The Wardrobe - Week 6

This week we worked on trying to find our character more, in the case of my scene I needed to work on where she came from and how that would affect her in this case she was from liverpool, so working on a liverpool accent was key. We worked (Alicia and myself) on the accents with Bradley from the year above and he helped us to nail this accent. I found this very difficult and kept going from a liverpool accent to french to italian to irish which didn't really help my cause. Instead we decided to keep my character in an RP accent and to make it seem as though they had only recently moved to the area and she still had her original accent.

Later in the week we worked on looking into how to stage the scene and found that keeping within the wardrobe wasn't as easy as was previously thought. We ended up working on trying to keep it in the singular place and that helped a lot and then with Karen's guidance we worked it out together.

The Wardrobe - Week 5

3rd February

This week we looked at Brecht and how he uses Epic Theatre, we looked at his life and how he used theatre to shock people not just blind them with some story for a few hours which they would soon forget the moral of, he wanted it to be real and memorable. To look at this we got into politics and how that would be a possible thing that Brecht might have looked at had he been alive today and sectioned off into groups and were told to come up with a song or rap of some sort on politics and our ideas on what we were annoyed about and in this we used education as our base coming up with a rap and ending it with a quote from

Einstein - If you judge a fish on it's ability to climb a tree it will spend it's whole life thinking it's stupid.

This was our way of trying to say that not everyone is an academic and that a lot of us as actors in training are more suited to the arts but the way that the education department in the government is going is taking us away from what we are good at because they are blinded by academic success when not everyone is going to be good at it.

In the afternoon we came back and worked in voice we again partook in a few of the groups personal vocal warmups that they had come up with and provided backing evidence to. This week was also my turn to present and so I did, I used a few techniques that I had found from going to different places of drama training and others I had found from the internet and from my singing teacher and combined which ones I found the most useful and after leading and partaking in the vocal warm ups I felt much more ready for the day.

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.