Greek Project Evaluation

In this blog entry I will be talking about the groups performance, and I shall be evaluating myself in both roles of Orestes and Chorus and my abilities to, deliver lines, acting styles, characterisation etc.

Basics

My first role was Orestes I played the first one and so my first entrance was after an announcement and then the lights would come up and then I took my place kneeling next to the block on the left, this looked more aesthetically pleasing compared to being straight on whilst the audience walk in as the lights gave a very cold atmosphere. My first line was "Hermes you who guide the soul" and this was to be said after Electra one said "Our warmth all mingling together", I didn't say this line straight after Electra's as we had a music que and it add more to what I was saying so I waited for the music listened to it a bit before preforming the lines. Through out the play I managed to get my ques for my lines correct, but on one of the nights I did slip up when moving, I was meant to walk backwards onto a block, but whilst I did it was still being moved, and so I just took a breath and carried on which helped immensely. My exit as Orestes went smoothly the role was taken over by Reece and went straight into a dumb play. The only thing that I thought the chorus struggled with when I was in it was the final scene in act 1 with the chairs, our timing and energy with the "shout for joy shout" was very poor on the first night but we practiced it and it sounded better after.

Stylistically

The main style of the way we preformed this play was it being contempry, and so what we did was use the chorus as journalists something that a modern day audience would understand. We also added a lot of movement into which looked great once we sorted out the lights for it, for instance the scene where Orestes is talking about how the people were yelling "stone them" we have the chorus in the background twisting and turning but when they faced the audience they were miming yelling and it looked weird when we rehearsed it but under the lights it looked better as it really highlighted each one of their faces. It was a very physical piece because if we hadn't added all of these different types of movements it would have looked naturalistic when what we were looking for was a very stylised piece because traditional Greek tragedy was very stylised. I think that this play was perfect for looking at different acting styles, as the parts were split into scenes, so it was easier to one, see the progression of Orestes and Electra and two, show how diverse the group is from one another it gave us a chance to show of what we could do or how we would take on our characters.

Actors Skills

Through out this project we have been working on our characterisation doing things like, character studies and workshops to help us understand not just our characters, but also what it was like in Ancient Greece. Before we preformed we were told to take the animal we associate with our characters, which was a previous workshop we had done, mine was a mouse and we would pretend to be this animal and slowly become our character using some of the features this animal had, then we were told to close our eyes and picture our characters walking towards us and then as they came in front we would merge with them and this helped me as during the performance I felt I took on Orestes, at the stage he was at in his journey, because even when I wasn't saying my lines I was always thinking like him, and when I did say my lines I took on a character who has a high statues but doesn't want anyone to know he is there and therefor pretends to be a lower statues, lower than he actually is. My vocal delivery during rehearsals was lax, and I put that down to being lazy, when it came to the show I felt that I pushed myself because there was an audience, I always looked up at the clock in the theatre, as it helped me raise my head to project more, and at home I went over my lines making sure that my diction was correct, so that people could understand what I was saying clearly. I used gestures in my scene as Orestes to not just show who I was but to also draw the audience's attention to the things that were happening onstage, my problem with my blocking on the first night was the fact I sometimes was not in the light, but for the next few shows I positioned myself correctly.

Ensemble

I was not in many chorus scenes, but my character Orestes was, one scene I had to work with the chorus to draw their attention in, as we had made out as if it was a press conference, but I had also needed to trust one of them to catch me as I fell backwards, which took some time. When I was in the chorus we worked together to create the chair scene which didn't look very good at the first performance because we weren't too sure what we were doing so it lacked energy like I have said previously, but we had eventually got round it. In another chorus scene we had to work as one, like a school of fish or flock of birds, which was also difficult as we had to get in close to each other, without falling over, but once we had figured it out it did look very effective and drew attention to us when we came on stage. During rehearsals we did whisper backstage to each other for ques etc. but eventually we had all learnt them the only time we spoke to one another was when someone needed help with costume, or some wasn't feeling very well but we made sure that it wasn't so loud that the audience would be drawn away from the stage. Overall I think we did preform the show very well, once we had gotten a hang of the roles and lines we smoothed it out and delivered the piece with as much energy as we could, a lot of us were worried about looking stupid, as it was a stylised piece, but we finally just got on with it and just put in everything and the end result went really well.

Greek Project (Week 7)

Most of this week was running through both acts making sure we knew what we were doing and that its was slick. At the beginning of the week we had completed act 2, but I do not know of most of the stuff that was happening as Act 1 were sent away to do Character studies.

Me and Abbi started to look at the scene between us both, we learnt the blocking and the lines, and later we had help to get more of a connection going between these two characters, we sat in front of one another and read our lines out looking into each others eyes. We then helped Reece and Charlotte with their scene as they thought that something was missing and if we watched it we could help them, which we did and we all agreed it was nice to kind of self direct for once as we got things done faster.

In movement we ran through my scene with the chorus, making sure it was fast and smooth. I had learnt my lines for this scene so that it was easier to get through.

The last two days of this week were used to run through Act 1 and 2 we did what we like to call a fun run which is where we would act out the play as normal, but someone would shout out some thing e.g. Harry Potter, Cowboys, Divas etc. and then we would have to act it out in this style, it was nice to be able to have a laugh with each other but it showed that we knew what we were doing as we were thinking fast on the spot whilst acting.

Its all coming together now and its been great working for the first time with the group on a piece already written, I think the audience will find this Greek Tragedy different, but entertaining none the less.

Greek Project (Character Study)

In this blog entry I shall be talking about the character I play, in our Greek Tragedy “Black and White” which is an adaptation using both Helen Edmundson's “Blood and Light” and Euripides “Orestes.” I play the part of Orestes, and I shall be talking about our version of Orestes, and comparing it with research I have found on other peoples opinion’s on him.

Research

I have looked online at peoples different ideas for Orestes character profile, I will be showing you quotes from the information I've picked out and then I will be commenting on my views on these, here is what I found.


Some people think that Orestes is very young, as they think that he is immature and childish, Spark notes explain why they think this theory is true "Still quite youthful when instructed by Apollo's oracle to avenge Agamemnon's murder, Orestes displays a level of immaturity that renders the ultimate revenge the serious matter of matricide morally ambiguous," (1) they speak about how Orestes murders his mother because he is instructed to, but I think that he does kill his mother because of two reasons, one honor of his father he says "This is my fathers grave, Agamemnon the great king lies here" (2)  and also "Help me remove them, as they removed you. Either by truth of justice or simple might of right. And let me deal with them as they dealt with you" (3), looking at the first line he speaks highly of his father as if its a great honor to say his name, and then in the second section he talks about dealing with Agamemnon's killers the way they did to him, he is asking his father to allow him to do this, not Apollo and so I think that he understands honor and it is looked on as mature that he has asked his father to allow him to do this because if he was childish he would have been rash and just got it over with.

Another website speaks about how Orestes becomes the savior of Argos like the chorus say " But at least he has given life to the hope of Argos" (4) I believe that this is the chorus giving Orestes false hopes as he is very gullible when it comes to the advice from people, through out the play he asks for advice and help and they always end in horrible ways. 

The relationship between Orestes and his mother, is obviously not a good one considering what he does to his mother, but both Orestes thinks that he is his father's son as the chorus convince him by saying " I belong to my murdered Father" (5), but Orestes is more like his mother as he does what ever he can to protect his family, which is what Clytemnestra was doing when she sent her children away. He later in the play feels guilt for what he has done as he is haunted by his mother, Clytemnestra also feels this as Electra says "I could say how she danced while he lay dead, wound garlands through her hair, and then sagged to the floor vomiting." (6)

He maybe a lot like his mother through out this play but Spark notes showed me that his sense of civic duty is a lot like Agamemnon "Agamemnon sacrificed his own daughter so that the Greek fleet could sail to Troy, thus condemning himself to death in order to allow his society to prosper. Similarly, Orestes committed matricide, a heart wrenching and disgusting act, in order to preserve the order of society." (7) This shows that he may have killed his mother, wanting to avenge his father, but he knew that if this did not happen than the he could not preserve the order of the society." (8)

Facts

Name: Orestes. The meaning of his name is "he who stands on the mountain" or "one who can conquer mountains." (9)

Age: He is younger than his sister, as Helen speaks about how Electra is unlovable because Agamemnon and Clytemnestra wanted a boy when she was born, this proves he wasn't born before her, I think that he is ten years younger than his sister and he is 15.

Family Life: He didn't have much of a family as he was exiled by his mother, to Phocis where he met Pylades (son of the King of Phocis.) He grew up in Phocis and so I would say they have become a family to him. You can tell at numerous points through out the play that his father plays a big role towards him, as he is always talking about revenge for his father, as if he wants his dad to be proud of him for doing it.

Personality: Orestes personality changes a lot through out the play. At the beginning he is shown as a character who kills for honour and to help preserve the order of society, he also is mourning his father and so is shown to have loved his father. During and after killing his mother Orestes becomes numb and emotionless, which is to be expected after just killing his own mother, but he becomes more guilty for what he is done as he hadn't slept for 6 days or nights after killing Clytemnestra, he had a fever and also is haunted by Clytemnestra through out the play. Eventually Orestes is overtaken by revenge, murder and guilt this makes him a monster, he feels nothing not sympathy nor emotions, he is set on getting what he wants, and finishing whoever tries to stop him.

Context

Before the play Orestes, is exiled to Phocis, where he grows up waiting for the day he can come home and see his family again, once he comes home he finds that his mother has murdered his father for her new lover Aieguthus and so he sets out to murder her after meeting his sister Electra who he hasn't seen in a long time. After killing Clytemnestra he is haunted by what he is done, numerous family members come to see him and his sister before they die, Helen of Troy, Menelaus and Tyndaroues. Orestes and Electra are condemned to death and the people choose left for the mob as their way to die, before the guards can get Electra and Orestes they kill Helen and then Orestes plunges to his death with Menelaus's daughter Hermione.

 

Relationships

Orestes has a strong relationship with his sister, it has been scientifically proven that siblings that are split apart at a young age have a stronger lover when they next meet, this love may not be shared between two sibling that were not split up. He shows through out the play that he wants to protect Electra. Honour is a theme in this play and Orestes shows that he wants to Honour his father by killing his mother in the play, Forgiveness is another theme which is shown when Clytemnestra begs her son to think about what she did and not kill her but to forgive her. Revenge is the main theme as all the killings are based on revenge Agamemnon is killed by his wife because he sacrificed their child, Clytemnestra is murdered by her son for killing Agamemnon, Orestes and Electra kill Helen as they believe she is the main cause for she was the reason Agamemnon sacrificed his child as it was for her.

Characterisation

To understand my character more we have done many exercises in class, such as taking animals that can represent our characters and being them thinking how they think, moving like they do, being hunted, or even hunting and then finally slowly becoming the character you play and taking on some of that animals traits whether it be a speed they walk at, a twitch they do or maybe their eyes are looking for something at all times. We also did an exercise between Orestes and Electra where we read out our lines whilst looking into each others eyes, so that we could get more of a connection.

 

 Quotes:

(1) http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/electra/canalysis.html  
(2) Script
(3) Script
(4) http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/libationbearers/canalysis.html
(5) Script
(6) Script
(7) http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/libationbearers/canalysis.html
(8) http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/libationbearers/canalysis.html
(9) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orestes_(given_name) 

 

 

 

 

 

Greek Project (Week 6)

On Monday we started blocking Orestes 1's (Me) scene, it was a scene where the chorus have basically pushed him to the edge, we have put the chorus around Orestes at the beginning, but with their backs turned from him, each section of the chorus turn round on different lines, until eventually they are being physical with him pulling him and pushing him about. I thought that this was effective as it felt like I couldn't get away, and if you put that with the lines they were saying then it puts it in context that Orestes cannot escape what he is about to do. The chorus then sit in front of Orestes as if they were at a conference, and then Orestes is taken by two chorus members who clean him up and help him onto a block where he then says a monologue about his mother, this is when you start to see his hatred towards his mother, in this section of the scene I felt in power as if everyone was listening to me, but deep down I knew they were listening because its what they wanted to hear. Eventually Orestes starts to ask the chorus questions as they all crowed round with microphones as if they are getting their juicy story that they want to hear.

In our voice session we looked at the animals we felt that our characters were like, and then pretended to be the animal moving around the room in ways such as, being hunted, hunting and eating. We then eventually over a slow period turned into out character using aspects of the animals, I chose a mouse at first, as they hide and are small and the scene I play Orestes in, he is trying to hide from everyone as he shouldn't be home as he was exiled by Clytemnestra. I also chose a lone wolf as Orestes feels as if he is on his own and he keeps asking for the gods to help him as he goes through this alone. My final animal was a snake, now this was from a metaphor he talks about, the fact he is the snake that bites into his mothers breast at the end of  Orestes 1's scenes going into Orestes 2. I think this exercise helped us all because it took us out of the normal so we are now more confident with being weird around each other and also it helped us move away from being us when playing the characters we can now move like a different person.

On Wednesday we looked at more chorus workshops, we looked at lines again and used freeze frames for them which we then slowly put together and moved into each of them, this gave us more ideas for the chorus's lines as they have very long sections to fill with movements. We also came in, in our chorus outfits, the guys wore shirts and ties, and most of the girls wore dresses, I thought this helped me come out of the mind of Connor, as I don't wear formal clothes, and then jump straight into a different person's shoes.

Thursday we ran through act 1, and then blocked the last scene in the piece, as a group we had decided to have a line of chairs and then work in twos and threes, splitting the lines between us and doing movements with the lines, me and Rae helped make sure that each bit of dialogue and movement connected to the group after each group. I think this was nice as it gave us a chance to explore creative ideas and it was great to work as a collective together without being directed.

Greek Project (Week 5)

In movement this week  we blocked Electra 2's (Abbi) first scene where she is mourning at her fathers grave, mourners join her, but they are the journalists in disguise, we used news papers in this scene so that the chorus could hide behind them, and also throw them about the stage on the line "I cannot pure out the oil, the wine, the milk, the honey" which looked effective as this is when you first bit where Electra is showing hatred towards her mother, the paper throwing movement for me is symbolism for Electra stripping away at her mother to show Clytemnestra's true form. The chorus also do a still image on the line "whether slave or free, neither I can choose or escape it" they form a cage out of their body's which looks great as it makes it look like Electra cannot truly escape what is to come.

In our later lessons that week we were running act one, and I got to show my monologue at the beginning which was great as I couldn't wait to show what I had done, I had learnt my lines so that I could easily move around the space more computably, without looking at my lines every so often, the feed back I got was brilliant, Alex said that I had given her goose bumps, and as this is the first time I appear that is great, I was told that it was good that I had learnt my script and the blocking, as it meant I could focus more on my lines, what they meant and how I was going to make the audience believe what I was saying.
Later in act one there is a scene were Electra and Orestes have just seen one another for the first time, we played around with what we could do such as, leaning over the bath, and also using each others wait, which was effective as it was as if we were relying on the other person to do something it gave it more of a connection between the brother and sister.
One of the chorus scenes we ran was lacking a bit of character, and so they got pass this by saying the lines differently from one another e.g. ignorant, arrogant, childish and sarcastic. Once each member had found the character the scene looked more effective, as it was as if the chorus were arguing with one another with their different opinions.

Today I did some character study on Orestes and I would like to share the photo on the right with you, as I thought it showed the relationship with the chorus and Orestes really well, you see three women around a man who look to be manipulating him with their words, which I thought was an exact representation of the two different people.    

Greek Project (Week 4)

We started with an exercise that worked on the chorus's lines, we took an extract from the script and instead of saying our line standing still directly to the audience, we walked around the space as journalists and when it came to your line you had to either make a huge gesture or stand on something, this helped with the flow of lines and controlling the breath as it was very physical. After we said the lines in a different style whether it be insincere, arrogant or childish etc. which helped to make your line individual to your character in the chorus rather than saying it together in the same tone, which was boring. We ended this exercise by having someone sit in the middle of us and then we had to say our line so that the viewer would be drawn to us.

Later we looked back at the scene between Helen and Electra, looking closely at the chorus this time and how we could make it more effective, in this scene we wanted the chorus to pose as Helen's servants but also be listening in for information for our "news stories" as we were playing journalists, so we did a lot of changes in poses between our listening stances.

We went back to the text that we had previously worked on Monday and started to look at how our individual characters in the chorus would walk around the room, this was because the way we staged this scene is by having each person come in, in a cannonball style to say their lines, but everyone was doing something similar, so we changed how we came in and also how the lines were said.

When I had done my character study today I found this image when I typed in Orestes, and for me it symbolises the fact he cannot see past the revenge he has against his mother, I really like the makeup that is used as it could be something that stands out in the play for the character, and that maybe as he gets further into the play, once he gets more angry and more lost the colour changes darker and darker, I was looking at this because I was wondering what Orestes would wear in this
performance as we want it to look timeless.

Greek Project (Week 3)

To begin this week, we looked at what we thought were the most significant scenes in the play, so what we did was draw 5 pictures of the main scenes that make up our play. I drew the scene with Clytemnestra killing her husband in the bath, I think this is the scene with the most significance out of the whole play because without it Orestes what not have a motive to kill his mother and therefor the people of the city (chorus) would not be begging for him and his sister's blood. I also drew 4 scenes that each have a different Orestes in them because the way we have split the character Orestes between 4 people it gives you an insight into how the character changes throughout the play. In our group I liked two peoples work Abbie and Ell because their drawings were abstract, I especially like Ell's butterfly because it symbolised the two different sides
of the play and also fitted with one of the scripts we had taken scenes from called "Blood and Light."

We later played a game that involved a master, a servant and an under servant, the master would ask for something then the servant would tell the under servant and then they would get the item the required. All though just a game I thought this helped us grasp an understanding of levels within characters whilst completing an objective. After this we did a chorus workshop, once again looking at lines and how we could preform them differently, this time though we were not given any help, we got straight into groups and had a look at the way in which we could say and preform the lines we had been given, our group took a line each from the small extract, but we were stuck on how to preform it in a better way than just saying the lines, we later came to the conclusion that we should act the lines and use our voice to show what is happening, for example Alicia had a line about choking, so she fell to the floor with her hands round her neck and then said the line straining her voice as if she was chocking.

During this week we blocked a scene where the chorus (journalists) were posing as mourners at king Agamemnon's grave, although I was not in this scene we were looking at how the chorus could come on whilst they were saying their lines which had been divided between them, we started by giving them an objective depending on what their line was such as, sneaky, creepy, cunning and ignorant ect. I didn't like this that much because I thought there was too much of an individuality within in the chorus, when the chorus is meant to work as one. After this we tried the whole chorus doing one style for an entrance we chose ignorant, as if your telling a child a story and sarcastic, personally I thought that some of these styles didn't go well with some peoples lines, finally we decided who's lines fitted with what style and I though this worked really well, as yes the chorus sounded like it had its own little groups within the crowed, but they are playing journalists and they work in teams to get the best stories.

On Thursday we worked on mine and Reece's transition scene, where Orestes  One becomes Orestes Two. My idea was that we had me and Reece standing on blocks facing the audience on either sides of the stage, a spotlight would be on Orestes One first whilst he started to say his lines, each time Orestes was meant to say something important that's when we would both say it and the light would flicker on both of us, then eventually once Orestes One finishes talking and Orestes two starts the lights would change over, but still flicker when we both say something. We then wanted to add Clytemnestra in as the dialogue is about Orestes killing his mother, so we decided to put her in the bath with her dead husband, and eventually she would slowly rise and make her way front of stage, there is also a line in the speech that says "That screaming mouth will stiffen," what will happen here is Charlotte (playing Clytemnestra) pulls a horrible screaming face. I like how we have staged this scene as it foreshadows what is to happen in the next scene, whilst creating a smooth change over between the Orestes.

Finally at the end of this week, the chorus did some work together, I am chorus for this piece, and we where using the workshop we had done at the beginning of this week, to stage an interesting scene, my group worked on the contempry staging of this scene, as we had looked at a contempry style of Antigone, where they stage it in a government style, so we decided to do this scene as if we were journalists writing up the story. I had an idea where we could stage it so that we would see a few writers creating the story then publishing it and handing it out in the office (whilst saying lines of course) then eventually the people who sell newspapers on the street could be selling them whilst chanting their lines as if the whole time the chorus have been reading out the newspaper. Finally this would end with an unveiling of three horrid statues one of Clytemnestra, another of her dead lover and King Agamemnon, which then the chorus would leave the stage pleased with themselves in a sinister way, this would mark the end of Act 1.





 

Greek Project (Week 2)

This week's main focus was on the chorus and how we could develop scenes that the chorus were in, during our Theatre Context class we looked out how we could take our idea of having the chorus as journalists and how we could take some of the scenes in "Oresteia" and how we could make them more contempry through our chorus. So what we did was use some recent news stories and show them in a different way (other than a news program,) me and Bradley chose the forest fire that had happened in Australia we found it difficult at first, showing it in a different way was hard, but we came up with the idea of how some journalists make up stories in order to get more views, so what we did was used the idea of a news program and how you would have a journalist have been onsite, now the idea of us making up the story went well, as we treated the audience like a chorus, they all worked as one to make decisions, and so when we interviewed them about whether this was true or not they decided as a collective that this was a lie, we got a lot of laughs out of it and so we played on the audience's reactions.

We also looked at the character of Electra and how she is a god, then after we decided on what modern day gods are and we thought about celebrities, once we had done this we looked at what celebrity we though Electra was like we came up with the three we liked and one of them was my celebrity, Miley Cyrus, now I said this because she has been on the news very recently and is now quite a stuck up person which suits the character of Electra.

In our movement lesson, we carried on the scene of the death of Agamemnon, mainly this was a look at the chorus and how journalists would react to watching this, we also looked at the words from the piece and looked at how we could emphasise them by acting them out in the chorus, this worked well as the chorus members worked individually but in a collective of them, they all did different moves but all moved as one.

Wednesday we looked at words that the chorus say and how we could emphasise these words just like in movement. We tried different ways of saying them and different movements we preformed the words we had to the class in small groups, we would say the words together in a different way, whether it was singing them, whispering them, saying it fast or slow ect. and then we looked at the movements for instants, we used rip and pretended to tear a pieces of fabric in the air, this workshop helped us a lot to understand how to use the chorus effectively.

We later looked at different types of staging and where we could put the audience:

To the left you will see a Proscenium Arch, this is a very simple actors on the stage and the audience in front watching what's happening, this is also know as end on staging, where your audience is lower than the stage.







To the right you will see an In The Round style of staging, this is where your audience sit all around you and the acting is centred in the middle, this creates more of an intimate feeling for your audience.











Left of this is a style called Traverses Staging, your audience sit either side of what looks like a cat walk, and they will not
only watch you, but they can see the other audience members reaction.








After we looked at staging we mixed the lines that we were saying as the chorus earlier, in with the different ways we could stage it. And we also looked at the In The Round stage and we treated it as if we were on a circle that was balancing on the point in the middle, so when another person jumps in you would have to move to balance out the circle.

On Thursday we looked at the beginning scene, where Orestes and Electra are mourning for their father, but do not know that they are there, my character Orestes has just come home after a long exile, which his mum had ordered and so when ever the chorus or Electra were on I had to hide away. After my lines I kneel down mourning at the grave, which is represented by the bath Agamemnon dies in, I then hear the mourners coming and on three beats I have to look up, stand up and turn around and then on five beats I had to hide, this helped me with the blocking as I wasn't concentrating on how long I had to get to different points. After this I worked on my monologue, I was told to deliver the lines and walk to where I felt I had to, which made it easier for me on the blocking again as I didn't feel restricted.





























 

Greek Project (Week 1)

Before we had started our play Orestes from the Oresteia Euripides, we had begun looking at contempry work and sections from the script. The first bit of the script we looked at was a scene from the chorus, in this scene the chorus were trying to convince Orestes to murder his mother Clytemnestra. We had to explore the ways we could take this section and make it contempry, so we spilt up into two groups in the class our group focused on advertisement and how it can convince people to buy things, which was great for this piece as we were trying to convince somebody to do something, the other group went with the idea of internet bullying, which sometimes can also make someone do something they don't want to unfortunately.  

We later did some work on life in Ancient Greece, we researched things such as how women were treated back then, what people wore, the gods and their impact on the people, how plays were treated as news for them back then etc.

Just before we started the project we looked at the first part of the script, this was a chance for us to see what parts we liked the look of and also how the play was going to pan out. We later went on to try different scenes with people and from there we started picking characters, I shall be playing Orestes one, we also spitted each character by their scenes, and in my scene I shall be returning from a long exile to find my father is dead and that my mother has killed him.

During our first lesson on the project we got into groups or pairs that we thought our character fitted into, then we were mixed with other people to start looking at statues, and how our character would look if they were one based on the scene we were in, then we looked at the materials we could be made from.

 

The photo on the right is the pose my group and I thought best fitted my character in his scene, we thought that kneeling down was a good idea because Orestes is mourning for his father, and the hand gesture we used was because Orestes repeats "To do what I must do" and we picture him looking at his hands as if to say these hands must kill my mother, which he eventually does. The material I chose at first was wet stone, but after doing more research I have chosen snow because when it is left to settle it is soft, wet and cold, but when pushed together it becomes hard, wet, cold and can numb your hands, I have chosen the harder snow as Orestes has been pushed together by the thought of revenge and this has made him cold and most definitely numb from the pain of losing his father, the wetness comes from his sadness towards losing his father.

We later had to make this statue bigger, and personally I like my bigger one (which is to your left.) As it looks like Orestes has lost all hope and he is screaming out to the gods "why? how could this happen," this links to another part in my scene as Orestes is calling out to Hermes and asking him to guide his cries to his fathers ghost.

After this we did an exercise called chair objectives, this is where one person would have to move their chair based on their objective, whether it be blame, forgiveness, restraint, protection etc. Then the other person would react to this using the chair, and they too would also have an objective.

 

We spilt of into our groups we thought our characters fitted with and started to create some chair objectives, I was with Abbie as she plays my sister in my scene. Before we started, we were told about when two siblings are kept apart and they eventually meet one another, that it has been scientifically proven that they feel a strong love for one another, one that a normal pair of siblings wouldn't. Now considering our scene, which eventually ends with Orestes seeing Electra after a long time we decided our chair objectives would be, love for Abbie and restraint for me, we thought this would work well as the youngest would be wanting the love from her brother, but he would be stopping himself as he has to keep everything under control and to execute his plan to kill his mother. 

 

Later on we started learning how to act as one like a chorus, as everyone will be in the chorus at some point, we moved around the space and copied the leader who would be the person at the front if we changed direction the leader would automatically change, I think this showed us how difficult it is to all be in sync without looking directly at the leader, but once we had gotten the hang of it, it worked really well.

 

In our movement class we worked on the first scene, which is where Electra is explaining how she saw her mother kill her father in the bath tub. The big thing to work on in this scene was the chorus, as we had planned to have the chorus on stage at all times, and that they would represent a modern time journalist, this idea was thought of because the media are always watching over what's happening and controlling peoples actions in a way. Me and Abbie were in the scene after this so we didn't take part, instead we helped Zack, Charlotte and Joe to work on the killing scene, we put in a lot of movement styles such as some lifts, which eventually looked really good with the chorus who were observing what was going on, but also using different movement styles.

 

For the final part of week one, we worked on two scenes, one where Tyndareous and Electra were arguing about what was to happen to her and her brother after they had killed their mother, with this one we had the chorus choosing sides depending on what we thought was right and what was wrong by either listening in closer, ignoring them or even literally walking to the side to back them up.

Our second scene was with Electra and Helen (Clytemnestra's Sister) in this scene Helen has returned home to find out her sister is dead and so she goes straight to see Electra and questions her, the chorus in this scene were like rats running about checking their surroundings, but also being there for Helen if she needed something like her slaves.

 

 

 

 



Proformance Evaluation (Devising)

Overall I think that the performance was good, but not as smooth and slick as we had previously rehearsed it. A few minor bits were missed and sometimes our timing with getting on stage was not very good.

Scene 1 (Hospital)

The movement of the scene flowed well, in terms of the fight sequence, but some of the dialogue was a bit off, for instance the lines that were said in the rehearsal process were altered slightly, not making the sentence make sense. But the fight sequence was slick and therefore worked really well to add tension between the characters of the parents, played by Bradley Williams and Yasmin Fellah.

Scene 2 (Trap)

In this scene it worked as we had planned in the rehearsal, although I felt like Alicia was slipping on the lift, I managed to maintain my character and therefore it wasn't noticeable. The only problem I felt about this scene was the fact my face was meant to be completely blank, but when we watched it back I just looked bored, if I was given the opportunity to redo this I would have widen my eye's more and stared out to the clock.

Scene 3 (Im the real Christina)

This scene was great in the way in which it was exactly the way we rehearsed it, the timing with our heads out of the curtain was good, and also the bit we had worked on with all being in sync was the best we had ever done it. Our only problems were that the audience found the curtain bit and the crawling funny, which was not our intention, and also two people turned round late when Dan's lift happened, but luckily we caught him. If we had to look at the scene again I probably would have had us choreograph what we were saying so that there were not any bits of dialogue that the audience would find funny, and also I would have had the others enter in a different way rather than crawling, maybe have them walk forward to there spot looking into the audience with facial expressions and body language that match the version of Christina they were playing.

Scene 4 (The Circle)

The circle was ok, the beginning was a bit delayed due to getting the blocks of from the scene before, and they dialogue wasn't projected as much as it could have been, but apart from that the mini monologues that everyone had to say were believable, unlike the rehearsals where we had problems with this.

Scene 5 (Obstacles)

The obstacle scene was my favourite, we were all in sync with one another, including the music, for me this was a great scene to build up tension in our performance and the green eerie lighting fitted perfectly with it.

Scene 6 (Bus Stop)

In my opinion this scenes maybe let down the others in our piece, as it was straight after the Obstacle scene where we had built a lot of tension, which then kind of fizzled out in this scene. Also on a personal criticism I think I overplayed my part, so it sounded more pantomime then was intended, and therefore my character wasn't as believable as it could have been.

Scene 7 (Am I Free?)

Am I free was the best scene to leave our audience, we used the repetition from each one of Christina's monologue's and put them into one, and then used the "I Am Free" line which was spelt out on the rest of the groups t-shirts. But what really got the audience was the plot twist of "Am I Free?" And I could tell this by their reaction at the end of the scene, which was just what we were looking for.

Audience's Views

When it came to our strength in voice we were 5/10's, 8/10's all sorts of different numbers and I think this is because of the nerves at the beginning got in the way and so the projection of the dialogue was a little off, but as it got through the performance you could tell in our voices that we were getting more compftable with the piece.

One of the questions on the sheet we gave the audience was "did any characters stand out to you?" And the majority of people said no, which was what we were going for, we wanted to show how difficult it is to find yourself in a contampry way, and so if we had one character stand out then instantly that would me that they have found themselves.

Audience's Comments:

Some of the audience had left comments and here is a few I have chosen to share with you.

"The atmosphere spoke for its self."
"Loneliness and curiosity in one."
"Offered many feelings towards Christina."
"It confused me in a good way."
"I'm curious to know who the real Christina is."

My views on the group and rehearsal process

In our group we did have some differences at the beginning, but we used these different ideas we had to create stronger scenes then they were on their own. And even at some points some of us felt that we were not getting our ideas across, so when this happened we split into two groups to make use of all these different ideas. We all contributed to every scene in some way.
The communication in our group was good, we were talking on Facebook discussing notes, also ideas and helping each other with blog entries when we were stuck.

The rehearsal process itself was slow at first but once we got through the mental block for ideas, it opened up a whole bunch of them and personally I like the scenes we had created even if some were stronger than others.

Conclusion

I believe that the performance had room for improvements, but the focus from the group was brilliant in and out of the devised piece, also the hard work put in by everyone did create something that was completely different from the stimulus but it still linked in some way.

I think that the aim "explores the notion of identity, isolation and freedom through the action of movement and to confront and challenge the perception of the "self."" was lived up to due to the audiences feedback.

And overall it was a great experience for me, as I found it helped me work well in a group, and also devise better, as I could not devise pieces very well before this.

Week 4 (Devising)

Week 4 was performance week, we had two scenes to create and a few to polish up, here is how it went:

We first devised one of our three scenes, originally at the start when we were creating ideas we split into two groups to devise a scene each and then critique one another, Imogen, Bradly, Shelby and Yasmin came up with the train scene, it was about showing how different we all are through different emotions, for instance Imogen was shy and reserved, Yasmin was angry and agitated, Shelby was open minded and free and Bradly was kindness. But when we watched the scene it was really naturalistic, so therefore the piece was long, very slow paced and so it lost the audience at time. So we thought that we would take the idea of this original scene and use it in our performance, we thought it could work well in devising piece because "The Real Christina" is all about finding who you are and so the different emotions could work well in  a scene.
For this scene everyone apart from Yasmin (who was Christina for this scene) stood staggered around the stage staring blankly into the audience, until Christina came to talk to us we thought that it would be like Christina is bring the different emotions of hers alive, so when we were brought to life our emotion would be shown by body language, facial expressions and how we spoke. We tried to pick very different emotions from one another in the group, so that the audience could tell that each character was separate.

After this we created our final scene, we had an idea for a while during the creation process of having a twist at the end and also that we could all wear letters through-out the performance rather than referring to one another using names. So we took both ideas and created our last scene, we thought it had to be simple without taking away the tension we have created in other scenes, so we used the sentence "I AM FREE" because there were seven of us, it fitted into the performance and there was a way of adding in the final person of our group, so we lined up with our letters taped to us in this order, Shelby (who was Christina in this scene) said a monologue at the front, we wanted her to go back to the start almost brining back some of that text but in a different way, we used the "can you feel that? Because I cant, can you hear that? Because I cant," but instead changing it to because I can, to make the audience feel like she's there she finally knows who she is then Shelby says "I am strong, I am independent and I am free, am I free?" we turn around at this point in our line to reveal that the word has changed from I AM FREE, to AM I FREE? Shelby joined the line as the question mark then, we planned for a fading black out.

We rehearsed the whole scene but it wasn't long enough, so the group thought of an idea, that maybe we could show how Christina got here, so we created the hospital scene, most of this scene was spoken to the audience, like frantic assembly's work, and we also added in a movement piece it was the mother and father fighting over their daughter, who had just gone into a coma, and Rae (who played Christina this scene) watched over the whole scene trying to make the stop.


The next day we had to work on the lighting, we were given a few minutes to rehears our piece before the tech run, but oddly enough we came up with an idea by just playing about in the curtains. The photo to the left, shows us sticking our heads through the curtains, now at the time we were messing about saying things like im the real Christina, then we realised that this could be incorporated into our box scene.

The lighting we had worked well with the piece and had shown a variety of different colours here is a list of what we had:


Hospital Scene: Scene one we had a simple wash at the beginning for the dialogue to the audience, but then when the fight/movement scene started, we had them change to blue.

Trap Scene: Scene two we had red when Alicia was sat on her own and also whilst we "trapped" her in the chair, when me, Rae and Dan moved back we had a spotlight on Alicia, so that for the next bit you could not see me Dan or Rae. Then finally we finished with a fading black out, as we had to get blocks on stage.

Box Scene: Scene three we had our heads through the curtains, so we had two lights from either side so that everyone could be seen at the back without lighting the rest of the stage, once everyone started to move out of the curtain, the lights became a simple wash again. And then the scene ended with a black out as we had to get the blocks off.

Circle Scene: Scene four we had a spotlight on Yasmin, so that when we eventually circled around her, some of us would be lit for the monologues and then when we span others would be.

Obstacle Scene: Scene five we had the lights change to green when Yasmin started to walk back, the lights remained this way through-out the mirror/obstacle scene until we all caved around Yasmin at the front.

Train Scene: Scene six was straight after the mirror/obstacle scene, so we changed the lighting from green to a simple wash once again.

I am free Scene: Scene seven used two lights like the ones for the curtain bit, but these were blue lighting the line we created the was a little strip of light for Shelby to then do her monologue. And then we finished with a slow fading blackout.

After our tech run we needed to polish scenes, such as the box scene and the train scene, but we were also told that our end scene loses the tension we create in our obstacle scene, so we developed that more as well.

Week 3 (Devising)

On Monday we started coming up with ideas and developing a new scene, one of our ideas was combining two exercises we had learned in previous classes, the first being an obstacle scene where one person would try and make it from one side of a room to another by crawling, but at the same time people were making obstacles in front of the person crawling, when we first did this exercise I thought of it as Christian's struggle in life, I now thought we could fit the obstacle idea into our piece as it is about the struggle of a young girl finding out who she is. We later developed the scene by adding on a mirror scene, after our character struggles through the obstacles, she is then met by lots of different versions of herself that copy what she does, we thought that this could be Christina (our version) trying to break free from the world, just like Jim Carrey's last scene in "The Truman Show" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6NNGxVt7h4) but instead of it being a wall, its an endless set of mirrors stopping her. We later thought we needed to start the scene some how, so we stuck with the idea of having a monologue every so often so that the audience could understand what was going on, my idea was to have Christina saying a monologue in the middle of the stage and the rest of us standing with out backs to her, until she say "can you feel that?" Then we held hands and curved round our character creating a circle, I also had the idea that each of us in the circle should say a short sentence that would be meant for Christina, but if we say it to the audience, then it would fit with our aim of trying to making them think who are we. Rae came up with the idea of us using a rule in our monologues, where we could each label our selves positive and negative, but the positive people followed up from the negatives with a but, and the negatives finished the sentence with a question. Then Yasmin thought of the idea that after each monologue we could turn into the next spot rather than stepping, we had to wait for the person speaking to stop and then count three beats before all turning at the same time.



On Wednesday we went back over the obstacle/mirror scene, and decided to add some music for quite a pacey scene, so Imogen played the song from the nutcracker, but she played around with the tempo that she would play it in, we then carried on polishing this scene.

We then added everyone into our "the real Christina" scene, by having Rae and Alicia kneeling in front of the boxes, and when everyone said "we are all the real Christina" they would rise, and Shelby, Bradley and Yasmin stepped of the boxes, then me, Dan and Bradley stepped back up onto the boxes, which later led into us all doing the same movement sequence that the others created earlier, we then came up with a lift, Dan would stand on a block and get pushed of by Shelby where the rest of us would catch him. We carried on perfecting the whole scene so that we could work out how we could move around the stage.

Later we started board storming ideas for some new scenes because we needed more minutes, so we came up with a hospital scene at the beginning, to show how Christina slips into a coma, but we planned to work on it next Monday.

Thursday Week 2 (Devising)

We had to now start piecing 8 scenes together and come up with our main, name, aims, themes and specific audience here's the final outcome of the story:

• Name: Lost in Sanity.
•  Aim: Lost in sanity explores the notion of identity, isolation and freedom through the action of movement and to confront and challenge the perception of the "self."
• Themes: Isolation and Self Identification.
• Audience: 16+

Our aim and audience both link together, as at the age of 16 you are in your final year of secondary school, you are having all these colleges, and ideas for the rest of your life thrown at you, you are also going to have a fresh start during the next year, new friends and teachers, and on top of this your taking your GCSE's and this can be hard for some young adults because your faced with hardest question "who are you?" Well this piece explores this subject in an abstract way.

The other half of our group the day before came up with a train scene, but we thought it was to naturalistic, so what we did was we, had the idea of "who is the real Christina?" She is being pushed down deep inside by all these emotions, so that is literally what we had done, we took three strong emotions, sadness, anger and happiness, each emotion was played by someone, and they said something that came from Christina's memories and every time the "real Christina" popped up the emotions would push her down further.

We had to later preform the scenes we had to the other group and the feed back we got for our chair scene was the same, as we had spent our time developing the others scene with them, but the emotions scene's feedback wad as follows:

• We needed to lengthen the piece more, and we had planned to use our movement class to develop an idea of using the whole group, like a flock of birds copying one person at the front all together.
• More emotions: the emotion characters need to completely separate themselves from one another the emotions need to come on very strong towards how they are feeling.

Wednesday Week 2 (Devising)

The group started off by splitting into two, Me, Dan, Rae and Alicia were working on a scene, which we later named trap, this scene used my older idea of the flames trapping someone in a chair, but with a few more ideas to lengthen the piece. The whole idea of this scene was to make sure the main character stayed in the chair no matter what, because we were trying to show that the character is being trapped by here own thoughts, we tried to use frantic assembly's physical theatre style to make the piece look more abstract.

The ideas we used to lengthen the piece were:

• Three move rule: two people sat beside Alicia they had three moves to trap her, she then had three moves to un trap herself, we later added text into the piece, which Alicia brought in and we only used the first paragraph. "I am strong, I am independent and I am free" but every time she said this text the rest of us tried to take away her sense of freedom.
• Flipping of the chair: the chair that the character needed to sit on gets moved during the scene so we needed a clean but smooth way of putting the chair back without banging or crashing, so me and Rae came up with the idea of flipping the chair over Alicia's head, this was a different, but also quite neat looking way of moving the chair to where we would have wanted it to go.
• Lift: we wanted to add a lift in because, if we did the scene very quick and slick the lift would have looked quite cool, so we finished the flame trap scene, and then had Alicia lean forward where me and Dan would catch her arms, then Rae would lift her legs and we all swung her, I think  this looked effective because it was as if we, her thoughts, were letting her go forward but yet pulling her back all of a sudden.

We later showed this to our lecturer, in order to get some feed back, here is what we had been given:

• Emotion/Really blank, we needed to either show an emotion on our faces, or if the scene need to have our faces blank, we needed to make it bigger, as we all looked like we were bored rather than expressionless.
• Make the flame scene bigger, we need to make the scene bigger by reaching out further and for longer, so it looks like Alicia is trying really hard to get away, and we a trying hard to keep her from getting away.
• Make the three moves bit longer, maybe add in some more movements or just repeat at different speeds.
• Heart beat sound, when we are going into a slow motion moment use a noise from our throats to make it sound like someone's heart beat.

Business In Theatre (job roles.)

Here is some of the work I have been doing in my Business in Theatre class, we are currently looking at a project, where we are looking at the roles of different people, if we were to put a show on in the Edinburgh Festival.

Thursday Week 1 (Devising)

Second day of week one, we had gotten straight into our groups, in order to share the research that we had gathered the night before, and we discussed what we had found, for instance I researched what effects drug abuse has on family's of the user, and the search actually turned into what can lead a person to turn to drugs and it came up with:

• Bad childhood or adulthood issues.
• The relationships between the parents and child.  
• Relationships with a partner (domestic abuse.)
• The area in which they a brought up.
• The friends they grow up with.

Now Bradley wasn't in during the Wednesday session, so we listened to his first impressions on the stimulus, and how we could either pair it with our ideas already or even create a new idea entirely.

Eventually after lots of discussing, and a few constructive debates we had an idea for a story that we could create a scene for, we had the idea of a girl who's family were in a fire, that she survived, and she gets sent to a horrible orphanage, were she shows here battle (struggle) with mental illness.

Now the scene we came up with, was that our character was having a mental breakdown about the fire, and we used her family to manipulate her using guilt, the family were backstage (representing spirits,) explain the fire as two people would play the flames, my idea with this was to almost make the flames look like the were controlling her and doing what fires do, trapping her so the audience could watch her struggle, what the flames did was a sequence with the character where they would be throwing her about but not letting her leave the chair she was sat in, now we used a build up with a yell, but we were later given feedback, and were told its been done too much so maybe if we build up and have silence, or even just a terrible noise playing, we were also told that we should make the sequence with the flames much bigger.


Our second scene we didn't spend to much time on, but it was meant to be our character looking back at one Christmas dinner with the family, we had two people playing our female main character one, was the past time version, and the other was a present time crazed version. Now we spend too long on the scene, but we were planning to add rules, like if someone said family, happiness, sanity or anything to do with fire the scene would freeze and the crazed character would say a short monologue. We were given feedback that we should make the family dinner table more abstract, so what we planned to do was to sit on the floor in a circle connected by our feet, I had the Idea of placing the crazed character in the middle so she was surrounded by a memory that was haunting her.


We did an extra activity that day where one person would play Christina (the lady in the stimulus) and they would try and crawl from onside of the room to another but everyone else would try to be obstacles stopping that person, this gave us an inside look into the struggle Christina went through everyday.

Wednesday Week 1 (Devising)

During our first lesson of the devising module, we were given a stimulus, which was a painting named "Christina's World" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina's_World (as seen here.) We were asked what our first impressions were and mine are as follows:

Colours:

• The house is dark, which makes me think of symbolism, and that the house symbolises misery.
• The woman in the image is wearing bright colours, this makes her eye catching, and stand out in the image.
• The grass uses really grungy yellows and greens.

Characters/Stories:

• Looking at the scenery, it reminds me of a farm, with a field, a small hut and a manor house, and the position the woman is in looks quite helpless, so I think that the character in the painting, is either a famers wife or daughter and that domestic abuse plays a part in the story, which has led her to run away, as she turns back she takes one last look at the farm, and it brings bad memory's to her causing her to fall to the floor.
• The image does look as if the house has a dark history and that no-one wants to go back.

Shapes/Textures:

• The field and the house look quite scratchy, as if they were painted with a stroke technique.
• And the ladies clothes look like they have a softness to them, which makes me think that the character in the image is quite soft and mild.
• Yet there is one strand of hair that looks as if its floating with the wind, which makes me think she wants to be independent and break away from the rest.
• In the painting the field and woman are painted using lots of curves, yet the house is painted using jagged or sharp shapes, making it look as if it dangerous.

Later that session we were given the name of the painting and the time it was painted, here are my thoughts on these:

Title "Christina's World"

• The title of this painting gave me two ideas, either she is watching as her life fades into the distance, as the house is quite far from the lady, and that she is just watching it fade away, but she is helpless and cant do anything about it.
• Or this is a dream she has, of living on a farm far away from everything because she wants to get away from the life she is living at this point in time.

Time Frame "1948"-USA

• The date of this painting, and the area it was painted in, made me instantly think end of World War 2, and the great depression, and so I thought that this woman in the photo was watching everything being taken away from her.
• When I didn't know the date this was painting, I thought of World War 1 and the evacuations of children to the countryside. 

We later did some research into the painting and here is what I found an interest in:

• The Painter, Andrew Wyeth's father was killed in a railway crossing before this painted
• Anna Christina Olson, the woman in the painting, had polio and this is her, doing what she did everyday and crawling through the field back to her home.
• The house in the painting is actually real. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olson_House_(Cushing,_Maine)

Now I later linked both, the fact that his father was killed crossing a railway, must have had an effect on Andrew Wyeth, if you link this to the fact that Christina crawls from the field to the house everyday, it shows Andrew Wyeth using this painting to show his struggle (like Christina struggling to her house.) with the fact his father had died.


We were later put into groups, The Mighty Oosh (our groups name,) consisted of Dan, Bradley, Alicia, Shelby, Yasmin, Rae-Ann and Imogen. Once we were put into groups we started to share out ideas together, we had a few story ideas:

• I came up with the idea of a girl who's either the farmers wife or daughter, which I told you about earlier in this blog, and she is struggling with domestic abuse, as he father locks her away (now this can link to the polio as its caused by a lack of sunlight.) and the whole piece is her struggle to keep hope and achieve freedom.
• Dan came up with an idea, based around morphine abuse back in the USA during 1948, I backed him up by saying that the title "Christina's World" could actually be a reference to drug abuse and how she gets away from everyday life, this idea made me think Alice in wonderland straight away.
• I later went on to say, what if she had run away from home along time back, and now she comes home and seeing the house just floods her with emotions and she drops down, because we could preform it as her starting that way and gradually each scene is a memory, good or bad, of the farm.
• We thought briefly of an idea, where a woman gives up here child, but we didn't go that far into it, we actually said we would research, and look more into giving up children and adoption.

In a different session that day, we had to do three freeze frames, one of us looking at someone, the second of us looking at someone but not wanting them to see us, and finally looking at someone but making it obvious, we started to walking around the space and when 1 was called out we stopped and did our first pose, then two for the second and three for the third. Eventually we had one person standing at the front and we were focusing on looking at him/her, the reactions they gave were that the first one was intimidating, the second pose just looked silly and the third pose didn't really have and effect, it wasn't until we started slowly walking to the people that they started to feel uncomftable.

In our final session we put ourselves in Christina's shoes and also used the looking poses in this activity, we had half of the class on one side of the room in the position that Christina is in, in the painting, and then they would crawl across the room whilst the other half would watching them changing the poses that we had created in the last session.

• When I was the watcher, I felt really bad and wanted to help up the people crawling along the floor.
• When I was Christina, I felt really uncomftable as I don't enjoy having people watching, and staring at me struggling.