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
• 
  

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.