Three Sisters: Annotated Script

LO 1.1/1.2 An example of my annotated script for Three Sisters, I believe when preparing a role or during rehearsals it is appropriate to mark on your script; in my case I highlight and I question things about the character I would like to find out later, or explore suggestions my peers/fellow actors have said to me during rehearsals which I could use to improve my character. I don't just annotate my own lines I believe you should consider the other characters and your relationship/interactions with them.

At the moment Olga's main interaction is with Irina, the youngest of the three sisters, I can sense a lot of tension; at this present moment it time I'm playing it that this is due to jealousy Olga feels towards Irina's youth and freedom; whilst feelings like she has to take on the parenting role to look after her.

The fact Olga is a teacher is giving me the impression that she blurs the lines of home and school, she takes her authority home with her, and this is suppressing to Irina.

NLP: Seminar With Paul

 Lesson with Paul:

Tuesday 13^th November 2012

NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) has been brought up quite frequently by Paul, in all honesty I have never heard of the term before, and upon primary research I could not see how it linked in with drama.  

LO 3.1 But as I read on and I saw that NLP was all about how to ‘actively use your mind and your emotions and your body to run your own life more successfully and to communicate with other people with 'extraordinary' effectiveness’. I realised these are all the qualities a good actor needs, they need to be in touch with who they are mentally and physically so their quirks don’t rub off on the characters they play.

 For me as an individual and actor getting more skilled in NLP is appealing because it will enable me to:

• v  Do whatever I already do reasonably well, even better (who doesn’t want that?)
• v  Acquire skills and attitudes to do what I cannot do right now, but would like to be able to do
• v  Think more clearly
• v  Communicate more effectively with others
• v  Manage my thoughts, moods and behaviours more effectively.

                                                                              (How I wish to be as an individual)

 During this morning’s session Paul lead the class through a light NPL activity in which you are directed through a dream sequence of your own creation; but you are asked to do things such as follow the people within the dream or build rooms and think about the exact colour objects are.

 The entire class was asked to lie in a supine position, close their eyes and try to relax as much as a possible, relaxation is important for an actor because a ‘A tense mind is one that will hold you back and keep you on the "safe" road’ (Prior Aphter); I believe this is very true especially when I recall moments when I had been tense on stage and those tense moments have caused me to forget about submerging myself into the character.

 Instead I concentrated on my own nerves and urgency to recall my lines not live in the moment like it was all happening new to my character.

 After achieving a relaxed state I closed my eyes and listened to the first prompt, “you are laying on a beach somewhere, starring up at the blue sky”. This may not sound like such a hard thing to visualise however the ‘external event’ for us was a cold winter morning in a cold room where the air vent couldn’t be turned off. I now realise this is a form of NLP where you must combat external events and distort/change or create an internal event.

 I was so absorbed within the dream that despite the cold weather I felt myself getting warmer, I think this is a great result because as an actor I can use this tool in future to immerse myself in the world of any character I’m playing and forget about external factors; it will be especially good for ‘Three Sisters’ because I have to imagine myself in there world, amongst their furniture and ornaments in a totally different time period.

During the activity we were lead through to other destinations within the world be had mentally created, and we were asked to follow a character. The dream was very vivid it felt like a panoramic HD film and I remember following a little girl in a red dress with long black hair to her home, we were asked to look into their eyes; I remember feeling a state of utter calmness coming from the little girl, this juxtaposed with how I thought she would feel, as a little girl being all alone. 

This taught me a valuable lesson as an actor, I may assume something about a character but eventually they may morph and grow from assumption.

Bibliography

Aphter Prior, Mar 15 2012 , Online article : http://voices.yahoo.com/film-acting-importance-mental-relaxation-to-11102850.html?cat=40  (Accessed 13/11/2012)

http://www.nlp-now.co.uk/nlp-what.htm

http://mysuccessfullife.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/tagcloud-300x191.jpg Image URL

Acting Unit 10 : Three Sisters

An Actor Prepares

 LO 1.1 For me the first thing I do when I receive a character in a scripted piece is to read the text, this may sound like a obvious conclusion, how else would I fulfil my role as an actor if I do not know the words?

But I believe there are many ways to read, there is the commonly known sight and skim reading, for me when I receive a script I must skim read it and get to the end as fast as possible (there are exceptions to this rule however), I do this because I do not want to get absorbed in the plot of the narrative that is the job of the audience in a realistic or naturalistic play. 

What I want to get absorbed in is the objectives and subplot of what is being said by and to my character and looking at the relationships of the characters to each other. I do this on a second reading of the text (which normally happens right after the initial reading) in which I take more time to read and look at syntax; I do this because the way the playwright, in this case Anton P Chekov, places certain words are like clues to the actor about an underlying issues for e.g “I remember when they carried father out, the band was playing, at the cemetery they fired shots in his honour [...] but even so not many people came to the funeral.” This was said by Olga, the character I’m playing, in the opening scene: straight away this let me into the world of the character and has me thinking about the influence that father would have had over my character as a person.

1.      He was ‘general and commanding officer of a brigade’ the military background made me think of regimental behaviour that was taken into the home life, so he would have wanted order at home, did that mean Olga and her siblings had to be quite as children, did she loath him and love him at the same time?

2.      Did the lack of such a strong presence in her life make her feel weak and lacking in direction because she no longer had an outside source to tell her what to do?

3.      Why if ‘father’ was so highly esteemed did hardly no one turn up to the funeral and why is Olga making excuse “but of course there was heavy rain and snow” is she making excuses for herself or Irina and Masha as they are in the room listening to her.

4.      Although there are many questions rose for me I already have an idea of how I want to deliver that line, “but of course there was heavy rain and snow”, I can feel sarcasm and bitterness ebbing from the words, that is my subplot but my objective is to sound reassuring for the sake of my sisters. I believe Olga is bitter towards the people who didn’t turn up to the funeral but realising what she had said she didn’t want to make her sisters upset so she tries to make it sound flippant but my subplot is creating an obstacle that makes what I’m saying sound sarcastic.



Bibliography

Three Sisters , Chekov P Anton, Ledger R Gerald translation, 1998, Script

Acting: Introduction to Three Sisters, Paul

Tuesday 6^th November

Acting: Paul

In the morning session Paul introduced us to the play that we would be working on this term, ‘Three Sisters’, by Anton P. Chekhov.

The play is set in Russia and the characters are all Russian, it was published in 1900 and performed in 1901, it is said that Chekhov was (possibly) inspired by the Bronte sisters when he wrote this play. Having read the play I can see how this could be true, the talent all three sister possess with language and education and a yearning for life is relatable with the Bronte’s and their misfortunes.

We will be working with the first act of the play, the class was separated into two groups and we were assigned roles by Paul. The splitting of the groups is a productive idea because our class size is bigger than the characters cast list, smaller groups means everyone has a part to work with that they can develop.

The character I have been assigned is Olga, the eldest of the three sisters, she is 28 years old; she is the matriarch figure of the family since their father died “exactly a year ago, on the fifth of May”.

I am glad to be playing Olga because I think it will be a challenging role and because she is a complete juxtaposition to me as a person. When developing her I will have to consider her relationship with her siblings, the line between parent and sister will get blurred thus I think conflict will arise in her interactions with them, due to herself imposed authority.