The Wardrobe - Week 4

29th January

- The Wardrobe

• Today we began by looking at our scenes and how we were going to start working at them and seeing how they could start to come together, it was also the first opportunity to start working on our scenes using the system of Stanislavsky.
• Looking into what we were doing we found that working on a bit of staging was key because we were quite literally just making small steps to show a stage and that didn't seem right at all.
• Second we looked at how the character might be feeling in the scene and what would be going on behind the facade of the actual character such as where do they come from and what effect does their background have on it.
• The back story also came to light when we realised it was set in liverpool and needed to think about accents to which both Alicia and i were a bit taken aback as our accents weren't necessarily up to par but being it the beginning of the rehearsal process we decided that could wait until later.
• We started to also work on Beats and used them in our scene we went through our entire scene and worked out when we thought there ought to be a beat and put them in, after this we then sat across from each other and read our lines with the beats, just saying the lines within the beats and read them to find the underlying signs.
• When we performed these to the class we found that we were far too fast with delivering the lines with the beats and meant that we were also rushing the scene when we were actually performing it normally, it gave us a lot of food for thought.

30th January

• Today I came into the Drama Studio and didn't quite know what to expect, I knew as a group we were going to do a workshop with Karen but I was still undecided as to what we would be doing. As soon as Karen walked into the room we were asked to put away our things and stand in a space within the studio, then to lie down on the floor and work on the first state.

1. Awakening - Slight movements such as waking up in the morning. (Impatience, Agitation, Boredom). I led down on the floor and the lights were dimmed, lying down like this in a relaxed state with little light really brought on the effect of sluggishness and a reluctance to want to create much movement or at all to get up. 
2. Drunk - Heavy un supported body. (Drunk, after a fight, drugged, zombie). Moving up from the awakening state to the drunk state took a lot of energy as you had adjusted yourself to lying on the floor in a quiet and calm state with almost no movement. The heavy un supported feeling was quite easy for me to obtain as i just took on the state of mind of only having just woken up and not wanting to actually be up.
3. Toddler - upright and free and a curious energy. (upright up but still wobbly and un supported). In this state i felt as though i was lower than everyone else because i felt in-superior being unable to move as freely and easily as i usually would do and in my opinion not only gave the appearance of being a lot younger but the personal feeling of that as well which made the transition a lot easier because i could feel the atmosphere that went with it.
4. Neutral - A reserved and private/professional state. (no story or hidden agenda). This state had almost no effect on me as i didn't feel any specific mind set that went it the actions and atmosphere and to me that achieved the neutral state i was in a neutral position as an actor.
5. Someone's watching you - The first possible stages of paranoia. (Paranoia, Waiting). In this state i began to become more aware of my surroundings and actually noticed a few things about the studio that i hadn't before such as that there is an eye drawn on the floor and that the mirror had been put back onto the vanity that we used in the orestia. i found that this state really quite dramatically changed the atmosphere of the room to a heightened sense and that also affected my own personal reactions.
6. Definitely someone is watching you - Real paranoia and fear set in. (Fear, Paranoia). In this state i felt quite shaken and actually began to shake i could feel the raw emotion that was coming from this unseeable atmosphere that the group was creating and i didn't like it and out of instinct i became the same and my emotions heightened and were on death con level 10, my breathing became more shallow and actually made me feel slightly dizzy, they were quite extreme actions.
7. About to catch the ball - The hang in the air moment. (Anticipation). This was the moment when there was a very high level of anticipation and waiting and that made you rock on the balls of your feet ready to move at the slightest thing that was going to happen it was a lovely moment and kept you quite literally on you toes.
8. There i a bomb in the room - A tense moment of the unknown. (Stillness, Mania). This moment i felt was overplayed by the group and was a bit more like a cartoon than real life. I felt that this moment would have been portrayed with complete stillness and tranquility as i didn't feel it was realistic for everyone to majorly panic a few people in the group including myself edged to the corners of the room and tried to keep themselves to themselves and tried to deal with the news alone.
9. The bomb has gone off - A moment of helplessness. (Helplessness, emotionless). In this moment there was almost utter panic within the room and again i didn't feel it was necessary it was almost like a circus. Again i wanted virtually no emotions just sheer panic and with sheer panic comes absolute quiet for at least a long time it's never complete panic in a real situation, i felt that the panic needed a few minutes minimum to set in and realise the actual situation and then to act upon what was actually happening within the space.

• To end the day we worked on the Dido scene with Yaz as she is doing the monologue of Dido and we sat in a semi circle around her so that she could interact with us but also so that we could see all sides of what was happening. Yaz used the words and their possible meanings and attached specific words to each of us so that she could use us as  focus points. Then as her focus points we were to nod if we honestly believed what she was saying and that we could feel what she was trying to convey through her monologue to us. Through doing this i felt it helped with the scene because it gave Yaz a chance to see how she could make things believable within the monologue.

The Wardrobe - Week 3

20th January
- The Wardrobe

• My scene, scene 7 is 8 years before the publication of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
• Debating between putting the wardrobe at either spot A or B, I prefer spot B but we're going to experiment with both options to gain a better sense of which would be better.
• Looking at finding the Historical details of our scene

22nd January

- Chekov

• Anton Chekov was boork in 1860 and died in 1904 due to tuberculosis. He was a russian playwright and a leader in naturalistic drama writing, he trained as a doctor whilst pursuing a career in journalism and writing short stories, he wrote his first play in 1887 and in 1898 he joined forces with Stanislavsky and produced work that screened at the moscow art theatre and this was where his plays found success.
• Naturalism - Mirror of real life, people and events
• The pause is vital, the truth is revealed
• An event changes nothing, yet the characters are affected forever
• Chekov's plays are a portrait of provincial russia in 1900
• Symbolism -  Hope represented through key character
• Theatre of Mood & Atmosphere - less focus on plot
• Indirect action - understatement, broken conversation or off stage events.

- Stanislavsky

• We looked into Stanislavsky, his life and his work and how this all plays a part in our performance in the play and how to better utilise or acting techniques and learn new ones.
• Stanislavsky worked closely with Anton Chekov with whom he revolutionised the acting world by introducing realism into the equation of melodrama.
• 1885 went to drama school and left after only three weeks, stating that it taught him what not to do in the world of theatre. 
• He created the system

- The System

1. Imagination
2. Imaginary Moving Picture
3. Action
4. Units & Objectives
5. Emotional Memory
6. Circles of Attention
7. Solitude in Public 
8. The Magic If 
9. Given Circumstance
10. The Super Objective and Through Line

23rd January

- The Wardrobe

• We worked on one of the parts of the system "the magic if" through this we went and worked on several situations that Karen gave to us and reacted in a way we thought would be within the realms of realism, in my opinion what came of this was quite often over exaggerated emotions and reactions within the given situation and I felt it was not entirely within the realms of realism.
• One of the exercises we did was when Karen came up to me and just told me to go with it and so I did she then told the class I had lost my ring, my grandmothers ring and I had to react to the situation in a way that was believable. I slyly put my ring in my pocket at that point and began to bring myself into a state using emotional memory to remember a time when I had lost something else and remembered the blind panic you get, in the end I managed to convince about half the class that I had really lost my ring the others were either completely skeptical or had heard me jump when Karen first came up to me to give me the instructions.

The Wardrobe - Week 2

13th January
- The Wardrobe

• We began again by working on the different scenes and discussing which scenes we ourselves wanted to be in. After working on the scenes in separate groups we performed them to the class, we then went on to other scenes to try out more
• I found that through doing this process I was able to make a better decision as to which character I liked most and which one I would like to play it also made me change a lot of my decisions and characters I previously liked and wanted to play became almost unbearable and vice versa.

- Movement

• In Movement we re did our work out/Dance again to be sure we knew it well and it took a couple of tries to get things right.
• We were then split off into groups to re work the formation into new ways, adding different types and ways of movement, such as adding in cannon and new jumps or leaps.
• The finished compilation was a much more versatile version of the original dance bringing a new concept to the whole dance.

- Voice

•  We went through a variety of exercises for Vocal Warm ups to aid us in our voice assessment, looking at both the Articulators and the Resonators, this also helped to give us an ideas as to how to run and present our warm ups. 
• We also found out how much more of the written we would have to be working on and what sort of material we would need to further include in the written part of the assessment

15th January

- The Wardrobe

• We spent today working on the scenes we were individually interested in today as well as working on the scenes Karen wanted to see us in.
• Today was to work on the final casting session with Karen our course leader this was to allow her to find out who would best suit the roles but which roles would also challenge everyone.
• I found doing an audition process this way helpful because it allowed us to see who worked well with who and which groups of people had potential together in particular scenes.

16th January

- The Wardrobe

• I've been cast as Genevieve alongside Alicia as Whinnie, I'm very pleased because this is who I wanted to play. This role is in scene 7 and after reading the play and trying out all of the scenes I realised that this was who I wanted to play.
• There is a lot that can be done with this scene, i'm particularly excited to start figuring out the costumes as this scene is set in the era of Jane Austen and I love the period clothing of that time.
• The High point of this scene as we have figured out so far is when Whinnie over steps her boundaries as her status is lower than Genevieve's, with Whinnie being the servant and Genevieve being a lady of the house.

The Wardrobe - Week 1

6th January
- The Wardrobe

• Inspiring, makes you think about all of your own family heirlooms and what they've seen.
• The theme of the play is innocence, this play shows to prove that children know what they're going through and know how to survive they can in fact grow up when they need to be and be childish the next minute.
• After reading The Wardrobe i found that the characters I most wanted to play were Elisabeth, Cecily and Nell. Everyone wanted me to be Anne but she was too much like me and I didn't want to be playing myself I want a challenge.

- Movement went well in that we began by warming up by both releasing joints and stretching muscles, we then took the routine we had worked on as one group and were split into three separate groups and in those groups we had to come up with more varying move to add into the routine, using jumps, leaps and extra foot work.

8th January

- The Wardrobe 

• We were each given a section of the play to work on, I was paired with Yaz and we worked of the Narnia scene.
• I find the Narnia scene quite emotional as it's about and ill child's friend bringing the magic to life.
• I found it difficult to act ill at the same time as being skeptical and finding what was happening to be childish.
• Working this into a wardrobe idea made getting my head around things a lot harder to do
• After lunch we came back and worked on different scenes, ones that we ourselves wanted to try out.
• I worked on the scene four and played Anne. this was the role I originally detested because of it's likeness to my own personality, reading it through and acting the role were two very different things and I found that acting the character was a lot of fun and there was a lot i could do.

9th January

- The Wardrobe

• We started the afternoon by doing some warmup exercises to get ourselves warmed up and woken up.
• We began working on scenes that Karen put us into and had to write out a certain amount of information about the scene such as a word that sums up the scene and things about the time.
• We began by reading the scene together and then working it out into a space, we then showed our finished part to Karen who was looking at us for casting which she will be deciding next week.
• We then finished that scene and went for a break, when we all came back we were sent off to work on a new scene that karen wanted to see us in.
• I found today useful because we got to try out scenes and see how we felt about the characters ourselves.

Black and White - Evaluation

The piece we were performing was a contemporary adaptation of Orestes called Blood and Light by Helen Edumdson but with this we also added in parts of the original text from the parts of the Chorus to add to the adaptation this gave us a chance to work as a group on scenes.  My lines went well during the performance and at the end i felt i knew them well but still had that sense of fear that i would forget them, at one point i forgot a line but thankfully Bradley who i was playing against moved straight on to the next part and we sailed smoothly from there, everyone else did well with their lines as well. Scene transitions, entrances and exits were quite sketchy the week of the performance but on the day of the first performance we nailed it and it went perfectly. The pace of the scenes went according with the atmosphere and lines and i felt it went just how it needed too because we all relied on instinct and it ended up working very well, it felt right. The timing went okay but on the second performance the sound cut out and we had a lot of our timing judged on it, but still everyone went straight with it and made it work. The style of the piece was contemporary because we had used the contemporary version of the play and kept it in an almost timeless setting. The subject matter discussed was that of revenge and loyalty, the play shows the relationships between families and how they interact and how much they would actually give for their family. Characterisation wasn't really simple for me as i felt i was becoming the character more gradually than finding her straight away, i felt the part when the crown was put on my head and i was in costume because i became Electra i didn't just characterise her. Vocal deliver was good overall but needed to be louder and much more projection was needed for the audience to hear it clearly, but it was well done closer to the audience but lost closer to the back of the stage. Gesture was used quite well with everyone as it was important with the silent themes of the play to come across in the more subtle parts of the play. As an Ensemble the team worked quite badly together through rehearsals as it felt like it would never come together but when it came to performing things went better than just good everyone became a team because there was no pressure to keep on going and to keep trying to figure out what we were going to do and we could just do it. The focus was great as well when the house lights went down and the stage lights came up there was this sudden focus that everyone seemed to be connected to and it worked brilliantly. The work was done to the best of everyone's ability, the energy and dynamics of the piece came together and it all came together to create a brilliant show.

Character Study - Electra

Name: Electra

Age: 18

Family Life 

Electra was sent off to marry a man of a lower status by her mother to allow her mother and her mothers lover to take over Argos, her father has been lost at sea coming back from war so her mother went of with Aegithos. She hasn’t seen her brother since she was younger as her mother sent him away so that she could rule with Aegithos.

Personality

Electra is a woman who is strong and confident, she was born in the wrong century, women in her time were expected to just be seen and not heard and she wants to be heard as she knows her mind, she cares deeply about her family and becomes very attached to her brother.

Context

Before the play Electra has had life fairly badly and this is part of the reason why she's so defensive and more forthright as she is. During the play Electra discovers herself and the power she has over her life and her voice. She also finds a way of manipulating people and getting things out of them she also by doing this creates her own demise. After the play, I'm not quite so sure about what happens to her after all this but from how I know the character she will have let her tongue get her killed.

Relationships

Mother: She kills her mother for killing her father, so you could say it's not a brilliant relationship, her mother also sent her beloved brother away, and her away to “ a shameful degrading marriage”

Father: She never totally knew her father as he went away to war when she was young. She obviously held great affection towards her father because she killed her own mother for killing him.

Orestes: Her relationship with him is slightly complicated, he is her brother, even though she hasn't seen him since she was a child, she is now reunited with him and finds herself strangely attracted to him, this is due to the fact that they are close and are known to each other but in this case she is attracted to him as more than just her brother, and he feels quite similarly this creates the close yet complicated relationship between them.

Tyndareos: She has a very volatile relationship with Tyndareos because she always looked up to him as a great man and when she needed him most he let her down. She now has a much more skeptical view of him as a result they both hate each other. She does confront him in the play and he does see a form of where he went wrong but not much of a way.

Menalaos: Electra and menalaos have a good relationship, they have never wronged each other and he is willing to help her as he sees why she killed her mother to avenge his brother. He also keeps and eye on her and guides her in any way he can.

Helen: Electra very much dislikes Helen, Helen treats her life a bug on a windscreen and thinks she can't do anything or think for herself and Electra can in fact she sees a lot more than Helen thinks she does, Electra just keeps quiet about it. Electra also finds Helen to be lacking somewhat in the quality of personality.

Style

I found becoming Electra and being her in a production that uses both Greek influences in a contemporary play to be quite interesting, easy and difficult all at the same time this was because I felt I still needed to keep the older elements of Electra when bringing her into a contemporary production. She still needed to be somewhat stuck in the old ways such as being quiet and standing back as a woman as she would be expected to be but also to have that new age flair. Lucky for me the old Electra had already begun to explore herself and ideals, standing up to the men in her family and also getting her brother to aid her in the killing of her mother, she in some way learns how to manipulate the men in her life to help her in her endeavours. This mad it a lot easier to try and add the contemporary tones to her character. To aid me in developing Electra in a Contemporary style setting I did research into what life would have been like for Electra in the time of the original text and I found that her life would have been very shadowed and she wouldn't have seen much of the world, she would have been expected to stay at home and do almost nothing. I used internet research to gain a good perspective on what her life would have been like compared to modern times. For the Greek Chorus I didn't use too much research into actual Greek Chorus instead I looked at musicals and their Choruses because they flow and tell the story too only in song and I saw them as a variation especially with the chorus dancing and tableaux's I saw a real similarity and connection, I used this as inspiration.

Characterisation

I saw her posture as good with a slight slouch to show she was well brought up but at the same time I wanted that bit of rebellion to be surrounding her. She has a clear concise voice to match her background she may have airs about her that say otherwise but I wanted her well spoken voice to be a definitive part of her. For her emotions I found this more difficult because I wanted her to be closed off and numb to everything because of what has happened to her. I remedied this by using small hand movements a lot to show what she was feeling such as a clenched fist at her side, I wanted it to be subtle yet powerful at the same time.

Greek Blog 5 (25th - 29th)

This week started with us looking at the first act and working on how we were going to complete it. Firstly we worked through the first act straight and looked at what needed working on and what had yet to still be done. We looked at the scene where Abbi is playing electra with the chorus we worked on our parts as the chorus and how we wanted our separate minions of Tyndareos to be seen, not all the characters of the chorus could be the same so we spent quite a lot of time working on how we were going to have them come out and across. In movement we worked on a scene where as the chorus and newspaper reporters we were using newspapers in the movements in the chorus pieces, we worked as a group to show the words that Abbi was saying and how we as a chorus would react to such words and created a scene in which we were all over the place but at the same time were the interested and nosey journalists that were willing to do anything to get information to relay to the papers. In Voice we worked on sounds and how they come out and sound and to make them much clearer, this comes in with the Greek theatre because of what and how the text is set out and works it's a lot like shakespeare in a way with the difficulty of the language.

On wednesday we worked on the same areas again in more detail taking on what we had already done on the monday and adding what we had come up with over the other day. In the afternoon we looked at another section of the chorus, this part we divided up so that everyone was in groups of twos and were each given a section of the chunk of text to work on, for this part we were all lined up in chairs and used our own ideas in the pairs to enact what our lines were, this idea also came from our previous devised piece which was used in one of the performances. this proved quite the challenge and the group dynamics didn't go well here as there were lots of arguments and people were blaming others for not doing work when they were struggling, this showed that the group was not communicating with each other as they needed to be. This was causing great tension in the whole class and meant that we didn't get much work done in the time we had and that we could have certainly done a lot more in the time than what we managed.

On thursday we mostly looked at the bath scene and worked on how we would stage this as it's quite tricky, using a moving bath that when you try to get in or lean against moves and disturbs the scene and set. Through this I found that the group got quite restless and concentration went down quite a lot, meaning that work wasn't being done as efficiently as it could have been, granted it was the last day of our week and we were tired and looking forward to the weekend we should have still been able to concentrate and work as this is what we will be doing if we choose to pursue this as a career. This was further proved when we revisited the chairs chorus scene at the end of the day and the entire group dynamic was helter skelter, there were people taking control without allowing anyone any ideas this is not a good this because not only does it in still in peoples minds that one person is superior in a group where we are all equals but also that no ideas are being heard when they could make the piece an entire success.