Shakespeare Week 7

Two weeks now!

This week began with a scene run and feedback. However before I dive into the usual, our class went to see a London show Monday night. The show was called Photograph 51. "
An intriguing portrait of British scientist Rosalind Franklin and her—often overlooked—role in the discovery of DNA’s double helix structure. This complex tale explores how Franklin, a smart, stubborn, and courageous woman, operated in a field dominated by men. A balance of the historical, romantic, and scientific, Photograph 51 is a touching human play of ideas." 
The play was an interesting one, and I came out of it not liking it as much as I wanted to. But saying that, the character and subject it was set upon really drew me in. Rosalind Franklin, was a female who did an awful lot for science and DNA that we use today. But she was never acknowledged for this. I am a big believer of woman's rights etc, so I felt some connection with the pain that occurred when I realised it was Crick and Watson who got all the credit for the discovery of the 'double helix.'
So in that sense, I really enjoyed understanding more about the history of Franklin despite not liking the play itself.
But in a way, it made me think more about my first character Isabelle. Franklin, played very well by Nicole Kidman, was a stern, independent woman. She wasnt a social type and much preferred working alone than with others. But she was feisty and never once let someone 'walk over her.' And this is how I see Isabelle to be. Obviously Isabelle is a made-up character in Much Ado About Nothing, as we changed Antonio into her; so she only plays a small part in the scene. But for as much as I play Isabelle for, I picture her very similar to Franklin. As Isabelle acts as one of the festival managers so therefore she would, if we got to see her be a lot like Franklin; with bounds of dominances, sterness and very work committed. Only excluding one element of Franklin, that would be marriage. Franklin spent her entire life single, without husband or children and I can only assume this is to do with her work commitment; whereas Isabelle is married to Leonato- and although it's not made obvious, as the actor of the character, I am aware of this.

Reuniting myself back to Much Ado About Nothing and its ever-improving rehearsal period...
 These runs are improving each time and they've really helped us get to grips with the scene structure which means we are all very familiar with the whole piece. This makes a change to the previous shows we've done here at South Downs which makes me feel that this performance will be our best yet.
Anyways, the run that began Tuesday gave us more feedback to work upon:

• PROJECTION: This is still something I'am clearly not achieving and it's always been something I am reminded of. I've come to learn that my trick for this is to keep rehearsing! This then gets me really confident with lines, movement and reactions which then leads on to give me the confidence of delivering the lines with, again, confidence and  loudness. 
• More energy
• Reactions, try not to make them delayed
• More banter
• Know my cue lines which only comes with practise!

It's been really helpful getting so much feedback over the process of this play but it's been hard to really work on this. However, I have been focussing a lot on my diction and projection as I always find these to be my main weak points, and I gathered if I improve on these, the likes of 'energy, reactions etc' will improve themselves. 

So to work on my projection I experimented on four main voice projection tips my school teacher drilled into my head:

1. RELAX. As soon as nerves kick in, I already know, I mess up on lines but also drop my volume significantly. Also when nervous, we all tend to tense up our bodies; which means vocal deliver is naturally harder due to all the muscles in our body being tense. I've tried to remind myself to relax each time I'm due on stage, and usually I'll focus on my breathing (in for 4, out for 7 etc) and do some body stretches, such as shoulder and neck rolls, jumps, finger and ankle spins and squats. I also shake off everything after completing this. I am not entirely sure this has a huge effect but I know for sure it pumps me up, ready for the scene which helps wildly for the banterous scene between myself and Ursula.
2. OPEN YOUR MOUTH. Seems a really stupid one, however it really reminds me to use all of my mouth, and as extravagant as it looks, it really helps the words clearly leave my mouth and project. 
3. POSTURE. Stand upright, this for one gives off a more confident persona as well as opening up and freeing all muscles that might be tense in my body. The actors neutral comes in handy here, which is head up, shoulders dropped and slightly pulled backwards, knees slightly bent and feet hips width apart. I feel this stature frees everything up in my body, gives me a good sense of stage presence as well as simply holding a good posture.
4. FOCUS YOUR VOICE. How I practise this one, is when running lines I focus my voice delivery to various objects in my room. Beginning with something close, then gradually projecting my voice to something further away to bring my volume to the correct level. And this has probably got to be my favourite exercise because I know its something that I always struggle with, but it's also something that annoys me when I go and see a show...

Wednesday began with voice work on our Shakespeare, and a few of us got some feedback on this. But for me it mainly gave me that extra bit of time to really work on my projection; which can only help. And Thursday brought another run of scenes. But firstly we were introduced to actioning. Actioning is a fairly difficult script work exercise that entails us to analyse our lines and pin point lines that are an 'objective line.' Its easier to give an example of this for you to properly understand:

"Good Margaret, run thee to the bar there shalt." This whole section is instructing.

"Now Ursula, when Beatrice doth come as we do trace this alley up and down our talk must only be of Benedick." I am informing.

"When I do name him let it be thy part to praise him more than man ever did merit." I am informing.

"No truly Ursula, she is too disdainful., I know her spirits are as wild and coy as haggards of the rock." I am playing.

"But nature never framed a woman's heart of that prouder stuff than that of Beatrice." I understand.

"All matters else seem weak. She cannot love nor shape nor project of affection...she is so self endeared." I am playing.

"If low why an agate very viley cut. If speaking why a vane blown with all winds.If silent, why block moved with none." I am explaining.

"No rather I will go to Benedick and counsel to fight against his passion. And truly I'll devise some honest slanders to stain my cousin with. One doth not know how much an ill word may impoison a liking." I plan.

"He is the only man of Italy, always excepted my dear Claudio." I praise.

So above is a brief set of examples for you to understand. Actioning is something I've heard of many times before now but today was my first try at understanding and experimenting with it...and it's actually a lot harder than it looks. You have to really tune into your lines and the meaning behind them to understand the 'objective' and the outcome in which the objective will cause.

     This was a really interesting task to say the least, and it allowed me to pay more attention into what my lines were actually telling me which I felt has lead me to feeling a much better understanding of my character, Hero, mainly. 

After completing this we went straight into a scene run, for once again more feedback...

• TRUST YOURSELF: This was probably my main feedback note today. Brandon especially, meant this because he knows that I know my lines, but because I don't 'trust myself' I mess them up and get all nervous. So he mentioned a bit of trust wouldn't hurt me... I relate this mainly towards my confidence. I am not unconfident, I know that. But at the same time I'm not oozing with confidence; which is where I think I lack it the most. It's something that can only grow or stay the same as I don't feel as though it's getting weaker. But I think it's something that I will always have to be tackling. 
• Slow down: As soon as I start to speed up and get nervous and mess my lines up, it all goes to pot. If I remember to slow down, things might actually go to plan. I also loose a lot of my lines due to rushing. 
• Good presence on stage, however.
• Remember I've got the beer, I tend to throw it around... but it'll inevitably be easier when we have the props.
• Move my hair out of my face 
• Good tone (playful)
• The energy of the piece was so much better also! It dropped at times but not as drastically as it has done before. 

And now for the exciting part of our piece!! Physical theatre. If you'd have told me before we started this play that we were going to include Physical Theatre, I would've disapproved. However, now we've spent a lot of time discussing how we want the physical pieces, it really works!!
So to begin with, we mixed around how we want me and Frankie to be lifted. Originally it was going to be Milo and Matt lifting me but I didn't feel like Milo could carry the weight, so now it's Matt and Lewis who do it. The first hurdle was how we knew when to be lifted, Luke sorted this by 'WOOING' as an indication for the boys to lift myself and Frankie. Myself and Frankie also refreshed our memory on the four piece movements we planned to do whilst on the boys shoulders.
     Our four moves consist of:

1. Pointing to each other
2. Having a drink
3. Pointing/waving out to the audience
4. Rock-hand symbol

We try and do the same four movements but at different times so it's not predictable, and we also try to make it quite Berkhovian, and by that I mean making each of these four movements really strict. This makes it a sort of abstract set of movements but it's become really effective. 

    Secondly, we knew how we wanted to set the next bit of the physical piece but the question was how? Myself and Frankie are meant to be dismounted from the boys shoulders, and then Brandon steps up onto Frankie's box and Milo onto mine- all part of the trick to fool Claudio into thinking me, as Hero, has gone off and slept with Borachio. We had to decide on a valid way for Milo distract me and take me off stage so we settled on him spilling his beer over me, so I run off stage as though to go and clean myself up. This way I am out of sight of Claudio for Margaret to disguise herself as me. Alongside the music, myself and Milo created a four piece movement structure, movement one him throwing the drink over me. Number two is my large reaction, three being me hitting him and four me leaving the stage.
We had the rest of the ensemble at the back of the stage at this point to focus the attention mainly on myself, Frankie, Milo and Brandon. So myself and Milo are now off stage which means Claudio can realistically believe Frankie is Hero due to the shirt swap. This bit was the hardest, visually because we knew exactly how we wanted to set it but it was so much harder to bring to life. Frankie and Brandon are stood together on the box and created a short movement piece to represent them 'making-out'. At the very point in which the music beat drops, Joe turns to find that Hero's shirt, that was given to Margaret because she was 'cold' (in a more unseen bit of the scene), is on the floor and made to look as though it was Hero whom had just been making out with Borachio. With this follows, a quick section during the song which covers 8 strong beats (repetitively) in which the ensemble look at Joe, then Hero's shirt, then Joe then the shirt again. With this 8 beat bar continuing, Joe steps forward in time with the beat which gives it a bit of a Berkhovian feel to it, he picks up the shirt and has a moment finding his emotions...this is when the entire scene is turned into the wedding. 

Sketches of the physical theatre piece 1

Sketches 2

Friday's lesson was much more of a succsess than I had expected, due to the fact we had no teacher. We began with Sophie's monologue/scene as myself and a few others knew that it needed a bit more work as Sophie was struggling to react to what myself and Donna say in the scene. The scene is quite lengthy and sometimes I find myself struggling in what to do as a lot of what we say repeats itself, however I have the privileged of the whole stage whereas Sophie has the small 'portaloo' for a stage. We started out by comparing our Beatrice to Emma Thompson's version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmaZsAPGd5U As a class, we all sat down and watched this short clip and noted down how she acts in comparison to how Sophie does it. We figured she is a lot more excitable than Sophie is; which makes it more comedic because this is a big turn around for Beatrice, personality wise. "And Benedick, love on." [Act 3, Scene 2.] I think this line was delivered a bit emotionless. The meaning behind it, for me, is her allowing Benedick to love her, allowing him to 'love on'. So this is like the first time she actually accepts love. So our main focus point was to liven her up with excitement of love and happiness. We tried this out with her and it drastically improved the atmosphere of the scene let alone the meaning behind the monologue itself, so all-in-all, despite it being a really minor change to the scene, it was really rather effective!

Secondly, we took it upon us to look at the second scene which needed work which was decided to be the 'boys scene'. I didn't lead this scene as much instead noted down some feedback to give them.
We have a 'gag' in which Luke gets hit on the head by one of the box lids, and Brandon began a new thing in which he would hit him on the head as well as Nathan already doing so. I felt that this was too excessive and it started to ruin the comedy from the first time. I suggested that this wasn't necessary which he took on board and so therefore it was cut out. Joe has a little bit in the scene in which he puts on a really femine voice, and acts really girly. This is probably my favourite bit for Joe because he really comes out of himself , this is something that I don't think I've ever seen him do, however my only fault was that as soon as he does it, he just goes back into Joe. Myself and a few of us suggested that he needs to have a good laugh afterwards and perhaps keep that slight laughter and energy up way after it's happened. This way it will look a lot more natural and more banterful which is how I know Sally wants to portray the scene itself. And finally, Nathan also does a girly voice, but vocally it's a lot weaker than Joe's, he is far too breathy which means its near impossible to understand, so I noted if he slowed down it would be a lot less breathy and therefore more audible.

This week, has once again, been really sucsessful! The piece is really, really coming together, and considering we've got another full week or rehearsals we've done well, next week will consist mainly of straight rehearsals, which will give me more time to ever-improve on my own performance as well as others.