Starting The Rehearsals

Our session began in the theatre, it was exciting be in such a space. We started with a Stanislavski’s concentration warm up to help us get into a neutral position and to help us focus towards our character.

A vocal warm up followed which was called Tenjeuwah- which means Welcome.

Our next exercise was to close our eyes, stay in one place, and using our imagination to visualize our characters clothing in a mirror, starting from the feet working our way upwards to the head.

After this we would speak out loud of our visions. This was called the full length mirror process.

Using a sentence from our script we would repeat it in different ways with our vision fixed in our minds.

My sentence was “I am the seagull, no that’s not right”

I did find this exercise useful and I would surly use it to help me focus towards any character I play in the future.

After these focused exercises we all introduced to each other what we we’re wearing, this helped us to develop further towards our character. The last session lead us to introduce the room that our scene was set in. I decided to go take the empty space at once as I felt I was totally in the zone.

I do believe I gave a strong descriptive performance.    

In The Here In The Now- Inspiration from The Seagull.

We have these ideas of who we are, who we're going to be, it's hard to look at everything in the Here and the Now. We look at the future, hope for the best, continue living as if it already exists, but what are we supposed to do? Live in fear? I'm not sure I do, I'm not sure it's the right way, but maybe if we did live in fear would we drive further? Live more truthfully? But for those people who do live in fear do they enjoy their lives? Do they listen to the Here and Now? Do they breathe the current air? Either way if the Here and Now is here, do we take it? Or do we see past it? Are we scared to take it? Do we abuse it, the Here and Now...?
I love the Here and Now, I hate the Here and Now, I am the Here and Now, and I am not the Here and Now.
Like Anton said 'All life is Life'... We're here and then we're not.

The Seagull By Anton Chekhov.

Today was the day... Yes indeed, we we're each given our scripts for our first performance that will be held at the Art Depot Monday 15^th November 2010 !
I've been given the part of Nina, Act 4.
My first reaction was- Wow I have many lines to learn, monologue after monologue, having very little experience as an actress I can’t deny it being a little daunting, but at the same time I am very excited to be given the challenge of this character. My first initial thoughts about Nina in scene 4 is that she is very self aware of her goals and realistic at the same time, when she was younger she wanted the fame, the glory, but now she has come to understand that it’s not as glamorous as she thought, however this does not disappoint, it actually inspires her and brings out a trueness within her. She feels even more connected to her soul.

I am yet to read the full play, I look forward to it.

The Process Towards A Naturalistic Performance.

On Tuesday we learnt about ‘The Process’- A set routine; steps we take towards a naturalistic performance.

1. Read the script

2. Read it again

• Analyse the script.
• Annotate.

3. Ask the questions-

• Who am I? 
• Where am I?
• Where am I going?

All these questions lead us to think about Historical, Cultural and Social context. What is our social identity? Do we have a relationship with ourselves, are we self aware? What is our motivation?

Answering these questions will allow us to understand a character on a deeper level. It’s a way of connecting with the character.

4. Timeline- this helps to understand the characters past, present and future. Starting from childhood, through to teens and finally adulthood. What are the characters interest, family and relationships?

5. Emotional chart- To understand the relationships between Parents, relationships between male and females and finally the characters specifically.

6. Rehearsing and Learning lines.

My Intorduction to Stanislavski's 10 Points System.

On Monday I was introduced to Stanislavski’s ten points system.

In order to feel relaxed and neutral we started with a practical warm up; ty chi, the stroking of the bear breathing counts of 6.

A vocal warm up followed. After feeling a little more relaxed we lied on the ground, closed eyes, concentrating on each part of the body, starting with our feet and working upwards we tensed each part separately accompanying with breathing counts of 6.

Then we followed with a concentration exercise, counting the sounds outside the room for at least one minute; bringing our concentration back into the room we counted the sounds within our space.

Raising to a neutral standing position our next steps towards the ten points introduced us to an exercise; emotive words- working with imagination and feeling, we focused with the words, revenge, love and fear.

We continued with a silent ‘bad news letter’ exercise, observing each other through performances allowed us to draw up a conclusion as to what the letter was about.

In pairs we improvised and worked on dialogue for a farewell situation. Each group performed it to the class, we were not allowed to use the dialogue within our performance, the challenge was to be as natural as possible, by using eye contact and complete focus throughout.  

We finished our day with some script reading, my group was set to discover Ibsen’s, A Dolls House, act three. Playing Mrs.Linde seemed intense through out this scene.

I came to an understanding of the fourth wall and how naturalistic plays would never break the forth wall, to interact with the audience would defeat the whole idea of naturalism.

Life As A Student

I have started a foundation degree in performing arts, meeting new people is exciting and the teachers are all fantastic. At the moment we are studying naturalism, I am very much enjoying this, understanding Stanislavski's methods is surly helping me to focus as an actor.
We are working towards a performance which will commence Monday 15th November, the day after my sister's wedding- aaaaahhhh!
All in all things are great, I believe to be going in the right direction and with all that I am learning I am feeling inspired to delve deeper by discussing my new knowledge with like minded people.