For the start of this week, we began with another warm up exercise, to prepare us for more rehearsals to develop towards our main performance. This warm up was to help us get through the long session of rehearsals we were to encounter for today. Once we had finished the warm up, the group formed a circular shape, and our task was to read our lines aloud with our partners, to see how far we had come with learning our lines; most of us had learnt our lines with ease and didn't hesitate upon announcing them. After partaking in this exercise, we went straight into the rehearsals. Me and my partner for the 'Lads in Love' scene from 'The Two Gentlemen Of Verona' were the first to perform, since we haven't had much time to develop it on stage, and after doing it, I thought this rehearsal was well needed for the 'Lads in Love' scene in particular. The pair of us had managed to present all of our lines whilst offering interesting characterization advances along with perfect comedic timing, this was followed by positive reactions from both the group and our teacher, whom were partaking as an audience to our performance. After scrapping many ideas given by me and my partner and the rest of the group, we had managed to create the 'Lads in Love' scene whilst presenting our lines in the way of our characters, to make the scene more entertaining and realistic to an audience.
Not only did it help us create an entertaining and realistic picture to an audience, but it also assisted us in developing our characters even more. To begin with, I had different ideas as to how I could present my character, whom is Proteus from 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona', I presented him as a character with deep emotions, as Proteus is both angry and confused in this scene. To show the comedic side to this scene, I used facial expressions to help with the long speeches that my partner was announcing as Valentine. To to keep the meeting of the two friends more serious, the last few paragraphs of the scene was show the serious reality of the fact that Valentine is in love. I was to portray my character in a way that he has to put doubt into Valentine's mind, to make him like this woman less so he has a fair advantage to woe her. Then as the scene draws to an end, my character has to then see the reality of it all as well. Whilst giving dramatic pauses, I have to then realize that Valentine isn't joking and he is truly in love. But what makes this scene more interesting and effective is the fact that in my research into this scene, I had discovered that both of the characters are in love with the same woman, and that Proteus discovers Valentine talking about the same woman he loves, which brings dramatic tension between the two characters. Because this kind of a senareo would make a great plot for a modern day comedy, this had assisted us in making the scene more realistic and comedic to an audience.
Whilst me and my partner worked together to further develop our scene and characters, the other actors that were also in this scene; performing in the background, helped the main performance as well. Because the other actors had participated in helping make our scene more comedic, I also assisted them in making their scenes more realistic and comedic, to give the whole performance an entertaining feel to it all. After our rehearsals for today, our teacher had given us all a simple question to answer in this blog: Do you feel you've embodied your character? My answer would be a straight and honest yes. I do feel, after learning all of my lines and also having a decent few hours of rehearsal time, I feel I have created a decent portrayal of my character, Proteus. Whilst on stage and in my own time, I feel very positive about presenting Proteus, showing his thoughts and feelings towards the situation being caused in the scene whilst giving a comedic, yet serious, tone to it all.
On Tuesdays lesson, we had all
learnt a new dance routine given to us by our dance teacher, to be included in our 'Shakespeare's House
Party' production. In yesterdays lesson, we were all volunteering for a job role to choose to be in for our
production. All of the tasks for these Job Roles were mainly back stage organizations, much like
the 'Jack and the Beanstalk' pantomime, where we had worked in the backstage
departments. But the job roles we had been presented with for this production was to
arrange where everything should go on stage, what costumes we were to wear, and deciding the music and kinds of lighting we all wanted for our performance. My responsibility for this production was the role of Costume Manager, I was to decide what theme of costumes we were to wear and let the rest of the group vote on what we all wanted to wear. The theme was decided to be 'TV/Film Characters, the character I chose to perform as was Shaun from the zombie classic film called 'Shaun of the Dead'. The job roles, alongside deciding what we were doing in the production, was to be included in our booklets as the
first production meeting; this was a good starting point. This allowed us
to understand the priorities we had to acomplish during each meeting in
order to create an entertaining performance. The priorities listed from having
regular meetings outside of college and updating a 'To-Do' list in order to make a decent understanding of what we were doing in the development process as our different Job Roles.
After having a short break, we returned to our rehearsals and continuing what would be an essential part of our production, the dance routine. Our teachers idea for the performance was to open it with a traditional Shakespearean prologue, then to give a montage showing all of the characters in their individual costumes, and to present them all as friends at someones house party, hence the name of the production. We did this, whilst reminding ourselves, that we were to keep the idea that this production is to be set in the modern day times, with the theme of a Shakespearean house party. The idea our teacher had was to open the performance with one of the Puck speeches from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', then we have a dance routine to begin the performance's only thereafter opening with the actor's scene from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Our first session in rehearsing the routine was difficult but all the more still interesting. Difficult in the way of us having to choreograph each dance movement which we all have never done before. That's what made it more interesting for me, because it would also make the performance more fun, not only for us actors but for the audience. Another crucial part of learning the dance routine was to also present our character through the dance. The purpose of this was to give an introduction to each of the actors performing, and for us to present our individual characterization ideas to the audience. So because my character, Proteus, is madly in love with a woman and is angry and confused throughout the 'Lads in Love' scene, I had to perform the dance routine showing my confusion towards Valentine. To begin with, it was making the routine more difficult to grasp, as we'd have to focus on the dance movement and focus on presenting our characterization. But with time to learn the dance outside the rehearsals, I think all of us might be able to give a decent dance routine to open the production.
As the lesson came to an end, my input was presenting my ideas for the costume theme we were to have for the performance's. Along with aiming to focus in making the dance routine more convincing and entertaining for the main performance.
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