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Antigone and the Guards - physical theatre work

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 rolled over someone so it was up to the people still alive to save those on the floor. The exercise was very relaxed, we weren't to run away from the person 'killing' people nor towards people who needed to be saving, it wasn't rushed and it felt almost ritualistic, it created a really good energy in the room for the start of the lesson.

After playing this game in various different forms exploring, the Antigone's were given short sticks (to be replaced with machetes in the real thing) and in small groups we were to practice a simple movement: a large step followed by a strike of the stick. The people in the group were to take a large step backwards at, near enough, the same time the Antigone did to ensure they would not be hit by the stick. At first I found it hard to coordinate the movements at the correct times, but as I got more confident with it, I increased the aggression and the speed of the movements, making it more realistic: as if I was Antigone being 'unfairly' arrested for burying my deserving, deceased brother. Then finally, I and the other Antigone's were to do the same activity with a larger group, using all the remaining members of the cast. Because the rest of the cast were the guards in this activity and they are quite derogiraty, disrespectful and disgusting characters, we tried to tap her on the back and Antigone was to try and stop us, this increased the paranoia within her character aswell, making her movements more frantic.

Sir then used all the physical movements from the previous activities to direct this scene.




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