Nora: A Short Film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CY8s2MqPyM

I think this is very clever and it helped me understand the thoughts and emotions behind the play.

Review of the Play

I think the play went as best as it could have gone, I think it was a remarkable piece of work, with such a high level of acting and some outstanding direction. I found myself highly impressed with Ruby and Hannah for similar reasons, first of all I think they are both amazing actors and an absolute inspiration to me, I also think they did very well, because they had both had bad news just before going on, yet didn’t allow this to effect their performance at all. I think it went very well and was well-received by the audience. During the play I found myself really feeling it and as a result doing things differently, for example in Hannah’s final section I faced front on my first line then turned because I felt it was the right thing to do I also found myself genuinely feeling the emotion for the first time I think and I really tried to use emotional recall in all my scenes be it James Paice or a horrible break-up, I tried to use it and think I was rewarded for my efforts by a very good show. Finally I would like to thank Tim for his support and direction, and I hope I made him proud.

Review of the Dress Rehersal

This dress rehearsal I felt went very well and I felt no one could disagree with that. I think the experimentalist set was unparalled by the naturalistic ones. I thought I went very well from my point of view due to all of the direction and character work leading up to it. One person I thought did very well in that dress was Seth. I think he did very well not to corpse when the audience were in hysterics over his scene. I thought he really encapsulated Torvald in a naturalistic way and I think his character had evolved so well and that he had taken direction so well, therefore making his performance stand-out. I loved the way Jack directed his act especially with the transitions between actors. Mirroring is such an effective technique, one Tim also perfected, and Jack did it in such a clever and unique way.

A Review of our Intial Short Play Inspired by A Doll's House

This piece was very cleverly done, but unfortunately I was not there for the some of it. We demonstrated how Nora felt, which helped us in getting that trapped feeling for the play, we knew what Nora and Torvald felt like, because we had been the puppet or puppet master respectively, so this helped us with knowing how they felt. It was also a great chance to get to know the play really well and to know the other actors better. It was also a great chance to start thinking about and reflecting on the themes of the play. We also looked at the importance of the lines and language used a very clever technique to tell a story.

The Duke of York's 'A Doll's House' Reveiw

When I went to see A Dolls House in the west end, I was a little apprehensive, because I had found reading the play a little dry, though when I did go and see it I was thrilled, because seeing the play really brought it to life and allowed me to see what was being said through the text, I found the play a lot more engaging than reading it and I also found myself emotionally attached with all of the characters. I thought the acting especially from the lead actress was outstanding and the way she carried herself was entirely how I had imagined the characters. Personally I found that the costume choices especially for Torvald I did not necessarily agree with and some of the casting I found a little odd e.g. Dr Rank, although all in all I thought I was very well done. I was lucky enough to go on the press night for free, because my cousin was one of the producers on the show and I found it fascinating to the critics giving their opinions, one critic, a lady from a local paper very amusing, but somewhat profound comment to her friends, she said “The woman (Nora) is ridiculous, she doesn’t know what she has got, at least her husband isn’t an alcoholic that beats her all day’, now although she meant this flippantly I found myself agreeing somewhat with her, and to a degree, also agreeing with Torvald when he reminds her she has responsibilities to her husband and children.

The New Set

This second version of the set is immensely clever. The raised platforms have been replaced with flat squares and instead of the actors sitting in a straight line they are sitting in an L shape, a much more aesthetically appealing look. Tim has also added a bird cage which I adore and think is so clever to find that motion of claustrophobia and containment. This is a clever artistic piece of set design which I think is absolutely what is required in a studio performance. Removing these raised platforms also allowed us to be able to act, because we could be seen behind them.

The Set

When we were first told about the small space we would act in, I was again a little sceptical though that dissipated as soon as Tim explained why. He explained that it was for a claustrophobic feel, a theme which is pertinent throughout the play, he explained its a way of showing how Nora is trapped and can't escape, but he also explained that, logistically speaking it wold be better and would develop our skills, to limit us in such a way.

Preparing to Find Real Emotion, Using Emotional Recall

During rehearsing for my scene with Ruby Tim said that I didn't have the correct and real emotion for the scene. In hindsight I entirely agreed with this, because I was acting emotion rather than feeling something, which I worked on during that day. At my lunch I thought about how to improve my character using the Stanislavskian techniques we had learnt. I focused on emotional recall, because I felt that would work. Tim told me that Torvald genuinely believes Nora has ruined his life, so I needed to find a time when I believed someone had ruined my life and I did. I used a recent example (which I can't go into in detail) where someone named James Paice did, as far as I believed, ruined my life. So in working on the scene I pictured James in front of me and before I said each line I added James e.g.'James you have ruined my happiness, James you have ruined my future' and I think for me that brought out real emotion for me because during rehearsing for the scene I felt very angry and even started crying. Tim also told me I needed to connect with Ruby, I felt I had, but I did feel that I hadn't connected with Ruby in way that was necessary for the scene. Because I have known, and worked with, Ruby and her family for years I must admit I found it hard to be angry at her, though not necessarily to connect with her.

Learning to Take Critiscim and Torvalds Power-Struggle

On the day of the show, many things happened to prepare me for this role. I think Tim thought that I was frustrated with him and I would like to take this chance to explain my inappropriate behaviour in relation to the show. For starters I was not at all frustrated with him for his direction notes, because I wholeheartedly agreed with all of them, I was however a little frustrated with the fact that I felt that I was constantly being singled out and that I was the only one with this level of notes. In hindsight I am shocked that I was frustrated at receiving help with achieving the necessary emotion for the scene and as I said to Tim I will definitely listen to the director in the future and never question what is correct. The other reason I was getting frustrated was partly because of my preparation for the character and the fact that even in rehearsals I was (to some degree) in character and believe Torvald thinks he has a right to be the centre of power in every situation which is why, whilst in character I struggled to alleviate that power. The power struggle is very prevalent in the ending scene where Nora leaves Torvald . Throughout the play Torvald is the centre of power and the role reversal of that power being given to Nora is quite shocking to Torvald and I thought about that during rehearsals and tried to play that in my scene. Again giving Torvald a third dimension to his character

Rehersing with Sukey

During rehearsing my scene with Sukey I wanted to have some kind of physical contact with her, though Tim did put me straight on soon, saying that Torvald himself had just said that there was 'a gulf between them' and that it wasn't realistic for that he would have some kind of affectionate contact with her, entirely agreed with this and soon changed the actions of the scene.

Objectives and Actioning

This technique of using objectives and actioning i found very useful as it allowed me to make the scene and my characterisation more realistic. It allowed my to think about my goals, in terms of that scene and outside of that scene, so what that scene meant to my wider life plan. I spent a long time analysing my script and working out objectives etc, though unfortunately, I discovered I have left it at school, so am not able to add it to this blog.

Costume and Characters

The image above left is a picture of the costume used for Torvald in The Duke of York's version, however the one on the right is an older version I find more realistic and this is how I will visualise my character.

The Importance of Lines

One of the lines Nora has in my scene is "I wont see the children again". We were doing that as a bit of a through-away line, however Time explained to us that Ibsen had to change that line when it premiered in order to put it on, because of how shocking it was. I then developed a bit where I stumble back in shock after that line and then recover just to show the significance of a line like that.

Added Surrealism

During rehersing for mine and Sukey’s scene Carolina decided to drop out of the course, thereby allowing Tim to ask me and Sukey to repeat our scene, he then suggested we add Hannah in at the beginning doubling up as Nora with Sukey. This was so effective, because it showed who Hannah was and in added a surreal reflective nature to the scenes and also she made a noise when going to get her suit cases giving me a chance to react with the line Nora

Hannah's Finale

This surreal reflective bit was so effective, because it added a new perspective to the play. The idea of Hannah walking down the middle to these lines and communications was so clever and so well done, it could have been awfully tacky, but it hit the spot just right and was one of the most outstanding pieces of direction I had very seen. As actors know audiences have a linear experience of a play, they see the play in the time given and they cannot rewind or be given a chance to think about what they are seeing. This coupled with the fact that it is scientifically proven that audiences fall ‘asleep’ every six minutes, can make it virtually impossible for a director to ensure that the audience understand the play and all its milestones. A play is milestones with added filler and tension builder. I know an Operatic director who took two famous Grand Operas and cut out all the filler leaving the milestones and put them both on in one night and even seasoned opera-goers could not tell him what he had edited out. Tim’s method is the most effective way I have ever seen to get around audiences lack of milestone understanding and I will be sure to use this technique when I next direct something.

Actor's Advice

During this rehearsal process, I had another show that I was doing along side called The Beauty Queen of Lennane, during this we had a acting coach come in and tell us some techniques that we could use for all plays and I tried to take this on board. He told us that a play is like a coiled spring and that tension needs to build up so it is almost unbearable and then be released. Luckily I felt me and Seamus had the majority of those tension releases that I could play with, for example discovering the first letter and Nora leaving Torvald. He also said acting is "rooting your feet to the floor and making constant eye contact with the other actor." I took this on board, though didn't necessarily agree with it entirely, though I did agree that eye contact is a very powerful tool for actors. He also said that you need to start acting before you go on stage, now everyone who knows me, knows that I spend the day of a show getting into character, so I did for this one, by for example wearing a wedding ring all day and sitting on my own in break and lunch preparing for the play.

Leaving Melodrama

When Tim saw my scene with Ruby, I didn't think he was all that impressed and rightfully so. In hindsight I am honestly embarrassed to have thought of such a ridiculous idea. It was melodramatic, unrealistic, poorly acted (on my part) and quite frankly an atrocity, and I am so disappointed with myself for having thought of such a ludicrous idea, and I certainly thank Tim for his part in showing me that. It think my mentality behind that scene was to be different and to stand out, however in didn't realise that what I had thought of world instead stand out for all the wrong reasons, although I found some of Tim's direction confusing, it was all clever, meticulously worked out and a vast improvement on my abysmal performance.

Intial Scene Response

When I first received my two scenes I wanted at least one of them to be different and to shock the audience, so I decided to use my scene with Ruby where I receive the second alleviating letter. I decided that I would hold Ruby around throat to add an extra bit of shock value, at the time forgetting the idea of naturalism. As we progress with this scene I became less and less convinced that this slightly melodramatic idea would work in the given circumstances. The other thing I worked on was the last scene of the whole play where Nora leaves Torvald in this scene I was acting alongside Sukey. For this I tried the emotional recall, only I found myself becoming physically sick with the overpowering emotions and therefore decided to play down the genuine emotional attachment I had to scene like that, on the advice of Tim.

Intial Set Response

When I first found out the idea of having many people playing the characters of A Dolls House I was a little sceptical to begin with, although that doubt soon faded immediately after I saw Tim's staging ideas. The initial set was two raised platforms apart from each other, with the audience sitting in a proscenium arch style. As each new scene ended, another one would follow on the opposite block. Tim also decided that the end scene would be shown in the beginning and the end adding an extra effect to the overall performance.

Silent Acting

The final exercise that we did before the show was to do our scenes without any speech, but just with the movement, this was really interesting because it allowed you to really connect with the other actor in the play, it also allowed you to experience real emotion of the scene with out relying heavily on the words and instead relying wholly on the action. The people that were watching it said they found it bizarre to watch, but that they really felt they were emotionally connected with the characters, some said they even found it more powerful, so what I took from that,was to keep that level of connection with with the other actors and to let the words ride on the action rather than the opposite.

Go To The Woods

In this exercise we explored how the intent of language effects what is being said and the meaning behind it. To do this exercise we use the phrase 'Go to the woods' with different objectives in order to change the way in which it was being said, thereby changing the meaning of the words, four example go to the woods angrily, would be different from going to the woods questioningly. This helped us to explore the subtext of the lines we were doing in A Dolls House and to extract the meaning Ibsen intended, resulting in a naturalistic performance. One thing I found interesting about this exercise was the fact that some objectives can sound similar to others for example seductively and intimidating can sound surprisingly similar.

Stanislavskian Relaxation Exercises

One of the things explored by Stanislavski was the effect of relaxation on psychophysical characterisation. He believed that relaxation was the key to imagination and that you could not form or perform a three-dimensional character in a tense state. He also believed that in order to perform efficiently, you need not to worry about your bodily movements, but your thought processes, objectives and actions. To demonstrate his belief Ben had us trying to do our times tables was performing a simple dance routine, although in of themselves, the times tables and dance routine were simple, when combined it became nigh on impossible to perform both actions simultaneously. We also did a variety of relaxation exercises which included; gradual full body tension and sudden relaxation with the visualisation of our bodies melting into the floor, an exercise which involved us imagining the tide gradually coming up over our bodies and another fascinating exercise. This exercise involved us striking numerous everyday poses, such as sitting or standing and then relaxing the muscles unnecessary for that position. This showed is quite how relaxed you could be in those positions and how much extra energy you are using whilst being in those positions. We also similarly worked on going from those positions to other positions and seeing what muscles and movements were completely necessary to do something like sitting or standing and then relaxing those muscles not entirely needed. This showed us the most economical way to go from various positions, and again show us the amount of extra energy we use in the most simple of movements. Due to these exercises whilst in rehearsals I always try to lose the tension from my body in order to devise or to perform, as I would agree with Stanislavski when he says relaxation is the key to the imagination.

Semi-Supine

Semi-supine is a position where you are lying on your back with your knees facing the ceiling, there should be a fists width between your knees and you're back should be straight on the floor, with an elongated neck. Your body should be parallel this again aligns your back.

Neutral

A neutral position is a position in which actor is without character, but is alert and ready to work. It consists of having one's feet hip width apart, planted into the floor, pushing the floor away from you, balance your weight evenly across both legs and stand with a straight back and rolled back shoulders. You should also have an elongated neck, this is helped by imagining a piece of string from the crown of your head being pulled up towards the ceiling, this allows for a straitened back and a sense of alertness, this helps your back to be aligned.

Emotional Recall/Memory

Emotional recall was a very profound and unique technique developed by Stanislavski to allow you to create a genuine, relatable character. To do this exercise we lay on the floor in semi-supine and started to imagine a happy place. We started to imagine the smell of that place, the taste in the air of that place, we started to imagine the sounds we could hear, what we can touch, all the intricate details that we could see, and how we could explore this space in our imagination. what made us happy? How did it make us happy? When I imagined my happy place, I found an in voluntary smile coming to my face and my mood being brightened and whole world felt lifted. My happy place was my church. I could smell the musky church-like scent, I could taste the coffee being brewed in front of me, I could hear the sound of people singing my favourite worship song and I could see all my friends sitting around me talking over biscuits and tea. As I did this I felt a warmth coming from my stomach going out into my fingertips all the way down to my toes, and I started to believe in emotional memory, which I hadn't really previously. When Tim said he would like us to share our happy place to the class, I became a little bit apprehensive because I felt that mine was private and personal and allowing others to enter would seem almost sacrilegious, though luckily I wasn't chosen. In this lesson was also the first time ever tried the ending scene of play and I tried using emotional recall for that though I've found the emotion very overpowering and extremely quickly felt awfully nauseous and therefore decided against using such strong emotion onstage and drawing the line between reality and fiction.

Naturalism and Realism

During this part of our course we looked at the difference between naturalism and realism, to explore this we looked at the simple action of making a cup of tea. Ben started by asking Seamus to get up and make a cup of tea as he would at home with everything as realistic as possible including the actual waiting time for the kettle to boil. Ben then explained this was naturalism and the difference between naturalism and realism was the fact that naturalism wanted everything to be exactly as it would in actual life, where as realism wanted only the highlights and snapshots of real life while still keeping it as believable and lifelike as possible. To demonstrate this Ben asked me to make a cup of tea and to only show the highlights of this without the realistic waiting times. Ben then described that some people can find naturalism boring which was why realism was born, in fact he gave us a quote that read 'naturalism merely wants to focus on the superficial appearance of real life'. To give other examples Ben also described times he'd seen such things as meals being cooked on stage. This lesson was a real eye opener for me because I've never understood that there was a difference between realism and naturalism and by focusing on that difference I could really understand what I was doing in A Doll's House and even the method Stanislavski created.

Melodrama

Whilst studying the techniques proposed by Stanislavski, we also needed to explore the polar opposite (melodrama) in order to understand what he was resisting against. Whilst exploring melodrama we looked at stock characters, in a similar way to the way we studied stock characters in physical theatre with Sarah in year 10, this was good, because it drew a link between the different years and units of work we had done throughout the years, also giving us a deeper understanding of the purpose and method behind stock characters. We looked at the characters of: The Hero, The Villain, The Lover, The Damsel, The Wise Man and The Villain's Accomplice. We were told to go off separately and to explore an action on noise for each character, then to regroup and come to an agreement on the action and noise we would use for that character. We decided for The Hero we would have a wide open stance to signify the power, authority, status and bravery that comes with that character and an accompanying ta-da for the overly melodramatic heroic sound. For The Villain we had a pyramid of evil in the fingers as if hatching an evil plan, a hunched look to show he is hiding something and the traditional evil laugh to make it that bit clearer. The Lover had a breathy sigh of affection with a bent knee, like in the midst of a proposal with an up-turned face to show the head-in-clouds mentality, coupled with a far-away look in his eyes. The Damsel was in given a hand to forehead and hand wide back in a swooning motion, to show the traditionalist view of a weak, hysterical woman in distress, this effect was completed with a light sigh. In the characterisation of The Wiseman, we used what Ben called 'beard acting' we accompanied this with squinted vision and a hand on the back. His stock phrase was 'I have it!'. Finally we had the bumbling henchman 'The Smeed of the stock characters'. For this we had him leading from the hips with a pushed out a stomach, a confused look and a 'huh?' sound. With those stock characters, we then began to explore why and how they were used and how they are still used in melodramatic plays today. We explored how all the internal pysco-physical acting from the Stanislavski method was externalised to tell the audience character and emotion rather than to show them, we also discovered that they hadn't understood the internal psychology of characters, so to explore how you can internalise all of that external behaviour, we looked at each character in the melodramatic way taking that as a level 10 and internalising it slowly down to a level one, this helped us explore how the audience can have the same level of understanding, but with us still internalise the character and not overdramatising it. This transition from melodrama to naturalism really helped us realise you can still have a strong characterisation whilst exploring the internal psychology of a character making them character more realistic, relatable and naturalistic.

Exploring The Space

We started doing this exercise with Ben as well. We started by touching the hut and familiarising our selves with it, with the added level of trying to notice things that we hadn't previously. We had to have an internal monologue describing what we were touching, seeing, hearing and smelling. This was interesting, because I know my mind tends to drift in internal thought, even when I focus my internal thought (in prayer etc), I find I draw links between things I am trying to focus on and those things that not my intended focus. So whilst doing this I managed to do quite well, though occasionally drifted away after drawing tenuous links to something or other else. We then moved on to externalising the internal monologue, making it a much more interesting exercise. When externalising my thoughts I find it a lot easier to focus on one subject, though I found it hard in a room of friends. I found my self feeling a little uncomfortable, as doing this exercise feels mildly like an invasion of privacy or an invasion of intellectual narrative. I also found myself solely drifting towards the intent of performing for my friends rather than familiarising myself with the place. We did this exercise again with Tim and I found it a lot easier to do the activity, because the entire room felt more focused. We then went on to exploring the space as our characters and describing their house and familiarising ourselves with there house, which I found fascinating, because my bay window was another persons fireplace and because I believed in my house so much, I felt like telling people that no the fire place was over there, to the right and in the corner! We then moved on by just living in the space as characters rather than exploring the space as if it were a new environment. I found this most enjoyable, because I was able to loose myself and bring about Torvald, and I did genuinely find myself believing I was Torvald in that space and being able to block out others. We then merged the two exercises of what if and being the character by playing what if as the character. This was really interesting, because it let us explore the reaches of our character and how they would react to different situations, giving us a more in-depth understanding of the characters psychological make-up. Also during this exercise we looked at how characters have an emotional attachments to inanimate objects, in the same way that we have attachments to inanimate objects in our own homes. To allow the characters in these attachments we allow a third dimensional character to form. Another thing I found fascinating, was that whilst doing the exercise I had a terrible cough and cold and as soon as I really got into the character of Torvald I lost that cough and cold because I did not believe that he would have one, though as soon as I fell out of character to observe other people, my cough returned. I also found that whilst being in character I started to unconsciously develop character traits and ticks that would help form a real living person. I again found the second time doing this exercise that it brought my house back, that I had previously imagined, but at the advice of Tim, I allowed it to involve into something better, I also didn't stick with the same character and allow that to evolve into a more intricate three-dimensional person.

What If...

The what if exercise is a game in which you learn to explore the reaches of your character. We started this game with Ben and to start we were using a familiar setting (our journey to school) and responding in as realistic as possible way to the situations given by Ben. We then split up into groups and responded to the circumstances given by our counter-parts. Although most of those circumstances where clever and interesting to react to, some were a very niche (e.g. Your wearing shorts and you haven't shaved your legs) and some I felt if performing in a naturalistic way would not warrant a reaction (e.g. You have forgotten to wear underpants). Though some were difficult to react to naturally and some I even felt like I would have to limit my natural reaction so that it did not appear to be a melodramatic performance, for example one was a wasp starts to attack you and my number one fear is wasps, so if a wasp were to sting me I would probably go mental. This made me change my attitude towards naturalistic theatre, because prior to doing this I believed that naturalism was, generally, boring and easy to act, though I have now discovered that is far from the truth.

My Intial Response to Bella Merlin's Konstantin Stanislavski

I must admit in the lead-up to reading the book on Stanislavsky I thought I would be very bored and would find it far too dull for my liking, but whilst reading about his methods on training actors I found myself totally enthralled. I found the systems of muscle relaxation most fascinating especially the exercise where you adopt a variety of poses and then relax the muscles not needed for that specific stance. I found this so clever because I had never thought of this as a way of exploring muscle control, which can be transferred into physical theatre. I also adore his thoughts on characters being psycho-physical as this opens a whole new avenue of character exploration and adds such a depth to the character and makes the whole portrayal more realistic and relatable. I also found it really interesting when I read the section of given circumstances, as Mr Renasson went through this so in-depth last year especially during our performance of Decade, where I was first sceptical of the method, but later grew to appreciate its necessity to our performance. Probably my favourite exercise in the book was exercise 4.7 (page 124). The idea of senses pulling up certain feelings and thoughts was just totally ingenious, as it is such an everyday thing but I never thought of using it as an acting exercise, I found this particularly profound as this is so relevant to my life and the way I like look at things especially when it comes to auditory stimulation e.g. music or familiar voices. All-in-all I felt this method was so useful and I would use it, I also love the merging of practical and experimental methods.