After, last week, researching more into Isabelle, I started this week with a much better understanding of her character; which meant when we began blocking/running this scene today, I felt a lot more confident.
However, saying that, I can't make her anywhere near as loud and boisterous in this scene as I had both researched and anticipated. This is due to the simple fact that it's technically not my scene. Frankie and Nathan lead this scene as Beatrice and Leonato, which means as the character of Isabelle, I am more of a side-stage character whom is there to chip-in every now and then. This scene has worked out really well so far, but its given me the challenge of calming down the characteristics of Isabelle. Instead, I experimented with more subtle movements/gestures that will ooze confidence and loudness, without having to say or do anything extravagant.
As an example of one that I tried out: I want her costume to be some flared, baggy trousers or some 70's-look baggy jeans; and these will help me with my gestures. There is a large amount of time in which Isabelle is just stood around, listening and reacting to the scene. She, at a few points during the scene, is holding a beer bottle but I often put this down- which again helps with this particular gesture. In these occasions, she will stand with her two hands in her back jean pockets. To me this is seen as a very casual standing position; but I've looked more closely to this in terms of reading body language.
Hidden palms could well be seen as a sign of discomfort, nervousness or could also been seen in someone who is lying. For me, these are nothing in relation to Isabelle's situation. Although, continuing the research, I uncovered information on 'downwards facing palms'. Downwards facing palms gestures authority. With this, I can match it more closely to how I first planned Isabelle to be. She is authoritative, in my eyes, so this fits well. It also fits well because its subtle, her body language is open so already it reads confidence; as the chest space is clear of nervous hands etc. With the hands in the back pocket, you tend to stand quite central (feet hips width apart) which also reads confidence, in comparison to standing with your feet crossed and one thigh overlapping the other.
http://lonerwolf.com/body-language-palms-and-thumbs/
The rest of this session was taken over by scenes in which I don't feature in which was a nice break. To fill this, I worked hard on learning my lines. I've found writing down my lines as I go, the easiest way. I did this over and over, each time adding the next paragraph into it etc. Once I'd tackled about half the amount of lines I have, I got Frankie to run them through with me; each time going back to the beginning when I got them wrong.
In the end this became a rather repetitive system, but I found it very useful.
Tuesdays and Thurday's session was then taken up with understanding my main character, being Hero. I didn't get round to going into so much detail as I did with Isabelle, which is annoying as Hero is the character that I can really delve into and work properly with. My first impressions of her, was mainly that she was this quiet character; as in all the Much Ado About Nothing versions I have seen, she is a fairly unimportant character. She is, I have seen in the past, a character very much dampened down by her cousin Beatrice, whom easily overpowers Hero. But in contrast to all of that said, she actually needs to be shown as the loudest one of the group~ Hero, Margaret and Ursula. Which I guess is why I was casted as her, because I'm definitely not the loudest female in the cast. So for one, she has changed significantly to how I first viewed her. So today, when not on stage I just tried being her but being loud and funny and excitable. I got Phoebe to watch us do this run through, and she pointed out moments in which I need to keep up the excitable persona, as I apparently drop it a lot during the scene. I start the scene with such a high energy level, that I think I struggle in keeping it up throughout the whole scene.
So I went off to look into my lines more, and pick out points that I can focus on bringing up the energy again.
So firstly it would have to be: "No, truly Ursula, she is too disdainful, I know her spirits are wild and coy as haggards of the rock." This has probably got to be my most lively line in the scene as it signifies the beginning of the 'game' in which we are playing to fool Beatrice.
"Oh god of love!" Here, I've got to bring the energy up, and this is purely to keep the scene running smoothly with the right amount of energy.
"No, not to be odd from all fashions..." I tend to drag out this line too much which is said to lower the energy of the scene, so saying this quicker with a bit more power than I have been will, again, help pick the scene up.
These were my main focus points that I worked on, and when running this scene to Phoebe again, she could see the improvement and it also helped the others to bounce off the energy that I repeatedly brought to the scene.
I can tell Hero needs an awful lot of work done to her, because even with the short times I've rehearsed her infront of the class, I'm not quite getting the hyped reactions I wanted. I knew this character would a challenge for me as she, admittedly is quite different to me. But it's already proving a good challenge for me!!
Once again, I dived into trying to further my understanding of the language of Shakespeare, but this time I focussed it mainly on the words of Hero. My main focus point today was one of my favourite lines of hers which would be "But nature never framed a woman's heart of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice." In modern translation, for me it reads that nature never made a heart that was as proud and tough than Beatrice's. I started off saying this line with some cruel tone, as I had originally thought that this was another of her negative lines towards Beatrice. But, Hero is actually being honest. She says that she has never met anyone with a heart such as a Beatrice's which proves Hero's innocence and kindness towards her cousin.I now try to slow down this line. I emphasise the word 'nature' by dragging it out and I add a slight empathetic tone to it. I emphasise the words 'prouder' and 'stuff' as that is the main subject in the sentence. And I try to make Beatrice the main point of the sentence, by making the 'trice' of the word in a higher pitch. This again, paints Hero in a different light for me. I remember worrying that she was going to be a too-big character for me to play, as I class myself as fairly quiet, however the more I understand of her, the more I can relate her to myself. She has a good balance of keeping quiet and standing her ground; which I know is something I have, because of the way I have been brought up. She is kind hearted and is well-liked. The things she says throughout this scene mainly, flow off the tongue with some ease. Its nice to the ears and easily understood which I think Shakespeare might have done on purpose in order to paint Hero as the 'hero' of the play, the kind one that, has it all. I see her, as a bit without a backbone which is where her subtle dominance helps her out mostly. The times in which she does show her dominance gives off a element of 'sass' in her, which so far has been quite good fun to play- "and truly I'll devise some honest slanders to stain my cousin with- but majority of the other scenes, she lets everyone else do the work.
But, for me to reiterate her backboneless personality at times is shown through silence. When Claudio publicly embarrasses her, she has nothing to say. In a sense, she took on the 'you will be ruled by your father' line too seriously, and is allowing Claudio to rule/walk all over her. She is perhaps a little too kind, for one not to say anything at the public shaming wedding debacle and two to happily take Claudio back at the end of it all. Apart from that, Shakespeare has kept her quite quiet in terms of letting us into the world of Hero, which again could be a involuntary way of proving she is 'ruled by her father' so therefore she is kept as quite a secretive character because of her strong, overruling father.
The quieter side of her is shown through her lack of lines throughout the play, although she takes the lead in her main scene, against the other four main characters she has the least amount of lines. For example, in act 2, scene 1 she has one line but the rest of the time she is busy reacting to what the other three (Beatrice, Isabelle and Leonato) have to say. This takes me onto her relationship with her father. I have, before, said that her father is probably quite dominant over her because of her not having a mother to help bring her up. "I trust you will be ruled by your father" proves this, he will rule her in which suggests Leonato perhaps doesn't want Hero to marry because she is, to him, very much a 'daddy's girl.' Currently, we have blocked this scene without any notice towards the fact that Nathan is playing Hero's father so I hope we can later incorporate that into our piece.
http://www.shmoop.com/much-ado-about-nothing/hero.html
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