Evaluation - 13.10.15

Final Rehearsal

Today was our performance of Hedda Gabler, which is what we have been working towards so far this term.

To begin, we spent the whole day rehearsing and refining our scenes in order to make our performance as successful as possible. The first lot of rehearsing was individual, and the scenes were directed and observed by Jack, one by one, in 411.

As I am in the play for three different sections, I found it hard to find time to rehearse with each as effectively as I had wished I could have., however, I found it to be very helpful to have a sort of one-on-one directing time with Jack as there were no distractions to pull us away from doing the work and getting feedback.

After running through the play once, we were given general and individual feedback. General feedback included , keeping our voices up and sharing our voices with the audience; this also included keeping tongues muscular. Another piece of general feedback which was given was that we have to sound as if this is the first time you are hearing these words so we need to make the words, our own. There were some impressive improvisation skills shown today by some people however we all have to learn to improvise if we forget our lines because as long as we know our objectives, the scene will drive itself. The last piece of general feedback was that we shouldn't play our state but instead we should play our objective. I found this advice to be very helpful as I later realised that I play my state, as Thea, instead of my objective so I could then improve my performance with that advice on board.

My personal feedback mentioned that I need to make stronger, bolder actions, and also to ensure that I don't half-do things; this is so that I show dedication and commitments to my movements and actions to make them more believable and entertaining to watch. Also, I must not play the stake, so I should play my objective instead. The emotion has to be real, so I must ensure that I am always bringing the world of the play into the play. My final piece of feedback is that I must always come onstage with a different energy each time I enter, to show what has just happened to me in my life and how has that impacted my life.

After lunch, we decided to do a full run-through in the Space. Keeping in mind that the final rehearsal before the show is always the worse one, it put me quite on edge; this is because many people were forgetting their cues and talking outside of the Space, unaware that we could still hear them inside. This made me very worried that we could possibly ruin our work due to not being focused/on task.

The Performance

Although we had a very unsuccessful final rehearsal, the performance went very well!

At the beginning of the play, where we performed our abstract movements, I feel as if we all committed to them and completely forgot that we were on a stage surrounded by people; glancing around slightly while doing them proved to me how ready everyone was for the performance as I could tell we were all getting into character and remembering all of our character and background research.

There were only slight whispers backstage, instead of loud talking, which I was worried about previously. This was very helpful and effective in the sense that we could all communicate and rehearse lines, if needed, but it did not draw any attention away from what was happening on stage.

In my first scene, Izzy and I knew our lines very well. On the downside, I feel as if, when I was attempting to project further to fill the space, it made my acting slightly less naturalistic, as I was more focused on projecting and articulating than showing emotion in my voice. On the other hand, it helped my performance slightly in this as it made me less of an emotional character and more of a realistic one as I was showing that I was upset, at the same time as trying to disguise my emotions.

In my second scene, I was very proud of myself as I kept forgetting my lines when rehearsing this scene, however, when I decided to focus on my objectives rather than the lines, the lines seemed to flow out of me. This really taught me the importance of learning the characters objectives and given circumstances as it made me feel more comfortable as the character as I was not so caught up in my head and my thoughts about what the next time should be.

In my final scene, I was very impressed with how all the actors seemed to bounce off of each other and react well in the scene. The thing that I was most proud of in Hedda Gabler was my reaction to Hedda's death in this scene; this is because I used all of my work and research into voice and screaming using your diaphragm into this scene and I feel as if it worked quite well. As I have a high pitched voice, when I have screamed previously, I have felt as if it has come out too high, however, in this scene, I felt as if I really felt it coming from my stomach instead of my chest, making it sound a lot deeper and emotional.

Overall, I believe that Hedda Gabler went very well, although the gun-shot sound effect did not go off in the final scene. I am proud to have been able to bring in my new-founded research into this unit and be able to experiment and working with it in order to refine it and make it work. This has taught me numerous things about acting and also about myself, as I have been able to have to opportunity to experiment with many new and different acting styles/techniques.

Thea Elvstead

Thea Elvstead

Key events that happened in 1890:

• July 2, 1890: The Sherman Anti-Trust Act became law in the United States.
• July 13, 1890: John C. Frémont, American explorer and political figure, died in New York City at the age of 77.
• July 29, 1890: Artist Vincent Van Gogh died in France at the age of 37 after shooting himself two days earlier.
• October 1, 1890: At the urging of John Muir, The U.S. Congress designated Yosemite a National Park.

• December 15, 1890: Sitting Bull, legendary Sioux leader, died at the age of 59 in South Dakota.
• December 29, 1890: The Wounded Knee Massacre took place in South Dakota when U.S. Cavalry troopers fired on Lakota Sioux who had gathered.
  
  

Lesson 5 - 06.10.15

In today's lesson, we did a runthrough of Hedda Gabler with the notes Jack had given us last week.

While watching the others perform, I really learnt about how crucial it is to have our lines learnt as soon as possible. I learnt this when I was watching people forgetting their lines and how the play then suffered.

I also learnt that you need to learn your character inside and out so, if the other actors forget their lines, you can improvise lines that the characters would be most likely to say.

General feedback

After we did a full runthrough, Jack gave us all some general feedback.

This included, 'earning the pauses'. This means that we have to create an atomosphere so great that when there is a pause, the audience are left wondering what the next moce will be and what the mood change will be.

We also have to clue into each other and learn the thoughts of the character. As I mentioned before, this is so that you can speak your character's thoughts if either you or the other actors dry up. Cluing into each other means that you can quickly detect their next move so you can be ready to react to it (whether it's forgetting lines, etc).

We were told to 'have the moment' meaning we should own the moment and enjoy it instead of rushing through it to get onto the next thing in the play

Also, we should all ensure that every sound is properly rooted and muscular so that we are pronouncing every syllable. This is because the characters that we are playing are so upper class and posh so they would not slip up on any sounds therefore we should do the same.

Finding the stakes is very important as we are not properly understanding how high the stakes are in this play; how if they slip up, everything they have is at risk.

We all need to find the contrast more. We need to show the beat change and the change in emotion. Also showing that sometimes our characters may be feeling different to how they are acting so you must also play the hidden emotion.

As the space we are performing in is a large space, we must all ensure that our voices are properly projected so that we can fill the space on the day of our performance.

Lastly, we were all told to feel the beat change and not just show it. This means we should actually be feeling the mood change within us and, again, not rush it.

Personal feedback

I was told that I bring a very good nervous energy to the stage shown through my character. This made me very happy to hear as I had been working on that through the week so it was good to get recognition of that.

To improve, I must keep thinking about my circles of attention - not just what's going on but what is going on as a whole. To do this, I must pull bits apart and analyse where my circles of attention are at these points. I must also find actions to go with the emotions I am feeling to further express my feelings.

Another thing I was told to improve on was my voice and keeping is muscular so that the constonants are 'nice and crisp', as well as being told that I need to keep working on moments.

Lastly, I was told about individual moments in the play. I was told to ensure that I bury my head fully into Thaliqua's (Hedda's) lap when my character is distraught, and also not to be so happy at the end as she has just found a glimmer of hope at the end but Eilert is still dead so she is still very upset.

Deep Emotion

Nearer to the end of the play, my character, Thea, goes through a lot where deep emotion has to be shown.

I have been instructed to do some work on showing deep emotion through my stomach and my gut powerfully, instead of showing it through my head.

The first thing that I decided to do when thinking about this was to Google 'How to show deep emotion on stage'. This search showed to be unsuccessful as the results did not link with what I was intending to find.

I then decided to go onto YouTube and look for 'Deep emotion'. Again, this was unsucessful in the way that nothing came up to help me.

I then starting thinking about the scream I have to do at the end of the play when Hedda shoots herself, so I began to look at how to look at how to scream in a way that you don't damage your vocal chords.

Video On Screaming

I decided to look at singing websites to look at using your diaphragm and other parts of your stomach to scream from. I watched a video where he begins by talking about 50% being mental and 50% being physical; this confused me at first as I did not fully understand how I would 'mentally' scream. He then goes on to saying you have to imagine the sound that you want to make.

There is an overview on diaphram use and how it is important it is to use it when screaming. When you breath in, the diaphragm goes down, and when you breath out, it goes up. He then goes on to saying, you should breathe with your diaphragm while you scream/talk so that your scream/voice does not stop and start.

Deep Emotion

As I could not find anything useful on the internet about showing emotion on stage, I went back to thinking about our emotion memory exercises.

I started by thinking about a time when I felt like I have lost something I really cared about

From this, I then pretended I was back in that situation and I went to look in the mirror and, thinking about Jack's example of how it should sound like when I say 'No', I began to practice saying 'No' in the mirror.

I repeated this for about 15 minutes on a loop but then it began to sound repetitive so I changed my way of working. I decided to turn my back to the mirror and then face it and, in one move, say 'No'. After 10 minutes of this, I began to see a massive improvement.

My target I have set for myself this week is to continue this work and develop my skills ready for our performance.

Lesson 4 - 29.09.15

Imagination Exercise Recap

We began this lesson by talking about the imagination exercise in which we had performed the previous week. We spoke about how we, in this exercise, should 'Imagine life, observe life, experience life'.
By 'Imagine life', we mean to properly think yourself into the situation so that your thoughts could completely change (eg. feeling empathy for people you wouldn't typically empathise for, such as killers, paedophiles, etc) to match the mindset of your character's.
By 'Observe life', we simply mean taking in the surroundings in our piece and observing what it is like to see and live in thee enviroments.
Lastly, by 'Experience life', we mean to live and be a part of it because, as actors, we are doers and we should just throw ourselves into whatever we are doing.

Emotion Memory

The first rule when performing emotion memory exercises is to trust your senses (What do you see/smell/touch/taste/hear?) in order to fully grasp the character's life and how they experience it through their senses.
Another important thing to think about is that you shouldn't just think it but you should start to feel it with your body. This is important so that you do not get caught up in your head but you begin to feel it with your whole entire body. If you just think it, you could get caught up in your head and your character delivery will not be very effective as you will mostly be focusing on how you are delivering your lines and how you are appearing on stage.
Using emotional memory involves you bringing up memories from your past and transferring your previous feelings into your body for your character, however you don't have to have experienced the exact feelings as the character (eg. leaving your husband and stepchildren for a new life with a recovering alcoholic) but there are correlatives in your life (such as, dumping your boyfriend for a new life).
An important thing to remember is that this is an experiment for the rehearsal room to see if it works for you. It may not be very effective for auditions (etc) unless you learn how to turn it on and off on command.

Rules

1) Learn your character biography - This is crutial because you need to know your character inside out before you play them so that you can properly communicate your character to the audience.

2) Identify the exact emotion in the scenes - This is so that you can use the 'Emotion Memory' exercise effectively and use it to correlate your memories to suit the emotion needed by your character.

3) Think about the subtext - Think about what the emotion is really about, trying not to get caught up on the surface emotion as you should 'dig deep'.

4) Find the action that will arouse that emotion - By this, I mean find the action/gesture that will properly capture and compliment the emotion you are trying to deliver.

5) You need to be able to control the emotion - Master the emotion instead of becoming it's slave.

Subtext

This simply means playing what is underneath the line. Stanislavsky said only 10% of what's going on in our heads is only ever expressed in words, meaning only 10% of what is going on in the characters' heads is only expressed in the words in the script therefore to fully capture your character when playing them, you should learn who the character is by learning the subtext.
Body language can show emotion; a character could sound very excited and happy, but if their back is hunched over and closed in, it could show that the character is just putting a front on and that they are secretly very shy and sad. Other than body language, silence is just as important as the words; if silence is done well, it can build tension and show relationships and emotions better than the words being spoken - What's unsaid can be more important than what is said.
Subtext is the key to making the character your own because it's your biew in what the character is thinking or feeling so if you interpret the subtext successfully, you will offer a window to the soul.
There is always an objective and there is always a motivation - To show these, movement should be involved. Moving away or closer to something can easily show what objective you wish to fulfil. Also, the impulses behind what we say and what we do can also be very effective in showing character.