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 (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 successfullyand 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:
vDo
whatever I already do reasonably well, even better (who doesn’t want
that?)
vAcquire
skills and attitudes to do what I cannot do right now, but would like to be
able to do
vThink
more clearly
vCommunicate
more effectively with others
vManage
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.
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
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.
To begin today’s session Ellie
lead the class in a vocal warm up in which we repeated the phrases “Bunny Bunny, tikiki and ooha” .
“Bunny Bunny” Was said if you where the person pointed at in the
middle, you would then have to do bunny ears, people on either side of the
individual in the middle would then progress to say “tikiki” whilst the mass group would do a gesture and say “ooha”.
The purpose for this activity, I believe, was to gently ease us into the
topic of voice in a creative and fun way, whilst warming up or vocals chords;
and making our ensemble concentrate, due to the games nature being one of speed
and group participation we all needed to be focused.
This activity was followed by another
basic warm up that focused on alleviating tension in the body. We lied on the
floor in a supine position (flat back legs on the floor) and also in a half
supine (knees pointed up feet flat on the floor). Whilst in these positions we did stretches to
loosen the rib cage to allow for easier intercostal breathing.
Intercostalbreathing is breathing into and filling the top
third of the lungs, as in clavicular breathing, and then continuing to breathe
into the middle part of the lungs.
Intercostal (“between the ribs”) breathing is
accomplished by pulling up the clavicle, shoulders and torso, and then
expanding the chest wall and ribs.
Intercostal breathing is useful
for a performer because it allows for deeper breath inhalation which doesn’t
stress the throat muscles. For a performer having to do a long monologue this
technique would help pace the speech and help them carry the voice on the
breath without tiring their voice too much.
This technique is also great for
a performer’s posture, as we have to stand up straight to allow the technique
to work properly, posture significantly helps a performers presence on stage,
because it is a symbol of their character’s status.
The quote of the lesson for me, “voice is completely different
from speech, it is a noise carried on the breath” helped me to clarify the
difference in my head and allowed me to go home an d research.
What I realised is voice and breath are independent factors,
breath can function independently but the quality on the voice is affected by
the quality on the breath. Voice needs breath to carry and support it.
Diagram depicting what happens during intercostal breathing.
Bibliography
Author/s
Year
Title
Edition (if not 1st)
Location Where published
publisher
Ellie Darvill 2012 Verbal quote: “ voice
is completely different from speech, it is a noise carried on the breath.”
http://g09respirationr3a.wikispaces.com/file/view/sports-training-diaphragm-breathing1.jpg/337689418/sports-training-diaphragm-breathing1.jpg (Accessed 31 Oct 2012)
This evaluation is both self-analysis, feedback received by
peers (and audience) and lectures.
Unit 28:
Development of Acting Skills
LO 2.2 – Personally I believe that I used minimal acting skills
in this role, yes I was a character but because I was a narrator I felt I was
simply telling a story at points, I didn’t really have any objectives or subjective
to work with. This is mainly because my character was improvised.
There was no depth to the character more just a facilitator which
didn’t leave me room to explore or create anything with her, but helped the
flow of the piece. When it came to feedback and watching the performance on
video; then I got ideas for an emerging character which could be developed.
If there were to be another performance of this play then I
could have made my character The Narrator, an astral projection of “Ziggy”; the
mentioned friend/real person spoken about in The Speakers speech.
After Ziggy’s failed suicide attempt she has been left “brain
dead”, now that I have time to think about her more, I like the thought of her
being a character that wonders off in her mind and manifest out her body trying
to help people like her.
If I had thought of this before then I could have built a
narrator who had the objective to make the audience want to help and get more
involved, I also think I would have created supreme objective of urgency
because she could see what direction was heading in. I think this could have
helped me developed as an actor thinking about factors behind why my character
wants to save others and how she could. And I believe it would have helped the
overall performance because it could have created a more “character driven
narrative”.
Unit 29: Devising
Performance
LO 1.1 Devised performances are used by well established companies such as complicite to produce new an innotative drama pieces that incorperate multimedia or to see ways of creating plays with a differenct perspective. Devising drama as an esemble I believe helps the cohort to bond and have an ownership towards the piece because they've all had an input in the direction the play is headed. LO 1.2 A range of techniques used by companies to devise a performances is by producing stimuli for the cohort:
Artefacts - Photographs, paintings, masks, props, costumes, sculptuers, art objects.
Music
Newspaper and magazine articles
Poetry
Extract of plays text
Book extracts
Films, TV, video stills or clips
Live theatre performances
The company have time to play, look and experiment with the objects or text that they have. They can then use a multiple of techniques such as freeze frames and tableaux to build an image. live frozen images are like photographs, it gives time for the cohort to focus in on the shapes the body is creating and the facial reactions being produced. LO 1.3 With my group the techniques we used were marking the moment, narration and cross cutting. We marked the moment two times in the piece and both times we did it in a literal way by highlighting the centeral actor/actors on the stage with a stop light, e.g the arguement between Chelsea and Alex: the action was frozen around them the rest of the ensemble blackedout and a spotlight on them for the arguement, we chose to mark this moment because its when his life takes a turn for the worst and we wanted the audience to think is it because of the break-up that leads him to want to take his own life? A second mark the moment in our piece is when Alex (being played by Jon) is cutting his wrist, we used music and the higlight to create tension in the piece which we hoped would play on the audiences emotions so they could empathise with the character; this is because with promenade performancesthe audience inhabit, not just watch, a space.
LO 4.1 My group was fortunate enough to have two opportunities to have
feedback on our performance. The first time was directly after the performance,
whilst the rest of the ensemble began singing Jon and Sinead gave out balloons,
once the singing had ended they asked our audience “if you thought we have portrayed
our piece in a sensitive and educational light then please pop your balloons”.
At the time every single person popped their balloons, which I think speaks
volumes and we can class that as a success.
We went for that method of evaluation, because it was a
risk; risk being the overall objective of the whole project, and because we
wanted to do something outside the box which wasn’t the generic questionnaire.
During the peer evaluation session however when everyone had
a chance to reflect upon that method of evaluation a resounding question we received
from most people was “now the balloons are popped what have you got from that
except the answer to a closed question? “
LO 4.2 I think one way we could make have made our evaluation
method better is by having put a rolled up brief questionnaire inside the
balloons or if we had had time then we should have set up a web blackboard or a
physical one where people could anonymously post what they thought, how it
affected them and offer more portals for help on suicide prevention in case
anyone in our audience really needs that kind of help/advice.
Another feedback that we got a lot was interest in the ‘Aspirations’
at the start if the play, to us the cast and creators the characters where
facilitators and a means to an ends to symbolise the lack of aspiration dreams
and plan for a future that our protagonist Alex had, over they aroused great curiosity
in the audience and they wish for them to be “explored and developed more”.
If we were to perform this piece again we could work in
making the play more “character driven” and developing those characters briefly
glimpsed at the start. Companies such as Grid Iron who mainly only do sight specific performances adapt their pieces to new sites when touring their work or they adapt it to the stage. Our group had the opportunity to adapt it to the stage but we thought ours definately needed the sight for it to have the same impact, what regret is thats we didn't take the 'risk' and try to adapt it to the stage.
UNIT 73: Voice and
Speech Development and Practice
Once I was assigned the part of narrator and I knew that we
were doing a promenade performance that would take me into a vast space
outdoors I knew my voice would be my biggest tool that I would have to hone
during this performance.
LO 4.2So I began to research how I could project my voice more
powerfully to build on my previous range. I landed across a video by Anna
Berstein (“How Can I Project My Voice More Powerfully”) it’s just under two
minutes. The most profound thing I learned was that “your voice has no power,
it is the breath that projects the voice”. This lead me to conclusion that I
would have to work on my breathing control especially since I would be walking
quite a distance with the audience and at one point doing a brief sprint.
LO 4.2 Knowing this I explored relaxation methods and did previous
singing exercise I had been thought to retain breath for longer. Such as counting in the air and focusing on
the diaphragm. Doing exercises such as “pulling the purse string” this is where
you focus on the diaphragm and clip it almost taunt whilst pushing air at the
same time.
Watching back the performance and from feedback the audience
members all said they could hear me so I would consider that learning objective
met, in hearing I also wonder if it was with clarity because I practiced my
diction and emphasising my words.
Other areas I worked on was pitch and tone because I was
speaking for a very long time, it was almost like a scrolling monologue so when
it was appropriate I changed me tone and emotion behind the words. Such as the
walk from point “B to C” when I began shouting “BECAUSE HE WANTED TO SHOW THEM
HE COULD DO SOMETHING RIGHT, SOMETHING ON HIS OWN!”
I had to maintain my volume and clear voice but inflict a
painful and angry tone.
LO 4.2 From the audience stepping back and appearing taken aback
when I did that I think that was successful.
However because my character was emotionally limited I
believed I was also vocally limited when it came the emotional I could inflict
into my voice and tone; that is a failure on my part because this could have
been the time that actually got to explore emotionally.
The performance started with my character, The Narrator, I
was located downstage-centre whilst the rest of the cast were positioned in a
straight horizontal line behind me, spanning from upstage left to right; in
rehearsals we plotted (‘blocked’) out this staging to place emphasis on what my
character was saying but also to create a conscious proxemics between my
character, the audience and the other characters. I was the “middle man”.
Being so close to the audience and directly addressing them,
thus breaking the fourth wall further emphasised this, by breaking the fourth
wall my character facilitated a dialogue between the audience and the
characters. We wanted to establish this line of communication so that later they
would be far more open to it when I would be addressing them solely (during the
walk about) and there would be no action for them to witness.
It was also a part of
our stylistic element because we were going for a non-naturalistic play; we
wanted a production that was almost like a story book with a “Once upon a time”
narrative flare but with a modern twist that highlighted that ‘Suicide’ is real
and far more pressing than some of us care to think about. We wanted our
audience to “think this could happen to me or someone I know and what would I
do?” But we also wanted to address and be sensitive to people who might be
going through it, because even though we had a dictated audience that does not
mean we knew their personal circumstances.
That is why during, The Speaker’s; narrative about “My
friend Ziggy” I started to hand out fliers when she addressed the audience
saying “If you feel alone, speak to someone I beg you!” This was done because
although our piece is to entertain our main aim was to inform and educate that
there is help out there, and that it’s not always a “big thing” or event that
triggers bouts of depression or suicidal thoughts.
The fliers contained numbers to real suicide help lines and
internet web pages, other real information in our play were the statistics
being held up at the back by the masked characters in the midpoint of scene
two.
During the end of scene two, I instructed the audience to
leave the Hexagon theatre and meet me in the foyer of The MAC; this was so I
could begin the promenade element to our performance. However before that, I
let the music play (“Nobody Knows by Pink”), whilst Jonathan (Jon) one of the
actors playing our protagonist Alex, sat hunched over and crying due to his
actions early in the scene, where he depicted of one many self-harming processes,
in which he was methodically slashing away at his wrist.
I waited because; I wanted the lyrics of the song “Nobody
knows, but me, that I sometimes cry” etc
to really sink in, especially after what they had just witnessed because
the song was chosen to evoke a reflective/sad emotional state from our
audience. And it worked because I could see and hear members of the audience
crying.
Once I met the audience in the foyer of The MAC I ushered
them outside, instead of starting my narrative straight away this is because I
had timed everything I had to say during my groups rehearsals and knew that is
if I began too early I would run out of scripted material before I reached ‘point
B’.
The moving from location to location or “A to B to C” was
quite demanding on me as a performer and the play. This is because I had to
keep the audience occupied with the storyline whilst detailing mundane aspects
of Alex’s life “On Wednesday he watched the T.V. from dusk till dawn”, whilst
having to project a great deal because we were outside in a vast space and my
voice stood a risk of being lost or swallowed up.
I believe I managed to project to the point that everyone
could hear me.
The two outside locations: the bench by the fair ground and the
bridge, where the other two Alex’s waited in character where also quite
effective they were like still shots, images the audience could absorb and
associate with the characters words.
However I’m not sure if it was because the audience was
spread out or because actors in my ensemble could not hear/project enough some
cues where missed, but instead of seeing this as a negative I think it was a
good thing because it allowed the actors that it happened to, to improvise
their way around the miss haps.
At the end of our performance we decided to sing the song (“Lean
On Me” the Bill Withers version), this decision was made in the rehearsal
period, it was a democratic vote on whether to have it or not. Personally I
think it was the right song done for the right reasons. The song was there to
uplift members of the audience after the emotional journey we had taken them
on.
The Old Man, played by Dannel began with a verse of the song
upon which the rest of the ensemble joined in and we encouraged the audience to
which they joined in because it’s a well know song. I believe it helped to
raise spirits which was its intent and to signal a positive end.
The end of the play is Kev’s Alex just sat still on the
bridge, the thought whether he jumps or not is left up to the audience. However
on looking back at the video of the performance I do not think a long enough
pause was left, thus this may have gone over the audiences head.
