Week 3

so 'truth' is a question we tend to ask when we watch as show in the theatre, where did the question of it come from and why and who are the question we mainly don’t tend to ask ourselves. This week we began with looking at this.

well now I can answer these questions as this is what we began to look at on Monday, It was in fact Anton Chekhov 1860-1904 that started to notice the different with acting he was original from Russia it wasn’t too he, parented up with Stanislavski in 1898 when he joined the Moscow art theatre, that they started to work on plays to have atmosphere.

Stanislavski was born 1863-1983 he was opened to theatre throughout his life but was only method acting as he grew up with this he felt the need to go a study it, 1885 he attended drama school for 3 weeks and claimed it was teaching him 'what to avoid'.

This week we looked at some improv and how to make it believable and to make it true and not put on, so that it build an atmosphere while doing this we study the system with acting such as; circles of attention, solitude in public and the magic if. While studying some of these we would have to put our self through our memory if we could go to the place this can tend to be dangers as you can go to place and not return. 

A good example of this is when we improved that we were lost as we were lost in a city but once working on it after a while you began to feel empty and that nothing was there around you, even though other people were in the room it didn’t feel quite that they’re where actually there with you, This made me feel empty and cold with in body temp. Another example that i found really worked with this is when we did a polish improv with groups as i went a put myself in the issue we acted out and it was not nice to feel that much emotions at once and i don’t want to even image when it or if it does happen. The issue my group decide that our mother was in hospital and waiting for a heart replacement while begin on life support, the atmosphere within the group was un-real how much it changed the whole room atmosphere. so i was glad that i was with a great group so that we could experience this.

even though earlier in the week we did the same sort of thing but it didn’t quite work as well as we didn’t have rules to follow so it tend to have a comedy side of things so it was not as believable i thought, i also think a reason for this that some of us lost focuses due to the audience  began to laugh. 

week 2

This week was mainly to do with auditions, to see what part would push us as an actor. While reading the script I found that most characters had some relation and summarily to Helen of Troy. On the first day there was not any character that which stood out for me in the script. The main reason for this was because I tend to like the over to characters, at first I thought this may have been an issue. After Monday I was stuck with parts of the script I would like to try, so went home thinking that this could be script I would start to hate, hate is quite hard to put on script that you haven’t even started fully , so the only thing I could do is to carry on and hope for the best for the rest of the week.

The next day with acting and put the script on to feet was Wednesday, Wednesday was slightly harder for Karan to see us in characters that we may have sorted, due to the fact that it was auditions for the next year to start the course. This did not put me off with trying best so I could get a full insight with the characters, as it may help me with making a decision. One of the main characters that stood out to me while acting it out with Jeannine as I liked how the power changed during the scene, the issue with getting this part would be that it was too much alike as Helen Of Troy.

 

There was one part that i really did not one in the script and this was Anne, this was because of the Shakespeare that Anne has to relay and I’m not the biggest fan of Shakespeare scripts. I don’t really have reason to give for why I’m not guess but I think one of the reasons may have been that we study him so much in school. So on Thursday when I was asked to act of the script as Anne I was not the happiest person in the world, I guess after trying it and working more on it my heart kind of lighting up to the character. Also we found that Anne was different from Helen Of Troy as she was sweet and soft with her body image.

Once I began with the Shakespeare speech it kind of felt different and I felt that I was on stage and really relaying the words in front of millions of people, this was the first time i have felt this while studying acting. So even thou i have been cold hearted toward Anne the character have inspired me.  So when I was told that my casting was Anne I was kind of happy even though I never showed it.

 The reason why I’m happy that i go0t Anne in the end that she is different and in a way i can relate to her going out and wishing for something, as i have a wish that if I don’t do well in acting or go on to study law that I’m knowing the music industry. Also the time period of Anne is when the great plague of London began and to be honest i love history and the fact I get to work on history more and to research such a powerful memory of the time is amazing for me as you can never know too much.

I also started to begin to think of ideas for the prostrations we have to do in small groups, but if i told you them it wouldn’t be a suspire so i guess you will just have to wait and see.  

The Wardrobe week 1 (6th-12th)

So it was the first week of hearing and working on the new script ; the wardrobe , I personally think that it has wonderful story line of how it travels through out the different time periods. Whilst reading it I found it tended to take me back to my childhood; as I would have a little quite place where I could be myself with different people; when I was 5 years old I would seat in tree with my cousin and we would talk and play games with in the tree.
When I was 10 my brother and I would make a tent under his bed and hide and tell each other everything and then being the age I am now when I want to be allow or be myself it is in the public place as everyone can see but it is roof , that we would all sit on when I was younger.

I can see that I will be able to connect with the script more within this day and age as my must recent place that reminds me of the wardrobe , is in the car with one of my best friend (my dad) as I can sing and dance and not worry about the outside world as i know I should be lucky to have some where like that.

I wasn't there Wednesday due to trip with a different subject.

Thursday we looked at different scene and try to get them on to our feet to see how we would look in characters , this I found interesting as I have no idea in what part I would enjoy at the moment but while trying different ones it has given me chance to notice , which one will challenge me.

So all together I am ready to take on bored the script to bring it to life

Evaluation of Greek Performance

Evaluation on black and white:

Basics-

During the performance of black and white that is based on The oresteia by Aeschylus and Blood and light by Helen Edmundson; i found that the cue of my line where good as i remember in which lines were after each other, i found this was because mainly that it was reparative and a duel log; just because i remembered the cue dose not mean i found it easy to get some of the words penalisation create due to my accent as i am from Portsmouth it was hard, therefore after dress rehearsal we were able to pick up on some that i struggled with. These were word such as 'father','was' and 'unloveable'; this was because in 'father' i would have said 'fafer' therefore i was not saying 'th' in between the word; i also found while saying 'was' my accent really showed this was not what we wanted within my character after sitting a discussing the issue i learnt that even though it spelt with a  's' it is penalised as an 'z'; 'unloveable' was enough main one that stood out when i was on stage as i would not sound the 'un' therefore it sounded like 'loveable' that was wrong, these are only some of the words in which i struggled with. I am glad that we found this problem at an early stage as it will give me something to work on to make me improve as an actress.      

I found during the performance the entrances and exits and scene transition worked really well as everyone was working together to get the scene changed and the cue on stage as quick as possible, behind stage that the audience was unaware of that we was all working together to get everyone in the correct place if they last there awareness of the performance; i found during my scene with shelby entrance and exit worked well even though it was hard to tell as i had to be on stage just before the music started; while during mine and zach scene where we walked in was slightly harder as we had to listen out to line to be said. The exits where a lot easier due to that i felt relief that my lines where over my first scene was easy as i cam off the same why i entered but sometimes people where all within the corner; especially with the news paper skirt. the scene that Helen is killed was a easy exit as no-one was to see me go as i was behind the red cretonnes.

In a whole i think the pace of the performance was good as it had a different within each scene in act one i found that it moved fast not to the point it was rushed but to the point it would draw the audience in, so it tended to work really well with act one; where during act two i found that the past didn't stay on one level, it tended to have different dynamic as some scene would go at slow past as it worked better with the script on the other hand Helen and electra scene tended to be a scene that had both dynamic in as some lines would be said with pause and slow but others would be said fast.   

 The chorus were only really in act one the most so the chorus moments worked really well to get the story started and helped to betray the theme we wanted to get a long i would say one of the strength of the chorus would be that timing and how we worked together to, the main weakness that stood out for me when performing the chorus with energy i found if one person energy wold drop on stage it bough the rest of us down; this was mainly point out in the last show this maybe because half of us came down with a cold now im not saying thats a reason.    

Stylistically-

I would say that the style of the piece was not just one; there was a main this was greek tragedy. even though this was the main one there was still signal ones within the piece as we decide to have chorus this meant we had to work as an ensemble; there was also physical theatre within the play as we felt as a group it would work well to betray some actions even though we kinda wanted some realistic with in the piece we also wanted it to be other the top,

As bring in the chorus as well while playing Helen of Troy i found that i achived some skills and learnt more about myself when acting, i found that i began to work more with in a ensemble this use to be weakness as i found it hard to get everyone  ideas across; during the rehearsal it all didn't  go as down easy but it took a few weeks but we finally got there by doing this i found that it helped me perform better when it came to the performance, i found this didn't only effect me by one person achieving this skill it bough the rest of the class together on stage. in my scene i found that playing Helen of troy helped me play a roll that is kinda of realistic as i usually play a roll of an over the top stereotype.

  

Actors skills-

In the performance i had two different types as during the chorus i had a mystery type of journals character that wanted to know everything that was going on the scene that showed this the most was abbi scene when we were walking round in all different past and i was looking over all different people shoulders, to found out in that they were reading. where when i was Helen i need to have power within my voice and make people listen during the performance i did this my using pauses  before i answered also they way i walked on stage helped get the across; as i walked around with stillness, while doing this i still had to have some sort of incercure i did this by looking around with my eyes and touching my hair and arms when on stage. 

In the performance vocal delivery was weakness as I've already discussed within the evaluation, i found when moving around stage made my delivery lines stronger with in the performance as i felt that it gave me powerful and i could move my diaphragm more to get the loudness i need to get the whole audience to hear my lines.    

Ensemble-

I found that as an whole class performance that we worked well as a team and we always supported each other on stage and behind stage before we went on, i know during the performance some people panic as they get nervous and as team everyone tried there best to kept it together and forces when performing. During back stage some people do lose focus this may have been because of nervous i though that we kept it together during the performance and helped each get back on track as a team. 

The chorus could sometimes lack energy with in the scene; as i think this may have been that we had ran the scene so many times and we lost everything for it, how ever i found that as a team we ended having full control in that the audience choice of what to believe. The most dynamic of the chorus were mainly in different levels with the bodies and in out different individual voice when saying lines as some would say it as they where performing to little children for example, a good scene that would show this would be the final scene at the end of act one as where maybe in little groups but we where all as one.