acting-techniques

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11. Acting 8.11.21

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10. Acting 18.10.21

LOVE AND OTHER ACTS OF VIOLENCE by Alas, a new script we thus begun. This script is brand new and was first performed this year on the 7th October. Just like last time, we didn’t get any context on what the production was about but after reading the script (which was a lot easier to understand) WWW: EBI:

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2. Performance 12.10.21

Message in a bttle

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Acting

AIMS: To explore different acting techniques and scripts

ENDGAME by Samuel Beckett WWW: From last lesson, we started a new script called ’Endgame’ where we watched a confusing yet intriguing relationship between an blind man, Hamm, and his career, Clov. After getting a good understanding of the scene (even thought it’s still really confusing and weird), we began to use our scripts to learn the dialogue. I played the role of Hamm while my partner played role of Clov and, while I didn’t have any physical movements, I was able to use my vocal skills and facial expressions to show what type of character Hamm was. Before practicing, I took the the time to watch a few videos of different people playing the two characters (sadly I didn’t find the one where Daniel Radcliffe played in it) and I observed the type of relationship each individual actor created between themselves. I realised that Hamm was quite a manipulative and patronising person who bossed Clov around and was able to say or get what he wanted. It was visible due to his condition (it is believed he may have dementia) that Hamm had a very hard personality and that he had endured a lot in his life time which is evident when he talks about his family and the connection he had with the war. To show that haughty quality in him, I used pauses where necessary, usually during and after the conversation with Clov, to create tension and suspense.

I changed the tone in my voice to create different emotions that Hamm was experiencing and his attitude towards Clov, such as

“I’ve made you suffer. [Pause] Haven’t I?”.

Here I said it in a higher pitch with a sense of sadness behind it and a soft expression. There was a visible contrast in Hamm’s personality after Clov answered me to which I replied

“[Relieved] Ah you gave me a fright! [Pause. Coldly] Forgive me. [Pause. Louder] I said forgive me”.

When I said “Forgive me [...] I said forgive me”, the softness from my face went away and I became emotionless instead. My voice was monotone, it came out strong and forceful, almost cold blooded, as if all of my emotions were gone in an instant which further shows how manipulative he can be. I raised my voice slightly after repeating the line and said it in an angry tone.

My partner and I decided that we should add sound effects as well, just like in the performance ’Wolf’, but instead of Clov making the sounds, I did it while sitting really still and I made sounds depending on what actions Clov was doing. I made different sound effects e.g a creaking door opening, opening the metal ash bins, Clov opening the curtains, Clov’s footsteps when climbing up the step-ladder. This made everything a lot more interesting to watch and it allowed us to build in some extra skills and techniques that we learnt from the previous lesson.

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8. Acting 8.10.21

WOLF - INSPIRATION Harrow School Perormance WWW: After watching the performance, we decided to create a story inspired by it, using some of the same characters and adding our own as well. We took some bits from the story line and added our own. We decided to start off by using Brecht’s technique to show the ending of the story at the beginning. It started of with Yusif (who played a charters called Steve) driving in his car with a hostage (Aiden) at the back. He used different sound effects to show he was in his car, using the hand gear and playing the radio. While the rest of use weren’t on stage, we used our vocal skills to create different sounds that Yusif made from each of his actions. When playing the radio, a few of us played different people to show what was on the radio e.g I started singing opera, when Yusif changed the radio, someone talked about the weather , another was promoting and advertising something etc. Throughout the lesson, we started creating our story, adding new plots and ideas, some of us taking on character roles, others being directors while some of us created sound effects for the performance. We did really well in supporting each other, suggesting ideas telling each other what we could improve on, devising an entire improvised story. EBI: I felt like we should really go all out with our physical skills and exaggerate out vocal skills when creating different sound effects. If we had more time, a solid plan for what our story was and what we were doing and saying in each scene, I feel like it would have been a lot easier for us. When we watched ”Wolf’, we noticed that the actor clearly practiced and rehearsed for a long time, polishing his techniques and get the timing right with the soundtracks and lighting.

[acting-techniques]

1. Performance 6.10.21

WOLF Harrow School Performance We went to Harrow School to see a ‘One Man’ performance called ‘Wolf’ and it was one of the most amazing acting I had ever seen. It was performed by one man who managed to tell an entire story, whilst playing 32 different characters, of an anti-hero named ‘Wolf’ who was a detective and he was on a mission to avenge the death of his partner, Jay Walker. There wasn’t any fancy props, theatre designs or costumes. It was kept simple and minimalistic. The actor wore a black, long-sleeved, shirt, black joggers and black trainers. The reason for this was because in order to create all the 32 characters, he needed a simple outfit so that the audience could use their imagination to create the appearance of the characters himself. It was also so that he could move around easier since his performances was based on physical theatre. He also didn’t use props, instead he would use hand gestures to create the shape of the object, like miming them out, and using his vocal skills, he would creat the noises the objects made such as, the creak of a door, footsteps, a phone ringing, even small sounds that may seem insignificant. Throughout the whole performance he was focused, he didn’t break his character’s, was calm and composed and delivered it with great projection and confidence. When switching characters, he would use a spinning gesture with a small ‘swish’ sound to show that he’s changing characters. He used a range of inferential tones, voices, dialect and accents to show what type of characters he was, changing his characteristics, facial expressions, body language and different use of levels. The only prop he used was a chair and two small lights that he wore as rings. The chair was portrayed as many things e.g a car, trolly, motorbike, office, trunk of a car etc. The lights he wore as rings were used when he was creating a specific character (Ninja-Robot?) and when one of his characters were on a motorbike.

(3 characters)

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Acting

AIMS: To explore different acting techniques and scripts

ENDGAME by Samuel Beckett This script was incredibly hard to understand. We weren't given any context about what its was about and the overall monologue and blocking was really confusing. At the beginning, there was a an entire page dedicated to explaining what movements the character, Clov, had to do and it was basically just them moving a step-ladder from one place to another and looking out the window. Although I didn't play Clov when rehearsing, I began to understand what they were doing, how they should be portrayed, how they were feeling and how to shot it. To begin with, Clove is a career who looks after a man named Hamm who is sitting on a chair sleeping and is blind. Clov is visibility a character who is very indecisive and can't seem to make up his mind. To create that indecisiveness, Clov is constantly walking back and forth between two windows with a confused expression on his face and because they are quite high he has to use a step-ladder to reach them. He also staggers quite stiffly which could also explain that he's an elderly man. By creating that perception of him (if I were to play him), I would limp a little and drag my leg slowly whilst having my shoulders tense up, on arm on the side of my back while huffing, wheezing and perhaps groaning a few times to show that I'm tired and annoyed and how my staggering affects my entire body. Clov is also seen as forgetful and careless when he keeps forgetting to use the step-ladder to look out the high windows. By doing that, it gives the audience a sense of sympathy as it seems like he's trapped in there but it could also be quite comedic and funny to watch an elderly man constantly being forgetful. Unlike Clov, who had physical movement, Hamm (the person Clov is taking care of) sat still on a chair. I didn’t have any specific movements to do so instead I read out the movements that Clov was meant to. (wasn’t really fun but oh wells)

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Acting

AIMS: To communicate the theme of unrequited love through a physical theatre piece set in the present day in the style of Antonin Artaud

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM Act 3 Scene 2 - 'Puck' I was really happy at how our piece turned out. It was better than expected and I was really proud of my group. We were all under so much stress over what to do, nothing was going to plan, we had little time to do it and everything seemed to spiral out of control but we managed to get fix everything and our piece went quite smoothly. Mixing a comedic Shakespeare's play with Artaud's 'Theatre of Cruelty' acting skills was really interesting and fun to work on.

WWW: We used some of Artaud's technique's, such as elements of surprise to scare the audience, exaggerated physical theatre to create an uncomfortable, creepy and horrifying experience, different use of voice techniques, scary props, multimedia, different use of lighting and flashing and trapping our audience in our scene. To change the scene and create it our own, we decided that the four main characters, Lysander, Hermia, Helena and Demetrius, were going to act naturalistically and have comedy at the beginning, putting the audience at ease and making them believe that they are safe and that it's a normal play. The characters all end up arguing with each other to which Lysander kills Hermia and that's when all the horror stuff happens. To create this effect, we had the front curtains closed to create a divide in the stage so that the audience couldn't see what was on the other side of it. As the gory stuff begins to happen, the audience walks through the curtains where they are met by a grotesque and scary scene, bloody paper on the floor, candles, red lights and creepy music, [‘Mr Sandman’], being swarmed by Demetrius and Helena as they circled them around while they watched Lysander stabbing Hermia on the ground and laughing crazily. As Puck, I decided that my character was going to be a bit coo-coo in the head and be really psychotic. Since Puck was the reason why all the other characters were arguing with each other, I decided that they were going to have fun with the chaos that they had created and show their 'true colours' to how they actually feel about the whole situation. By doing that, at the beginning of the scene when Lysander kills Hermia, the lights go out and creepy music appears. To create the element of surprise, I dropped a book down from the balcony, where the audience didn't expect, and laugh maniacally at them. At this point, I run downstairs and join Demetrius and Helena surrounding the audience who are sat on the floor and tied up. When surrounding them, I use my whole body to create exaggerated and abnormal physical skills, by bending low, sometimes moving quickly or slowly and touching the audience in uncomfortable ways. I also whisper, hiss and giggle at them until I drag Hermia's 'body' away and stand on the podium to do my monologue. I wanted the audience to see just how crazy and terrifying Puck was, so to do that, I would smile at them menacingly, talk loudly or quietly and used pauses to create a sense of tension. I would laugh hysterically in a high voice, stare at them directly, I moved forward's and backwards to create weird movements. As I exited off into the wings and the scene ended with Hermia screaming, creepy music, ['Run Rabbit'], was played and all of us began circling the audience and singing. At this time, we would suddenly lunge at them or touch them, and we all exited the stage with me laughing weirdly again. EBI: I feel like I could have done my monologue a bit better and exaggerated my physical skills more to create a somewhat intense 'monstrous' creature. Since Artaud used lots of physical theatre, I think I should have added or exaggerated it more to really terrify the audience. Also, I was really bummed out when the music didn't play during my monologue. I was meant to have some creepy piano playing in the background but something happened to the audio so it didn't work. But I managed to pull through and it worked out in the end :)

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Antonin Artaud

Antonin Artaud was a French dramatist, poet, actor, and theoretician of the Surrealist movement who attempted to replace the “bourgeois” classical theatre with his 'Theatre of Cruelty,' an experience intended to liberate the human subconscious and reveal man to himself. Artaud was a very sickly child which then led him having lifelong mental disorders that sent him repeatedly into asylums. When Artaud was a teenager, he began to have sharp head pains, which continued throughout his life. In 1914 he was the victim of an attack of neurasthenia and was treated in a rest home; the following year he was given opium to alleviate his pain, and he became addicted within a few months. He experimented heavily with drugs and was also confined for some time to a mental institution where he underwent t electric shock therapy. Artaud spent nine of his last 11 years confined in mental facilities but continued to write, producing some of his finest poetry during the final three years of his life.

He was inducted into the army in 1916, but was released in less than a year on grounds of both mental instability and drug addiction. In 1918 he committed himself to a clinic in Switzerland, where he remained until 1920.

THEATRE OF CRUELTY Theatre of Cruelty: A type of theatre aimed to shock audiences through gesture image, sound and lighting Cruelty: To shatter our ‘false’ reality Surrealism: To break away from yourself and explore dreams/fantasy states

Antonin Artaud developed the ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ to communicate to the audience a sense of pain, suffering, and evil, using gesture, movement, sound, and symbolism rather than language and many of his plays were influenced by his own personal experiences, especially his mental health problems.

Artaud wanted to disrupt the relationship between the audience and performer. The ‘cruelty’ in Artaud’s view was sensory, it existed to shock and confront the audience, to go beyond words and connect with the emotions: to wake up the nerves and the heart. He considered gesture and movement to be more powerful than text. Sound and lighting could also be used as tools of sensory disruption. Artaud believed that the actor is like an athlete whose body is all important and it is through breath that an actor can summon feelings. The audience, he argued, should be placed at the center of a piece of the play in order to create a sense of entrapment.

Artaud believed that naturalistic theatre, which was popular in his time, created apathetic audiences and that all people were savages with secret desires to commit outrages. He thought that the theatre’s role in society was to help us understand ourselves and to know who we are. He developed his theatrical methodologies with the aim of affecting audiences and making them think about what they were seeing both on stage and in society.

“Re-establishing theatre as pure and independent creativity whose products are hallucination and terror”

TECHNIQUES

Grotesque

Exaggerated

Visceral

Drawing out the inner feeling of an abstract idea of inanimate object

Ensemble

Sound effects

Audience interaction (breaking the 4th wall) with an intimate actor/audience relationship

Symbols

Surrealism

Intimate actor/audience relationship

Cruelty

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Acting

AIMS: To communicate the theme of unrequited love through a physical theatre piece set in the present day in the style of Antonin Artaud

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM Act 3 Scene 2 - 'Puck'

I came into class really late so I missed some of it but I managed to get some things done and get a good understanding of what we were doing. I think mixing in Artaud's 'Theatre of Cruelty' with a comedy piece from a Shakespearian play while improvising our script is going to be really interesting to work with and I'm quite excited about how it'll play out. There's a lot to think about here since Artaud's theatre is somewhat similar to Brecht's 'Epic Theatre'. Since Artaud wanted his performance to be a place not to escape reality but for the audience to feel like their 'nightmares were coming to life', exaggeration and physical theatre will become a big key to our performance. On top of that, Artaud wanted his audience to feel 'trapped' which is why instead of using the audience seats like usual, we'll need to come up with a way in order for them to sit in a circle to 'trap' them and create a more creepy and uneasy experience. My role is 'Puck' and I have to basically react to what the other characters are doing in the scene after I had given them the 'love potion' and messed everything up. As well as creating a comedic scene, the overly dramatic and exaggerated will play a big part so we decided that we'd start the play in a funny way and then slowly fade into a scary and eerie atmosphere. We still have a lot to work on but it's a start.

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Acting

AIMS: Exploring Non-Naturalistic Acting Techniques

BRECHT’S METHOD

A DOLL’S HOUSE Playing the roles Helmer and narrator (multi-rolling)

Unlike last time, using Brechtian style to act out the same script again definitely gave a different look to everything and had created a completely different play and mood to the scene as a whole. WWW: This time we worked in groups of five, using Brecht’s techniques of multi-rolling, split-roles, multimedia and placards and instead of realistic acting, we went over the top and tried to exaggerate as much as possible. We decided to change it up a bit. We had two narrators who played as the childish ‘puppet-masters’ and 2 people who played Helmer and Nora. Throughout the scene, the objectives of the narrators was that one of them wanted a toxic relationship between Helmer and Nora, while the other wanted a happy and loving relationship. As the scene progress, the narrators begin to lose control of their ‘puppets’ and Helmer and Nora call out to the audience (using direct address) and whisper to them loudly and says things like 

“Help us! We’re trapped!”, “They won’t listen to us!”, “We don’t want this!” etc.

Towards the end, all 4 character begin to argue with each other until and audience member who is ‘watching’ this stops the everything and gives their theory of what they think the relationship should be like. This created a drastic effect and change and leaves the audience intrigued on what’s going to happen next, as well as using Brecht’s alienation effect to make sure that the audience isn’t immersed in the scene and still have a place to think, judge and have an opinion on the current events. At then end, we used creepy music to finish our scene after the ‘puppet masters’ decided to take the audience in and turn them into puppets as well.

WWW:

Memorized lines

Confident

Stayed in role

Multi-rolling

Direct Address

Tableaux

Use of different lighting

Facial expressions - variety

Exaggeration

Tone - Soft, affectionate - Harsh. aggressive

Music

Objectives

EBI: It would have been great if we could have a added a pause in our performance when Brittany’s moment came on, it would have been really suspenseful. I also feel like our actions and physical theatre would have been much better if they were more sharp and clear instead of improvised and running all over the place. I think what the big issue for all of us was timing. If we had enough time to think our work through and rehearse it instead of rushing through, it would have been a lot better. I did manage to emphasise some of the words that I felt were important such as “agony”, “awful”, “it’s all over” etc. and I think it really helped since using Brecht’s Epic Theatre, everything is over top and non-naturalistic so those key words really helped me to exaggerate the acting. I also feel like, if we had enough time, we could have applied more music and spoken stage directions to truly achieve that alienation effect that Brecht wanted.

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Konstantin Stanislavski

Konstantin Stanislavski was a Russian theatre practitioner, actor, director, and producer who used naturalism/realism in his theatre and was widely recognized as an outstanding character actor. He is best known for developing  method acting and ‘The System’, also known as  Stanislavski method which an actor would aspire to complete emotional identification with a part.

NATURLAISM/REALISM 

The System:  An actor training system made up of various different techniques designed to allow actors to create believable characters and help them to really put themselves in the place of a character

Method Acting:  A range of training and rehearsal techniques that seeks to encourage sincere and expressive performances through identifying with, understanding, and experiencing a character's inner motivation and emotions.

Stanislavski based his acting technique on the 'art of experiencing', where actors use their personal experiences, stories and memories to inform their performances, also known as ‘emotional recall’. At the age of 33, Stanislavski co-founded the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) and further developed the ideas behind his acting, The System.

The Stanislavsky method, or The System, developed over 40 long years. He tried various experiments, focusing much of the time on what he considered the most important attribute of an actor's work—bringing an actor's own past emotions into play in a role.

Stanislavsky regarded the theatre as an art of social significance. Theatre was a powerful influence on people, he believed, and the actor must serve as the people’s educator. Stanislavsky concluded that only a permanent theatrical company could ensure a high level of acting skill.

Naturalism refers to theatre that tries to create a perfect illusion of reality by use of a range of dramatic and theatrical strategies. As an actor, Stanislavski saw a lot of bad acting - what he termed as artificial. 

To bring an actor's experiences into the role and expanding an actor's imagination

TECHNIQUES

4th Wall

Proscenium Arch stage

Actors present the action realistically

Not addressing the audience

Not using tableaux

Ordinary people

Well  rehearsed

Real setting

Prose

THE SYSTEM

CIRCLES OF ATTENTION

Stanislavski believed that an actor needed a sense of isolation in order to produce a characterisation and avoid unnecessary tension. Beyond this, the actor might, in the 'second circle', be aware of the character he is addressing and in the 'third circle', the rest of the production.

Control : Concentration on themselves

Influence: Concentration on close characters

Concern: Concentration on all characters and surroundings

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Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer whose epic theatre was in direct contrast to that encouraged by the Russian director Konstantin Stanislavski, in which the audience was persuaded—by staging methods and using the alienation effect—to believe that the action onstage was “real.”

Bertolt developed a violently anti-bourgeois attitude that reflected his generation’s deep disappointment in the civilization that had come crashing down at the end of World War I. Among Brecht’s friends were members of the Dadaist group, who aimed at destroying what they condemned as the false standards of bourgeois art.

NON- NATURALISTIC - Epic Theatre

Alienation: The act of distancing the audience from emotional involvement

Brecht influenced the history of drama by creating epic theatre. The purpose of it was to address the audience directly with analysis, argument, or documentation with a didactic drama presenting a series of loosely connected scenes that would avoid illusions and often interrupt the storyline.

He loathed the theatre of realism and thought that if the audience believed in the action onstage and became emotionally involved they would lose the ability to think and to judge. This was based on the idea that the theatre should not seek to make its audience believe in the presence of the characters on the stage but instead make it realize that what it sees on the stage is merely an account of past events or a presentation of life, not real life itself. 

To reveal the social factors the influence human action, behaviour and thought

Society needed to be visible in Brecht’s theatre – otherwise, it would have been difficult to suggest a relationship between human beings and their social contexts.

TECHNIQUES

Narration 

Speaking the stage directions

Breaking the 4th Wall / Direct Address

Placards / projections

Multi-roling

Split-roles

Minimal set / costumes / props

Symbolic props

Simple lighting

Multimedia

Technology

Tableaux

Alienation

Gestus

Acting in “quotations marks”

Ensemble

Challenges

Spectators

Objectives

Set Production

Montage

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Acting

AIMS: Exploring Naturalistic Acting Techniques

STANISLAVSKI’S METHOD

 A DOLL’S HOUSE Playing the role ‘Helmer’

I really enjoyed doing this task and exploring naturalism through my character. Unlike last time, I was able to thoroughly analyse the script and I was able to understand the role I was playing and get into character. WWW: I played the role Helmer and he was a really interesting character to work with. To me, it felt that his feelings and emotions towards his wife, Nora, had many layers. I wanted to try and show that he wasn’t just seen as a typical ‘bad guy’ but that there was some sense of uncertainty to his personality because of the different ways he acted towards Nora, causing the audience to question what he truly felt towards his wife and his intentions. I wanted to portray different sides to him, not just for the audience to be immersed into the scene but to also question the relationship he had with Nora and to want to know what his next actions or attitude will be. To show the different sides to him, I used a variety of different tones in my voice, sometimes having a quiet and calm voice when talking closely to Nora to show the affection I had towards her and other times raising it and having a more sharper tone to it in contrast to the softness to show who has more authority, status and power. This also showed how manipulative he was with her and the confusing behavior towards her, each action contradicting the previous one.  Expressing different facial expressions, gestures and use of levels towards her was also a good way show the difference between the character. When Nora was sitting on the chair, I walked around her and put my arms on her shoulders to show dominance and control I had over her and that my status was higher than hers. I later bent down to her, showing that as a male in the Victorian era, I was stooping to her lower level and I placed my hand on her chin to turn her face towards me, portraying a sense of ownership over her. Later, at the end of the scene, when I had pulled Lydia to her feet and stroked her hair, she flinched at the touch of my hand and pulled away from me. This was a great depiction of what both characters felt about each other and it also showed that sense of same control and ownership over Nora, constantly touching her and moving her, whether it was taking her hand and leading her to the chair to sit down or puling her up again, the power and leadership was there again.

WWW:

Good use of gestures

Tone - variety

Clarity and diction

Projection

Expression - Multi layered - Believable

Long pause at the end, suspenseful

Locked eye’s, intimacy

Manipulative

In character

Confident

Powerful, ego

Good use of stage space

Facial expressions - variety 

EBI: I think I should have made my facial expressions a little more clearer, sharper and my the tone in my voice a little more stronger. There were also some things I picked up while watching my classmates perform. I really liked Sophie’s illustration of Helmer. She emphasised certain words, such as ‘womanly’, ‘helpless’, ‘forgiven’, showing the distinction between both characters and what a Victorian male would see deemed, fragile, frail and weak. I feel like if I had applied that to my character, the audience will see Helmer’s true feelings of what he thinks of women, despite showing the ‘affectionate’ side of him.

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Acting

AIMS: To explore Acting Techniques

OBJECTIVE: A want or a need

FRENCH NAME FOR FREEZE FRAME: Tableaux

STANISLAVSKI’S WAY OF REMEMBERING PAST FEELINGS: Emotional recall

LABAN EFFECT

Floating - light, flexible, fluid

Flicking - flexible, heavy, sharp

Dabbing - direct, light

Gliding - smooth, weight

Thrusting - direct, strong, sharp

Wringing - flexible, strong

Slashing - sharp, strong, flexible, light

Pressing - direct, heavy, strong

Mirroring - WWW: Me and my partner moved in time fluidly and took in turns to lead the ‘reflective’ movements to each other

OBJECTIVES “Why do you always where black?”

Saying the same line but in a way to:

Understand you           [ + ]        

Make fun of you           [ + ]

Sympathise with you    [ + ]

Confront you                [ + ] 

Flirt with you                 [ - ]

WWW: Me and partner did managed to do this task really well. We both stayed in character and used our vocal abilities to change the tone and pitch in our voices. We also showed different facial expressions and emotions to make it more authentic and to help us stay in character.

EBI: We were struggled to do the last task, ‘to flirt with you’, mainly because I was being a numpty and couldn’t take it seriously and was laughing all over the place. I had a hard time trying to stay calm and focused and also I’m not exactly sure how to do it so that was another problem.

STANISLAVSKI - Actioning Performing an everyday activity

Performing the same activity but adding a story such as:

A man is about to tell his wife about his mistress    [ + ]

Planning a bank robbery                                                [ - ]

Just about to go to a job interview                              [ + ]

Activity Making coffee

What was challenging Planning a bank robbery, I couldn’t really think of anything to do so had to somehow show it through my facial expressions

IMAGINATION Through the window

What can you see through the window?

I was taken hostage and forced to look outside at families, innocent people enjoying life while the criminals threatened me that they’d blow the town up if I didn’t comply. Then, through the window, I saw an area blow up and people running and scared for their lives.

WWW: I didn’t find this exercise difficult. At the beginning I was able to show clearly what I was feeling as I was being interrogated and how I was looking outside the window. My body felt like it froze as I looked out at the ‘scene’ below me and my face changed from worried to scared and terrified at the what I was looking at, constantly keeping in character. Being able to change my facial expressions depending on what the happening in the ‘scene’ was was quite easy and I enjoyed this activity since doing it by just simply sitting and imagining a window in front of you is great practice.

SCRIPT WORK A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

WWW: During this exercise, it took a lot of time to analyse the script and understand the characters and how they felt about it each other. It was really interesting to play Helmer as I had to understand his thoughts and feelings about his wife, Nora, in this specific scene but it was quite easy as I was able to show a lot of facial expressions and physical movement. He didn’t care about his wife’s feelings or opinions, he basically said what he thought his wife felt even though it was the complete opposite.   

EBI: In contrast to Nora, who was visibly unhappy and annoyed at what her husband was saying, playing her was a bit of a challenge. She couldn’t really show a lot of emotions and couldn’t move around as much (since this was based in the Victorian era and the attitude and behaviour towards her husband was different unlike now). Having to show emotions but in little and subtle ways was challenging but interesting to try out.

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Acting

AIMS: Induction to Unit 9 Acting Techniques - Stanislavski

ACTING STYLES:

Stanislavski's Method

Meisner's Technique

Laban Movement

Michael Chekhov's Technique

PLAYWRIGHTS:

William Shakespeare. 1564 – 1616 (England)

Anton Chekhov. 1860 – 1904 (Russia)

Sophocles. 497 – 406 BC (Greece) 

Arthur Miller. 1915 – 2005 (America) 

Henrik Ibsen. 1828 – 1906 (Norway) 

Samuel Beckett. 1856 – 1950 (Ireland) 

Moliere. 1622 – 1673 (France) 

Tennessee Williams. 1911 – 1983 (America)

THE MAGIC ‘IF’ Walking around the room if...

Waling around the space as (if):

Walking through water

Walking through fog

Walking through mud

Walking on ice

Walking with a sprained ankle

WWW: Having to to try and pretend that you’re in a specific type of environment was quite challenging but I was able to do this task confidently. In each scene, I imagined either a scene from a book/movie or past memory and it helped me by giving me an insight on what I am experiencing and make my acting a lot more authentic.

TABLEAUX Freeze frame

3 positions to tell a story:

Romeo and Juliet

Pied Pier of Hamlyn

First steps on the moon

WWW: Was able to create the freeze frame in an instant and had creative ideas, taking the lead, was really confident in what I was doing.

EBI: Felt like I could exaggerate my physical movements a little more or use more levels to create a clearer picture.

PARK BENCH Improvisation

OBJECTIVE: A want or a need

(A) sits on a bench, (B) enters with strong objective, (C) enters with strong objective, (A) must find a reason to leave 

WWW: Was able to create am entrance and change the scene, challenging myself to use a range of different  action verbs to give my character a new personality including a variety of animal features. I was pushed out of my comfort zone and I enjoyed discovering a different side to myself

EBI: Be a little more confident, stay in character. I felt like I should put myself out a little more and really exaggerate my facial expressions and physical expressions, really get into character. I need to learn to push my boundaries, even if it feels silly and weird

EMOTIONAL MEMORY Bringing back an emotion from the past

12 cups 

WWW: I did really well in this exercise. I was clearly able to show what type of drink I had, the temperature of it, how it smelled and how carefully I had to handle it. I also showed that it was placed on a counter and included extra small actions, such as pouring milk in, spilling it and slightly burning my hand, the sensation I felt when I was bring the drink  to my lips.

EBI: I don’t know, I think I did well :)

WWW: Really enjoyed the lesson, had a lot of fun and became closer to my classmates, discovered different ways to incorporate animals into acting and using them as human features to create a certain personality. I felt like I did really well and tried to put my all into it, choosing things I wouldn’t do.

EBI: Need to work on pushing my boundaries and using more and exaggerated physical movement to make my character more interesting and intriguing.