16th Century Fashion

In order to get a feel of how my character would have dressed and what she would of looked like, I did some research into the fashion back in the 16th century, to get an idea of the sorts of things they would wear, particularly in the theater..

Actors in 16th century. Commedia de'll Art

This is a dress an upper class women would have worn, maybe to a wedding

This style was what the poorer women would have worn in the 1600s. very plain and not as flattering 

This is something an upper class woman would have worn in the 1600's

Playhouse Creatures Performance Costumes

Final Rehearsals

Rehearsing at Pelham before our final performance...

We have all been at Pelham in the run up to our final performance rehearsing the play, running the play and having technical rehearsals to get the lighting right, we are not using any sound effects in the play which makes the tech rehearsal a lot easier!
The only sound effects being used are gun shots, which feature in the boys final scene from " Our Country Is Good"

My group and I have come a long way with our performance and we are all confident with our scenes and feel we have worked really well together and have put so much effort into everything we have achieved.
Mine and Lucy's scene with the corset laces is much more developed now, and now that we actually are wearing corsets in this scene, it is much m ore fun as we can really pull on the laces and create more tension and humour within the scene. When Mrs Farley asks " Why do they want you there for?" to my character, I thought it would be funny to yank on Mrs Farleys corset laces, in order to show the audience that she is irritated by what she has said, it really works! 
We have all became very naturalistic within our scenes which is really good, and feel completely comfortable around each other.
We have all improved our Restoration style acting so much and it is actually quite funny, there is a lot of humour in my scenes, and a lot of hard hitting moments as well.

I am very confident that my group and myself will give a great performance on Thursday as we have all put in so much effort and emotions into creating our scenes. 

Evaluation

Evaluation Of Playhouse Creatures

Sophia Hinchliff

Playhouse Creatures is a contemporary feminist play set in the 16th century and was written by April De Angelis in 1993.

The main concept of this play is to depict the lives of young women in this era trying to achieve the dream career of becoming an actress and portrays how hard it was for them to gain status and respect. The play is very female heavy and portrays two types of men; high status men who treat women badly, and low status men who also treat women badly! Women were seen as objects of lust and entertainment and were not fully appreciated for who they truly were. 

In my scenes from the play, my group and I were trying to convey to the audience the downfalls and strengths all these women had, particularly within the theatre. We wanted to portray to the audience each of the women's individual struggles and how the women united as a team and worked together, having said that, they did not all get along very well and there was masses of jealously, rivalry and hatred between all the women in the theatre and they were constantly trying to upstage one another. My group and I also managed to achieve the light hearted fun the women had with each other and the "banter" they all had with each other. Particularly in my second scene when Otway, a male playwright is reading his entire script to the women and they completely rip him apart with sarcastic remarks and flirtatious threats. This scene is one of my favorites as we had a lot of fun experimenting and seeing how far we could push Otway, and it just shows a group of girls having fun with each other and holding their own against this man who they barely know, who is trying to tell them what to do and almost undermining the women's acting abilities.  
Overall, my group and I wanted to achieve an audiences understanding of how life was for young women in the 16th century and how sexism and feminism have been around for centuries, and we wanted to capture the female audience's attention and make them realise just how different it is today for women and how female status has been increasing for centuries and the female population have come along way since the 16th century.

I feel in many ways my group and I were successful in communicating our objectives to the audience. Particular parts of my two scenes were we were successful was firstly, The Abortion Scene; this is probably the most traumatic and painfully hard hitting scenes I have ever been in. It was so raw and gruesome, when acting in this scene I really made my mind believe that it was real, and made me react the way I did as I was so involved in the scene. This scene really communicates to the audience what little power and options women had. Mrs Farley cannot stay an actress at the theatre whilst pregnant, as this was against the law, to be parading round on stage whilst flaunting a pregnancy which is not lawful, she is not married, she is very young and she is seen as one of the Kings many mistresses. So this scene shows just how hard it was for a pregnant woman in the 16th century, she has no support and it is seen as a problem which has to be fixed immediately, as all the women could lose their jobs as actresses as they all know about it. 

The Abortion is really the only option Mrs Farley has, and my character is chosen by her to be the one to perform the abortion, I feel this is because my character is seen as a strong and powerful woman, she may be only young, but she has a wise head on her and the other women definitely see this in her. 
My group and I experimented with this scene quite a lot, we decided to have Mrs Farley sitting with her back to the audience as this creates more suspense and mystery for the audience, and also allows the audience to use their imagination, as they cannot see what Mrs Marshall is doing to her, but from seeing my characters facial expressions and hearing Mrs Farley cry and shout, they can definitely imagine what is happening to her! We also agreed that the abortion should be at least 40-50 seconds long, as before we were doing it too quickly and it was not allowing the suspense to rise and was not portraying the seriousness of this scene. 
Another part of my two scenes were I felt my group and I were successful in communicating our objectives was when my character has shit thrown in her hair from two men outside the theatre. 
This scene had a lot of experimenting and improvising, I wanted to try out every possible way in order to portray my characters emotions clearly to the audience. 
This scene was quite a shock to the audience, as my character has been strong and confident throughout the scenes, and I feel the audience had developed an understanding of her that she was powerful and was not to be messed with, and then when I enter the stage again, my character has completely changed. She is vulnerable, angry, out of control and above all, upset. This shows to the audience that my character is only human, and has put her trust in a man and this has happened! It is showing the audience how the men had all the power and women simply just did not have enough power to avoid these situations. I wanted to show anger in this scene, and I feel I successfully did this. The main objective to the scene, is to portray just how vile men could be to women, and what women had to put up with. 

Within both my scenes, my group and I were constantly referring to Stanislavsky and naturalistic methods. We wanted the character relationships to be as naturalistic as possible, and to portray a naturalistic setting for the theatre. Of course, Restoration acting is the complete opposite of naturalism, so in my 2 scenes, I was using Naturalism and Restoration methods, which creates an interesting contrast within the play. My group and I used "Through Line of Action" with all of our characters, this method helps you get into character more, and enables you to use the characters lives and experiences to create a well rounded character. We also used "Given circumstances" which also helps you get into character as this allows you to understand why the character is the way they are, and what circumstances they were given growing up. I feel using Stanislavsky methods definitely allowed me to understand Mrs Marshall much more, and to create my own version of how I believe she would of been, physically and mentally. I feel using these methods allowed me to get into character more, and helped me see that in some ways Mrs Marshall is similar to my own personality, which is positive as I have empathy for her, and can understand her objectives and motives more.

On the whole, I believe my group and I were successful in portraying our characters objectives and the super objectives to the audience, however there were parts in our scenes were I feel we could have been stronger as a group, and individuals could have taken more time to get to know their character and really understand their lines and objectives a little bit more. We could have taken the Abortion scene even further, and could have portrayed how disgusted and horrified the women were a little bit more, but on the whole I feel with the rehearsal time we had, we did the best we could. I feel throughout we could have been stronger at displaying the different relationships the characters had with each other. Mrs Farley and Mrs Marshall had a love/hate relationship, and I feel Lucy and myself did well at portraying this to the audience. And my characters unapologetic behavior towards Nell was definitely visible for the audience to see. I just feel that we all as a group could of spent a little bit more time during rehearsals getting into character more and expanding their relationships, rather than just running the scenes. 
I feel the part of the play where Nell freezes on stage and then returns to the tiring room, could have been more clear and stronger for the audience. I feel we did well at showing just how disappointed and angry we were at Nell, but we could have taken this further. I feel it was clear that my character was very angry with Nell, especially with my line " You, you showed me right up you silly cow" but the other characters could have portrayed their annoyance with her a little bit more. Nell had just completely messed up their scene, and the other women just left Mrs Marshall on stage with her, as they obviously felt my character could sort it out, which she tried to do and failed. So the women definitely should have seemed much more angry with Nell for ruining their performance, in front of probably hundreds of people, mainly male and more than likely drunk. 

Overall, I believe my groups performance was strong, clear and well rehearsed. Our characters were very clear, and each had their individual strengths and weaknesses, and all had distinctive personalities. And we all projected very well, so it was never hard to hear what was being said, and our blocking was well rehearsed, so we all knew exactly where to be on stage, and were never masking or upstaging each other. 
I feel we could have used rehearsal times more to focus on our character relationships and developments, rather than running the scene over and over again, which helped of course, but we should have all been more in touch with our characters. We all used research very well, and knew the background stories on all the characters, apart from Doll Common, who is fictional. We could have used our rehearsal time more wisely, and some individuals in my group took longer at learning their lines, but overall we were all pretty confident on lines, and in the actual performance no lines or cues were missed. 
We also should have informed the boys in our group that we needed them to be the rowdy men in our scenes, as this was only rehearsed a few times before the actual performance, and during rehearsals a lot of the cues were missed, purely because we had not spent enough time running through this with the boys. 
I thorougly enjoyed working with my group for both these scenes and I am really pleased with how it turned out, and feel we communicated with the audience our characters emotions, objectives and the storylines throughout the performance. 

Video of my groups rehearsal of both scenes

1st Scene
2nd Scene

Rehearsals

3 days before the performance...
Today was the first rehearsal since our half term break and I feel everyone was not as focused as we have been in previous rehearsals, but as we got into it as a group we became more in tune with each other.
We made some blocking changes to our scenes and the choreography has improved vastly and I am very happy with it.
The blocking changes we have made were;

• In our first scene with Unis as Otway, we have changed the staging and made it a lot more spacious and it does not look as crowded as it looked before, this was something that was noticed during rehearsals by our tutor and we all noticed it as well, so this scene is much more sharp and presentable.
• In the second scene, when my character Mrs Marshall gets muck from the road thrown in her hair by two men, we as a group and our tutor have decided that it looks much more effective if I come in and almost collapse on the floor, and the other women surrounding me. This looks a lot neater, as before when I was standing I did not really know what to do and began paddling on stage for no reason, and this is not something I usually do, but I did not really know how to stand, so sitting on the floor on my knees helps me to focus more on what I am saying and not where I am standing. This scene looks a lot more effective and realistic now, as I am able to concentrate on how Mrs Marshall is feeling after having disgusting things thrown in her own hair! And we have worked on the reaction from the other females in this scene to what has happened to Mrs Marshall and it is looking much more naturalistic in the sense that these women look genuinely disgusted and shocked at what has happened before, whereas before I feel my group did not really know how to react to it.
• Overall, we have sharpened up lines, and cues for individuals who were not as fluent with their lines as others, no one is using scripts or prompts anymore which is great as now everyone in our group are able to really feel and believe what they are saying, as opposed to reading from the script. I feel the general atmosphere between us all as actors in the scenes has improved so much, and I feel to an audience it does look natural and it is believable that our characters are busy and determined women working in a theater, I feel the vibe of the busy theater life is definitely present now that we have all became much more confident with our scenes and acting abilities with our individual characters

The main things my group and I need to work is just to clean up little bits of blocking on the whole just to get it more structured and neater, and just for individuals in our group to become more sharp with cues for lines and creating stronger relationships between the women. 

Development 11.2.14

Running through the show and watching the other groups scenes and developments.... 

What are the groups doing well that we can use? 

All the groups had a great energy about their performance and scenes, some more than others but I definitely felt the emotions and passions all the actors had for their characters. I feel very in touch with Mrs Marshall and I understand her as a character and an individual, but the main notes I was given today about my acting was to use restoration acting more and use more gestures when my character is performing a monologue on stage from a restoration play. I have been observing Greta and Heta and they both use Restoration acting to extremes, but these are good extremes as Restoration period acting was very over the top and so un-naturalistic! I feel I will use them as role models in terms for my Restoration acting and will make much more grand gestures and let my body be more free when acting out the monologue. 
I feel watching Sav perform as Nell I have noticed that she has so much energy and really dives into her character and I can see the connection she has with her character, as Nell is very outgoing, energetic and almost ditsy, it is really entertaining and endearing to watch and Sav definitely plays Nell Gwynn very well and I want to portray this same energy in my character like she does, although Mrs Marshall is not as energetic and certainly not ditsy, I feel I portray energy when playing Mrs Marshall in different ways, for example, I feel I portray her as very sarcastic and confident, and she is also rather rude at times but very professional and grounded, but after watching Sav in particular, I will definitely always put all my energy and ability into portraying Mrs Marshall as accurately as I can, as it is much more enjoyable to watch someone playing a character with spirit and commitment.
What do they need to improve on? What does my group have to improve on?
I feel on the whole my whole acting class have put together a very good, strong show with some really interesting characters and great objectives. I definitely see who are the stronger characters and who needs to understand and research their character a little bit more.
Improvements for the group as a whole would be to work more as a team and make sure character relationships are present and to portray the women as united! Even though there is some healthy competition within the theater and definite "cliques", the women need to be shown as united together as they are all there for the same reason, career wise and they should be shown as a unit, and not just individual people.
Another improvement is that everybody needs to learn their lines! People should really know their lines by now, but it is understandable that some people have more lines to learn than others, but you cannot act to your full ability until you have learned your lines, as they need to be in your mind and you need to understand what you are saying, and reading from a script is only just the beginning, and we only have a couple of weeks until the show! Little improvements I noticed need to be made today by the class as a WHOLE are some people need to be projecting more and need to have more of a stage presence, as these women are very strong and confident, and this needs to be shown by EVERY female character. I also notice that the MALE characters need to be stronger and much more energetic and confident, as there are only 4 males in this play, so the male actors need to really stand out and almost compete with the female actresses, as they could be out shone and not fully appreciated! As the male characters are very interesting as well, and I feel after watching it, I saw that the females were definitely stronger than the males, which should not be the case, the female CHARACTERS could be seen as stronger in this play as it is written by a feminist, but the male ACTORS need to be putting as much energy and understanding into their characters, and not feel that their characters aren't as important as the females are.

Improvements for myself and my group would be to work on the staging more, as at this point I feel we have all established an understanding for our characters and portray massive amounts of character and we all pretty much know all our lines. But at times the staging can be a little bit messy so I definitely want to work on this more than the characterization as we are all at that point where we know our characters and are thinking like them 100 percent. 
Personally I need to improve on my Restoration gestures, which I mentioned at the beginning, and that is the main improvement I need to make, as I am portraying Mrs Marshalls objectives and personality very well I feel, but need to work on my physical movement more. It is just little things my group and I need to improve on, and with a couple more rehearsals, I feel we will have a very rounded strong piece ready for our performance night!

Rehearsals 10.02.14

Today my group and I rehearsed our two scenes in our lesson time and in extra rehearsals from 3pm-5pm. 

I feel today our group have made great progress and introduced new ideas and have sharpened up our blocking and choreography. We were given directors notes after rehearsals and our feedback was very good and positive! I feel very happy with both my scenes and feel that everyone in my group has put in a lot of effort with their characters and the scenes. 

One comment I received about my character is finding how she would stand, as I was standing more like myself rather than mrs Marshall, I have now found a way she would stand and I really feel I am my character when acting now, she is a very grounded and strong woman and the way she stands portrays her strength much more clearly now I have found mrs Marshall's stance and physicality. 

Our feedback today was just to tidy up a few little bits of blocking that need work, but on the whole our scenes are looking really good and strong, I feel we are portraying every characters ojbectives and certainly the super objective of all the characters. I feel our performance is very strong in the sense that all the characters have relationships with each other, not that all these relationships are as clear as others but I feel the audience can sense the emotion these women are feeling and how united they are when they come together.