17.12.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

 Today I presented my concept for the play Waiting For Godot.

Here was my presentation:

07.12.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

 In this rehearsal, we split up into two groups of two and a group of three.  In each group, we had one director and the actor had to perform Lucky's monologue from Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett.  The three groups were, Hugo (director) & Tristan (actor), James (actor) & Louis (director), Amelie (director), Silvana (actor) & Emma (actor).

HUGO & TRISTAN

Hugo and Tristan placed their scene in a bar or pub.  Tristan played Lucky as a very intelligent but drunk man, telling Hugo all of the knowledge in his head.  In this performance, we interpreted it as if Godot was a drink or a bartender who they were waiting for.  This made it very contemporary and the themes of alcoholism and existentialism link, as a lot of people believe they find answers and happiness and the bottom of a bottle. 

JAMES & LOUIS

Louis directed James to play Lucky as an old professor.  This was very effective and the audience interpreted it as if he was giving a lecture.  Even the stuttering that is in Lucky's monologue was done so effortlessly in the way a lecturer would do it.  Half way through the play, Louis put on some church music with organs.  This immediately made James look like he's a preacher.  It brought the theme of religion in, which is very relevant as well as being a considerable amount of peoples interpretation of Waiting for Godot, with Godot being God.  

AMELIE, SILVANA & EMMA

Amelie directed Silvana and I.  Before we started, she showed us this video: (1h55)

After we watched that, she explained that she wanted us to be like two different parts of Lucky's brain.  A more intelligent side and a crazier, more obnoxious side.  In order to do this, we split up the lines to ones that were more intelligent and ones that were waffle.  I took the crazy side and Silvana took the intelligent side.  We had a hairband on our wrist which attached Silvana and I together.  Amelie directed us so we looked as if we had purpose to what we were saying even though it didn't originally make sense.

07.12.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

 ESTRAGON - CHARACTER ANALYSIS 

Estragon and Vladimir talk about being together for about 60 years.  It doesn't state how old these two characters are but I would assume they're possibly 70.  

PERSONALITY

Estragon represents the impulsive, yet simplistic side of the two main characters.  It contrasts Vladimir's careful intellectualism and verbosity.  He doesn't care about appearances and is mainly concerned with eating and sleeping.  He has a pessimistic outlook on life and therefore has abandoned all hope of any alleviation of their suffering.  He thinks that Godot is suspicious.  Out of Estragon and Vladimir, Estragon suffers the most physically.  He has difficulties with his boots, he gets kicked by Lucky, he falls a numerous amount of times and he is beaten by thugs every night.  His boots don't fit and cause him pain in the first act so by the end of the first act, he leaves them on the side of the road.  In the second act, he finds them in the same place, but now they mysteriously fit him.  Estragon has a misanthropic view of humanity.  He considers people to be "ignorant apes" and seems to want them to leave him alone, despite being very attached to Vladimir.  He wants and needs protection and Vladimir provides it, even if that comes with the occasional bickering.  Estragon is often seen as the child to Vladimir's adult, and looks for parental security in him. 

APPEARANCE

Estragon doesn't get a lot of description in the play.  The only thing we get, is that he is described as wearing "rags", walking with a limp (which eventually wears off) and being lighter than Vladimir.  As he does have a rather gluttonous nature, he is often played as being short and fat, in contrast with tall and lanky Vladimir.  His clothes are dirtier than Vladimir's and seems to be in worse condition, due to his lack of inhibitions, like diving for food and sleeping in ditches.  

03.12.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

Today, we got into 3 groups, Amelie & Silvana, Tristan, Hugo & Louis, and James & I.  We each took turns to direct a piece of theatre from the Waiting for Godot script, using the practitioners we wanted.

AMELIE & SILVANA

Amelie & Silvana decided to direct the hat scene, using Frantic Assembly as their practitioner.  They picked Tristan and I to be the actors.  Tristan was Vladimir and I was Estragon.  They used round, by, through as their movements for the changing of hats.  

TRISTAN, HUGO & LOUIS

Tristan, Hugo and Louis decided to direct the scene where the boy comes to talk to Vladimir, using Berkoff as their practitioner.  They cast James as the Boy and Amelie as Vladimir.  They used exaggerated and literal movements according to the lines. 

JAMES & EMMA

James and I decided the direct the scene where Pozzo & Lucky first join the play, using Dario Fo as our practitioner.  We cast Tristan as Lucky, Louis as Pozzo, Hugo as Vladimir and Silvana as Estragon.  We tried to make the timing and the movements that Lucky did comedic.  

30.10.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

 Today, two groups, Tristan and Hugo and Silvana and James, performed their interpretation of the first few pages of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.  Each group contextualised the play and made it relevant for contemporary youth.

Tristan and Hugo

Tristan and Hugo experimented with accents and stuck to the Russian accent at the end.  This portrayed a sense of comradeship and I interpreted it as two brothers in the army together.  There were specific lines that stuck out which anchored this, such as, "crawling around in the mud".  This is relevant to today as there are wars going on in the world.

Silvana and James

Silvana and James were initially looking at doing the play in the style of Steven Berkoff but eventually went to the style of Stanislavski but they kept the East London accent which they were using with Berkoff.  This made the piece appear to be set in the cobbled streets of London outside a bar or pub.  I interpreted that Godot was the bar owner who they were waiting for.  This also lead to the idea of poverty and homelessness which is more relevant than ever right now due to the high unemployment rate from the global pandemic.  

18.11.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

 EXISTENTIALISM

Existentialism is a philosophical theory or approach which emphasises the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.  It is the theory behind the unconscious movement Theatre of the Absurd, which is perhaps more of a genre than a style.  Significant practitioners were not traditional theoreticians and directors, but instead were major playwrights.  The movement leapt onto the world stage in the form of unconventional plays, primarily by European (and later American) playwrights.  Absurdist theatre directly influenced much of European drama for more than ten years and within it lie some of the best plays of the 20th Century.

ALBERT CAMUS

Born: November 7, 1913

Died: January 4, 1960

Albert Camus was a French novelist, essayist, and playwright, best known for such novels as L'Étranger (1942), La Peste (1947) and La Chute (1956) and for his work in leftist causes.  He received the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature.  Camus focused most of his philosophy around existential questions.  The absurdity of life, the inevitable ending is highlighted in his acts.  His belief was that the absurd - life being void of meaning, or man's inability to know that meaning if it were to exist - was something that man should embrace.  His anti-Christianity, his commitment to individual moral freedom and responsibility are only a few of the similarities with other existential writers.  More importantly, Camus addressed one of the fundamental questions of existentialism: the problem of suicide.  He wrote: "There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide." Camus viewed the question of suicide as arising naturally as the solution to the absurdity of life.

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

Born: June 21, 1905

Died: April 15, 1980

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic.  He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism.  Some of Jean-Paul Sartre's plays include No Exit (1944), The Flies (1943), Prljave ruke (1948), The Respectful Prostitute (1946), The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), The Condemned of Altona (1959) and The Chips are Down (1947).

Bibliography

Existentialism and Theatre of the Absurd

Albert Camus

Albert Camus 

Albert Camus

Albert Camus

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

16.11.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

 SAMUEL BECKETT

Samuel Beckett was an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, theatre director, poet and literary translator.  He was born in 1906 in Dublin and died in 1989 in Paris.  Beckett's notable works include, Murphy, Watt, Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, Waiting for Godot and Endgame.  In 1969 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.  Beckett wrote in both English and French but his most well-known works were in French.  Waiting for Godot was successful in the Theatre de Babylone and ran for 400 performances.  This play focused on human despair and the will to survive in a hopeless world that offers no help in understanding.  This style of writing is known as the Theatre of the Absurd. 

THEATRE OF THE ABSURD

The Theatre of the Absurd movement consisted of different post-World War II plays which agreed with philosopher Camus's statement, that the human situation is essentially absurd and devoid of purpose.  Characterised by a fascination with absurdity in all its forms - philosophical, dramaturgical, existential, emotional - this is a drama form that pushes theatre to extremes, and which asks probing questions about what reality (and unreality) really looks like.  In Beckett's Waiting for Godot, plot is eliminated, and a timeless, circular quality emerges as two lost creatures, usually played as tramps, spend their days waiting without any certainty of whom they are waiting for or if he, or it, will ever come.  

WAITING FOR GODOT

Waiting for Godot's first performance was January 5, 1953.  Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot just after the end of the German occupation of France and during those years, Beckett and Suzanne, his future wife, were members of the French Resistance.  The French Resistance was an underground movemebt that rebelled against Nazi forces by passing secret information about the Nazis.  This information was passed using codes which were similar to the brief poetic language that the characters use in the play.  Beckett and Suzanne were forced to escape by fleeing to the French hamlet of Roussillon where they picked grapes such like the characters in Waiting for Godot, Vladimir and Estragon.  The blend of the coded speech and the waiting for, (Nazis to find them or the Allies to free them) has been linked to Godot of Beckett's own experience.  Some imagine that "Godot is a play about the Resistance; characters have code names, get beaten by the Gestapo, and carry on their assignments."  Waiting for Godot has links in the social context as waiting was the hardest part during the Cold War should the idea of a nuclear threat become real.  The relationship between the two characters could also link to the relationships within the French as in waiting for the expected showdown between the two superpowers. 

Beckett refused to elaborate on the characters beyond what he had written in the play.  He didn't have a visual image of Vladimir and Estragon when he wrote the play.  They are never referred to as 'tramps' in the text but they are often depicted as such on stage.  Normand Berlin wrote, "Because the play is so stripped down, so elemental, it invites all kinds of social and political and religious interpretations.".

ORIGINAL STAGING CONDITIONS

The first performance was in Paris, France, at the Theatre de Babylone on the 5th January 1953, and was performed in French.  The performance didn't receive any good reviews and the audience became quite rowdy.  The theatre only had 75 seats and the budget was very small so there was a fair bit of creativity.  For example, the director stepped in for Pozzo's character as the original actor dropped out, and had to strap pillows to him to get a more fitting physical appearance.  Another example was that the briefcase was found in the bin.  

The original cast was:

• Vladimir: Lucien Raimbourg
• Estragon: Pierre Latour
• Lucky: Jean Martin
• Pozzo: Roger Blin
• Boy: Serge Lecointe

There have been many different interpretations of the play since.

12.11.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

 GREEK THEATRE

• Used to celebrate religious festivals
• Used in parliament to announce big political changes
• Chorus used 
• Thespis - unknown if playwright, actor or priest - created "first actor" who broke away from chorus to speak as individual character
• Masks used

CREATION OF CHARACTER

• Aeschylus - using second & third actor which allowed interaction between characters
• Sophocles - created character by using chorus less and creating more dialogue between characters.

ROMAN THEATRE

• Influenced by Greek theatre
• The word "play" comes from the Latin word "ludus" 
• Terence - Roman playwright - introduced subplot
• Less influenced by religion than Greek theatre
• Loud and rude audience - didn't applaud and would shout insults and boo
• Audience was so loud they would repeat a lot
• Actors developed a code to tell audience about a character just by looking at them
• Black wig - young man
• Red wig - slave
• Yellow robe - woman
• Yellow tassel - a God

MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN THEATRE 

• Europe became more agricultural after fall of the Roman Empire
• Roman Catholic Church dominated religion, education and politics - had a strong influence on theatre
• Theatre "reborn" as "liturgical dramas" - written in Latin and performed by priests or church members
• Plots taken from the Christian Bible
• Performances held to celebrate religious festivals
• Later "vernacular dramas" written in common language
• Plays performed in town squares on wagon stages
• Three types of "vernacular dramas"
• Mystery plays - based on Old and New Testament
• Miracle plays - based on lives of the saints
• Morality plays - taught lesson through symbolic characters representing virtues or faults

COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE

ITALY

• Unique form of theatre for common people
• Required few props and no set
• Did not come from scripts but by "scenarios" which were an outline of plot
• Improvised the dialogue with comedic stunts "lazzi"
• Wore half masks - indicated to the character which character they were playing
• Worked in troupes (10-12) - few were women
• Plays based on stock characters
• Pantalone - elderly Venetian merchant
• Arlecchino - servant who was trouble maker

RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION

ITALY

• Development of the proscenium or "picture frame stage"

ENGLAND

• "Apron stages" - more open
• Audience surrounded stage and sometimes on stage
• Emphasis on dialogue 
• Continued to have moralistic themes
• Later religious themes were replaced by themes of loyalty to the government
• Performers were organised into troupes or companies who developed a repertory of plays that they could perform
• 16th Century - England's government swung back and forth between Catholics and Protestants
• Playwrights believed to support Catholic Church by reviving plays written in Latin
• Playwrights believed to be Protestants by reviving Greek plays
• Could be put to death for reviving the "wrong" play based on who was in power
• Many avoided reviving classical plays and wrote non-political and non-religious plays
• Theatre dangerous through political problems
• Civil unrest inspired by performances
• Theatres associated with temptation to spend time watching plays than working
• Associated with prostitution so women were banned from theatres
• Plague closed theatres
• Lead to licensing of acting companies - more control of theatre by state

ELIZABETHAN THEATRE

• William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson
• Encouraged more natural style of speaking and acting
• Theme of "good government"
• Shakespeares characters more "human" - positive and negative aspects explored
• Plays still presented in open-air theatre - sometimes at court

THE REPUBLIC AND THE RESTORATION

FRANCE

• 1642 - English Parliament closed theatres in England
• English actors went to France
• Theatres in France focused on scenery & creating spectacle
• Included costumes, dance, clever scenery requiring scene changes - more emphasised than acting
• Used proscenium style of stage
• Allowed women to perform - French influence on England in 1660 for women to perform

18TH CENTURY THEATRE

• Became popular pastime
• Actors assumed poses and performed their lines in a "sing-song" manner
• Dressed in modern fashionable clothes
• Rivalry between actresses on who would wear the finest dress
• Pantomime popular and promoted the development of spectacular staging, slapstick and special effects

DAVID GARRICK 

• Successful actor, producer and theatre manager 
• Wrote more than 20 plays 
• Emphasised a more natural form of speaking and acting that mimicked life
• Inspired movement towards realism and naturalism
• Banished the audience from stage - actors performed among furnishing and scenery
• More commercial 

LIGHTING AND STAGE ADVANCEMENTS

• Gas lighting introduced in 1817 in London's Drury Lane Theatre
• By end of century - electrical lighting on stage
• Mechanisms for changing scenery developed - fly-lofts, elevators, revolving stages

19TH CENTURY THEATRE 

MELODRAMA

• Poor quality of lighting - emphasised action and spectacle not acting
• Melodrama created
• Comes from "music drama" - increase emotion or signify characters
• Performed through gestures and body poses
• Simplified moral universe - good and evil
• Special effects - fires, explosions, earthquakes
• Traditional form - villain poses threat, hero or heroine escapes - ends with happy ending
• Playwrights poorly paid

"THE ERA OF THEATRE GREATS"

• Began the movement of realism
• Audience watching through "fourth wall" spying on characters
• Henrik Ibsen - wrote in Norwegian
• George Bernard Shaw - wrote in English
• Anton Chekhov - wrote in Russian
• Konstantin Stanislvaski wrote several works on the arts of acting
• Method still used today and considered the best training for actors
• Jack Nicholson, James Dean, Marlon Brando, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Benicio Del Toro, Johnny Depp

20TH CENTURY - MODERN THEATRE

• 2 world wars - social and politixal upheaval
• Realism movement and naturalistic acting style
• Other theatre movements - Theatre of the Absurd
• Grew out of the post-modern movement - life had no meaning and there is no God 
• Style grew out of Europe in the late 1940s

THE END

• Constantly changing in reaction to audience's tastes, political and social movements and advances in technology
• Musical Theatre, Theatre of the Oppressed, Improv Theatre, Children's Theatre, Cabaret etc. 

29.10.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 Silvana and I went through our piece again and decided to re-record.  We have been trying so hard to get it done without stopping so we are trying it again.  We had to do it quite a few times and then realised that in our last video we missed a few lines so we made sure we knew what we were doing before recording.  We managed to get it done in the best way we've done it yet so I'm very happy.

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27.10.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 Today, Silvana and I attempted to re-record our East piece.  We were so much more effective with our lines and movements this time than last time.  Our filming went really well besides the fact that we had to film in the bathroom as we couldn't find any other room that was free to film in.  Someone walked in mid-performance which was very frustrating so we might attempt to re-record it again.

26.10.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 Today we looked back at our piece we attempted to finish over the weekend.  It looked way too choppy and we were not happy with how it turned out so we will be filming it again.  In the afternoon, we re-filmed 4.48 Psychosis as we thought the vibe wasn't correct in the last one.  To help change that, we filmed in the auditorium with louder music and different, eerie lighting.  This one went so much better for us and then we recorded our post-performance discussion.  

24.10.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 Today, Silvana, Louis and Tristan came over to mine to finish our East performance.  Our aim for today was to completely finish learning our lines and movements for each line and then get it filmed.  Silvana was already very familiar with her lines whereas I wasn't as much.  She helped me learn all my lines and then together we created movements for specific lines and words.  After that, we went downstairs to film.  It didn't go massively to plan as we didn't manage to swiftly go through without any awkward silences or without forgetting our lines.  We thought we would be able to just edit these pauses out but it didn't turn out the way we wanted to.  

22.10.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

21.10.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

20.10.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

We began today's rehearsal with a quick reminder of our lines.  This went a lot better than yesterday but each of us have a few lines that we continuously get stuck on.  After that, we looked at the different music choices for the different parts of the piece.  We then went to a bigger space to do some more physical aspects.  Silvana mentioned that she wasn't too certain on a part of her chair duet with Tristan as she was planning on crossing one leg over the other but the bed is quite low so it's difficult and doesn't look very smooth.  We managed to figure out a different routine for that specific part of the chair duet and it looked a lot better.  After that, we discussed the issue with our Swindon 5.  We were previously walking over the bed and then stopping in the middle of the bed and saying our lines.  This was an issue as it slowed down our piece a lot and the bed is quite creaky and distracting.  We tried a few different ways but ended up coming to the conclusion that we would scrap the Swindon 5 and instead stand in 4 spots and create levels as we stand up when we say our line.  I think it looks a lot more put together and clean now.  Then we wanted to do an exaggerated run through, but Tristan wasn't in the mood and so it didn't really go to plan.  We also managed to completely forget all of our lines which was a disaster.  For the last two minutes we added a more concluded ending to the piece and decided that we were going to have our last run through at lunch time tomorrow.

19.10.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 We had a small discussion period at the start of todays rehearsals on our goals for today and our goals for the week.  We then went to the common room to repeat what we did on Friday's rehearsal with the chair duets.  We've managed to fully secure what we wanted to do with this section of the piece.  For the start of our rehearsals after lunch, we went through our lines and learnt the order of them.  As 4.48 Psychosis is very abstract, the lines are quite difficult to learn and the order is even more difficult to remember.  We has to go through these for quite a long time to get everything engraved in our heads.  After we learnt the order of the lines, we continued with finishing the rest of the piece.  We then blocked where we would say our lines and the emotion each of us would say it in.  I am happy, Louis is angry, Silvana is sad and Tristan is emotionless.  We really looked into pacing and volume today, especially with the numbers section.  

18.10.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 We were meant to have a rehearsal yesterday but Tristan wasn't feeling well so we changed it to today.  We wanted to focus on East today as our aim was to get it filmed and done with.  As we had planned to rehearse the day before but weren't able to, we didn't have as much time to rehearse today and didn't manage to fit what we wanted to get in and reach our target.  We have rescheduled the filming to next weekend and we will be a lot more prepared by then.

15.10.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 In today's rehearsal we decided that we should try figure out what we would be doing for our chair duet.  We struggled to figure out what to do as a four so we split up into two pairs.  I went with Louis and Silvana and Tristan went together.  Then we initially attempted to improvise some movements with some music.  We started off by seeing how it would work when Louis does one move and then I do one move.  We managed to create a small piece of theatre but we thought that it wasn't good enough, so we took inspiration from another chair duet piece that we created at the start of last year.  This helped us massively and we managed to get it all done.  Then we switched the pairs so I went with Silvana and Tristan and Louis went together.  We went through the same process again and ended up with 4 different chair duets.  Then we decided to figure out how we would link all of these pieces together and it went really well.

14.10.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 During our rehearsal in the small room today, we decided to really focus on learning our lines.  We collectively decided to focus on the lines for East as we struggle more with them rather than 4.48 Psychosis.  

After school, we stayed to do another rehearsal where our aim was to completely block 4.48 Psychosis.  I think we were being a bit optimistic with this goal, but we still managed to get a fair bit done.  We now know what we're doing after the first part of physical theatre.  We also decided that after the line "don't let me forget", we would have a chair duet style of movements whilst sitting on the bed, but we didn't particularly want to focus on doing physical theatre today as we needed to block everything else.  We included in a Swindon 5, which I think could look really good if we polish it up a bit.  This is footage of a little run through we did in our rehearsal.  

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12.10.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 Today we want to focus on 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane.  This is because we have figured out what we want to do for our other piece and we think it's a lot easier to finish so we want to get this one sorted out.  First we're going to figure out the blocking for our lines as we already know the opening physical theatre.  We struggled to decide which pieces of texts we wanted to use, but we figured out more of the lines and the order we wanted to do them in.  Because we were in the small space, we weren't able to get on our feet to figure it out.  We also figured out our aim for today was to complete our blocking entirely for this piece so we just have to polish it up afterwards. 

Unfortunately, we were all exhausted and hit a wall today so we weren't able to hit the goal.  It's quite frustrating but it will push us to work harder next rehearsal.

08.10.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 In today's rehearsal, Louis and Tristan and Silvana and I split off into separate groups and started to look through our second script, East by Steven Berkoff.  Silvana and I started off this rehearsal by watching two different videos of people performing East.  

We looked at this video to get a better idea of the way East is performed using Berkoff's style:

This was very insightful and showed us that Berkoff's style is very exaggerated, explicit and quite literal.  

Then we looked at this video to see how the actress played Sylv in scene 7:

We used this to figure out the accent as well.

Then Silvana and I spent the entire rehearsal going through the script and deciding who would say each line and the movements we wanted to add to each line.  I feel like we were being pretty reserved and holding back, so we thought we needed to not hold back and that we should be more explicit, like how Sylv is in the video we watched.

07.10.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 During this rehearsal, we didn't have a lot of space to work with, so we decided that it would be a good time to discuss our second piece.  We all decided that we weren't happy with the piece Noises Off by Michael Frayn, so we spent some time looking and exploring other scripts.  We researched some scripts online, which were quite good, but either too short or had one main character and the other characters were much smaller.  Then we went the route of looking at texts we have already looked at or studied.  We looked at Gagging for it by Danny Sturrock, which we used for our GCSE piece and East by Steven Berkoff, which we briefly looked at when studying practitioners this year.  We all agreed that Gagging for it was a bit too easy and boring and then we looked at East.  East looked like a great option for us as Steven Berkoff is a practitioner that we would like to explore and there are segments of text which are long enough and work with the genders and amount of people in our group.  We decided that Louis and Tristan would do the opening scene together, with Louis being Les and Tristan being Mike.  Silvana and I will both be playing Sylv and we will be performing scene 7 together.  

05.10.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

We were still struggling on what second text we want to do.  During these rehearsals we looked through the text Noises Off by Michael Frayn to try find some pieces of text where there are duologues or for 4 actors.  We found this quite difficult as there were many different characters or one was very prominent compared to the rest and didn't allow enough time for the other characters.  We decided for our time in the auditorium, we would continue to focus on 4.48 as we still haven't gotten much further than just the physical theatre at the start.  I began the lesson by leading a warm up, as I felt we didn't have a lot of energy.  After this, we moved onto 4.48 but I felt like we were quite stuck on what we wanted to do to proceed in this piece but we managed to figure out which pieces of text we wanted to do.  It may still be a bit too long, but it's better to have it too long, rather than too short.  I feel like we were also very focussed on our It's not you, it's me piece by Don Zolidis, as we are performing it on Thursday.

01.10.2020 - Performance Workshop - Mr Lemon

POSITIONING

Scene 1 

• Left wing
• Come out on Jack's line "Okay, so the first thing... Like a restaurant."
• As server 
• Exit to right wing

Scene 2

• Stay in right wing

Scene 4

• Walk on as Amelie is walking off
• Scene with James
• Stay sitting down by James

Scene 8

• Eating & drinking with Blagoj
• Storm off to right wing

Scene 7

Scene 10

Scene 11

• 
  

Scene 12

28.09.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 For the first lesson today we carried on looking through scripts to decide which one we wanted to use for our second piece.  We looked through a range of different texts and found some really good ones.  We decided by the end of the lesson that we would use the text Noises Off by Michael Frayn.  We found it really entertaining and funny which is a good contrast to our other piece 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane.  The only problem we saw arise was the issue with characters.  There are too many characters for just the four of us so we will need to find out good sections of text. 

Later on in the day we continued on with our 4.48 Psychosis rehearsals.  Our group focussed on the pacing of our physical theatre sequence as we wanted to put the song COPYCAT by Billie Eilish.

After figuring out the pacing, we voice recorded a discussion on what our plans were for our future rehearsals.  Then we performed for the other group and got some feedback on what they think.  This was our performance:

28.09.20 - Performance Workshop - Mr Lemon

 Today James and I did a short rehearsal for our scene as Mazie and Jacob.  We had Louis there to give some audience feedback and help direct us a bit.  We didn't have a proper performance place so we had to go in a small classroom.  I felt that I couldn't fully characterise as I had to be more quiet and we didn't have enough space.  This is the recording of the rehearsal:

Louis gave very good feedback and the second time felt so much better than the first.  I'm glad we had this small rehearsal as it helped a lot.  

23.09.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

I wasn't here in this lesson as I was ill but I believe that the rest of the group helped out the Year 12's again so I didn't miss anything.  

21.09.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

Today we looked at more scripts and decided one of them we were going to use for our final performance in front of the Year 11s and Year 12s.  We made two separate groups being Louis, Tristan, Silvana and I and James, Seth, Hugo and Amelie.  We both really enjoyed the play 4.48 Psychosis that we previously looked at and decided to both do the text, however we would need different practitioners.  Our group liked the idea of Artaud, but we wanted to add a bit more to it, so we chose Frantic Assembly as our practitioner.  Frantic Assembly uses physical theatre which we thought could be different and interesting.  We then looked at the Bed Scene from Frantic Assembly's Ignition:

After deciding our first piece, we set a timetable for rehearsals which were on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school.

17.09.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 Today we looked through more texts to find out which ones we could do for our performances.  We looked at the play 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane specifically.  We all found this text very interesting as it is so abstract and doesn't have any specific characters or stage directions.  The context behind this piece is that Sarah Kane wrote it as at 4:48am every morning, she woke up in a depressed state.  The play is very dark and sinister which we were initially trying to avoid, however we liked the creepy aspect to it and had many ideas we wanted to explore.  We split into two separate groups to perform the first section of the text in the most creative way possible, using the practitioner, Artaud's style.  This was really fun to explore and I think both groups came up with very innovative pieces.  This was ours:

16.09.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 We were helping out the Year 12 BTEC group with their improvisation unit as their show is coming up on the 1st October.  As we did this unit last year we had a lot of advice and fun helping them.

14.09.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

PRACTITIONERS

Today we went through the different practitioners that each individual had done a fact file on.  The practitioners we discussed were Peter Brook, Antoine Artaud, Dario Fo, Harold Pinter, Konstanin Stanislavski, Edward Craig, Jerzy Grotoski and Brecht.   After that we got into two groups of four and spoke about the three previous scripts we had looked at and chose one to apply a specific practitioner to.  The three scripts we looked at were It's not you, it's me by Don Zollidos, DNA by Dennis Kelly and East by Steven Berkoff.  Our group chose to do DNA by Dennis Kelly as it was quite dark and we wanted to switch it up a bit.  We looked mostly at the practitioner Dario Fo who used comedy as one of his key features of performance.  We wanted to keep the underlying message of DNA to stay depressing but we would take influence from Dario Fo to give it a comedic twist.  I like looking at different ways to interpret texts as they can make the moral or story become so different.  I am very interested in looking into Antoine Artaud as I find the theatre of cruelty so interesting as it's uncomfortable yet it's hard to look away.

 Dario Fo

14.09.2020 - Performance Workshop - Mr Lemon

Today we focussed on the transitions between the scenes as each scene is already pretty good but it needs to flow better.  

For a majority of our transitions, we decided to have Louis and Hugo come in as delivery men and move in some props.  We also have James help move the set as a server.  There were a few difficulties with which characters were meant to be on stage and which ones could help with the transitions.  We eventually figured it out and then found out how to include the extra character for each scene.  These included the server, NFL ex boyfriend or monk.  For the last few couples we have the scene set in a restaurant so we've kept the set the same however, we transition the people on and off stage with the help of James as the server.  We used wheelie chairs for getting characters on and off stage.  This also helped make it comedic.  At the end of the rehearsal we did a few very fast run throughs with a lot of energy.  It was very fun and we had to think quickly which helped us engrave the routine into our memory.

13.09.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 HAROLD PINTER

Born: October 10, 1930

Died: December 24, 2008

Harold Pinter was a British playwright, screenwriter, actor and director.  His best known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978).  He adapted each of these plays for the screen.  Other screenplay adaptations include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007).  He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own.

His plays are noted for their use of understatement, small talk, reticence and even silence to convey the substance of a character's thought, which often lies several layers beneath, and contradicts, his speech.  Pinter's plays are indecisive in their plots, presentation of characters, and endings, but they hold undeniable power and originality.  They typically begin with a pair of characters whose stereotyped relations and role-playing are disrupted by the entrance of a stranger; the audience sees the psychic stability of the couple break down as their fears, jealousies, hatreds, sexual preoccupations, and loneliness emerge from beneath a screen of bizarre yet commonplace conversation.  source

10.09.2020 - Performance Workshop - Mr Lemon

Unit 1 - Performance Workshop

It's not you, it's me by Don Zolidis

Script read & scene decisions

Scene 1

• yes

Split up into 2 groups

Scene 2

• yes

Scene 3

• no

Scene 4

• yes - stage transition

Scene 5 

• yes

Scene 6

• no

Scene 7 

• yes

Scene 8 

• yes

Scene 9

• no

Scene 10

• yes

Scene 11

• yes

Scene 12

• yes

Scene decisions, casting and justifications

Scene 1

• opportunity for more characters - NFL boyfriend & server
• sets the scene for the entire play
• Jack references parts later on
• Tristan = Jack
• interested in the character development involved
• Silvana = Ellie
• likes that she's a playful character
• server = Emma
• NFL boyfriend = Hugo

Scene 2

• has potential for being comedic 
• good paces throughout
• James = Jacob 
• he has good ideas for the sudden switch at end
• Amelie = Catherine
• she thinks she can portray the subtext well

Scene 3

• too childish 
• weird age range to portray
• although has potential for more characters

Scene 4 

• a good transition scene 
• breaks up the long duologues
• James in the last scene as Jacob could be the same person as John 
• Emma walks in when Amelie walks out so cheating could be the reason Mazie is upset
• Emma = Mazie
• good at over exaggeration 
• done the scene before so already have good ideas
• James = John/Jacob
• James is good at the dull but funny characterisation

Scene 5

• funny, confusing scene whether it's a lie or not
• making it a gay couple makes it a bit different
• Hugo = Ashley 
• he likes the scene
• has ideas for it
• Louis = Todd
• works best considering the circumstances
• also has ideas and thoughts about characteristics
• James = assassin 

Scene 6 

• similar to other scene that we cut
• doesn't fit within structure of other scenes too much
• we collectively can't bring many ideas forward for it

Scene 7

• have many ideas for people to involve in the scene
• Louis = Mark
• knows how to bring the comedy 
• knows how to deliver the lines
• Silvana = Gabriella 
• feels connection with the character 
• likes playing this type of character
• Tristan = dog person
• Matt = new Gabriella

Scene 8 

• very short but very effective
• Matt = Sam
• put this scene in between scene 5 and scene 7
• reacts to the name Gabriella after scene 7

Scene 9

• not funny enough 
• don't feel as if we have as many ideas
• although does have ability for more characters like Mad Dog

Scene 10

• references in the last scene of this one
• Amelie = Catherine
• keeping same character throughout
• Hugo = Luke
• has many ideas for the scene
• Louis = monk
• knows how to use the comedic timing

Scene 11

• like the lying scene
• very funny and there are referenced in the last scene of this one
• Emma = Jenny
• will nicely bounce off with Tristan
• Tristan = Jack 
• keeping same character throughout
• Hugo = server
• has ideas already

Scene 12

• good way to end the play
• references back to many memories
• Tristan = Jack
• Amelie = Catherine
• Silvana = server

(scene 8) - between scene 5 & 7

additional characters for each scene - mind map

10.09.2020 - Principles of Acting - Mrs Williams

 BERKOFF

Steven Berkoff is a British actor, playwright, author, practitioner and theatre director.  In our previous lesson, quite a lot of us mentioned that we were interested in looking into practitioners like Berkoff or Artaud, where it is quite uncomfortable for the audience.  We started looking at a couple of A level students performing East by Berkoff.

...

...

My first thoughts about Berkoff were that he made me feel uncomfortable but I was intrigued that that was his goal and he succeeded.  I enjoyed it in a slightly cynical way, as I was uncomfortable but also wanted to know more and also try it out for myself.  After reading through a bit of the script of East, we tried out a few sections.  First, Amelie and I worked through the first scene together and came up with actions for every line or intention.  We then moved on to a scene where Sylvie does a monologue and created our own scene with occasional choral speaking and actions.

...

...

I believe that we could have perfected it or made it more interesting if we had more time.  I'm interested in continuing to look into Berkoff and Artaud and the art of cruelty theatre.  

10.09.2020 - Performance Workshop - Mr Lemon

 In this lesson, we had a group discussion about the text It's not you it's me by Don Zolidis.  First of all we split into two and read through the script, one group reading scenes 1-6, the other group reading scenes 7-12.  After that, in the two separate groups, we discussed which scenes we wanted to use for our performance.  Once we had decided, we all came together and informed the other group about what happened in each scene and if we wanted it in the performance or not.  Then we went through which extra characters could be in each scene and changed the order of some of the scenes to help it make more sense for what we want.  I kept notes of what we were discussing:

Unit 1 - Performance Workshop 

It's not you, it's me by Don Zolidis 

Script read & scene decisions 

Scene 1 

• yes 

Split up into 2 groups 

 

Scene 2 

• yes 

Scene 3 

• no 

Scene 4 

• yes - stage transition 

Scene 5  

• yes 

Scene 6 

• no 

Scene 7  

• yes 

Scene 8  

• yes 

Scene 9 

• no 

Scene 10 

• yes 

Scene 11 

• yes 

Scene 12 

• yes 

Scene decisions, casting and justifications 

 

 

Scene 1 

• opportunity for more characters - NFL boyfriend & server 

• sets the scene for the entire play 

• Jack references parts later on 

• Tristan = Jack 

• interested in the character development involved 

• Silvana = Ellie 

• likes that she's a playful character 

• server = Emma 

• NFL boyfriend = Hugo 

Scene 2 

• has potential for being comedic  

• good paces throughout 

• James = Jacob  

• he has good ideas for the sudden switch at end 

• Amelie = Catherine 

• she thinks she can portray the subtext well 

Scene 3 

• too childish  

• weird age range to portray 

• although has potential for more characters 

Scene 4  

• a good transition scene  

• breaks up the long duologues 

• James in the last scene as Jacob could be the same person as John  

• Emma walks in when Amelie walks out so cheating could be the reason Mazie is upset 

• Emma = Mazie 

• good at over exaggeration  

• done the scene before so already have good ideas 

• James = John/Jacob 

• James is good at the dull but funny characterisation 

Scene 5 

• funny, confusing scene whether it's a lie or not 

• making it a gay couple makes it a bit different 

• Hugo = Ashley  

• he likes the scene 

• has ideas for it 

• Louis = Todd 

• works best considering the circumstances 

• also has ideas and thoughts about characteristics 

• James = assassin  

Scene 6  

• similar to other scene that we cut 

• doesn't fit within structure of other scenes too much 

• we collectively can't bring many ideas forward for it 

Scene 7 

• have many ideas for people to involve in the scene 

• Louis = Mark 

• knows how to bring the comedy  

• knows how to deliver the lines 

• Silvana = Gabriella  

• feels connection with the character  

• likes playing this type of character 

• Tristan = dog person 

• Matt = new Gabriella 

Scene 8  

• very short but very effective 

• Matt = Sam 

• put this scene in between scene 5 and scene 7 

• reacts to the name Gabriella after scene 7 

Scene 9 

• not funny enough  

• don't feel as if we have as many ideas 

• although does have ability for more characters like Mad Dog 

Scene 10 

• references in the last scene of this one 

• Amelie = Catherine 

• keeping same character throughout 

• Hugo = Luke 

• has many ideas for the scene 

• Louis = monk 

• knows how to use the comedic timing 

Scene 11 

• like the lying scene 

• very funny and there are referenced in the last scene of this one 

• Emma = Jenny 

• will nicely bounce off with Tristan 

• Tristan = Jack  

• keeping same character throughout 

• Hugo = server 

• has ideas already 

Scene 12 

• good way to end the play 

• references back to many memories 

• Tristan = Jack 

• Amelie = Catherine 

• Silvana = server 

 

(scene 8) - between scene 5 & 7 

Tristan also voice recorded some of our discussion which can be found in the teams folder.