For the Romans, the "genius locii "was the protective spirit of a particular place.
Places and spaces have a role to play in creating character and dropping-into the role.
So let's summon the spirit of place to help us in our work as actors and directors!
I have just been in a rehearsal room, helping some young actors enter the world of their characters a week or so before they go on set to begin shooting. They had only just gathered to begin rehearsal and so the characters, the relationships, the situations, the locations were not quite real to them yet. I would have loved to take them on a field-trip to experience the actual locations they were about to be working in. But time constraints meant we were not able to do this.
Instead we went upstairs to visit the Locations Management team at the Production Office and the actors were able to see the photographs pinned to the wall of every single bedroom, home, office, school, hall, garden and forest that had been scouted. This was a reve…