Shakespeare - Blog

The play we have been studying is Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, it tells the story of a man called Julius Caesar and how he came to power and was assassinated by his most trusted advisors because they felt that he had too much power for one man. The scene that my group were involved in was where Caesar is persuaded by his wife Calphurnia to stay at home after she had a dream that he would die if he went to work, Decius whom I play is sent to fetch Caesar to the senate house only to arrive and find Caesar refusing to go to work and needing him to go so that the assassination can happen Decius works his magic and convinces Caesar that the dream Calphurnia had was actually a dream of good fortune for Caesar's fortune which in turn convinces him to go to work and complete Decius' part in the assassination plot.

During the first week we mostly spent our time trying to connect with our characters, to embody them. This included jumping into their shoes thinking how they would think and finding their stature, how they walk, talk, eat and how their facial expressions are displayed. This caused some tensions within my group (as we were all separated into different scenes that would then be compiled to create a birds eye view of the play) because we were all quite on edge with finding the character and trying out their emotions which can sometimes be difficult for an actor and as we only had two weeks to learn, block and perform these scenes it was somewhat harder and easier at the same time.

The challenges we faced in the first week were mostly down to the lack of lines learnt and that made it very hard to be able to animate a scene, as holding a script occupies your hands and your face as you are reading the lines. We managed to conquer this by learning a few lines at a time and then putting it all together and having only one of us as a prompt so that we didn't feel too much pressure over the lines and that made it all the more comfortable to just be free and easy with the scene. We also started to block scenes so that we could begin to associate certain movements with particular lines.

In week two we were a lot more panicked as it was all coming at us fast and we still had a lot to do, luckily we had all learnt our lines and so now were working on our facial expressions and our hand movements and figuring out how our character would react to the other characters lines and looking at the characters have to haves, what they need out of a scene. It was also a time for looking at costume and seeing what they would wear, because of the difference in status and the time period it meant we could do a lot. I wore all blacks and then a leather jacket to give the impression of an army style jacket, Joe wore a make-shift toga to give off the typical Caesar vibe and Alicia as Calphurnia wore all blacks to show how she is almost the mediator in the relationship and situation between Decius and Caesar.

In the final few days of putting these scenes together it was more or less just rehearsing and re-rehearsing the scenes to make sure that the scene was in order. When the day of the showcase came around we were all a little on edge which is fairly normal, and were both excited and nervous creating a brilliant atmosphere. The show was going well and then it was our turn and it started off well, then one of the group forgot their lines and skipped a big chunk of the scene, this was not a problem as we were prepared and just went onto the next bit and it went un noticed by the audience and turned out to be a good performance. I felt that my specific performance went a lot better than I thought it would and and was pleased with the outcome, I felt that I managed to convey the jealousy of Decius and the intent of the assassination without having that shown to Caesar and kept my agenda hidden. I wanted to work on how you could look at Decius and see the good friend of Caesar and then look at my eyes and see the dark plan behind the facade. Overall I was very pleased with my performance and enjoyed working on Julius Caesar with my group and learned a lot more about Shakespeare and the history of the play as well.

Decius - Character Study

Decius Brutus

A minor character in the play Julius Caesar Written by William Shakespeare and based on the real life events of Dictator Julius Caesar. Decius is an instigator to Julius Caesar's assassination and a Roman politician. He was also Caesar's cousin and was heir in the second degree to caesar in his will.

Decius plays a key role in the assasination of Julius Caesar as he is the one who persuades Caesar to come to the senate house after he had said he would not go due to his wifes worry over a dream she had of his death. Decius is one of the men who all join together to kill Caesar after Caska attacks him first and they eventually kill him and become his murderers.

Decuis is a very cunning character who knows just how to persuade people to go agains their own decisions to get his own way, the way he persuades Caesar to come to the senate after his wife calphurnia has begged on her knees that he stay home is a fairly good example of how he can make others trust him, even over those who are far closer to the subject that he is trying to seduce.

Decius seems to in a way distrust Caesar, even though he is his cousin. Decius treats Ceasar almost like a child recognising how in his own mind Caesar was not fit to be the Dictator of Rome and took it into his own hands, this could also be seen as jealousy from Decuis, himself thinking that he is the lowly cousin and wanting to have the power that Caesar has.

In Conclusion I think that Decius is a very messed up character he has had to live in the shadow of his cousin and feels so strongly about this that he even conspires and ends up killing his cousin Caesar. We also note that Decius is a very deceptive person and incredibly talented at persuading people to do what he requires them to do, or to gain information from them. This overall makes Decius a very intersting character even though his part is limited without his persuasive talents Ceasar would never have been assasinated and so in turn the entire outcome of the play is due to Decuis' cunning persuasive gift.

Audition Speeches - Cymbeline "I see a man's life as a tedious one"

My second classical piece is from the Shakespeare play Cymbeline, it tells the story of Princess Imogen and her lover Posthumous and how Imogen and Posthumous are separated after her father the king of England exiles Posthumous after she and Posthumous wed without his permission and because she is the only living heir her husband will become the next king. This shows the pressure put on Imogen and through the play we get to see how she copes with all the trials the come her way.

Beginning characterisation for Imogen I began by reading the play through several times and making notes on how I thought she would act in certain situations and how she would be feeling in the different stages of the play as a woman of that time and in that situation. I wanted to push the idea that she is still deciding how to lead her life even though a lot of it has been decided for her, that her thoughts are quite deep and unlike a woman of the time the play was written. We see Imogen being bold cross dressing even in her circumstances, I find this bold for a woman of her position and love the fact that she is going by her own mind, her first line in this monologue is " I see a man's life as a tedious one" and to me this line just says it all. The line states how she feels about what a man's life is like having lived like one for just a few days, she realises that not everything is how she originally imagined and I wanted to show this in the speech her indecisiveness in how things are and how so many things are rushing through her mind that she has to say them all at once and how she looks at things from both sides not just one. I wanted to show that she thinks very differently to a lot of the people around her and defy's their expectations of how she should be, I find that very appealing in a character and that was also one of the reasons I chose the speech because it shows more than you think.

I thought that the audition went relatively well compared to how I thought it would be, I was worried as to how my character would come across as I wasn't totally prepared with her actions and feelings. Baring this in mind the actual audition went how I wanted it to, I allowed myself to let her take over and show how she is indecisive and her attitude to life is very indecisive too with how she acts to her current situation.


Imogen

Name: Imogen
Age: Unknown
Family: Posthumous (Husband) Cymbeline (Father) Guiderius (Brother) Arviarargus (Brother)

Imogen is the daughter of the king of England, Cymbeline she is also the wife of Posthumous who is currently in exile because he and Imogen secretly married without Cymbeline's permission, this upset Cymbeline because Imogen is his only living heir and so whoever she marries will become the new king. This then sparks off the events of the play leading to cross dressing finding long lost family members and the reuniting of love.

Audition Speeches - Bronte "Do you ever wonder what our lives would have been like"

My contemporary piece is from the play Bronte by Polly Teale it was written in 2005 and follows the lives of the Bronte sisters and how they felt about their own situation and lives as women in the 19th Century. I chose this speech because I found that what Anne Bronte questions is exactly what she needs to question as a writer and as a woman in a society that disagree's with a woman thinking this way. I loved the way that she is passionate about the smallest of things and takes note of the insignificant things and turns them into something that means a lot to her and to how she sees life.

I began characterisation with looking at reading some of the Bronte's novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights and finding how the characters within the stories are possibly related to either how the sisters themselves felt or how they saw other women and men of the time. I also used materiel from the history books and historical clothing to see how the clothing of the time would affect how they would have walked, sat and stood. Finding that a corset would of course restrict a lot of their movement and how they would have spoken as well, the corset causing constriction of the chest and only allowing a small amount of movement. To practice how I would stage this monologue I began with the research above and then practiced my own movement and how I could adapt my own self to embody Anne Bronte and how her movement would also reflect how she was feeling and how those feelings would come out on her body. I also read up on Anne and watched documentaries about her life and how it would have been, what her daily life consisted of and what events had happened in her life to shape how she is in this monologue and her ideas on how we as human beings act and what in life we refuse to acknowledge and try our best to prove wrong.

In the performance I undertook in the mock audition I felt quite connected to Anne as a character and as a person I could almost feel her influence rubbing off on me as I was delivering the lines. I also felt that I managed to keep the movement to a minimum as would be expected of Anne with the restriction of the clothing of the time and yet still portray the emotions and ideas that are running through Anne's head and that she has to confess to her sister Charlotte. Overall I felt that the performance itself gave over what I wanted it to but could still be added to by a little more variation in movement.

Anne

Name: Anne Bronte
Age: 28
Family: Charlotte Bronte (Sister) Emily Bronte (Sister) Branwell Bronte (Brother) Patrick Bronte (Father)  Maria Bronte (Mother) Elizabeth Bronte (Sister) Maria Bronte (Sister)

Anne was born into a large family as the youngest of seven siblings the two oldest having died very early and her mother passing away when anne was only one. She and her siblings were then brought up by their father Patrick Bronte who kept them all close to home in the parsonage of the church where he was the curate, from there Anne and her siblings all began to write their own stories to escape from the lack of interaction of other children their age they had, this was due to the lack of hygiene of the area and a lot of the children carrying disease and after Patrick Bronte had lost two children to disease before he was unwilling to loose another. The Bronte sisters also wrote under pseudonyms to get their work published as it was uncommon to have a woman's novel published in that era, not just because it was written by a woman but also because it wasn't seen as decent for a woman to be writing stories as it could put ideas into their heads.

Audition Speeches - Romeo & Juliet "The clock struck nine"

My classical piece is from the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet written between 1591 and 1595 It tells the story of Romeo and Juliet as the title suggests. In this play we witness the romance that blossoms between these two lovers and how it brings across their demise, the speech from the play I have chosen is spoken by Juliet, she is remarking and moping about how her nurse has not come back from seeing her Romeo in the time she said she would be.

To begin characterisation for Juliet I read the play over and also watched some of the film versions of the plays to gain an idea of how other actors have portrayed Juliet in the past. I then compiled mental markers as to the mannerisms that they used to evolve Juliet, also being 17 I know what it's like to be 14 and impatient. So from compiling information from books, performances and personal experience I created my own version of Juliet. I found my version to be a little more down played than some of the versions I had seen on screen, I deliberately down played the character because I felt that in a lot of instances the character is overplayed with the stereotypical "I'm a teenager and the world revolves around me". I wanted to change her to become a more understandable person for an audience to see and relate to, to find that the impatience is a universal thing not just for a teenage girl waiting for her boyfriend. To rehearse this character I played with the vocal tone of her, seeing as she's meant to be a young teenage girl I knew the voice needed to be a lot more high pitched and whiny in a way as a lot of younger voices are before they mature. I also looked at how she might move having been brought up in a high ranking family and being subjected to act and talk like a lady of the time, this led me to become very aware of how she carries out her actions.

I felt that my mock audition went very well, I liked how I felt within the character and how I delivered my lines. In the audition I felt that I managed to convey the downplayed Juliet and how her feelings are universal feelings, I also felt that I used the stage appropriately to the situation of the monologue I was Performing. I felt that I managed to explain through the monologue who Juliet is to the audience and that there is more to her than her stereotype suggests.

Juliet

Name: Juliet Capulet
Age: 14
Family: Lord Capulet (Father) Lady Capulet (Mother) Tybalt Capulet (Cousin) Rosaline Capulet (Cousin) Nurse (Surrogate Mother)
Spouse: Romeo Montague

Juliet is a fourteen year old girl who lives in Verona, Italy her father is a Lord and so she and her family hold a high position in the society of Verona. Her family have been feuding with another high status family in Verona called the Montague's, during this play she falls in love with the son of Lord and Lady Montague which becomes a catalyst to their demise.

Shakespeare - Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar is a play written by William Shakespeare and tells the story of the conspiracy to kill Julius Caesar, it also tells the repercussions of what happens when such an act is committed. The play was first performed in 1599 and is thought to be the first production to be performed at the Globe since it's opening in the same year. The theatre didn't last too long as during a production of Henry VIII on the 29th of June 1613, the cannon that went off to announce the start of the show set fire to the thatched roof causing the building to be burnt to the ground.

The production of Julius Caesar gives a lot of ideas for staging as it has various parts throughout the play where levels and audience interaction can be used(The picture to the left is of how the stage was set up for the current production). Not too much is known about the original staging or the production because of the lack of documentation in that era, luckily a passing tourist and diarist made an entry about seeing the production and remarking upon it. From the trip with my class to the globe to go and see the production there I know that in a more modern representation they used Mark Anthony's podium as a very court like box, they included the audience at the beginning by bringing large boxes and yelling about Caesar in support of him. Before the show we were given a small talk about the Globe and how the original production might have been staged, there is the thought that for the speeches to the people of Rome that are spoken by both Mark Anthony and Caesar might have been performed from the balcony on the stage being a very ideal place to address not only the actors playing the people of Rome but also the audience and the way the stage is set out it would also allow their voice to be carried throughout the theatre. The play is based upon the original Julius Caesar and how he ran Rome and his assassination after his friends and advisors felt he as one man held too much power, Shakespeare found his information initially about Caesar, Brutus and Anthony from Plutarch's Lives in North's English translation. Shakespeare also used books like the bible for inspiration and using his own experiences from having been on stage himself as well as writing created a play that was not only visually pleasing for the audience but gave the actors so many strong emotions to play on and use to enhance the play.

The play was important because what had happened with Julius Caesar was still very prevalent to the Elizabethan public it was a common tale and to have that brought to them and shown as a production would have been talked about. The fact that there wouldn't have been any set for the play was quite interesting considering a lot of the public would have had preconceived ideas about how it would have looked, the point of no set meant that it would be a lot easier for the average person to interpret it how they liked and make the show what they wanted to. Props such as swords and letters would have been used to bring the violent element of the play to light when Caesar gets assassinated and using the Mark Anthony speech when he is talking about the will to draw the audience to a focus point. Costumes would have been used to show the different levels of status in the play between the characters and illustrate the personality of a character too giving the audience a clear idea of where each character sat within the hierarchy of the play. The political themes of the play lie in that it was better for Rome when they had a monarch, it was a way for Shakespeare to suck up to Queen Elizabeth and gain her approval for his work. It also meant that the audience would be thinking that it was a good thing that they had a monarch, and weren't letting history repeat itself. The politics involved in this play were purely to get a lot of favour from the people who held the power of it's day, it would also ensure that William Shakespeare had free clearance to keep putting his plays out there.

The theatre in Elizabethan times was a real social thing it was available to all levels of society, the levels were stills shown within the theatre not only as to where people sat but also in the prices of the tickets. The different levels of seating were divided as such, the yard is for the standing public who would come on the day, the lower upper and middle galleries and the Lord's rooms. The yard would have had the everyday men and women, the galleries would have housed those who could afford the seating and were higher up in the class system, the Lord's rooms were for the Lord's of the courts to be seen in their extravagant outfits, they were situated to the sides of the stage to allow the public to see their finery and show off their status. Shakespeare was alive and working during the reign of two monarch's, Elizabeth I and James VI and I. The religious differences between these two times changed dramatically, the country went from Elizabeth I's time where most nobles were still Catholic and so in turn were a lot of the commoners, even though the protestant's were beginning to gain more support and so the Queen showed her dislike for them. When James VI and I took the throne in 1603 the puritans began show their want for reform in the country's religion, in 1604 James VI and I called a conference at Hampton Court to allow the Court to hear what Puritan leaders had to say about their religion and so began their climb in the world of religion.

Theatre has changed in many ways since the days of Shakespeare, it has evolved to allow almost anything to be performed without having the writer beheaded for a treasonus theme in the play. In the Elizebethan era only men were allowed on stage because it was not respectable for a woman to be on the stage, now we have not only women on the stage but women playing the male roles, I recently saw a production of Henry IV that was an all female cast and set in a prison of modern times. The price of a seat in a theatre now costs a lot more than it used to and most wanted seats have gone from being behind the stage to be seen and admired in all your finery, to the front row of the upper circle to gain the full view of the stage. Ticket prices used to range from 1d to 5d which would now translate to roughly £0.52 to £2.61 which really wasn't much whereas now we would pay between £30 and £100 for a good west end theatre ticket. Plays in the late 1500's and early 1600's would only play for at most a few days and then a new one was expected of the public, now we have plays that will run for several months at a time and even musicals that have been running for decades. There are more things for the public to do now rather than just going to the pub and the theatre, the theatres now also are indoors whereas the shakesperian theatres were outdoors and because of lighting were only performed during the day (candles were dangerous with thatched rooves and wooden structures) and sometimes due to weather conditions they would postpone shows as with no roof a lot of their audience would have been uninterested in being drenched at what is supposed to be a fun event.

This is a link to a Youtube video that explains the outline of the play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgyAPrv30eg

The link to the RSC website

http://www.rsc.org.uk/

Punk Rock and Shakespeare - Week 1

These first few weeks back have been interesting to say the least, it has been a period of transition for all of us, going from the first year to the second and final year of this course. We began the term by finding out what our new time table was and which subjects we would and will be studying. In this first week finding out what we were going to learn about and perform set a certain feeling that this really was our chance to work hard and shine, the subjects we are studying and learning about in this first term are contemporary theatre and Shakespeare.

Contemporary

In Contemporary theatre we are studying, producing and performing the play Punk Rock by Simon Stephens, the play is about a group of teenagers in the library of their fee paying school and are in the process of studying for their final A Level exams and applying for university. This of course means that tensions are running high and everyone is at their wits end but is unwilling to show it. We began our study on this by doing a read through as a group of the play, allowing us to get a feel of the script and knowing what goes on within the play as well. After going through the script we had a group discussion of the play, finding out how each of us perceived each character and our thoughts on their backgrounds and what is really going on behind the scenes. Reading this play for myself was quite hard because having gone through a similar secondary education as the characters, I found I was comparing my own real life situations to the characters, and although this was in some ways quite painful because I could relate to the characters and their position in the world, It also gave me the advantage of knowing what was going on in the characters minds and how they were feeling about the whole situation. They in my mind were almost scared and do a lot of what they do out of fear, they study out of fear of bad grades and bully out of fear of loosing their place within their delicate hierarchy of student politics.

The play itself I found to be brilliant because of how true each sentence that is said is and i do honestly believe in what Earnest Hemingway said "all you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know." and there is a specific speech that Lilly says in the play that to me almost justify's the whole play, in this speech lilly is talking about good people and how William isn't any different or any more special than anybody else, this to me was an important part of the play because she stated quite clearly what a lot of people that age don't realise, that we are all the same, that we are no different or no more special than anybody else in the world. This play also touches on the fact that in a lot of fee paying schools bullying isn't necessarily done with physical fights but with the most sinister and thought provoking words that stick with you and eat at you until you snap, and this is exactly what happens to William, at the end he is so sick of the verbal abuse that not only he gets, but also everyone else that he takes matters into his own hands, not in the most ideal way but he does, it also shows that the way he and other children might react, still although about to be an adult not quite knowing how to handle the situation.

Shakespeare

In Shakespeare we are studying Julius Caesar which was written in 1599 and follows the story of Julius Caesar's reign over rome and his assassination. I was quite glad to hear we were going to be studying and performing excerpts of this specific Shakespearian play because it was one of the Shakespeare plays I have not studied as much in my own time, it gives me the opportunity to really explore and develop my own personal knowledge of Julius Caesar. I loved the fact that we were studying one of the Historical plays instead of one of the Tragedy's or Comedies, I like that it is a real life event and that these events did occur.

On Wednesday of last week we took as a group a trip to The Globe Theatre in London to see the production of Julius Caesar in the original text and costume. Also whilst there we participated in a workshop with one of the educator's there who also took us into the theatre and showed us around and let us know about how the theatre was used and what to possibly expect from the show.

 After Showing us the theatre we went into the studios along the street and did a workshop on the play itself and together worked on a scene from the play and tried the rehearsal technique that the actors in shakespeare's day would have used and that was to have only rehearsed it about three times and the end result was really good, it wasn't perfect which you wouldn't expect after having only worked on it for about half an hour but it was good and I liked what was produced. We also looked at another scene between Cassius and Brutus and looked at actioning and how that affected the scene and how it changed the meaning of it, applying certain moves to certain objectives changed the atmosphere of the scene completely and made it more intense without overworking it. After the workshop we went to the museum attached to the Globe Theatre and found many amazing things, they had a whole display on costumes and the sort of clothes that would have been worn in the productions in Shakespeare's time. There were also lots of other types of displays such as a section on drawings of the characters out of the plays and concept art for costumes and set 

design ideas, on the ceiling was art that depicted the stars and the constellations of the time when the stars were considered to bring you luck and tell the future, there are also constellations on the ceiling of the stage of The Globe. Having had a look at the museum and gaining more ideas and learning new things about The Globe's history, we went for lunch and a break before going to see Julius Caesar. Coming back to go and see the play was quite surreal in a way walking into the theatre with everyone else and finding a place to stand and also have a good view of the stage, being only 5'1 my view of the stage was limited having much taller people in front of me, this also gave me an idea of what it would have been like in Shakespeare's day being in an overcrowded space trying to get a good view of the stage. During the performance I had to move to the back because the crowd of onlookers was quite overbearing but also a learning curve as to what it really was like, being at the back I had a better view of the stage and the actors because there were less people surrounding me. I found it fascinating from the back of the theatre to watch how the crowd reacted to what the actors did and how the play unfolded in front of us, some knowing what would happen and others not knowing what would happen, and yet by the end we all came out of the theatre having had the same experience of feeling the same things the actors were and going through their stories with them and taking that home with us.