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TEAM journal Fuente Ovejuna

Tension: 

 A moment of tension in the play Fuente Ovejuna was the decapitation of the general. This was created through the use of several conventions including red lighting on the psychlorama, the blocking of the actors where the whole cast was central stage in a bunch the lighting made them seem like shadows, dramatic music played as they raised a prop of the severed head on a stick.

Emotion:  

A moment of emotion was the monologue from the character that got raped. Tragedy was created through costume with a character that once dressed in hipster clothing like the rest suddenly wearing rags and a short black wig. In the blocking she came into a busy bar scene that froze with the only character in focus being her the other characters came into focus only when her character crossed the stage and spoke directly to them establishing fault in each one by having her point them out.

Atmosphere: 

Atmosphere was created for the bar scenes through the usage of extras wearing aprons and carrying around glasses of beer, through staging in adding tables and setting up a ‘bar’ area the extras consistently came to and from to pick up beers clean etc. The usage of a large cast in these scenes helped establish an atmosphere of community although the limits of this community were established when the two mime/clown characters showed up and were questioned on their gender it established the bar as a ‘men’s only’ area (which ultimately made the whole monologue mentioned earlier more dramatic since this woman was entering a zone designated not for her to call them out)

Meaning:

In the scene with the young prince and his assistant talking on the phone with the commander the director was able to establish context to the conflicts of the town by juxtaposition of blocking, props and costume while using the same simple set of simply a bench and closed curtains. On one side the commander and two soldiers were in the midst of a loud (sounds of battle added when he spoke) conflict they were constantly shuffling and shooting while the commander had to scream on the phone to be heard, they were of course dressed in their military costumes. On the other side both the assistant and the boy were dressed in vacation clothing the boy lay on the bench making it seem like a folding chair or something you’d use to lay on the beach. The war sounds went quiet when she spoke and her tone was annoyed as this was clearly an interruption and unimportant to both her and the kid prince. 

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Collaborative Journal #1

How do you approach a piece of theatre?

The first thing I do when approaching a piece of theatre is establishing an overarching feeling. Is it going to be funny? Meaningful? Sad? The next thing is talking about general ideas with whoever i’m working with and then its a matter of exploring together.

What are you good at when working in a group?

I think when working in a group i’m good at finding compromise my role in groups varies depending on the group but I do know I do not like to lead. believe my skill in groups is encouraging ideas and adding my coming up with a way to put them together. 

What do other people think you are good at?

I do not know what people think i’m good at. But when I asked some friends they told me I’m good at making people feel included and I guess that kind of connects to what I said I thought I was good at. 

What do you like about theatre?

My favourite part of theatre is the concept of telling a story and by this I don’t necessarily mean only the plot but I am fascinated by the amount of different conventions and elements in theatre that you can play with in order to bring upon a certain feeling a certain metaphor a certain meaning. My favourite part of theatre is all of the thinking and tweaking and art its creation requires. 

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Research Timeline

August 29th: Settle down on a form of theatre and convention

September 5th: Complete Context Notes

September 14th: Choose a scene from a text to interpret

September 20th: perfect the broom in face gimmick

September 23rd: Perfect the catching bucket on head

September 25th: Learn lines

September 27th: Be able to perform whole skit

September 28th: Do run through of presentation

September 29th: Ask Herzig last minute questions

September 30th: avoid panicking and PRESENT

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In American Idiot, I was inspired by how silence was used to create tension by having a very long scene of the main character drugging himself and leaking saliva and snot in order to build an atmosphere of tension and attack the audience making us see the gravity of this characters situation, this indicated to me a very useful technique to build tension and I will use it in order to create tension in my own production.

In The River, I was inspired by how sounds were used to establish setting and atmosphere by simply changing tempo and type in order to establish a feeling of calm, or tension etc as well as a physical setting making us have a clearer understanding of the events of the play and encouraging the suspension of disbelief as it immerses the audience completely into the world and reality of the play, this indicated to me that sound is a very useful tool in working with both atmosphere and setting and I will use it to establish different settings within my production whether it be a hospital, law firm or street corner. This will be especially useful given that I am using a uniset.

In Henry V, I was inspired by the way lighting of set and floor was used to create Atmosphere by either bottom lighting the floor or using shadows in order to create a feeling of impending doom making us root for the English in an impossible situation, this indicated a feeling of hopelessness that I want to have in my own productions as the shadows create an eerie atmosphere. 

In Curious Incident of a Dog in the Nighttime, I was inspired by how projection was used to present moments of meaning and emotion by visual means without changing set in order to transmit a feeling making us understand the main character better, this indicated a new way to display the characters inner workings which the used in Curious Incident to explore the mind of an autistic child however I can take this method and use it for the characters in my production and to help with the fantasy level of the production as well.

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Viewpoints

We have been studying the theatre concept of viewpoints. There are six main viewpoints in this  theory developed by Marie Overlie a choreographer in the 1970s. Overlie discovered how useful her observations on the relationship between a person and space were for not only dance but also theatre. The six viewpoints can be remembered through the acronym SSTEMS. 

Space:

Space involves the ability to see and feel physical relationships within a space. In class we explored this by walking within the grid using soft focus and seeing how other people in the space affected our movement. We also did an activity with hunter huntee in which we would be chasing or being chased through a space with our eyes closed. This helped us get a better idea of how our emotions affect our movement and relationship with the space and people within the space.

Architecture: the physical environment and space including permanent and non permanent features.

Spatial Relationship: distance between objects or actors on stage and how they may inform an audience about character relationships.

Topography: the movement of the actor through a space the relationship between the actor and space including architecture.

Shape:

Shape involves the ability to see and feel physical form. For this viewpoint we worked in partners to explore the relationship between different shapes in a small scene. I worked with Gigi and we explored rounded versus sharp and angular shapes and movements as a way to establish power relationships between characters.

Shape: the outline of bodies in space, the shape of the body by itself, with other bodies or with other things in the space. i. e. architecture.

Gesture: movement more specifically of hands can be a sign or expression that universally means something (like the hand sign for okay) or the movement and shape can have a more general meaning.

Time: 

Time is the perceptual ability to experience duration and systems created to regulate duration. We explored time in many ways from walking through space and deciding how long it would take to go from point A to point B to how different tempos within a scene can inform character and relationships. Repetition of movements and how it can help serve for emphasis. We explored this in large part with scenes which we prepared in groups of three or four to illustrate abstract concepts. For this I was grouped with Janine and Gigi. We created a piece on greed and how it could ruin a relationship.

Tempo: how fast or slow something happens 

Duration: amount of time an event or movement lasts.

Kinesthetic Response: an instinctive automatic response to external stimuli like flinching when someone moves their fist too close to your face.

Emotion:

Emotion is the ability to perceive understand transmit and experience states of being. We explored emotion within the other viewpoints as well as an influence in itself in everything about a person or character. One way in which we explored emotions was walking around the grid from point A to point B with specific things in mind like being sick or instead happy.

Movement: 

Movement is the ability to experience and identify with kinetic sensation. This viewpoint interacts a lot with space especially when it comes to topography. Movement is also characterised by shape and time depending on how quickly or slowly and how sharp or rounded you choose to act as a character in your piece.

Story: 

Story is the ability to understand and see logic systems as arrangements of information. In other words this is how the combination of other viewpoints unites to transmit a message. For example in our piece on greed we used duration, tempo, repetition and kinsethetic response to tell a story about two friends who were driven apart by a seed of greed which led one friend to betray the other and eventually lead to the destruction of not only the relationship but also both friends.

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Accidental Death of an Anarchist

Rating:

I give this play 5 maniac emojis because it was surprisingly entertaining. I will admit to being more than a little reserved when I was handed the book because I honestly thought it was an old enough play that it would be boring and the message outdated. The idea of an anarchist falling out of a 4 story building didn’t exactly have me jumping out of my seat to read it. In addition to this it was a play first performed in 1970 yawn. I will admit to having been very wrong about all of this.  About 3 pages in i was already captured by the intriguing character of the maniac. Even his long monologues are entertaining and there never seems to be a lack of action in the play even with the dialogues being extensive. The play is definitely a comedy but it has a strong political message about the justice system, as well as the media. The play displays the corruptness of the police system through the eyes of a crazy person who is incredibly crude in his statements. There is a light air about the play but the messages are definitely heavy and this seeps through in specific moments that I will mention forthcoming. The strongest part of the play was without a doubt the character of the Maniac not only did he mock the system and express messages that way but he also helped pass along messages about the treatments of patients with mental health and also the idea of acting and taking upon somebody else’s life as a costume. The humour in this play is crude and dark but also slips into simple silliness at moments like when it came down to physical violence and little tropes like blowing a raspberry and losing a glass eye etc. Now onto directorial choices i would make when it came to our greatly beloved acronym TEAM which one of these days is really gonna get old but i diverge.

Tension

For me this moment was the easiest to find as it stood out to me from the first read. The moment happens well into Act 1 Scene 2 in which the Maniac uses rather unconventional methods to show the Inspector and the Superintendant the role they played in the Anarchist’s supposed suicide. He begins to use all the same methods of ‘psychological warfare’ they admitted to using on the anarchist. I would establish this moment of tension through the use of lighting and stage positioning. I would have the main action happening center stage at a desk and upstage left I would have the window facing the audience there would be a ledge about knee height and then the window which would be wide open. I would have the lights slowly dim during the conversation as the Maniac convinces the Superintendant and Inspector that there is no way they can win this case. I would have glum music playing in the background as this happened. Then I would have the Maniac take both of them over to the window. When their raised onto the window ledge the rest of the stage would go completely dark with stage left being the only thing left lit. The audience would be seeing them as if from outside the window. After the maniac’s last line ‘the raptus will let us go’ all music will stop there will be a moment of complete silence where the Superintendant and Inspector look like they are about to give in and jump. After a pause the Constable will walk in and deliver his lines all lights would once again snap on and the scene would continue.

Emotion

For Emotion the choice was quite obvious to me as well. It consists of the transition between Act 1 and Act 2. In this moment the Maniac is working on reconstructing the story of the night they questioned the anarchist. I would have this scene take place both as a memory and the present. In order to do this I would make it almost as if the Superintendant and Inspector were in a play and the Maniac was the director. They would be standing stage right speaking with an unseen anarchist who they interact with as if he was actually there even going as far as patting the cheek of an imaginary anarchist and put an arm over his imaginary form later when they all break into song. Stage right is lit strongly while the lights are dimmed over the maniac who sits calmly at the desk center stage. As he speaks the scene takes place stage right stopping only when one of the ‘actors’ has a disagreement about what happened in this case they step out of the ‘stage’ which is actually simply an area of the actual stage and the light on the rest of the room returns as the ‘actor’ argues with the maniac on what happened. As the maniac convinces them otherwise the ‘actor’ returns to the scene and it happens as the Maniac makes them recall. When the Maniac mentions singing a song the light music of a protest march begins softly and it rises in volume as they continue to discuss. The Maniac is the first to begin to sing as he steps next to the Superintendant and Inspector in the ‘stage’ that is lit stage right. As the Superintendant and Inspector join in the Maniac places their arms hugging over the shoulders of an imaginary anarchist between them almost like a puppeteer. The Voices of all three men amplify as they sing more animately and the Maniac joins the row of hugging men. The lights dim and they continue to sing. They are still singing as the light comes up on Act 2.

Atmosphere

The moment I chose for Atmosphere I chose because it involved a change of scenery without actually changing locations at all. It is the moment in which the Maniac begins to pretend that they are all in a game show. I would at this moment bring the action upstage completely. A game show board would be rolled in sporting a phone number. The Maniac would be seen to change his demeanour completely a backstage person would arrive and take his coat and another would help him into a nice suit as a third hands him a microphone. The voice of the Maniac is now amplified reverberating through the theatre. Meanwhile the other characters who have been handcuffed to a bar in the back would be rolled forward bar and all where other members of the backstage crew have brought out four podiums with scores written on the front. The lighting beams on the rest of the stage leaving only the game show decorum. At the end of this when everything goes dark all signs of the game show get rolled out and as the lights come back up the other characters are once again chained to the back wall.

Meaning

For meaning I chose the moment in which the actors break the fourth wall by referring to the audience. In this moment the Superintendant assures that he has informants even in the audience here. With the claps lights would go on in the audience where people would stand up and exclaim Yessir etc, the Maniac would then deliver his next line towards the audience as well about how those are just actors and the real informants are trained to stay seated and silent. The lights would go off in the audience again as the Maniac mentions how the informants carry out atrocities to give excuses for police crackdown. Involving the audience in a moment like this really brings them into the plot and it emphasises the idea that the police is everywhere and they cause more harm than good. By breaking the fourth wall the message stops being hypothetical and is instead a direct warning to the audience. If i could choose an ideal audience for this play now days I would perform it in the US or maybe simply make it set in the US and address the problems of police brutality simply by making the anarchist a young black man.

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Devising Theatre

We began this unit by doing a few of what i would call abstract acting exercises on devising theatre focused on movement. We started by observing the movement of a dodge ball as it bounced and came to a stop. We were then asked to in groups of 5 recreate this with our bodies. We found that the interpretations by the two groups were vastly different even in their overall feeling. The first group chose a linear formation and their piece seemed to have a feeling of almost evolution. The second group which i participated in chose a circular formation to represent the ball and had a much more tribal feel. When we completed the first performance both groups came together and brainstormed a group of words we felt described each act. We then repeated the exercise this time while observing a jump rope.  The first group again did a linear formation and stomped extending in a way that resembled the jump rope. My group chose a very different approach having one person signify the beet while two twirled their feet in the form of a jump rope and the other two offered support as well as signified the actual people moving the rope. Once again both groups got together and concluded that while the first group brought upon ideas such as unity and rebellion and even aggression, the second groups interpretation gave a more mechanical feel like a clock, ballet or on the other end of things a marriage. The final step of this exercise was to take the previous movements and one of the possible interpretations and make it be more of that. The first group chose to make their interpretation of the ball more like defeat while our group chose to make our interpretation of the rope more like a marriage. The purpose of this exercise was to see how far the final product can go from the original stimulus and the diversity of different things that can stem from one stimulus. 

After this exercise we began working with our actual stimuli. We started by sifting through our stimuli with our group trying to figure out what we wanted to use. All together we had four indie songs, a few art pieces, artsy pictures of Casco Viejo and a flyer with a picture of a cat with the title lost ghost. All the stimuli were very personal and all of us had way too large of an emotional attachment to them to view things objectively. The image Mari saw as a tribute to lost childhood i saw as a hidden adventure lurking beneath the surface. The lost ghost poster that to me spoke of a hilarious comedy featuring a flurry of insane characters to Mari did not speak at all. The indie song that to Augusto spoke of the hardship and emotion and the story of a complicated man was only a nice listen to Mari and I. We were all too attached to our own ideas to really explore where the stimulus could fully take us. And then we learned a very hard truth what differed a good stimulus from a bad stimulus. It had to be researchable.

Basically it was like we had been hit from a left field suddenly there wasn’t much we could do to defend our beloved ideas now they didn’t meet requirements. Surprisingly this made it easier suddenly all of the stimuli we liked were off the list of choices and we all managed to settle on this piece of street art. It spoke slightly differently to each of us but we could all agree it was researchable through many different angles. Our research included everything from the cuban revolution, to the exile of cubans from the US, to the meaning of the third eye, to the relations between Argentina and Cuba because of the stamps used as a frame to the art. 

The next step was perhaps the most helpful of the whole process we sat down in a circle and with slips of paper we each wrote down an option for a character and put it in a bowl. We repeated this a few times. Then we all wrote down possible locations and put them in a different bowl. Finally we used a third bowl with possible conflicts. Once everybody’s ideas were in we pulled out slips of paper randomly. We ended up with a street corner as a location and three characters. Manolo, a sweet guy with a tad for flirting with every girl he saw, Julio, a young revolutionary with dreams of a better life, and Joaquin a confident guy unaware of the fact that his father was leaving to work in the states. Our conflict was that every character knew a secret except the character it concerned in this case that he was moving to the states. 

Our first scene was messy we played with the idea of these three friends sitting on a street corner though we struggled with either movement or dialogue. When we performed the scene there was very little we really wanted to keep. We liked the idea of the characters speaking spanglish, although commentary taken into consideration i’m not very good at it. Mr. Herzig also commented how he like the improvised dialogue that came around about the gun under the pillow where my character Julio mentioned to Manolo that how could he feel safe if he had to sleep with a gun under your pillow and Manolo replied nonchalantly ‘we all have our guns under our pillows. Its a metaphorical gun’. We also liked our characters when it came down to it.

I was not there for the second major development of our play so I cannot speak of its development but from what i hear it involved experimental theatre and the incorporation of noises. Nobody really bothered to explain to me what the scene was about beyond the fact that Mari’s character was pregnant and they were in a church. The church scene became a mystery to me but it was also untouchable and perfect just the way it was so i settled for letting it be. Which later backfired on my ass but more of that when we get there. 

So now we had two very different scenes and some decisions to make about our overall story/conflict and how to connect our scenes. We decided we wanted to play with a time jump by starting with the end and then going back to the very beginning. Then we discussed our main conflicts which at this point were the pregnancy and the rebellion. We wanted to make a comedy and we decided to start at the end so we came up with the idea of the babies birth and we thought it would be really funny if the birth took place in a cab. The next step was figuring out how to get all of our characters in the cab at this point there was quite the list:

Marivi: Sweet girl at this point pregnant possibly with twins who were possibly from different mothers

Cassandra: Witch, Fortune-Teller and apparently pregnancy adviser as well as just generally terribly obnoxious and loud

Manolo: Sweet guy but mostly a complete horn dog who was easily distracted by every girl that passed by

Julio: young revolutionary and Manolo’s childhood friend

Nameless Sexy girl that somehow seems to appear everywhere they go over the years

To say the least it was an interesting cab ride. We decided Julio’s incorporation was easy enough he would be the taxi driver as a side job since being a revolutionary doesn’t really pay. Cassandra came along for the ride as Marivi’s pregnancy advisor and Manolo’s presence was obvious. All that was missing was how to incorporate Mane’s character. That is until we all remembered the most common problem in any cab ride in latin america they always stop to pick up other passengers. Now we faced a new challenge there were new people on the group and by this i mean that me and another person had worked on the same project. We are both used to positions of leadership and both already had strong ideas of what we wished to occur in this play. We often would butt heads when it came to decisions and the others in the group kind of stood down and waited for either of us to come out victorious. I try to choose my battles when it comes to group work so the one thing i really pushed was establishing character in the first scene. I thought it was really important the audience got an idea of the characters and their relationships so they could recognise them later on. The cab drive scene ended up being hilarious and really strong if a little messy it ended with Manolo suddenly leaving to go to war and now we had to establish the back story to all of this. We decided to follow this with the street scene minus the Joaquin character. This scene now became about Julio trying to sell the revolution to Manolo. This scene was very intense dramatically but we liked having the comic relief of Mane’s character passing by and distracting them as tension built. What made this work was the fact that when the distraction was over our characters would continue with the same level of tension almost as if nothing had happened. This scene also introduced Mari’s character Marivi at the end with Manolo seeing her walking by and saying she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. Next would come the church scene at this point i still had no idea what this entailed. In our last practice Natalia wasn’t present so we could once again not practice it. I suggested that we needed a last scene to tie the whole story together and we decided that it would be enough to have augusto walk on stage and sit on the street corner from the beginning after he found out about his kids and deciding to go to war.

When the performance came about various things went wrong the first of which was that Natalia was not present and her character was crucial for the church scene. I had to fill in for her character but that kind of comedy is not my strong suit and it also downplayed the strength of the first scene where everyone was in the car this group of different people united by crazy events. The second mishap was that we had not really considered the transitions between scenes and although the last minute idea about having mane hold up a black cloth as the sexy girl wasn’t bad it really didn’t work out how it was supposed to. Frankly interacting with the audience out of character didn’t help.  The third thing that went wrong was the omission of the final scene it had been so long since we last had done the play and we were so focused on trying to fill in the gap of Natalia that we didn’t have time to go over the last scene with Augusto and he forgot about its existence. One good thing that did come from this performance day was the military cap and the idea we had about how it would make its appearance throughout the play. In the street scene Julio would hand it to Manolo who would leave it abandoned on the sidewalk. In the church scene it wouldn’t be present but in the final scene where Augusto returns to the sidewalk he would encounter the cap and take it with him. Finally, in the cab scene after the birth of the babies he would finally make a decision about the revolution he would put it on before leaving for war. Sadly this idea too was lost in the scramble to fill in for the roll.

The next class we discussed about messages and target audience. We found that our piece had unintentionally incorporated this strong message about men both their nature and what their roll should be. Manolo was an unlikeable character unable to commit to his wife not even when finding out she’s pregnant. It also has a strong message about revolution how and its really ‘the right thing to do’. We couldn’t decide a target audience more specific than young people. Some of my classmates believed they would have to be from latin america but i would disagree I think the message could definitely be appreciated internationally and in fact i think the message would be transmitted more effectively to people outside this culture since they are able to see the actions outside the cultural context.

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Performance Conventions: Voice

-the story in kathakali is told through song the actors themselves do not speak but only use gestures however the story is also told through the lyrics of the song itself which is performed live with drums.

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Performance Conventions: movement

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Performance Conventions: Gesture

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Performance Conventions: Face

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Performance Conventions- Body

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Self Evaluation: Commedia Fight Scene

I feel like my performance in this overall was decent but not great. I slowly learned and incorporated things into my character and by the time I got to perform it I was much more acquainted with Il Dottore. However, I still feel like I was lacking confidence and this hindered my performance. It felt a bit held back. I felt like I did a pretty good job at following some commedia conventions like half mask and timing. One moment where I committed the half mask error was when I was kicking the coins away from Alejandro. This moment was also improvisation which I felt was sub par. The idea was good but because of a mixture of comedic timing and the positioning the moment didn't come through to its full capability. My clocking improved and was done more often. I feel like it lost impact however due to my mask falling over my eyes. In the future I have to remember to clock the audience with more of my body than just my head in order to properly bring them in. The clocking seemed a bit too rehearsed and not natural. Otkaz, Posil, Dotschka was an element that could have been incorporated a lot more throughout the piece in order to clean up the movements and make sure the comedy is more evident. This would have been useful for example in the hair pulling tablou. One moment I felt that I had a strong Otkaz, Posil, Dotschka was when Pantalone gets up from the ground and Il Dottore turns to look at him and then tilts his head as if analyzing the situation. I could have also used this method to improve the laughing scene especially when it came to the moment where i 'ran out of breath' in order to really emphasize it and the comedy of it. 

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Stanislavski's system

Stanislavski's system involves many different components that work together to create a realistic looking performance. The three components that most obviously go together are Imagination, Given Circumstances and the Magic If. These three objectives work together to form a clear image of the character in ones mind. For me the Imagination was one of the hardest elements and by extension the Magic If because getting into Nora's shoes was really hard. Because of my background being a strong woman now means something very different that back then and it has a much smaller price so getting in that headspace of wanting freedom but also having all of this chains holding you back that you'd crumble without. Its complicated. One thing I found that really helped was researching clothes of the time and imagining myself wearing them when i'm in the scene if I could picture Nora in my mind it was easier to portray her through my body. The backstage preparation i did with Nora required tapping in to some anxiety and involved quite a bit of rapid breathing. The trouble with Nora is that she has all of this enormous emotions which hide just below the surface so it is really hard to balance between Nora's practiced facial expression and the real emotions behind it. I tried to imagine it in my mind as actual layers. I would wear the original emotion on my face then actually imagine overlapping that with a neutral mask that is just the slightest bit transparent. Backstage prep with Nora really helped to get into the panic of the scene however, it was really complicated to attempt to mantain that level of energy and anxiety throughout the scene especially practicing many times. In fact after a particularly productive class i remember feeling whoozy from all of the erratic breathing all through flag ceremony. Backstage prep after i switched to Torvald as a character was very different. For starters it happens twice once at the beginning of the scene and once a bit later on. Torvald starts the scene in a really happy playful mood since he has just returned from a party. In order to achieve this I usually dance around a bit backstage. I have trouble not feeling awkward in general but by actually imagining myself as someone else being silly is less complicated. When Torvald enters a second time he is completely changed he is angry and confused and has just recieved news so terrible he cannot believe it. For this my backstage prep includes mentally singing the chorus of 'Gives you Hell' while clenching and unclencing my fists. This way when I walk in its as if i've already been slowly getting riled up. Stanislavski's systems is a lot of fun to play around with. However, it can be challenging. Much of my trouble on stage is that I still lack self confidence. I feel like this hindered me greatly in commedia. With realism I feel more confident however i still found myself getting awkward in some moments. For example the part of the scene where Torvald and Nora are being lovey dovey when i was practicing as Nora i remember feeling awkward because Torvald was like kinda facing me but super reluctant and it was really hard staying in character. It was easier as Torvald when I could take the lead and do what I pictured in the scene. However, a lot of the belief in my mind was lost when Roberto made a comment about Lesbos and I was suddenly out of character. Another challenge I faced especially while I was still playing Nora was tapping into things that are not that easy to tap out of. I'd have theatre in the morning and tap into feelings of anxiety and the world crashing down and it was really hard to not let that affect my day. I managed to achieve some separation by using some less intense memories to try to bring upon the feeling but it felt less genuine. In the end, I was very glad to switch to Torvald's whose emotions are well in the range of safety. 

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Henrik Ibson and A Doll's House

Personal Context

he was in theater where he published his first play

1879 he wrote a Doll’s House (Germany)

He felt that husband and wife should be equal

Marriage:

Play characters mirror his parents Had a huge fall in economic status

Wanted to portray this prevalent them realism to provide life accuracy

Manifests his own concerns for women’s life because his mom was an amazing woman

Laura Kieler

Someone Ibsen knew

She’s the inspiration for Nora

She committed the same forgery or the sake of her husband’s life and was the separated from her children and husband

Sent to an asylum and not allowed to return to her children until afterwards

Social Context

The idea of putting marriage as very holy and sacred

Dominant figure: male

Independent

Strong

Provider

Submissive figure: female

Take care of children

Stay at home

Perfect housewife

No voice in marriage

Ibson created this whole controversy about his play because of challenging this thing supported by marriage

Dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden. Ibson had not only the idea of breaking up a marriage. Getting independent

Women’s rights movements were starting and he wrote plays to show that women aren’t treated differently. Challenged the idea of the social context of the time

Social pressure going on about marriage being sacred and depression was a huge thing for Ibson and he wrote an alternative ending.

He created an alternate ending where Nora comes back to her husband and it changes the total theme of the play.

He totally regretted this and felt like it was a dishonor and outrage to his play.

Political Context

Women’s rights first group protecting women’s rights

Women weren’t allowed to vote and not even all men could vote

There was only one party so it stopped progress

Norway Parliament increased by 3 seats and this makes them realize they should incorporate more people in elections.

Jo Han Vendster opposition was the most influential politician of the time. Challenged the original party. 

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Transitioning from Commedia to Realism

Performer

                Commedia acting is all about the body. It involves big gestures and making sure every area of your body is in character from your facial expression to the way  you hold your feet. Commedia takes into account all of the characters idiosincracies and makes you think: how does my character walk? How would they sit down? How would they speak? In Commedia we also worked on timing especially for the fight scene. All of these elements are very useful to have down in stone before heading into realism which focuses so much in the actors mind. In realism, the elements learned in commedia have to already exist in your body so they can flow on automatic as all the energy goes into creating the belief that your character exists and that you are them. As we were going through the system for realism I was so intrigued. Mostly because it was a lot of fun putting together actors i have seen do this things and the fact that there's an actual system that they use. For example some of the actors that i follow will mention in an interview that they have this whole backstory for the character and i used to think it was just a cool bonus to have when going into a character. But it is actually a key concept in believing what you are doing.

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Realism

The exercises we did today focused on believing that which was given to you and how that creates acting. Different elements got incorporated into this. For starters the relaxation exercise allowed the true awareness of every area of the body. In addition it created a sense of disconnection with the reality I currently live in allowing a blank slate in which a new reality can be created. The first exercise was walking around and then believing something like that you are having a good day or bad day. I noticed while walking that simply thinking about having a good or bad day changes your body image completely and your posture. We then did it while thinking we were different ages. This one was harder for me because i had trouble keeping in my head rather than worrying about what i was doing. We then performed an exercise on the ground where we sat in a circle and passed around a piece of paper pretending it was a bird. This exercise was fun and it was a way to notice the difference between the acting and believing in both other people and yourself. At the end of the exercise the instructor smashed the paper and we all yelped because for a second there we really did believe it was a bird enough so to get emotionally attached when the paper was destroyed. What I discovered in today's class is that it is really hard to avoid crossing the line between believing what you are doing and acting. However when you are actually believing the results are a thousand times better.