Week 16 Blog, Monday 27th- Wednesday 29th Of January 2014
For the start of this week, our teacher had brought us to a computer room, we were given the task on the computer, to start our written work for the Shakespeare Assignment. She gave us all an hour of the lesson to complete as much work as possible until our time on the computer ends. After this session, we had returned to our classroom to continue with rehearsal's for the assignment. As always, before we start a rehearsal lesson, we perform a warm-up to get our bodies woken up for the day ahead. We did the 'Rubber Chicken' warmup, which I have mentioned/explained in a previous blog.
When we completed the warm-up, we continued on to the rehearsal's. Unfortunately, my partner who was performing as Valentine with me for my part as Proteus in ''The Two Gentlemen Of Verona', was absent for today's lesson, so my teacher decided that we should look back at this play when he returns from absence. I instead was to rehearse for the Actor's scene which is seen in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', where I perform the role of the character 'Puck'. Unfortunately, our teacher spent a lot of time choreographing movement's for each character in the different plays, and we were not able to reach my part in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' in time before the end of the lesson. Obviously, this isn't good for me, as I don't know what my teacher wants me to do physically whilst on stage. To counteract this, I have thought about my character's whilst watching others perform their role, and I have acted out my scene's differently each time with personality changes. These personality changes can range from some overexcited character, scaling down to a more serious character. Both these personality's I have chosen, in my eye's, perform well, but for next lesson, I would like the opportunity to use my 'Overexcited' personality, since I do prefer using this whilst saying my lines to myself. Also, seeing as all the play's we are doing are comedies, I think it'll be good if there was a character that was overly excited and cocky in a sense. And I also noticed that my teacher hasn't used that kind of personality for any of the character's we are performing as.
When we reached the end of our lesson, we were given our daily note's to include in these Blog's:
The first Blog note was to say how I applied skill's/technique's I have learnt so far into the rehearsal's. Honestly, I haven't thought about the skill's/technique's I have used since I change up my performance each time to keep thing's fresh for me since my teacher hasn't given me any sense of direction for my character's in rehearsal's because my partner was absent for 'The Two Gentlemen Of Verona' and there wasn't enough time in the lesson to reach my part of Puck in the Actor's scene for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'.
The second Blog note was to say if I had engaged with the language and why. For all rehearsal's so far and for my line learning, I have fully engaged with the language Shakespeare has used in his play's and reacted to each line with, in my opinion, the right use of expression. I do this because it will help me much more when it come's to the rehearsal's so it show's my teacher that I have gone through my lines understanding how I should react to other character's in the scene, and since we get marked in rehearsal's as well as the real performance, I thought this would be a good thing to include, also giving my teacher various interpretation idea's for my character's.
The third note was to say if I had any new idea's for my character after today's lesson. As I previously stated, I have personality change's that I give to my character's to spice thing's up a bit more whilst I'm learning my lines and using Physicality along with them. Since I didn't do much for my part's in the rehearsal for today, it has given me more time indeed to revise on my character whilst observing other actor's interpretation's for their character also.
The final note was to say what I had inputted into today's lesson. Since this was a rehearsal session, with me being with other member's of the group suggesting different idea's as to how we should physically perform our line's, there wasn't much that I have inputted since I was given the time to revise over my character whilst the other actor's in the Actor's scene were performing their line's, since my character for the Actor's scene, Puck, is offstage for the first half of the scene.
After our break, we all arrived to our Singing lesson. Today our teacher wanted us to go over our self evaluation's once more to prepare for a recording session afterwards in which our teacher would ask us, individually, question's about the different attribute's we had used in the assessment for 'Season's Of Love', these attribute's include Tempo, Tone of Voice, Rhythm, and multiple more attribute's we had used for the song. Unfortunately, the lesson ended resulting with me and several other people in the group not having our self evaluation' recorded, but this is good, since it give's me a whole week to think about what I am going to say to the different question's being asked to me.
For Tuesday's lesson, we continued with another Warm-up, to get our bodies woken up and to also improve our vocal's for the line's we are to perform. We then moved on afterwards to our rehearsal's for a short time before our teacher called us in so she could choreograph our Physical movement's along with the line's in the script. Once again, Unfortunately, we ran out of time when it came to be choreographing my part in the Actor's scene, my teacher did come up with an idea with me being on stage with a beer can and cigarette's whilst sitting on a bench, whilst the other actor's were not to acknowledge my character being there with them. This idea was good, but I had my own idea as to how I was to come on stage for my part and I want the opportunity to show my idea in next week's lesson. And once again, my partner for our partake in 'The Two Gentlemen Of Verona', was absent from the rehearsal's, so I couldn't work on that scene since he isn't there to receive any choreographed movement our teacher suggests to use in the scene.
Once again at the end of the lesson, we had received more 'Blog Note's' to include in these Blog's:
The first note was to say what type of Warm-up we performed in today's lesson and how it would be effective for us to do before rehearsing. Once again we did the 'Rubber Chicken' Physical Warm-up to get all or bodily function's working, since this Warm-up involves our whole body to be moving in a quick motion. Afterwards, we had performed a Vocal Warm-up were we had to say a rhyme in different tone's of voice for each line said in the rhyme. These two Warm-ups are both effective for the rehearsal's since it really doe's help in saying our line's more vocally, so it's not one tone of voice for the entire part. And 'Rubber Chicken' is there to make ourselves show more Physicality whilst on stage, so we are not standing in one spot for the entirety of the performance.
The second note was to say what choice's I have made so far on my character's Vocally and Physically. For Puck, I would like him to be a loud character and to also be cocky with the way he would talk to the other character's in the scene, I feel that doing this would give the performance more interest for the audience since having a loud person on stage can be exciting and since it's a comedy play, how I say my line's might make a few laugh's come out of the audience. Puck, Physically, I would like him to be moving around the stage a lot more than the other character's in the scene, and I would like his movement's to have unique status, so he is much more different than the other character's on stage, resulting in him getting more attention from the audience since he is one of the main character's in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' .
For Proteus, Vocally, I would like him to have a more posh accent in his voice, since he is a one of the Gentlemen of Verona, hence the title of the play. I find it hard to say if he should be a loud or more quiet character since in the scene, me and my partner were given, Valentine and Proteus are having a conversation about a woman that they both happen to have fallen in love with, except that Proteus knows who Valentine is talking about and when reading the script, I caught the scene of sarcasm in his word's, so I can try and implement that in the rehearsal's in some way later on. For Proteus' Physicality, it's hard for me to imagine, since he is having a long conversation with Valentine and I can't see how they would move whilst talking to each other. Since I was thinking about this in rehearsal's, I feel that perhaps watching another person's performance of this scene may help me interpretate what I can do Physically in this scene.
The third note was to say how it was learning line's with no emotional connection at all in term's for our rehearsal session's. It was really easy for me since I have done this technique in the past for other performance's such as 'The Tempest', which is also a play done by Shakespeare. And I also used it for our 'Scaramouche Jone's' assignment which we had performed previously. I continue to use this technique as it doe's help me learn my line's a lot quicker than adding emotion when first learning them.
The final note was to say what I had inputted into today's lesson. Once again, I didn't have much input to give, since we didn't have time in the rehearsal to reach my part in the Actor's scene where I would of inputted several idea's as to how Puck would perform on stage Vocally and Physically.
This is another very thorough blog Nathan and you are relating everything to your development as an actor. As I said last week, you do not need to tell me what you have been asked to write, you simply need to answer the blog points. Well done for continuing to make character choices whilst we were directing other scenes in the session, but be sure to remain involved as this process is not just about performing, it is also about observing your peers in order to recognise techniques in action. It was not that we ran out of time for your scene, we worked on yours the following day, meaning you had a chance to observe others on the Monday, hopefully recognising character objectives and then put your ideas in action when you took part in the Midsummer Night's dream scene on the Tuesday. Good Work Nathan.
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