Skip to main content

Development of Nurse scenes

With the second nurse scene we had some problems with the physical touching of the piece, it was looking very staged and awkward because Antigone was sat down with a tray on her lap while Nurse stood over her trying to cuddle and comfort her. There is also lines in the section which wouldn't make sense if they were staged in a certain way such as: 'hold my hand' 'I'm holding the rough hand' ' rest your hand on my cheek like this', so we sorted this out. At this section of the scene Antigone is quite vulnerable, I feel as though she is trying to take in every memory of her Nurse, who she loves dearly and is scared by thought of her death. I think this scene is summed up by her line 'I'm just a bit small for it all', it is clear that the presence of her Nurse and her Nurses patronising words and behaviour (bringing her coffee and toast and calling her 'little dove,' and 'pigeon') has reminded Antigone of her childhood happiness. Therefore makes sense for Antigone to be sat on the chair with the tray on top of her lap with Nurse behind her cuddling her like she would have when Antigone was younger.

Below is the rehearsal of the first Ismene scene, this was obviouslay before we had set and props and this scene relies quite heavily on those elements, for example we mimed the grape at the beginning and when Antigone sits down she rubs her feet in the dirt and lies down it in to create irony as Nurse talks about her supposed rendezvous when clearly Antigone is still very childish. It also shows how Antigone has just buried her brother and feels very one with the earth and extremely content.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stephen Berkoff Research

We have started studying the theatre style of Stephen Berkoff in our drama lessons.  Berkoff's style is non-naturalistic, he focuses much more on the movement of the actor rather than the voice, he states that the only use for the script is to 'minimalise and physicalise' the story;  it enables the story to be told in the simplest, most effective way. His Actor's use techniques such as background movement, repetitive actions and mime.  Berkoff said that it was important  'to see how I could bring mime together with the spoken word as its opposite partner, creating the form and structure of the piece'. This very interesting concept provides the core of his work, the mimelike, staccato movements accompanied by vivid, imaginative language. Berkoff studied at   L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. Jacques Lecoq was originally a gymnast and athlete who later found physical theatre after becoming aware of the beauty and rhythm in athletic movemen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Haemon Scene

We worked on the Haemon scene in more frequent shorter sessions so I have condensed the process into one log.   We first worked on Haemon's entrance in which he interrupts a conversation between Antigone and Nan, because Nurse is a comical character she is hesitant to leave and makes the situation a bit awkward and uncomfortable for Antigone and Haemon. Antigone and Haemon have had an argument the night before and that is immediately obvious due to the distance between them and Antigone's first line 'forgive me'. We staged it so that Haemon would come close to her twice, following her to front stage left and attempting physical contact by touching her hand showing his reasonable human efforts to comfort his fiancé, then she throws him off annoyed at herself for ruining her chances at making love to him and moves hastily to front stage right, again Haemon follows her and hugs her from behind which she enjoys and encourages and I think she forgets for a moment that t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Performance review

On Wednesday it was my performance night. Overall, I was very pleased with the way it went, I have never had such a long rehearsal process so the lines and the staging for each section felt like muscle memory. I didn't have to think very hard about what my next line was and where I was supposed to be on the stage because each scene had been thoroughly rehearsed so I could really focus on embodying the character of Antigone and I had never felt so in character as I did on my performance night. Another element that we could only really engage until performance was the metatheatre element of it because when the chorus says 'she's going to have to play her part right through to the end.' I only really understood that line until that night when the audience was there. It blurred the line even further as to what was acted and what was real because I found that I didn't have to act that gut feeling of what I was about to do and each line the chorus said I slowly got more...
Post a Comment
Read more