25/9/14 - Character Work

25/9/14 - Lesson Review

Today we worked on the meaning of subtext and how it can improve our performance. This helped me greatly with the dynamics of my voice because I knew when Sephy was putting up a front but she was actually quite vulnerable. Although my scene is an argument, there is much more to it then anger, making it quite complex to portray; but I felt I did that today. Knowing what my character was thinking and feeling whilst saying something improved my performance and how I respond to the other character.

One of my target for last was to only move when necessary, I think I achieved this by relaxing more on stage so I didn't feel awkward just standing still. Again, knowing the subtext helped me achieve my other two targets: not to overact and to portray a variety of emotion.

My targets for this week:

22/9/14 - Lesson Review

My targets for today were:

Today I mainly focused on my last target, as Anya and I often peaked vocally in our performance to early and have no where to go. We really worked on our dynamics in the scene, although I still feel as if there is room to be developed further. My first target of only moving when necessary, can be improved as I feel I still do that, but this will be helped when we perform it to the direct.

22/9/14 - Character Work

Character Profile

Name: Persephone Hadley (Sephy)

D.O.B: November 5th 1991

Nationality: Cross, British

Hometown: London

Occupation: Student at Heathcroft High

Parents: Jasmine and Kamal Hadley

Siblings: Minerva

Sephy has had a very privileged upbringing, with her dad as the Prime Minister, she is quite native to what is happening outside her bubble. She lives in a large house with a big garden, however it's not very homely and the only place she feels comfortable is her room. Speedy treats her room as a getaway from her family and all that might be going on around her. It's her own private space where she keeps all her personal things.  She has quite a bad relationship with her family, as her parents divorced and her mum turned to alcohol. Meggie McGregor was her nanny as a young child and that's how she met Callum who is Meggie's son. Callum, who is a nought and Sephy became very close, and because of this relationship, Sephy can't understand why people don't see whites as equals i the way she does. She is very confident in her opinions, which makes it hard for her to see how things may be from someone else point of view. Since Meggie got fired, Callum and Sephy's friendship became harder to maintain. Not only because their parents didn't approve, but also because the differences between their races became more apparent. Although their relationship is still small, Spey's naivety can irritate Callum because she doesn't see how his lifestyle differs from hers.

Sephy needs everyone to see the world the way she does. A place where everyone is equal and free to be friends with who they wish no matter their appearance. She needs to do it because at the moment she is being judged for her relationship with Callum, which they both know is unfair. As Sephy's relationship with her family deteriorates, she needs Callum for support and as a friend but the racism is pushing them apart.

18/9/14 - Lesson Review

Because I don't fully know my lines yet, I did struggle to connect with the character as I had to keep looking down as my words which affected the flow of my scene. However, I do think Anya and I understood the scene more because we discussed where it was set, in the kitchen, and how it looked so we were both on the same page.

Today we gave ourselves a long term target. Mine was to make my gestures more natural and to be able to change my physicality to fit my character. When I am given a character, I usually just focus on the facial expressions and what I'm saying but now I know that there is more to portraying a character. I need to learn my characters history to know how they may react in certain situations, I also need to remember what habits I have and what my habits my character has and not to confuse the two. With dominant emotions, I find it hard not to make my gestures big. As my scene is an argument, I need to realistically think what Sephy would do in that situations in terms of her physicality.

17/9/14 - Lesson Review

TASK 1

The first exercise helped me to warm up because I was walking around. It also helped wake up my brain as I had to start thinking about spacial awareness and the instruction we were given. Actors need to warm up physically before a rehearsal because they need to be able to move at any moment. This can include changing their posture, stance or physicality depending on the role. My body felt much more warm and loose after the warm up. My muscles were much more relaxed, making it easier to move and also to project my voice. The voice is an important tool for actors because we use it all the time. When performing and reading dialog, it is essential for our voices to be warmed up in order to project our voices well. When projecting our voices, it shouldn't come from our throat, but lower down; the warm up helped relax these muscles and warm up our vocal cords making it much easier to manipulate our voices.

Status is how important someone is. Whether it's how important they are in society or in a particular scene. It's also to do with hierarchy and how status gives everyone a place in society depending on a certain characteristics. This can be to do with race, like with Callum and Sephy, or to do with peoples jobs in a working environment which is shown in peoples every day lives. For the hello scene, my partner and I showed our status using body language, eye contact and tone of voice. As I was the character of higher status, I avoided eye contact and was dismissal with my words, showing I didn't think the other character was worth my time. My body language was closed and not welcoming towards the character approaching me. Because my partner struggled to get her words out, it shoed she was nervous to speak to me. Unlike my character she made constant eye contact, trying to get my attention. Her posture was quite hunched over to show her lower status. As she was the one that approached me, it set the see as she was the one that wanted to talk to me not the other way around.

I think during the Callum and Sephy scene, the status shifted during the piece. Sephy had the higher status at the beginning because although she was apologising, she still stood her ground and kept her pride almost. Because we had previous knowledge of Callum and Spehy, we knew Sephy automatically had a higher status because of her race. However, further into the scene, Callum gets more frustrated and Sephy starts to realise how much Callum was offended by what she said and that it was a bigger deal then she anticipated. Thats when the status swaps and Callum starts to take control. He starts to speak more confidently through his anger and Sephy becomes more apologetic which leads to a more pleading tone as she grovels for Callum's forgiveness. Sephy's objective was to have Callum's forgiveness. Her approach to that changed through the piece as towards the end she stopped trying to justify what she said and just apologised. Knowing the objective made it easier to play the character because I knew what tone of voice she would say certain words. For example, when she is apologising that could have been said as sarcasm or in anger, but knowing the objective meant I knew it was a genuine apology.

9. my notes of other peoples performances:

From this lesson I learnt how knowing the objective for a character makes it easier to play them, because you learn so much about them: how they would say things, their physicality and how they would react in certain situations, all based on their objective and history.  I also learn how to interpret a script. This taught me how to manipulate a scene into something I wanted, which is key for making scenes original and imaginative.

17/9/14 - Noughts and Crosses

Task two of today's homework was to research Noughts and Crosses in order to develop our understanding of the play.

Noughts and Crosses is originally a book written by Malorie Blackman set in a dystopia, in which it is timeless with no location. This allows the readers imagination to run wild and also underline the fact that the themes in this book could happen at any time and, in some places, are still happening. The segregation between blacks and whites is a very known era and we hear about it a lot but I think because we learn it in such a factual way, there isn't a chance to empathies with the people that actually went through this. Making the black people superior to white people, showed that it could so easily have been the other way around which emphasises how unfair the segregation was. What Blackman has done is take what essentially is a love story, and make status and colour and hierarchy complicate the relationship between two characters, Callum and Sephy. The book itself has had many good reviews and a 4.5 star rating.

Domonic Cooke then adapted the book for theatre and directed it, this went on stage in 2007 and 2008.

http://www.rsc.org.uk/explore/other-writers/noughts-and-crosses/video-a1s4.aspx

4/9/14 - Acting Skills Audit

In acting I think my main strengths are, voice projection and learning lines. I can adapt my voice depending on the size of a room and I'm also confident with learning monologues and conversations, however when i have the odd few lines throughout a play, i struggle having to learn the scene and the line before me. Although I feel as if once I've learnt my lines and are comfortable with them, I can forget to play around with them and just say them the exact same way every time. In some plays this can work but for the most part it's something I need to work on.

Character development is something I need to improve on by embracing the character more, by really considering how they speak, stand and why their history may have effected that. I also find it hard to self evaluate, I find it much easier for someone to tell me what I'm doing wrong and where I can improve, and then applying it to my performance. I think it's really important to be able to look at your own performance and know how to can make it better, but I do believe setting myself targets each week will help me with this.