BTEC Perfoming Arts - Logs

  In this lesson we worked in pairs using the script focusing on the characters of Haemon and Antigone and the relationship between them. So at first, we read the script as a class and discussed what we thought the subtext was, just gaining a general basic understanding of the scene  before going into pairs and working on it further.  We were then asked in our pairs to try and decipher what had happened the night before (an event that is referred to in the scene) and just create a really short semi-improvised piece that would explain the piece of script we were looking at.  So for this scene I was Antigone and my partner was Haemon and we just created this short moment of orientation where he would come in and realised that I was dressed like Ismene, smelt like Ismene, wearing all her clothes and her make up and we see his reaction to that and her reaction to him.  And we imagined Haemon to be quite shocked, confused by what Antigone was trying to do and kind ...

On this Wednesday's lesson, we worked on staging the scene in which Antigone is arrested whilst attempting to bury her brother for the second time. To start with we were told to walk around randomly in the room and when we heard a clap we were to fall to the floor (in a specific way previously shown to us, falling onto the sides of our knees and landing in a foetal position). The more we played this game, the better our reflexes became and by the end we were all falling instantaneously and it became a very powerful scene I think. We then had to find a pair on the floor and spoon each other, the person on the outside then had to roll the other over their body. This exercise then progressed into a game in which one person walked around gently placing their hands on people's necks, this 'killed' them and they were to fall to floor in the way we had been doing previously. Once they were on the floor the only way they could be brought back to life was to be spooned and rol...

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 During the lesson in which we developed the opening scene of Antigone, there is a moment where the narrator hands out the parts for the play and our teacher asked us to log the feelings we had towards being cast as Antigone: what Antigone meant to us  and how it felt to know that we were going to take her journey and step into her shoes. And also how we would feel on a night in which another actor would be cast as Antigone. I see Antigone as a very strong character, whether I agree with her morals and her actions I'm not sure, but I certainly admire her will. She has this aim to do what she thinks is right and is so persistent in pursuing this aim regardless of what anybody tells her, regardless of the numerous she is told she will be killed. This part of her personality is the part that resonates with me the most, she is so sure of herself.  One can imagine that before the death of her brothers she had felt quite suppressed and without an aim in life (especially ...

On Wednesday we performed our play for the Directors Challenge: Purple by John Fosse.  Overall, I think it went really well and there was no major slipups, no huge forgetting of lines or staging errors, there was a few pauses and silences but because of the nature of the play I think these were seen as intentional and just built the tension in the scene.  Something that I hadn't acknowledged fully before the actual performance was the dry humour of the script. I had been quite oblivious to this and focused quite heavily on the kind of dark, emotional aspect of the script and not realised the comedy of it. It wasn't until I was performing and I heard the audience laughing at certain moments, I realised this and therefore the real performance had a slightly different atmosphere to the other times we had rehearsed it.  One moment in particular was when The Boy starts playing his solo on his guitar, because the actor playing The Boy was so inexperienced at playing the guita...

 On this Monday, due to a training day we were able to have a full day rehearsal. I was only able to attend the morning because I had lessons at my guest school in the afternoon. However, I was there from 9 till 12 and we were able to block the entirety of the final scene with me and The Boy and by the end of that rehearsal we were able to perform it  without scripts and with a certain sense of realism. The last scene is really quite violent and graphic, the stage directions of the script direct The Boy to drag the girl around the room by her hair and throws her onto the floor. Our director had decided to go against that and didn't think that it would work with our set and actors so we went for a different approach, one that could easily look believable, create the same tension and dangerous atmosphere and obviously be safe for both of us to act.  So he decided that the boy would  push me up against the door with his right hand, strangle me, throw me onto a chair, ...

 On this rehearsal we were supposed to be doing a script free run-through whilst our teacher watched.  However, due to some people knowing very few of their actual lines we had to postpone this run-through for another time. So most of this rehearsal was spent learning lines, going over small bits of staging and making plans for fitting in extra rehearsals because it became very evident that we needed more time and we only had 2 weeks before performance. Because most of my speaking parts are with The Boy, I spent most of that two hour rehearsal helping him learn his lines because I knew the majority of mine. But it was actually quite useful to have a rehearsal that was focused solely on lines in which I could go over and over the script and really ingrain those lines whilst helping him to learn his lines. I also gained a better understanding of his lines from having to go over them and brake them up into smaller bits and decide what the intention was behind the words he was s...

On our final Wednesday rehearsal, we were able to do our script free run through in front of a teacher and  get that feedback that we needed to continue the development of the play before we perform it in a weeks time.  Before our teacher came in to watch the run through, our director spent a long time on the middle section of the script which I'm not a part of and because this section is so big and it has more characters in, it takes longer to perfect lines, ingrain the staging and work out the logistics of each key moment.  When watching this middle scene be directed I focussed mainly on the directions given to the character of The Boy because I think it's really integral for me as an actor to understand the difference between The Boy in the final scene and in the first scene because obviously there's a lot that happens in this middle scene and that definitely affects the way he behaves in the final scene. The Boy gets tantalised and emotionally tortured as well as bein...

 On our final rehearsal before the performance on Wednesday, we had about two hours to go over any final pieces that needed improving. Because we spent quite a long time on Saturday working on my scenes with The Boy, the majority of this rehearsal was spent on the middle scene with all of the band members and the actor playing The Singer wasn't there so I filled in for her. We focused on the moment where the Drummer takes the Boy into a headlock and humiliates him, says that he is going to shave all his hair off. Before we worked on this The Bass Player and The Singer had a very unrealistic, muted reaction to the abuse taking place so we really had to work on building up the pace of this scene to make it more realistic and make their reactions more shocked, fluid and natural.  So we decided that The Bass Player and The Singer would have a moment where they looked each other in complete shock and confusion before they approached The Drummer hoping that he would stop the aggress...

 On Saturday, 10 December we were able to have a full cast, full day rehearsal in which we were able to address a lot of the feedback given to us on the Wednesday rehearsal and do multiple run-throughs and focus on peoples characters. One of the main problems with the performance at this stage was the pace of it because people still weren't completely sure on their lines and the blocking it was still quite fresh in our brains so the pace really lacked. Therefore we started the day with we about three maybe speed run-throughs that condensed the 20 minute play into about 7. This was really useful in being able to pick up the pace of certain moments especially in the group scene when there's all four band members in the room. To further tackle this problem, our director also made the decision that overlapping lines would be a good idea to just add a more natural vibe to the dialogue because it was sounding really rehearsed and slow and lacked the energy that was needed. This was...