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.