Shakespeare: Character Study

(A lot of other character interpretations of both characters feature in my other blog posts.)

Hero, for me, is in her early twenties. She is a fairly quiet character but has her times when she can show off her slightly more dominant side to her. She is surrounded by people by I don't necessarily see someone who she is especially close to, friend wise apart from Ursula. This gives me a slight indication that she is definitely a family kind of person. She is, at one stage lucky with love and then just as quickly unlucky. But to the main point, that she is has been written as a very secretive character. No real information about her is to be said in the play Much Ado About Nothing, so most of my research relies on independent thoughts and ideas on to what she says and how she is around others etc. 

My final costume design.

In a slightly dated version of Much Ado, Kate Beckinsale plays her. At the time, she looks in her early twenties but most importantly she wears a simple white dress. White, as a colour, symbolises innocence, goodness, purity and virginity. And, to me, Hero has all of the aspects listed. The white also shows some sort of calmness which I could easily link to Hero. Angels are always, always, always described to be wearing white also, which actually matches well to how highly Claudio speaks of her in Act 1, Scene 1. The kindness and calmness shines through when she keeps silent when Claudio publicly shames her despite having the opportunity to snap back, I see this being because she is surprised at such an accusation, proving that she is so innocent to even believe the accusation- leading her to quite stereotypically faint from such a thing. I can see this because, at this point in the scene, she keeps quiet. It is Beatrice whom ever speaks up for Hero, and for the rest of the play Hero is kept on the low. But it, her innocence, could also be seen when she speaks quite honestly of Beatrice- "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. She talks more nicely about Beatrice, unlike Ursula who admittedly gets a bit carried away-"sure, sure, such carping is not commendable" - which means that Beatrice' pickiness towards men is not admirable, Hero jumps straight in to stop Ursula here, almost in an act of protection of her cousin Beatrice, which again proves her kindness and innocence, as she doesn't want to play this game with the outcome of her cousin hating against her, its all in good sport for her cousin; it has its good intentions.

White: Kate Beckinsale and Emma Thompson
 as Hero and Beatrice

The simpleness of the dress, as seen on the right, shows off her true beauty. Hero here is beautiful, and it fits well as to why Claudio falls for her instantly. Beckinsale, at the time was young, which again proves her innocence as young people tend to be of a more innocent nature.
I want to have my version of Hero in some item of clothing that is white, to sort of keep up the tradition and also to have the meaning behind the colour there too. I have a flowy white top, that looks very festival-like but is also white and simple. So it should work perfectly as to how I want Hero to look. I will probably give her denim shorts to match the colours and analysis I did earlier on with the men's navy uniforms (in the Kate Beckinsale version of Much Ado.) I came to the conclusion that the blue showed the good characters, hence why Don John is wearing black in the image (see blog post 1.) The shorts, admittedly are quite short which some might say ruins her innocence, but in this era (21st century) it is the trend to wear short shorts. To finish off this outfit, she will be wearing bright purple wellies!! The colour has no real relevance's to Hero but its a nice bright colour which could relate to her bubbly personality.
The two images below gave me ideas as to how I want to dress Hero.

White blouse and denim shorts

Checkered shirt and shorts.

Other characteristics that I have discovered whilst researching through Much Ado is that she is very young at heart. It takes her very little time to fall in love with Claudio, which gives her the more young/child act to her. She is kind hearted and well-liked, which makes me link this to the things she says. All of her dialogue flows off the tongue with some ease. Its nice to the ears and very easily understood. Shakespeare might have done this on purpose in order to paint Hero as the 'heroine' of the play. With a bit of 'play on words', Hero is very much the heroine of the play. A short definition of a heroine reads: 'the chief female character in a book, play or film who is typically identified with good qualities and with whom the reader is expected to sympathise' - the definition fully describes how Shakespeare has written Hero, and although the name doesn't automatically strike 'she-is- the heroine- in-the-play' it is definitely a clever play on words from Shakespeare (which is all we can expect from the word King himself.)

 At times throughout the play, I see Hero as a 'bit without a backbone'. I don't think it is obvious nor overpowering and definitely not something that is constant reoccurring but I can see where her
her subtle dominance helps her out mostly. The times in which she does show her dominance gives off an element of 'sass' in her character, which so far has been quite good fun to play- "and truly I'll devise some honest slanders to stain my cousin with- this is her playing the game, but in a fairly polite and 'fun' way, but majority of the other scenes, she lets everyone else do the work.
But, to reiterate her backboneless moments is shown through silence. When Claudio publicly shames 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. Here, I speak as though the word 'father' is just a male figure, which allows me to say that Claudio has his moment of ruling her. The backboneless and perhaps kindness shines through, as she has nothing to say when he does completely embarrass her. She is then all too keen to take Claudio back at the end of it all.
The slightly 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.'
Her more dominant side shines when she leads the 'game' scene, Act 1, Scene 3. The beginning of this scene she is very much taking the lead by planning what her and Ursula shall say when Beatrice enters. It's quite clear that she isn't doing this in a over-dominant way, but she is definitely placing herself higher up in this whole 'game.' The way she is instructing both Margaret and Ursula on what to do and say when Beatrice enters, proves she has the dominance to keep things her own way-but not in a spoilt way. An example of her dominance could be: "Whisper her ear...Our talk must only be of Benedick..." The two words in bold highlight the main emphasis in which the dominance is seen, its subtle but definitely noticeable. She also has the most to say during the scene, she rambles on with a couple of long paragraphs of speech and sort of leaves Margaret in the position that she has nothing to contribute by the end of it. I think this dominance could be because of Hero's mother. Her mother
is never introduced nor mentioned throughout the whole piece. For this reason, I can only assume that perhaps her mother left, or died. Arranged marriages was the only way for marriage in the Elizabethan times, so it was very likely Hero's mother was forced to marry Leonato, however contradicting myself, divorce was very rare: so perhaps death to Hero's mother proves the best possibility. Which could also explain as to why she is never mentioned, so perhaps a very recent death? So the fact that she may have just been brought up by her father, Leonato, could mean that she has worked hard to big herself up a bit. If she was quiet and took the back seat, chances are she would be bullied for being brought up by a single father (as it was most probably looked down upon.) She was also, probably, brought up to be ruled by her father, "I trust you will be ruled by your father"~Isabelle to Hero [Act 1, Scene 3.] and so she feels if she stands her ground a bit more, she will perhaps get away with being 'ruled by her father.' I still don't think she is overly dominant, but there is a definite element of it there.

 Hero also falls in love in a flash. In the original versions of Much Ado, Claudio and Hero fall in love at the masked ball,we have are using the idea of a silent disco instead,  despite being masked and not being able to see one another. To me, this says that Shakespeare believed in loving a person, not just beauty. But in contradiction to that, her beauty is all the Claudio loves- "in mine eye she is the sweetest lady that I ever looked on." But Shakespeare's tells us, through this story (Much Ado), that the young and innocent love in which Hero and Claudio have both fallen for, is fatal. But not only is it fatal, it is a lesson for us as the audience to learn but most importantly the audience of the Elizabethan era. Love like Hero and Claudio's was probably very rare back then, so it has its uses for the Elizabethans too. He tells us that young love isn't a simple as we all want it to, but shows us that despite the fact Hero was hurt, she is a strong woman-similarly to Queen Elizabeth at the time- whom got back up after falling. So Hero is also strong. Her strong side is something that we didn't show in our version, but it features in the script. After the happy ending, she says how "one Hero died defiled, but I do live. And surely as I do live, I am a maid!." Here she says how a part of her died but a stronger part grew and lived on. This could be another hidden way in which Shakespeare has told us that she is strong and that the male role has actually made her stronger; her dad being the other male.

Isabelle is the wife of Leonato. And I know I've spoken a lot about how Hero has no mother, but Isabelle is an adapted character. She has been adapted from Antonio, an uncle to Hero. So despite Isabelle playing Hero's mother in our version, she is written by Shakespeare with no mention of a mother. I want these two to play an old, hippy-type couple. As husband and wife, we will act as the two festival managers; in keeping to the festival setting we have decided. We want to make these two characters as eccentric as possible. We sort of want to create them into past-hippies; whom have really lived the hippy life throughout the 80's etc and who now manage the festivals for the younger generations of themselves. As parents to Hero, it would make sense that Hero is also very hippie-like which helps add to our whole festival setting.

Someone who is Isabelle in one, would  be Jennifer Saunders who plays Edina Monsoon in an award-winning comedy,Absolutely Fabulous'. Saunders plays a drink/drug lover who's aim remains to stay 'young and hip'. She's twice divorced and is extremely eccentric which is just how I want to play her. The scene in which I play Isabelle is short with little lines for her, but understand how I would've played her if I'd have got the full opportunity to. 

     

Hero has been such a treat to play, from the beginning I had set my mind on the fact she would be too loud for me to play, but looking back on the whole project, I really managed to develop her into to exactly what I had wanted to become. She has taught me an awful lot and the whole project has taught me about the ways of Shakespeare and the clever, hidden things to look out for as I anticipate to continue acting in years to come. 

Shakespeare Week 8

This is our final week of rehearsals, and with the physical theatre piece still being new we began work on that.
With everything covered last week, we decided to change the song. This messed up all of our timings but in a result of the whole piece coming out a lot better. The new song is Joker and the theif, by Wolfmother https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wolfmother+joker+and+the+thief. Again, its definitely not my type of music, but admittedly it really works with the physical piece we've already choreographed. It has a much more punchy opening than the previous song did, and it also has a more modern-music feel to it, which evidently is the style we are aiming for. With that said, we did have to change around some our timings but that was the simple part of today's rehearsals. The main timing change was when Milo (as Borachio) spills his drink over me, as a form of distraction to get me off stage. Originally we had well-planned this around the first musci choice and it then didn't seem to work so smoothly. We re-shuffled around our four movements, which consisted of me reacting to him spilling the drink and then the fourth movement was me leaving the stage; and before the song changed, we had four movements and the fifth was me leaving stage, but it works better now.
Continuing on from last week, we had created an effective way for the ensemble to turn back to the audience and enter the 'wedding scene', so our next step was to locate each 'guest' in the appropriate places. So to begin, we had Luke play the Friar, which I think he enjoyed a little too much but it worked really well seeing as Much Ado About Nothing has a Friar character who ultimately saves the rest of the play (he is definitely an underestimated character ha!)
Here, I think was our biggest hurdle. Myself and Joe at this point, are stood facing one another and we wanted one clear way to represent the rejection of the marriage from Claudio's part. I suggested a trust fall, that we go from holding hands and in 4 lowerings, I am let slip out of Joe's hands and fall into Nathan (he plays Leonato, Hero's father so this visually, works well.) Nathan lowers me to the floor slowly, almost like in slow motion, and its all to represent that I have fainted. As soon as I hit the floor, everything goes back into normal speed, and not that I am aware of what the others on stage do at this point (as I am supposedly unconscious) but the three 'bridesmaid' - Beatrice, Ursula and Margaret (Phoebe, Donna and Frankie) rush to my help and whisk me off stage.

Speaking with a bit of self-confidence, I was really proud of my idea of using the trust fall. I gather I don't always contribute in lessons, which doesn't mean that I am not active in rehearsals or not paying attention, it just means I usually find my ideas not being heard as compared to the rest of my class, I am fairly quiet one. But with that said, my idea here was used and I think it looks really effective so I'm quite pleased with myself. Talking from a more conclusional point of view, I think there were definitely times that I could've expressed my ideas and thoughts aloud but I managed to result back to blogs and used them as a way to express these.

I digress, after practising the trust fall a couple of times we ran the entirety of the physical piece. Which lead us nicely into another full run. As a cast, last year we never rehearsed as much as we have for Much Ado. Yes we rehearsed but we never did full-runs before show week as we were usually still tidying up scenes or just working on small sections that really needed work. The full-run throughs usually landed on the day of our first performances. So by this week and last week, I will admit to saying that it was difficult to try and keep up the energy of my scene every time we rehearsed it. The energy has to be high, and so therefore to make it a good rehearsal myself and Donna had to keep it up each time, and I think we both began to find it hard to keep that up everytime. I think that this will change for next week (performance week) as the atmosphere and energy will be heightened due to the excitement of a performance, but currently I feel as though I'm lacking something that is really key for this scene.
I also think that now we've rehearsed it so much the feedback is a lot less frequent, which I find hard because I am always out looking for something to improve on as I often feel as one of the weakest actors in the class. I went to Luke after this specific run through for feedback, as he is always one to give really helpful notes: he liked how I'd stood as Isabelle. At the time, I had one hand in my pocket, the other holding the beer bottle and one foot crossed over the other. He said this just spoke 'casual and relaxed' which is something that suits the character because hippies are stereotypically meant to be 'chilled.' He also pointed out the way I said the line "Always excepted my dear Claudio." He said he liked the way I said Claudio. Apparently the way I had said it put a lighter tone on the name itself which opened up more of my characters feelings for Claudio and although, he said, it wasn't obvious, if you keep it like that, it will allow me to understand both the meaning of that line and the feelings behind it for Hero herself.

Wednesday consisted of watching the year 1 acting class, they performed scenes from The Cherry Orchard. It was good fun for me because majority of people in that class are good friends of mine so it was nice to see them on stage and see how they did etc. I think the one main thing that I got from watching this is how hard it is to follow the piece when you can't hear all of them. This isnt me knocking them, but it just made me realise how hard it was to enjoy the show when on some occasions I couldn't hear all of them. I also realise I am one to often not be heard on stage so it made me see how hard it is for the audience. So I think it was important that I could see this and hopefully take on board how important it is for me to be heard on stage.

Tech set for each scene changeover

Sally started out our thursdays lesson with the idea of how to introduce each new scene. As you can see in the image to the right, this is what she meant. Each new scene had a slide with arrows and the characters name on. The character would stand under the arrow and then walk off stage again. As the scene would be getting set up, a quote from the relevant scene would be shown on the screen. I didn't think this would be effective as I thought it would be too repetitive seeing as we have a lot of scene changes. But I think it will still work and be useful for the audience to understand the character swaps etc.

This idea, to me, seems quite similar to the show we saw earlier on this term; The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time. Probably the only visual link to the show is the colours, but I think it was the modern take on theatre that made me think The Curious Incident. It wasn't wildly technical like The Curious Incident, but the way each of us had to freeze under our characters names, with the arrows and then the quote would appear afterwards made me think this is something that could be seen in The Curious Incident.

The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night Time.

As well as different slides, each scene change had a different piece of music to go with it. I must say that the music played for each scene change over was brilliant, mainly because it was my style of music, but it really set the scene of a festival and it linked our whole idea of us recreating a similar styled-band like Mumford and Sons perfectly.
The opening song is called The Detecorists, by Johnny Flynn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q58Gm18-IMY
It has a very folk/country sound to it, just as Mumford and Sons do. It works well because as you can see in the above image (of the boys) they are all dressed in the folk/country kind of style. I'm talking a bit in the future, but the boys costume for the show fitted perfectly to the Mumford/country-band style that we set out to fulfil.




Frank, I could see as Marcus Mumford (third from the left.) He is the main singer in the band, and probably has the best dress sense. Frank, in  our case played Don Pedro who is definitely the most liked throughout the play, especially compared to his brother Don John. Frank, also has a very similar costume on as Marcus Mumford does. The waist coat and rolled up shirt-look with jeans. The others have also mastered the Mumford and Sons look, and looking at the two images they look really similar.

Other songs that will be part of our performance are:

Johnny Flynn, Tickle me Pink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrnAdhwIofs

Ray LaMontagne and The Pariah Dogs, Repo Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Aijo6uILk

Fleet Foxes, Sun It Rises: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ5B-U6LwaA

Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zero's, Thats Whats Up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj0Ha7Xkw7Y


Whilst listening to these songs at home (because I really do quite like them!) I heard something of an interest to me. In the Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zero's song, there is a lyric that reads: 'You be the words, I'll be the rhyming.' I get that this is meant to be a love song so therefore the lyrics only really relate to love; which makes this line rather sweet. However, upon hearing it, it made me think of Shakespeare. (I was at the time writing about the language in Much Ado) but it was a weird coincidence. After researching into the song lyrics, it had nothing major about this specific line but everything read how much of a love long it is; so I felt the relevance's to including it into our version of Much Ado works. The Detectorists, another song we are to include, is used in a TV series, and from as far as I can read, is about a group of guys who have a really strong love/passion for metal detecting- but it sort of proves than any of us can have passions, no matter what it is.

Feedback that I gave to the others:
On the boys entrance, keep the energy up
Sophie when you turn to Lewis, try not to make it so stylised
Matt better diction when talking through the walkie talkies
Joe happier when you express your love
All sing more enthusiastically
Brandon don't slam the box lid
Milo don't use the drum sticks, instead just use your hands
Remember: dont put shot glasses in a bag
Find a vodka bottle for Donna and I
Frank try not to be too funny
Nathan try different reactions

My costume has stayed quite similar to how I originally wanted to dress Hero, and I am really pleased as to how it appeared: I used the white top from an earlier blog post as well as the denim shorts and wellies that I had decided from a while ago.

But not forgetting Isabelle and her costume! I settled for a really simple costume for her as that way it was easier for me to change into Hero. I wore some flat, white pumps. Pink and flowery baggy trousers and a dream catcher designed vest top that hung low and baggy. I liked this outfit for its simplicity, it looked the hippy/festival part that I wanted to achieve for Isabelle. And there was a good difference in age shown through the two costumes between Hero and Isabelle.

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.

Shakespeare Week 6

Today we began looking at the physical theatre section Sally wanted to include. Where we are doing just scenes of Much Ado About Nothing, we don't want bits to be missing of the story line. Avery large chunk of the piece, actually has been left out and that's the section in which Don John plans to use Margaret as 'Hero', to trick Claudio into thinking Hero had sex the night before their marriage. This, in all the other versions of the play that I have seen, is and can only be done through a more movement type scene. It is not a scripted part of the play, but is the most important part, I think.
     As we are making our piece our own, contemporising it etc, we've decided to make this section of the story into a physical theatre piece that ultimately will tell this entire section.

To begin with, we discussed who we wanted to play the main few characters in this physical piece, and settled on whoever last played that character so that it won't be misleading for the audience. So that meant I would play the role of Hero, Frankie would play Margaret, Joe would play Claudio, Phoebe would play Beatrice and Matt as Benedick. We were aware not to completely outcast the others whom played these roles, so we've tried to keep little moments between Lewis and Sophie would play Benedick and Beatrice in the beginning scene etc.
We wanted to make the beginning of this physical section clear that I was Hero and Frankie was Margaret and also how it was Margaret having sex with Don John. In words, its hard to show this to an audience who will know little about the play itself however we took it as a challenge today. Sally knew she wanted some sort of 'crowd surfing' involved because it's a festival scenario, which then resulted in myself and Frankie being lifted onto some of the boys shoulders and creating a short Berkhovian-styled dancing-styled sequence. The others, all stood center stage, have created a short movement piece...which if I am being honest, I have no idea about as at the time I'm on Matt and Lewis' shoulders so tend not to pay much attention to the ground below me, ha!
We then wanted the 'crowd' (by the way this is all meant to be at a concert in the festival!) to turn around so its as though the audience are also the audience of the 'concert.' They all timed a four-beat turn around, to let them finish with their backs to the audience.
Throughout our whole play, we use large black boxes which act as our everything-prop boxes, set etc, so we wanted an excuse to use them. Matt and Lewis carry me, and the two other boys carry Frankie, over and on top of the black boxes already set out on stage to represent that we are still at the concert, but perhaps have found a good high up spot to view the concert from.


That was all we devised today, and although written down it sounds like a lot, physically its not. However, it does look really cool and I can see where Sally wants to take it, as such. It also fits perfectly with the story in which we are trying to tell, which is a relief as I wasn't really sure how well we could tell it without actually narrating it or something.
    With it being a concert-type scene, it couldn't be done without music!! I was originally hoping to have included some Mumford and Sons, but its lately turned into a cool, pop and heavy kind of music festival, which admittedly works so much better than Mumford and Sons probably would.
We knew we wanted something with a bit of 'bass' so Brandon suggested 'Smack My Bitch Up', Prodigy. It's probably the worse kind of music that I have ever listened to...however it really, really works the physical elements to our show. As well as really fitting with the whole modern concert-type thing we are aiming for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VKqAmJICV4 Here is the YouTube link for the song. From the very beginning you can hear the bass that we really wanted, and it comes in on the first beat very striking to grab the audiences attention. After the first 8 beats or so, in leads straight into just bass which keeps up the up tempo physical piece that we created. As the song continues, more and more layers of music and beats get added in until it reaches the lyrics. Luckily we stop it when it reaches the lyrics...ha! But as much as I dislike it, it is really very effective and really lives the piece and gives a good change for the audience from scene after scene.

Voice notes

Also this week, we focussed a lot on Much Ado in our voice lesson with Karen. My main vocal note was to emphasise important words!! And she couldn't stress this enough! Apparently I miss an awful lot of the meaning behind the lines I say because I just "throw them away" which gives no meaning to what I'm actually saying. So in lesson, myself and Donna ran my lines and spoke about what lines needed 'weight' on them and why. Below, in the image, is my notes I made with Donna in this lesson to do with what words and lines I knew needed some 'weight' on. This was really useful as it allowed me to pay attention to how little I emphasise lines that I need to and it also highlighted to me how much I should because I can see how much of a difference it makes.






When we got a chance to ourselves, myself, Donna, Frankie and Sophie (who are all in this scene) walked through our scene and focussed our discussion point around lines that need an action or reaction to keep our scene entertaining.

• "Now begin." Here is Frankie's entrance line and we suggested for her to arrive in a much more excitable manner. This will give off a lot more personality to Margaret from as soon as she enters, which will make it easier for Frankie to liven up as the scene goes on. Also on this line, we will 'cheers' our drinks as an act of beginning the 'game' we play to trick Beatrice. 
• "But are you sure Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?" This is Sophie's main reaction point, and here she spits out her drink in disbelief. So we decided it would be comedic if us three were to react to hearing Beatrice react.
• 'Go to push the portaloo when I know Sophie is leaning against the other side', we thought this would add to the comedy, however after trying this it didn't work!

I also paid a lot of attention to learning my lines, so whenever I had the opportunity to I've either been listening to my recording on the line learner app or constantly re-writing my lines. And I think this is paying off as well as the success of the piece itself really improving. I am now feeling excited for the performance as I know now that we've really managed to target the young generation whom dislike Shakespeare and the era its been overplayed in. 

White: Kate Beckinsale and Emma Thompson
 as Hero and Beatrice

I researched a lot into costume today! In the Kate Beckinsale version, she is wearing a simple white dress. White, as a colour, symbolises innocence, goodness, purity and virginity. Which Hero so clearly has all of those aspects. (Angels are always, always, always described to be wearing white also! Which matches similarly as to how Claudio speaks of her in the very beginning scene.)  She keeps silent when Claudio publicly shames her despite having the opportunity to snap back, but this is because she is surprised at such a accusation, proving that she is so innocent to even believe the accusation- leading her to quite stereotypically faint from such a thing.
The simpleness of the dress, shows off her true beauty. Hero here is beautiful, and it fits well as to why Claudio falls for her instantly. Beckinsale, at the time was young, which again proves her innocence as young people tend to be of a more innocent nature.

Festival costume ideas.

I want to have my version of Hero in some item of clothing that is white, to sort of keep up the tradition and also to have the meaning behind the colour there too. I have a flowy white top, that looks very festival-like but is also white and simple. So it should work perfectly as to how I want Hero to look. I will probably give her denim shorts to match the colours and analysis I did earlier on with the men's navy uniforms (in the Kate Beckinsale version of Much Ado.) I came to the conclusion that the blue showed the good characters, hence why Don John is wearing black in the image (see blog post 1.) The shorts, admittedly are quite short which some might say ruins her innocence, but in this era (21st century) it is the trend to wear short shorts. To finish off this outfit, she will be wearing bright purple wellies!! The colour has no real relevance's to Hero but its a nice bright colour which could relate to her bubbly personality.
The two images below (and the one to the right) gave me ideas as to how I want to dress Hero. The image on the left, to me looks less festival-like but has the shirt tied around her waist, which is something my Hero will have to do when it comes to tricking Claudio etc. The image on the right, however is the exact look I want to be aiming for. The top is flowing so it gives it the festival look and the denim shorts look good. Shes wearing sunglasses in the image which is another accessory that I want to use for my Hero.

Similar look with a tied checkered shirt

White blouse and denim shorts

Shakespeare Week 5

The piece is now really starting to come together!!

So this week began with a quick run of our scene. I feel like this scene in particular is improving as we've managed to higher the level of energy throughout it, but I still feel there is a lot more we can do to it to really make it a success. I am still very aware that my energy levels have got to be the thing that keeps the scene rolling. We ran this scene, now in front of the class and Sally our director and got some brief feedback notes to go with it:

• Bigger reactions: This was mainly whenever Donna had a line, which gave me something to react off of. For example a line being "sure, sure, such carping is commendable" [Act 3, Scene 1.] said by Ursula. This line translated means that Beatrice's choosy personality is something of low desirability. Because I know the meaning of this line, I can really react to it; which will allow me to take this specific feedback note on board. My reaction, to this line specifically, will be as though I am trying to quieten Ursula, as well as to jump straight in with my line to kind of hide the awkwardness myself (as Hero) and Frankie, as Margaret experience. We acknowledge the fact that Ursula says something a bit 'over the line' but it helps me as it gives me something large to react to.
• Movement on stage: A lot, apparently, of our movement on stage is just kept to the right of the stage that we have access to (as Beatrice has hold of SL.) We've been rehearsing this scene in a smaller room which has probably restricted us a lot, however I do understand how myself, Donna and Frankie have kept all our movement to the minimum. Our feedback to do with movement was to 'move near and around the toilet more.' This will help the audiences eye imagination, in understanding the fact that Beatrice is in the toilet and how us three are aware that she is in the toilet. Doing this, adding movement I mean, will drastically help add to the energy of scene, compared to just standing and talking.
• Pace: I am aware that I am almost fully in charge of the pace in which the scene should be rolling in, which meant that this feedback note was aimed mainly at me, it read 'too slow at the beginning.' I think this is because Im busy trying to work up my energy, when really I should be diving into it at a lot higher pace and then maintaining this throughout the scene. And I think that this can only properly come when I've got all my lines learnt to a 't' and when we've rehearsed it over and over; especially in front of an audience as this will give us the knowledge to what they find comedic so we then know what bits to over emphasise or keep the same etc. 
• Emphasis on words: This has been something that has been a reoccurring note for me! I often manage to loose the meanings behind my lines where I don't emphasise the important lines. For this particular run, Sally pointed out my most obvious fault in emphasis was "Beatrice is sick in love with Benedick." Relating back to the iamic pentameter; the emphasis needs to be placed on Beatrice, sick, in love, Benedick. Even here, reading the full sentence with the emphasis on the four lines above, makes it sound a lot more dramatised. As well as that, it makes the line more of a reaction point for Sophie, playing Beatrice, which is the main focus of the scene because, as Hero speaks of "the false sweet bait that we lay for it." ('it' being Beatrice.)  Another big line I need to add a lot of emphasis to would be "No, truly,Ursula..."  which marks the beginning of the 'game' in which myself, Ursula and Margaret set out to play. This has to catch both the audiences attention to let them be aware of the game as well as Beatrice's attention as she hears her name. After this session, I worked hard at home picking out all the emphasised words. Below you can see all my script notes that show the work I did in order to get the correct emphasis. Alongside noting this down on paper, I also ran through my lines a lot to get a feel for the tone in which I have to deliver my lines in. So this also helped my a lot in learning my lines. 

With all the feedback given today, it made it more prominent that I really need to pin my lines down. I know them, and I know that I know them but it happens every time I rehearse in front of the class that I seem to mess up my lines. I have to admit this is something I tackle for every show which I think is due to lack of confidence. I think I just find it hard when I know I know them, but I simply can't prove that to Sally or the other class members. So when I do mess up and forget my lines during a run of the scene, my confidence is hugely knocked; and if I got a choice I'd probably not continue ha! I think this is the hardest thing I try to tackle because I simply cannot prove myself, which will leave me with possibly a bad performance and final grade. I can also recite my lines word perfect if I'm just sat in another room with Frankie etc. But I think this still really pushes me to improve! I have been using the line learner app (linelearnerlite) which has been incredibly useful. The app simply records you and allows you to play this back to you. So I've found myself sat on the bus to college etc listening to my lines over and over again. I've actually found this to be the most effective method for me because in the past I have noticed how easily I can learn lyrics to a song. I am very music orientated and can't tackle a day without having listened to music (preferably of my own choice). I listen to my headphones everyday, which means I learn the lyrics of the songs quickly. So in terms of lines, I have tried to transfer the hours of music with listening to my line recordings. So my lines have started becoming a song, and I have a rhythm to them now which helps me hugely when on stage running them.
    Although, it still isn't helping me to the point I don't embarrass myself on stage. I've run through my lines with my sister every night to help also. I will get them right on stage however!! 

But despite that, I think I've finally pinpointed how I want to play Hero. I want her to be the leader of the pack, but not a bossy figure in the group. She is well liked which is obvious throughout the piece. 

Even just in this image, she looks like a very happy being, as do the people around; which backs up my point of her being well-liked. She is also friendly, and although she does get a bit carried away with negatives about Beatrice, she is aware when Ursula takes it too far, "sure sure such carping is commendable," and she stops Ursula from saying anything more. As well as all this, she is very young at heart. It takes her very little time to fall in love with Claudio, which gives her the more young/child act to her. She is also great fun, this scene is basically her having fun! She messing with Beatrice, her cousin and good friend, with help from Margaret and Ursula-banter. Which now leads me to say, she is more like me than I had first expected. Excluding the 'love' bit, I'd like to think I'm good fun. I know I like to joke around and have a laugh. I'm fairly quiet but not an introvert. I'd also like to believe I am friendly and well-liked. So just focussing on these minor characteristics of Hero, we are quite similar. So with that said, I've tried experimenting with the banter-full moments, as myself and as if I am just with a good friend of mine etc. This way it reminds me of the little things I forget to do, such as move around the stage and the toilet. As I know if this was a real life situation, I'd probably be quite excited so movement would be a high priority. Bringing this into the scene will make the pace quicken and the excitement from us three characters carry into the audience, creating a more heightened atmosphere which will lead them nicely into the physical theatre section that we have roughly devised. 

I researched more into how to play Hero today. The Kate Beckinsale version is probably my favourite, however I found an American dramatics group who performed Much Ado. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx5IDWpyXOs To begin with, I could straight away see that they've kept the setting the same, Messina - "I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Arragon, comes this night to Messina" - The summer trelace and ivy gives a warm summer atmosphere, so it proves a good guess. After watching more into the video, I could see that Ursula plays a much stronger role as to how we are. She is definitely the more comedic one of the two, which works well I guess as it gives Hero a bit more of an excuse as to why she takes the lead more in the scene. Hero, in this, has perfected the comedy in what she has to say however. For example, 'I never yet saw a man, how wise, young, noble, how rarely featured'. Each new word, she stops, turns on her feet to face the direction in which Beatrice is hiding in, tilts her head in slight empathy and then she goes onto the next word. Each time she does this, she is proving to both the audience and Beatrice that that she knows Beatrice is there, but the way she does it smooth and comedic that erupts the audience per time. From this, I am going to try and take the pauses in between each adjective and perhaps use my beer bottle as a signifier of this; instead of turning like the girl in the video does. She has a lot of moments in which she directs what she says out to the audience, and admittedly I don't like it when that happens in a show but she does it well. It's not overly done nor hugely obvious like pantomimes. I wanted to try out this a little bit, purely because it looked really effective, our piece isn't stylised but I hope to just try to aim my words to everyone and everything, and not just Ursula and Margaret, otherwise the scene could become too inclosed and therefore boring for the audience.
     I experimented with this at home, picking out sections of my dialogue that could be told out to the audience instead of just to the other two characters or just in the direction of the portaloo: "No truly Ursula she is too disdainful...but who dare tell her so, if I should speak (etc) ... one doth not know how much an ill word may impoison a liking...indeed he hath an excellent good name."  I picked out these mainly because they have no main reciever. They are not directed mainly at Ursula nor Beatrice so therefore I felt I could play around with saying this out to the audience, similarly to how the girl in the video does.