Rehearsal 09.01.18
Today was the first rehearsal back for while so to start off and refresh our minds of the play we did a comedy speed run of the play. The benefit of this being that it ended up actually highlighting parts of the play that we thought needed work just by seeing how people reacted to doing certain things and how over the top we were. For example, for the part where the Everymen have to stamp on broken glass, Joanna went completely over the top because deep down she felt that the moment needed to be bigger and hadn't been bigger before then.
For me, the comedy run just helped me refresh over where I needed to be and when I needed to be places.
We then played a game called "circle of more". In this game we stand in a circle and anyone can go in, taking up any moment of the play without context, and when the moment feels like it has ended then you leave the space and then instantly, another person brings up another moment with more energy and this keeps going with the energy heightening each time.
I used this opportunity to properly get a feeling of how far I can go energy wise so I understand my boundaries. I got to points where I was literally screaming in people's faces and from the feedback I got and my own intuition, I figured I couldn't really go too far. I really enjoyed using that game as it helped me tons with characterisation issues that I had.
We then did another exercise on presence. We had to walk into the middle of the room, stop, look at the audience, then leave. With this exercise, some people seemed to have quite a natural presence and just grab your attention however I found it difficult and wasn't sure whether I was doing it right. I think part of the problem was thinking about it too much. Audiences probably latch on to something that feels spontaneous more than something that looks planned.
We did an exercise called the 7 states of tension. Jacques Lecoq developed an approach to acting using seven levels of tension. Lecoq aimed at training his actors in ways that encouraged them to investigate ways of performance that suited them best. His training was aimed at nurturing the creativity of the performer, as opposed to giving them a codified set of skills. As students stayed with Lecoq's school longer, he accomplished this through teaching in the style of "the negative way". This teaching strategy basically consists of only focusing his critiques on the poorer or unacceptable aspects of a student's performance. Lecoq believed that this would allow students to discover on their own how to make their performances more acceptable. Lecoq did not want to ever tell a student how to do something "right." He believed that was supposed to be a part of the actor's own experience.
Here is a diagram with the 7 states and an explanation of each one:
For me, the comedy run just helped me refresh over where I needed to be and when I needed to be places.
We then played a game called "circle of more". In this game we stand in a circle and anyone can go in, taking up any moment of the play without context, and when the moment feels like it has ended then you leave the space and then instantly, another person brings up another moment with more energy and this keeps going with the energy heightening each time.
I used this opportunity to properly get a feeling of how far I can go energy wise so I understand my boundaries. I got to points where I was literally screaming in people's faces and from the feedback I got and my own intuition, I figured I couldn't really go too far. I really enjoyed using that game as it helped me tons with characterisation issues that I had.
We then did another exercise on presence. We had to walk into the middle of the room, stop, look at the audience, then leave. With this exercise, some people seemed to have quite a natural presence and just grab your attention however I found it difficult and wasn't sure whether I was doing it right. I think part of the problem was thinking about it too much. Audiences probably latch on to something that feels spontaneous more than something that looks planned.
We did an exercise called the 7 states of tension. Jacques Lecoq developed an approach to acting using seven levels of tension. Lecoq aimed at training his actors in ways that encouraged them to investigate ways of performance that suited them best. His training was aimed at nurturing the creativity of the performer, as opposed to giving them a codified set of skills. As students stayed with Lecoq's school longer, he accomplished this through teaching in the style of "the negative way". This teaching strategy basically consists of only focusing his critiques on the poorer or unacceptable aspects of a student's performance. Lecoq believed that this would allow students to discover on their own how to make their performances more acceptable. Lecoq did not want to ever tell a student how to do something "right." He believed that was supposed to be a part of the actor's own experience.
Here is a diagram with the 7 states and an explanation of each one:
We used this exercise and performed it in our characters to see how they would react in certain situations and how they move around the space. From doing this, I felt like my character sat at either 2: Relaxed, or 4: Alert, depending on his mood. There wasn't really constant that I felt fit my character as he is pretty indecisive. As we did the exercise and we got to level 6 and 7, I didn't really know what my character would do. I knew for sure that he would not be scared as he is death so cannot be scared of death itself. So to tackle this, we tried doing the exercise with just our breath. With making the states of tension more subtle, I got a better understanding in what my character would do in that situation, not necessarily externally, but internally, which consequently affects the external acting.
Comments
Post a Comment