Our country`s good scripts

My week started with scripts of the play "Our Country's Good" written by British playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker. I just finished reading a book. However, I am in pair with Matthew and Mara. Scripts are quite short and I have almost learned my lines so it will be easier to rehearse.

I applied Stanislavski techniques working on Our Country`s Good scripts and my character Duckling.

• My character's Duckling objective is "To get my freedom". 
• Actions help to reach my objective. So I set the right action for each line/sentence. For example, "I`ll be in the play" I applied  the action such as, "I agree." 
• My scripts look a bit messy because I wrote down an action under each sentence and the actual meaning of it. Let`s say Duckling scoffing at Harry "Why didn`t you let them hang me and take my corpse with you, Harry?" She`s being sarcastic. She doesn`t want to be hanged as well as she doesn`t want to show Harry that she actually loves him because she is afraid that he can become aggressive and stop taking care of her, being nice to her. 
• Given circumstances are quite clear. As written in the play we are sitting on the boat and rowing so me and Matthew decided that for set we will use two chairs and sit face to face. 
• In one of Rob`s lesson we experienced an emotional "recall". Everyone found a place in the space, sat on chair, closed their eyes and the game began. We analysed the main 5 senses of body: hearing, taste, sight, smell and touch. How was I feeling listening to pleasant and unpleasant sounds?  I remembered a song Hanging Tree from Hunger Games: Mockingjay. The song itself has a deep meaning and it made me feel keen, powerful, strong and alive. As I wrote earlier in my blog about second part of movie Hunger Games and how I got the free ticket reminds me that everything is possible. On the contrary, scratch sounds on blackboard just makes me go mad, crazy and uncomfortable. 
• However, Magic If is very helpful to think of what would I do if I was there? Would I love Harry, would I enjoy ignoring and teasing him? Finally, after long hours of research about Duckling I started thinking what would I do if situation if I was her. For example, I am Duckling. I`m going to buy a milk in corner shop. Oops! I don`t have enough money! There is no cameras in there I should steal something. I try to feel what Duckling would think. I guess she would try to steal it.
•  Anyway, I`m not gonna do it. It just one of the thought process that helps me to get into character. Just to let you know I`m not a criminal. In sum, it's called subtext. When actor gets under the skin, takes over character`s manners: what kind of language is to be used, the body language etc. 

After all, imagination is everything.

P.S. It's only one month left until Christmas!!!
P.P.S. For  everyone who`s reading it!!! You  have a very pretty face, you should be on a Christmas post card. :)

Constantin Stanislavski Methods

Constantin Stanislavski 

Synopsis

He was a Russian actor and theatre director. Born in Moscow in 1863, died in 1938. He is known as naturalistic acting practitioner. He founded The Moscow Art Theater, and established his own system of acting. His techniques are used by many people thanks to his students that spread his methods over the world. Stanislavski`s system is a progression of techniques used to train actors and actresses to draw believable emotions to their performances by using their own memories. According to Stanislavski the actor shouldn't only know what lines he needs to say but also every detail of that character’s life off-stage as well as on-stage. Here are a few examples of what we talked about on Monday. 

Given circumstances - are what help you answer the six fundamental questions (who, when, where, why, for what reason and how). He environmental and situational conditions will influence your performance.
Stanislavski lists the circumstances as:
• The story of the play
• Its facts, events, epoch, time and place of action
• Conditions of life
• The actor’s and director’s interpretation
• The production, the sets, the costumes, the props
• Lighting and sound effects.

Objectives - What are we trying to achieve? And what constantly put up barriers in our way in order to stop us achieving this? What you could do with that sentence without restricting my thoughts on the character.

Actions - verbal actions helping achieve our goal (objective). For example, I go, I wish, I angry, I engage.

Circle Of Attention - Being aware of the life around me, starting with me on stage and building outwards. It`s technically defined as the circle within which the actor creates the illusion of solitude, can better be understood as the outer limit of the audience.

Subtext - Would be spoken, could be interpreted by the actor through intonation, gesture, body posture, pauses or choices in action. The meaning and motivation behind the lines.

Emotional Memory - It`s an actor`s duty to stimulate his own emotional memory from which to build playing role`s character. Use memories to recall feelings and emotion felt at particular moment.

Magic If -  "What would I do if I was in this situation?" and the "If I were my character, what would I be thinking?". This makes character more realistic. 

Through Line - The logical coherence of a characters role, including their off stage life. 

Understanding the Here, Today, Now of the character
• Where have I just come from?
• Where am I?
• What am I doing?
• Why am I doing it?
• When is this happening? What time of day, month, year? In which
period?

• Where am I going to now?

There are many more methods but these are the most common ones. 

A Blade of Grass The poem. Favorite Fairy-tale - Anastasia.

(03/11/2014 - 06/11/2014)

Finally I`m back after half term. A week after half term was a bit intensive. Rob and Sharon briefly told us during the term. Rob whispered that we are going to work on poems this term. Today he gave us a poem " A Blade of Grass". The meaning of the poem is that we always want more and more. The writer highlights that as we grow we forgot about small things and moments we should be happy about. Even though writer reminds us that poetry can be simple as well as anyone can be an artist by saying "You say it is too easy to offer grass. It is absurd. Anyone can offer a blade of grass." At first I found it a bit confusing because I didn`t know where to make a pause, what intonation I should use.

I added Stanislavsky techniques that we were working on Monday. I applied it for "A Blade of Grass".

Given  circumstances - as long as it is a poem we can adapt different kind of moods. For example, Rob asked Jerome and Ria close their eyes and imagine a situation of them getting a letter bringing very very bad news. I imagined it in my head as well. The way they said a poem was slightly different. The mood has changed. Even so I felt goose bombs. 

Objective - to give an example of how things loose it`s value as people become older. 

Actions - As I was reading the last 3 paragraphs I applied actions. It helps me to understand WHY I`m saying it. 

Magif If - I would use is as my own explanation for kids to understand that even tiny things have value. 

"Emotional recall" - I would use my memory when I was explaining my little nice that everything what she`s got has value. Tat she has to appreciate everything, that nothing is free and whatever she does she should do it thoughtfully.  

However, we started the day with vocal exercises. Guess what we have done firstable. Of course everyone`s favourite `OO-OH-OR`. Rob`s feedback to me was that I should open my mouth more while saying `OH`. We done some tongue twisters as well. One of them "Friendly Frank flips fine flapjacks." Feedback was that Frank sounded like France. I mean, it was long A. So I guess, I should work on articulation. Why I `m not surprised. Anyway, at least now I feel more confident when I`m speaking.

Favorite Fairy-tale - Anastasia

In class with Sharon we told about favourite fairytale. My one was Anastasia. Primarily, we picked up 3 main points of the fairytale we have chosen.
 Later on, we wrote it down on the paper and then performed all story only in 1 minute!! I used narration, monologue and different characters technique. Saying different characters, I have changed my voice while pretending a boy and girl.