In this journal entry I am reflecting on the differences between the performances recorded of our rehearsal and our final performance of the rivals scene our group chose. I think our group improved a lot from the first recording to that of the final. The interactions between Ms Malaprop and Lydia Languish improved greatly. The physicality definitely added to their performances. The interaction between me and my father Captain Absolute definitely improved. It was difficult to show captains traits while also appearing submissive to my father, especially because he was a head shorter than I was. I feel the physicality between us could have definitely been refined further, especially with the aspect of eye contact. These aspects could have been improved by us being of script and having more time in a larger stage. Though it could have used improvement, the difference in quality from our first rehearsals and our final is large. Over all, I think the performance from an improvement aspect was a success for all the characters in our scene.
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I much enjoyed the production of The Rivals we viewed in class. It had great comedic value and gave us a jumping off point for our productions of acts in the coming weeks. The comedic value of the characters body language and interpretation of the script kept the play like a farce. Though there were moments where the actors omitted lines in a way that did not agree with me. If the lines are written, I believe they should be spoken. The set was cool. The color scheme was a bit boring, but it lent to capturing the attention on the actors or the props brought on set to stage different rooms. All in all, I felt like the production was well done, our team has already referenced its blocking a few times.
My name is Captain Jack Absolute, I am 6 feet tall, I consider myself well built, I spent much of my life in the army. My father was also a captain in the army, he is who enlisted me originally. I'm currently vacationing in Bath, unfortunately my father has also made the trip. Our family is fairly wealthy, but we pride ourselves in our accomplishments rather than our money. These achievements, as well as our family's cunning-ness, is what I attribute to the respect towards us. I am currently pursuing a girl by the name of Lydia Languish. I have taken on a second personality in the pursuit. I luckily have been arranged by my father to marry the very same woman.
Today we watched the end of Stage Beauty, a film on the resurgence of theater in London England. The film portrays the story of a man named Ned Kynaston, who's profession from a young age is to play women on the stage. Through the movie the king passes a decree that only allows women to play woman’s roles, the opposite of the last 50 years of theater. The plot follows his downfall and eventual resolve with his job and his person. The importance of watching this film for me was the representation of theater in a social and political light. It is treated as though it crosses boarders, and class, from the underground bar to the kings palace, they all have theater. It is portrayed as though the king was almost an equal to the players and their houses. Generally, if anything can be taken from this film, it is that during reformation theater, things never seen before were being shown on stage in public not only private.
So this was incredible! Joe Bostick, a pretty well know stage combat teacher and our teacher's friend come to our school to do hour and a half long classes on stage combat. It was so fun!We all warmed up in the space and learned the ground rules. We learned about speed, and distance, as well independent body movement. Joe was super charismatic and funny, we learned so much, I think partially because within 10 minutes most of the people in the class seemed like they were comfortable and willing to give their all. We learned how to fight other actors and how to make it look real while also staying as safe as possible. It took a lot of trust in our partners and Joe, but in the end it was an amazing experience I see myself referencing the practices in later theater situations.
In this post I will talk about how the concept of containers affected our theatre project over the last few weeks. When we first started the project i feel our group added too many containers too fast. This in a way limited the process of narrowing down an idea. We fixed this a few days in and opened up to basically completely start over. The only containers we kept at that point were budget, number of actors, and the deadline of the assignment. This evolved and changed through the process, eventually ending where we are now. We have the original containers as well as containers to our theme, our goal, and our intended impact on the audience.
This is a sort of update on where our group stands in its devised piece. I think the major issue with devised theatre is time. Our group finds ideas and leaves them in a matter of minutes. Granted this means the final product is very revised and thoughtful, but it can also be frustrating to feel like we are stuck on an idea treadmill. We seem to have most of the scene down, the characters are falling into place slowly. I hope monday we have all of our people present because without Audrey i have a hard time finding the motivation for my character. This is also good in a way, it forces me to look to others for inspiration when playing. All in all, forward progress is happening, and next week we will have something.
This post is on an exercise our class did on the commedia del'arte stock characters. Our teacher read out the characteristics of a player and we would act accordingly. My group had already looked at these characters and played with them a bit previously. That being said, I learned more while watching my classmates act out the characters as well. It was very fun, we where laughing the entire time. Im am excited to take these more developed charter identities to our project plays tomorrow.
In class today we explored how thinking of different situations made our body's feel. While imagining either an uncomfortable or comfortable situation our partner recorded how we said our different muscles and joints felt. I enjoyed this exercise, it helped me center myself with my emotions. I don't often really feel anxiety without fear. When i do i often try and cover it up. Embracing those feelings actually felt good. Like experiencing a dangerous situation without being in it. I hope we can do this again, i think it represents a big part of theatre. Being not scared of using and embracing your feelings, real or synthetic.
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