-spaced and four pages long. It’s a 15 minute piece all together and there are lots of lines to remember. With no other actors to work off or help you, this is a daunting task and getting lines down is the very first thing and actor should do. Here’s a little trick …

It utilises the brain’s innate ability to freely associate words.

You’ve gotten some of the lines down by rote, and you’re using body memory, but you’re feeling anxious. What will happen if I lose my place? There’s so much stuff here and I really want to get lost in the reality of the moment.

Here’s what to do:

Break the script into paragraphs and name each paragraph with a visual noun. So … If the first paragraph is a mini speech about being lost at sea, the noun might be “sea”. If the second paragraph is about a childhood memory where the character caught a grasshopper, name that paragraph, “grasshopper”. Something visual is the key here. The third paragraph is about falling from a high balcony and smashing through a window. “Window” might be your third word. And so on.

Your final list of paragraph titles might look something like this:

• sea
• grasshopper
• window
• cat
• hammer
• leg
• coffin
• cloud

Remember that it’s not supposed to make sense just yet.

Now to link the words. All you do is put them together into a little associative story. Make sure the story is imaginative and VERY visual. The more visual the words, the better.

So, my associative story for the above list would be … On the sea floats a grasshopper. The grasshopper jumps onto a window pane. Behind the window pane sits a cat. Someone hits the cat with a hammer. The hammer is then used to fix a wooden leg. The one-legged person dies and is put in a coffin. Above which floats a single cloud.

And that’s it!

If you can’t find a word to suit your paragraph – perhaps because it’s not a visual paragraph – find a word or image that rhymes or feels like your noun. Eg. I used to be cheeky when I was a kid. I played all day and never went home when mother would call me. You might use monkey (as in “cheeky monkey”) to nudge you into remembering that paragraph.

This technique will work well alongside traditional rote learning or reading your piece out loud to friends and family. You can also pick up anywhere in the story – or even say your script backwards – just by remembering one item.

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