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. 

CHARACTERISATION: Run through of the play

Today in class, the whole group ran through Playhouse Creatures with the scenes in order. It is the first time all of us have seen each others scenes properly, so it was a very interesting lesson. We performed to our tutor, who gave us directors note at the end of our performance.
Our main focus is on our characterization and how well we portray our characters. 
The questions we were asked today about our characters in our individual scenes are;

1. Are the characters clear? In my two scenes I am in, I feel I portray MRS MARSHALL very clearly, and you can tell I am playing the same character throughout, as some of my class mates are playing more than one character in the play. I feel my characters personality is very clear, I portay her as a very grounded and strong women, a tiny bit more mature than the other girls, but still quite young as she has an element of youthful attitude, and can be quite boisterous and fiery at times, particularly towards men! I feel she does not really care what anyone thinks of her, and she does things purely for her own advantage. Having said that, I feel she does try to help the characters, particularly MRS FARLEY, but essentially, everything she does has a purpose and I feel she believes in herself and is a very driven and ultimately clever woman. I feel I have portrayed this well in todays performance, and listened to the notes I was given previously, about adding some friction into my first scene with myself and Lucy( MRS FARLEY) when we are discussing what we did the night before. I feel after adding friction, my character developed a lot more in this first scene and the audience can immediately identify that she is a smart and strong woman. 
2. Are Objectives clear? I feel MRS MARSHALLS main objective in this play is to increase her acting ability and to be noticed by higher class people. I feel she is definitely a clever woman and knows that sleeping with people to get to the top is not always the best way. Although, she does have an affair with the Earl of Oxford and asks him to marry her if he wishes to sleep with her, which is quite a silly thing to do as it has put her in a vulnerable position and her attitude towards him ultimately leads to the ending scene, in which the audience will see MRS MARSHALL entering the stage, disgusted and outraged, as two men have thrown human shit from the road side into her hair to teach her " manners" as she has been clearly quite rude and obnoxious to the Earl, and the Earl is obviously a horrible man! Her objectives in the first scene with herself and MRS FARLEY are very clear, as she starts to talk about visiting salons and socialising with intelligentsia, which were back in those days, middle to upper class people with a good social network, who challenged God and started to introduce science and scientific beliefs. This clearly shows that MRS MARSHALLS objective is to become more educated about life and discoveries, and wants to learn about people and wants to teach these people about herself, as she states " they ask me things about me and my life here on stage" so these people are actually interested in her as a person and her lifestyle! Which is pretty incredible, considering how women had such a low status back in the 16th century. I feel I have portrayed her objectives clearly in our performance today, and she certainly has different objectives than all the other women in the scenes. I feel I portrayed her objectives better in the first scene than in the second scene, as MRS MARSHALL's character is much more strong and open in the 2nd than in the 1st. In the first scene I feel her objective is to protect the theater, and to "help" MRS FARLEY with her pregnancy, when I say help, I mean help the theatres reputation, help her career as an actress and to help MRS FARLEY as she knows very well that she will be doing it alone if she does decide to keep the baby and the only way she will be able to provide for her baby is to become a prostitute. MRS MARSHALL is quite hard skinned, but underneath I believe she has a warm heart, she does not wear it on her sleeve, like some of the other girls, particularly NELL AND MRS FARLEY. 
3. Is the story within the scene clear? I feel the story in our first scene when Nell Gwynn first comes on the scene as an actress at the theater, is clear at times and then sometimes it can be a little unclear. Like for example, today we recieved directors notes and it was unclear what was going on and what the relevance was with the scene with Greta and Chloe( DOLL AND MRS BETTERTON) I agree as I do not really understand this scene, and what connection it has to the rest of the play. So as a group we need to discuss this part and think of ways we can improve it and make it more clear for the audience, just because the majority of my group and myself are not in this scene, that does not mean that we have nothing to do with it, as it is in our part of the play and we are all working together so we need to have a group discussion about that particular part in the scene. I feel the story with Nell is very clear, just needs to be a little bit more sharper, our characters all need to portray just how we feel about Nell, coming into our theater without having an interview from the boss! And MRS MARSHALL AND MRS FARLEY's love hate relationship is very clear I feel, as in ways you can tell they have known each other for years and have become very used to one another, and my character laughs warily at a few of her jokes she makes about Nell, but at the same time the audience can sense that MRS MARSHALL feels somewhat disapointed in her stupidity and shallowness towards other people, for example in our first opening scene together, my character is expressing how she loves going to the salons as she meets different interesting people who are well educated and want to actually TALK and FIND OUT THINGS about Mrs Marshall, and don't just want to have sex with her and use her as a bit of "arm candy" which contrasts heavily with Mrs Farley as all she wants to do is sleep with the king and develop a name for herself, she expresses immaturity as she finds it "funny" that Mrs Marshall wants to get to know different people and to educate these people about her life as an actress. In our second scene I feel the story is very clear, the main storyline is that MRS FARLEY is pregnant with the Kings child and the other women are mortified and shocked about this, and MRS FARLEY clearly does not want to loose her career as an actress, but at the same time she does not seem to want to get rid of the baby as much as she would love to and this is portrayed very well. This scene also features a male character! Who is played by Unis. Otway is a struggling playwright who thinks he is amazing at what he does, and is so over the top about everything he says and is very pretentious throughout. I feel myself and the other actresses in this scene portray just how united they were together as a team, in this scene all the females gang up on Otway and complete dismiss his play, and MRS FARLEY even falls asleep when he is reciting his play! The only female who is slightly polite to him is MRS BETTERTON, as she is the boss and is the most mature out of the actresses. We all portray this part of the story really well and I really enjoy this scene as the females are all working together and having banter with each other, poking fun at Otway, who appears to be very nervous and wary throughout this scene! I feel on the whole, our portrayal of the main story line in both scenes as a group are strong and clear.  

3rd February: Rehearsals for both scenes

Rehearsals so far for my two scenes...

SCENE 1

This scene is pretty much completed. We started rehearsing this scene about 3 weeks ago now and we have made very good progress over the time we have spent on this scene, we have still been rehearsing it recently but I am more focused on my second scene now, as I have more lines and much more physical parts as apposed to this 1st scene.

The blocking in this scene is completed and we have used the space very well on the stage. 

This scene shows my character as being the woman all the girls turn to when they need help, although she is not very mature she is one of the oldest, possibly 20 or 21 years of age.

The main points in this scene are my character MRS MARSHALL trying to perform an abortion for MRS FARLEY. This part in the scene is very distressing and we have discussed how we need to portray it in a realistic yet modest way, we do not want the audience to feel uncomfortable during this scene, as it is a sensitive subject, especially for women. So we decided to have MRS FARLEY sitting in a chair with her back to the audience, and MRS MARSHALL kneeling on the floor in between MRS FARLEY'S legs, performing the abortion. In the play it says they use something " long and sharp, a queens broach" so for this scene we need to use a long sharp looking pin, there are quite a few props we need for this scene, a lot more than in my second scene. As a group we put together a list of props we need for this scene..

The props we need for this scene are;

• Pair of gloves
• Long sharp looking pin
• Hand mirrors
• Makeup brushes
• Script for OTWAY
• Petticoat( used from costumes)
• Cloth/teatowel
• Tray with biscuits

I think this scene is very hard hitting and quite brutal at times, I feel it portrays the women to be very strong and dedicated to their passion, acting. And shows just how much they have to do to maintain their positions as actresses and just how hard it is for them. 

SCENE 2

This scene is my favourite out of the two, as I feel my character MRS MARSHALL is portrayed in a better light, and appears to be a much stronger and confident women, than in the 1st scene. 

We have been rehearsing this scene for just over a week now, and have started on our blocking, but just need to sharpen it up in places. We have made good use of the stage, and have set out the tiring room as we all have imagined it to look. We recieved feedback on this scene from our tutors and on the whole it is looking good and we all know our lines pretty well, we just need to clean up the blocking and think more into our characterization, and start to stand and walk like our characters and not just act how they would act. 

I personally feel I am getting more and more into character every time we rehearse this scene as I really like my character and her morals and status. I think in this scene my character does appear to be very hard skinned and tough, I do believe she is a strong, confident and proud women, but part of me feels she is not all that meets the eye, I feel she puts on an act a little bit, she is a sensitive women and wants the love from the Earl of Oxford she knows she deserves, but shes not getting it from him and she experiences a horrendous event, when two men attack her outside the theatre and "rub shit into her hair" as a message from the Earl of Oxford. So she feels very let down and angry that this man has publicly humiliated her in front of the other actresses and maybe even people passing in the street! In this scene I need to portray distress and total disgust, as it is a very disgusting and low thing to do to someone, and I just have to let myself really think that this is real, that there is something disgusting in my hair, as it will appear much more realistic to the audience. It is quite a hard thing to do, but I just need to let my imagination run more wildly! 

I feel my group and I are working very hard in this scene and we are all very dedicated to the roles we are playing, and to each other as fellow actresses.

Rehearsals

Today in rehearsals my group and I were rehearsing our second scene from playhouse creatures. In my group are, Lucy, Sophie, Heta, Michelle and Sav. 

This scene is set before my first scene, when Mrs Farley is just beginning her Affair with the King and Nell has only just joined the theatre company. 

My character is very cold and vindictive towards Nell and does not seem to take to her very well. My character and Mrs Farley are quite friendly together in this scene, and it begins with myself and Lucy on stage tying each other's corset laces up and discussing what they got up to the night before. You learn that my character is having an affair with the earl of Oxford, but it is not very solid and appears to be quite strange. 

I prefer this scene to the first one as the characters have a much better rapport in this scene and the relationships are much more clear and I like how light hearted this scene is, and really shows how the women are when they are not on stage. 

We ran through the scene a few times, and then decided to start blocking and began staging the scene. We have made a vast improvement in today's lesson as I feel very confident about my character and have learned near enough all my lines off by heart. 

I have been getting into character a lot better recently and have put a lot of emotions and passion into my character and her situations she gets herself into. 

At the end of this scene my character hears  rowdy rude men shouting outside the tiring room and confidently goes to "see to them" and comes back and her hair covered in shit and is very upset and shocked, I love this scene as I get so into it and I really empathise with her at this point as she has been having an affair with the earl of Oxford and she goes outside to find that he has sent two me to ruff her up and publicly humiliate her as she has "no manners" as she is a very confident and proud character and never seems to give a damn about what people think about her, so this is like a way of him trying to be little her, and I feel I portray her disdain very well in this scene. 

All the characters are really coming to light in this scene and I am really pleasd with today's rehearsals as we have achieved a lot as a group. 

Mrs Marshall Research

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED ABOUT MY CHARACTER;

• She was a very loyal employee of the company
• Was given very good parts in plays and was respected as an actress
• Was potentially the " First English actress" to be discovered
• Her name was BECK or ANNE( not too sure as they are sisters and very close in age)
• Played Desdemona in Othello
• Has a strong attitude towards men, in the play she frequently swears and shouts insults at men, and expresses her disgust within men 
• A husband or any children are not mentioned
• She was "apparently" very attractive
• In playhouse creatures she is supposed to be 20 years of age
• She does not like Nell and never had a good relationship with her
• She sees herself as an asset to the company
• She knows she is a good actress
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Rehearsals

Rehearsals with my group for scenes...
The scene I am in is a very powerful and strong scene. I am in a group with Lucy, Unis, Chloe, Heta and Greta.
It involves a lot of events that shape the characters for who they are.
My character has a very strong aura about her and I feel the other girls, particularly Mrs Farley and Nell, confide in her and look up to her.
In this scene my character has to perform an abortion on Mrs Farley, which is an extremely emotional event for the characters and the audience, and it has to be performed just right in order to portray the realness and seriousness of it.
Mrs Farley asks my character, Mrs Marshall to perform the abortion, she looks directly at her and says " I want you to do it, please" My character is clearly shocked by this, that it is asked of her to do it and not anyone else, but my character keeps very cool and goes through with it. She almost seems heartless at some points, as how could someone take on that responsibility? She could be putting Mrs Farleys life on the line, but she knows that it could end up in the theatre being closed down, which would mean all the women would be out of work, and the one thing they need the most is money, as what else is there at that time?
Mrs Farley cannot go through with the abortion, and she knows that all the while she is pregnant with the Kings child she is not welcome in the theatre and the women almost disown her. My character does not look at her or make eye contact afterwards, I feel she is disappointed in Farley and feels betrayed. I believe she feels that she tried to help Farley but she threw it back in her face by not going through with it, and this has hurt her and she feels maybe embarrassed by the fact that she tried to perform an abortion on her and she dismisses it, this is a very serious event for Mrs Marshall and afterwards she appears very bitter and downtrodden by Farley. My character ends the scene with the line " A petticoat never saved anyone" 
This is after Farley has tried to sell her petticoat, in order to get some money before she leaves the theatre, as she will need every penny she can get if she does have the baby, research does not tell me if she ever did keep the baby or if the King knew about it. My character is trying to spite Farley out of bitterness, by saying a petticoat is not going to save her from this situation, she will be alone and unemployed. I think all the women are mainly thinking about their own well-being within the theatre company and just want Farley away from their empire, as she could jeopardise their careers by being pregnant.

In this scene myself and my group are thoroughly focusing on the character relationships and the movement within the piece. We all have our own individual ways of moving around the stage, and every character definitely has their own personality we have created from research and reading the script, and having group discussions about the play and the characters. I feel that My character and Lucys character; Farley have a bitter-sweet relationship, I feel in a way my character feels sorry for her but will not show it entirely and Farley confides in Marshall, especially in my 2nd scene, which is set BEFORE this scene. Marshall and Farley have a scene together at the beginning and tehy are discussing what they did the night before and what they got up to. This scene portrays two friends gossiping and talking about men, which appears to be friendly and humorous. So the relationship between these two characters is definitely there, but the abortion scene tarnishes their estranged friendship, as Marshall has tried to help her but Farley has shunned it, so I feel this is the end of their friendship.
My character does not really have a relationship with Doll, they never really speak to each other, but Doll keeps herself to herself and she is almost part of the furniture. Mrs Betterton and my character I feel are kind of in sync with each other, Betterton is the boss of the women and holds the higher status, and I feel my character is aspiring to be like her and is next in line, as my research tells me that Marshall was a very respected and loyal employee and was always given great parts in plays and was kept on for a very long time. Therefore the relationship between My character and Betterton is very professional, not neccersarily emotional or friendly, but I feel my character knows she is boss and is always by her side, agreeing with her.
Lastly, my character and Nell. In my second scene, my character is very horrible to Nell and makes her look a fool on stage and expresses how she does not feel Nell " is a natural" on stage and tries to isolate her from the other girls. In this scene, Nell and Marshall do not really talk, but when they do they have a laugh together. I feel in this scene Marshall has accepted her into the group and has gotten used to Nell's comical personality.

So far rehearsals are going well, I feel as a group we have great complicity with each other and we all value each others opinions, we frequently have discussions about how we feel the scene is going we rehearse together whenever we can. 

7/01/14

Our groups thoughts on the objectives and super objectives of the characters individually 

6/1/14: Reading script in our groups & exercises

In today's lesson we participated in a variety of focus, complicity, trust and energy exercises and read through our scripts for the first time in our groups. 
The exercises we did were;

• Getting into pairs and one person guides the other round the room using only their hand as guidance, and the other person has their eyes closed! This exercise took a lot of FOCUS and TRUST in yourself and in the other person who was leading you. I found being led very relaxing as I trusted WILL and felt at ease and did not worry about bumping into anybody else
• Getting into pairs or a three and deciding on a "calling" which could be any word or sound which will be helpful to the pair/three. We stood back to back and closed our eyes. Andy would take us all into different parts of the room and with our eyes still closed we had to call out our unique calling word or sound and find each other in the room! This exercise was really fun and rewarding as it shows you do not just have to see someone visually in order to find someone. You have to use FOCUS and COMPLICITY and in a way TRUST in this exercise.
• Other exercises we did were mainly energy exercises like walking around the room in unison and stopping in unison and running and jumping to get our energy levels up.

ENERGY. FOCUS. COMPLICITY. TRUST

These are all important for actors to use as it allows an actor to develop their skills and become more confident. If an actor does not use energy when performing it will create a very dull and boring energy within an audience and the other actors and could ruin the performance. Energy is important for every day things, but especially for perfomers as if an actor does not have good energy, then their ability to act might be over looked as they will not be noticed.

Focus is again, very important for an actor as if they are not 100 percent focused on the role they are playing, it will be visible to the audience and the audience will loose focus as well. Actors have to focus on themselves, other actors, the audience, the director, their character. This is a lot of things an actor has to be able to focus on and if they do not have good focus, their acting ability will seem weak. They have to have self discipline to allow themselves to focus. 
Trust is important for actors as they have to be able to trust themselves and believe in their ability to become another character, and also they have to trust other actors who they are working alongside with on a project together. For example; if an actor forgets a line or messes up a scene, they should trust the other actors to help them out and not to judge them for it. Actors as well need to be able to trust the audience and the media to respect them as actors and to appreciate what they do. If an actor does not have trust, they will begin to doubt themselves and alter the way they act in a way they believe people will like more than their true self.
Complicity is having complete awareness within performing and to be in sync with themselves and every body else. It is so important for actors to have complicity as they need to be able to understand how to perform not just for themselves but for every body else. Actors need to be in sync with themselves and others or their acting abilities will not be as strong. If an actor does not have complicity with them self they will never feel 100 percent secure in their role as an actor.

READING THROUGH THE SCRIPT IN OUR GROUPS
In the second half of today's class we got into our groups with the people who are in a scene together.
I am playing MRS MARSHALL and I am with Lucy, Unis, Greta, Heta and Chloe. Our scenes are from page 203-213.
We read through the scene together and then discussed how we felt about it and what we thought the given circumstances were.
We created a mind map together;

The main points and circumstances we discussed were;

• Mrs Farely's pregnancy and her attempt at abortion
• How the women do not respect Otway who is the play write and try to change the play he has written
• How corrupt it was that a pregnant lady was not allowed to perform on stage and could have the theater "shut down"

These points are all very important and lead to characterization and shows how different the characters are.

In the first couple of pages it shows Otway, clearly proud of his play he has written, but the women are trying to change it in order to gain more exposure for themselves. It seems apparent that they do not have any respect for Otway as a play write or as a man, and are trying to get him to cut out scenes and lines. They sort of " gang up" on him in a way, but he clearly does not feel threatened and it is all quite lighthearted, but you can tell the women do not really like him that much.

The scene were Mrs Farley comes on stage pregnant is very strong as it shows just how damaging it was for an actresses career back in those days and how no body really cared about someone who was pregnant, not like today.

My character in particular does not really show any emotion when Mrs Farley expresses that she wants to get rid of the baby, the women are all very calm and straight forward about it. Mrs Marshall tells her to bite on a bit of cloth and that it "does not always work" This scene is actually quite disturbing, that these women would actually try to do something like that just to save the theater and her acting career! Mrs Betterton who is married to the lead actor and owner, is appalled that she is showing and says "MR Betterton won't have it, we could be shut down!" This is so heartless and immoral, but it portrays how corrupt it was back in those days.

My initial response to these first scenes I am in is interested and excited. I feel it is a very strong scene, and also I like the fact that my character is performing as " Lady Fanciful" in the ending scenes, so my character is playing another character. This will be interesting for me and also for the audience as well as my character will be acting as somebody else! 

My character I feel is strong and straight forward. In the other scenes I am in 180-190 you see my character a lot more as a very serious actress and strong woman, who is not intimidated by men. In one of my scenes my character has "shit" thrown in her hair from men outside the theater, she goes to " deal with them" and comes back shouting and screaming about how disgusting they are! This will be really fun to act.