Loud-Silent Game

Feelings, and especially emotional outbursts, are often accompanied by sounds. A surprised person spontaneously says "Ooohh!". A disgusted person "Iiiih", and so on. These basic sounds can be put to use to train and memorise facial expression. The exercise also gives an actor a sense of expressive security on stage: you learn to "paint" the letter onto your face without making a sound.

Exercise:

All players stand in a circle. The leader calls out the sound and everyone vocalises at the same time on the cue (1, 2, 3 and...!). The same letter is repeated several times, the volume rising each round. At the same time the leader pushes the players to intensify the distortion of the facial expression. Once a satisfying expression has been reached, the players are asked to freeze the face after vocalising and hold it. This burns the expression in even deeper. Finally the players are asked to perform the same letter as pure mime, with the same intensity as the loud, distorted version, but without producing a single sound. It is of course helpful overall if the gestures actively support the expression.

Examples (open to extension and nuance):

Aaa! joy, anticipation, pleasure, pain etc.

Ohh! astonishment, wonder, scepticism etc.

Uuh! unpleasant, defence, pain, disgust

Iiih! disgust, doubt, question

Mmmh! pleasure, consideration, pondering

and so on.

A nice side effect of this exercise is that inhibitions break down and players become freer in their expression, because everyone embarrasses themselves at the same time. :-)