Monday 3rd Of November 2014 Blog Entry
Synopsis Of Day:
Lesson 1 & 2: Physical Theatre And Contemporary Theatre:
For the start of this week in my 'Physical Theatre' lesson, my teacher had talked about the implementation of naturalism within my performance as both Martin and Paul, by including physical actions within my scenes to prevent a static performance. She had mentioned that this would improve my overall grade for the performance of '13', so I began to explore the inner being of my character, mainly Martin, to discover what he'd be doing on stage to not look static.
Input Into Session & Character Development (Reflective):
Through the development of characterisation I've already done for Martin, I had an idea of what actions I can do within his scenes since I'm both not saying very many lines for the whole play as him and I'm standing in a lot of scenes, and looking back at the rehearsal sessions for those scenes, I remained standing in an idle position for the majority of the time.
For this session about implementing a sense of naturalism into my performance as Martin, I was instructed to present 3 different physical actions that are associated with my character in the play, and through my study of their characterisation, I should be able to present this with ease.
The first action that I had done was to present a large yawn, to mainly signify that my interpretation of Martin for '13' doesn't sleep very much due to what has happened to him in the past year, before and during the events of the play. I discovered that Martin dosent sleep very much due to the stage directions given in the script for Act 1 Scene 4, where the scene starts off with Martin presenting a large yawn, as though he was about to fall asleep, until the Prime Minister of '13', Ruth, walks in to wake me up and suggest getting coffee, to which I say "I'm fine."
For the second action, I had thought more about how my interpretation of Martin moves around during his scenes, does he walk at a fast or slow tempo? For my characterisation of Martin within the performance, I want him to be a well structured person that walks with his upper chest leading. When doing this, he walks with a very medium tempo, it's not too fast but not too slow either. I felt that this would suit the character of Martin since my interpretation of him, as evidenced in my character profile, is that he is a very athletic and sporty man so he should be ale to walk with, at the very least, a medium-fast tempo.
For my third action, I thought more about what Martin may be thinking in his head during his scenes and how I could present this physically. I was mainly thinking about what may be happening at the present moment within these scenes and/or what he could be thinking more about the future of the world based off of the actions being presented for the war against Iran by different characters such as Dennis, Sir Christopher and even Ruth, like in Act 2 Scene 7 for example. I'd presented this sort of 'thought process' by looking away from everyone else in the scene and looking like I'm in my own world. This does make Martin more accident prone within the scenes where he's walking around whilst other characters are talking, like in Act 4 Scene 3, when Mark and Holly are arguing, and I want to try and implement another physical action with me maybe walking into someone within this scene to present this sense of naturalism within my character to the audience.
Conclusion:
Having done these physical actions, it did make me more in synchronization with the character of Martin, and within today's rehearsal sessions for Act 4, I'll be sure to try and implement these 'senses of naturalism' within my performance.
After this session in discovering more of the physical traits of my characters, my teacher had moved on to look more into how the group of actors could present John's final speech in the second to last scene of the play in Act 4.
Our teacher had presented this scene by having the character of John standing on the big black box, which has remained on-stage since the very beginning, and all of the other characters within this scene, including Martin, would stand in a semi circular line stemming from the box in the near centre of the stage. When the speech from John was about to end, all of the actors will get out their mobile phones to both react to what John was saying about a video of him going viral and for a special moment within this scene which is that we'll have the sound effect for Big Ben chiming 12 times, and for these 12 chimes, one by one, each actor will shine a bright light into their face in a specific order, with me being the 6th person to do it.
Then, once all the faces have been lit, a nuclear bomb sound effect will go off in the theatre, resulting in all of the lights to turn off to go into the final scene where Rob present his ending monologue, concluding '13', where all of the actors in the previous scene would stand looking towards the audience with a still image. When Rob says the line "I needed to know what the enemy looked like", all of 'The 12' characters currently standing on stage, excluding Rob, would go into their sleeping positions, then Rob will say his final words in the middle of this 'sleeping circle' to which we all of the actors would wake up, to the alarm clock sound effect, for a final time with all of us still panting and having a heavy heartbeat, then this slowly fades to nothing being heard and the theatre lights going out, concluding '13', to which then we all stand in a line to be applauded by the audience.
Evaluative Judgement For Act 4 Scene 10 (Reflective):
I thought that this was an effective and nostalgic way to end our performance of '13' since we are presenting the nostalgic feeling of showing how we had initially presented '13', by being in the sleeping positions and waking up from a nightmare all of 'The 12' had, and then to end it the same way does make it seem more effective.
Since Act 5 had been completely cut from the play, I didn't come out with my idea as to how we could present it, which I'd included in my previous Reflective Blog Entries, to my teacher or the other actors, but seeing as we have now sorted out how to conclude '13', the group have both been able to shorten the time of the play and make it have more sense without the audience loosing the overall plot.
After we had successfully concluded '13', our teacher wanted to look back on the earlier scenes of Act 4 and to try and pick up the pace a bit more since it was going very slowly and it was taking near to an hour to perform it completely. We had worked on some of the ensemble work within some of the scenes, specifically the ones with the speeches, like in Act 4 Scene 1, and areas of public space, like in Act 4 Scene 3.
Input Into Act 4 Scene 1 (Reflective):
For this speech, I was performing as Martin, and I was listening to John present his speech about how he wants to move forward against Ruth and the British Government to his army of protesters, which Martin had become interested in watching due to him spectating another speech earlier on in the play in Act 2 Scene 11.
For this scene, within the ensemble, I was presenting physical actions to represent Martin's opinions towards the topic being presented, which was mainly positive. I had done actions like nodding my head, throwing my fist into the air once the speech had finished saying the line "In Our Name! In Our Name! In Our Name!", and even recording the speech on Martin's mobile phone, so he could both watch it later on behind the scenes and to also have the character link towards the reference of Contemporary Society, which I'd talked about more in my Character Profile and my '13' Contextual Research Blog Entries.
Character Profile: http://sdcperformancens.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/13-by-mike-bartlett-character-profile.html
'13' Contextual Research: http://sdcperformancens.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-context-behind-13.html
Input Into Act 4 Scene 3 (Reflective):
For Act 4 Scene 3, which is a park scene including the character's Mark and Holly, I was included into this scene, as Martin, to perform the 'Chair Duets' exercise which I had done, with my chosen partner, several weeks ago when we were studying about the devising methods of the physical theatre group called 'Frantic Assembly'. We had done the 'Chair Duets' twice within the duration of this scene with the first time being quite a fast tempo, and later on for the second time, we had gone slightly slower. For the two separate times we had performed our 'Chair Duet', we had gone through it three times before we had moved onto other areas within the background of the scene.
When I wasn't doing the 'Chair Duets' exercise with my partner, I was implementing one of my senses of naturalism for Martin within this scene, which was the one where I would sort of wander into my own world of thought, which had made me more accident prone to the other characters in this scene also. There was one time where I had walked into another character to present another physical action which I had intended to perform for this particular scene.
Conclusion Of Day:
After going through these two scenes at a faster tempo, to prepare for our speed run-through of '13' in later sessions, our day of rehearsals had ended. Having implemented these senses of naturalism in my performance of Martin, I did feel that my portrayal of him does, indeed, present more of my character development and I also did feel more embodied with Martin for his scenes more so than previous run-through's. This will hopefully give me a better mark for my performance when I get to present it in show week.
Wednesday 5th Of November 2014 Blog Entry
Synopsis Of Day:
Lesson 1 & 2 - Principals Of Acting And The Historical Context Of Performance:
To begin with the 'Principals of Acting' lesson, my teacher had made me think more about Monday's lessons, where I was thinking about the sense of naturalism for my character's in '13', such as how they walk and what physical actions they would be doing, in the scenes they appear in, to not remain static. This all goes towards my overall grade for the performance of '13' if I can pull it off for both Martin and Paul.
To start off with, I had been instructed to walk around the room with an objective to go towards, and once I had reached that point, I would walk to a different destination. This happened until I was instructed to start interacting with the people in the room, such as hugging them or even a simple handshake. After doing this with a few people, I was then instructed to start walking at a faster tempo. For this part of the process, my teacher wanted to make me think that I was initially walking at a tempo of about 5/10, and for this part, I was going up from the tempo of 6-10, 10 being really fast walking.
After finishing this sort of exercise process, my teacher had asked me to close my eyes and imagine that my character, being Martin, was standing in front of me and I was to witness what he was doing physically with actions for when he is both moving around in scenes and when he is standing still, but not remaining static. When I was ready, I was to open my eyes to reveal the full embodiment of Martin to my teacher.
Input Into Session & Character Development (Reflective):
Whilst my eyes were closed, I had seen my interpretation of Martin standing in front of me and I was witnessing the specific physical actions he was doing for both when he's standing still and walking. Through the character development and research I've done for Martin at this current moment, I knew how I should embody him for the next part of this process: I was to reveal three physical actions that I'd seen within Martin's scenes to my teacher and to also give a demonstration of how he walks and at which tempo.
Physical Action 1 - Yawning/Stretching:
When going through both my character profile and current character development for Martin, I'd wanted to present him as a person who is fatigued, being very tired and not having much sleep at home.
This is all evidenced by stage directions in the script for Act 1 Scene 4 of '13', where Martin was to open the scene by yawning and looking as though he's about to go to sleep, later to be stopped by Ruth. I keep using this physical action, among many others, when I'm standing/sitting still during Martin's scenes in '13', much like in Act 2 Scene 7 and Act 4 Scene 8, where I don't have many lines to present so I'm mainly focusing on what I could do physically within these scenes whilst the other characters are talking.
Physical Action 2 - Kicking My Feet Around:
To perform something separate from my first physical action within Martin's scenes, I also added the use of kicking my feet around during any dialogue that the other characters announce.
This physical action isn't mentioned in the script, but I've added it as part of developing my overall characterisation for '13' and it should award my performance towards naturalism and keep me away from a static performance.
Physical Action 3 - Walking In My Own World:
Due to the events that have occurred before and during '13', Martin has become sleep deprived from it, but externally, he seems to transition from reality into his own world where he becomes more accident prone.
I show this in my performance by simply walking into someone random without even noticing them. I felt that doing this did help towards how I can show the development of my character towards my teacher and to the audience when it comes to the main performances.
After completing this task for developing the naturalism into our characters, we had moved onto another task which required us to summarise a chosen act in the play in one minute. For this task, I was put into a group which had to summarise Act 1 of '13'. The style of our performance was much the same as a pantomime, since we were interacting with the audience and it had more of a comedic vibe to it other than the initial dark, tragic atmosphere. Using our scripts to help structure the performance, we had used moments that were considered more important in each scene to complete the task. Below, I'll list the structure of our performance.
1. For Scene 1, we showed the 12 characters waking up form their nightmares.
2. For Scene 2, we showed John arriving in London from his travels encountering Ruby and Sarah.
3. For Scene 3, we showed Amir being verbally abused by a police officer in the scene.
4. For Scene 4, we showed 10 Downing Street with Ruth speaking to Liam, Martin and Carol.
5. For Scene 5, we showed Amir being brought down by a police officer and getting arrested.
6. For Scene 6, we showed Stephen Crossley's lecture to his students.
7. For Scene 7, we showed Mark and Alice's meeting in the park.
8. For Scene 8, we showed Rachael's first encounter with John after 2 years of not seeing each other.
9. For Scene 9, we showed Ruth meeting Dennis for the first time.
10. For Scene 10, we showed John and Rachael having a conversation in the park.
11. For Scene 11, we showed Mark meeting Amir at the courthouse to support his claims.
12. For Scene 12, we showed the Alpha Group discussing current events.
13. For Scene 13, we showed Ruth's speech to the general public.
14. For Scene 14, we showed Ruby and Sarah's argument during their dinner.
15. For Scene 15, we showed John getting Amir out of the courthouse.
16. For Scene 16, we showed Edith having a conversation with Holly.
17. For Scene 17, we showed Ruth's meeting with Stephen Crossly.
18. For Scene 18, we showed the dance ensemble moment.
I felt that this task was interesting to experiment with because it gave us all a chance to see the play in a different style other than contemporary theatre.
For the rest of the lesson, we had all looked at and went through the entirety of Act 3 and 4 to look for any improvements towards scenes and to give us all a chance to implement the uses of naturalism into our performance. I had managed to implement the physical actions I had mentioned above to all of my scenes in this act and, in my opinion, I felt much more embodied with Martin by having all of these natural non-external and external objectives.
Thursday 6th Of November 2014 Blog Entry:
Synopsis Of Day:
To conclude the week before our main performances, we had gone back to rehearsing for Act 1 and 2 to include the senses of naturalism in our scenes that we had devised on the previous day. This also gave us all a chance to memorise our entrances/exits for the play before we would do the technical run-through for '13' next week. I contributed much more to the development of my character within this session for both his physical and verbal delivery.
No comments:
Post a Comment