Our Country's Good and Stanislavski Theories

At the moment we are working on Stanislavski theories and putting them into practice in class and in the scenes we're doing from "Our Country's Good".

Our Country's Good: 

As someone who had no prior knowledge of this play, I had some quite extensive research to do in terms of understanding not only what it is about basely, but also in understanding the more complex sides of the play such as its themes, sub-textural qualities and historical context.

We were provided with a lot of sources of information about the play to look at, which helped me greatly in my exploration of this play. I have listed my sources of research at the bottom of this post.

This is some of the information about the play which has helped me develop my own interpretation and understanding of the scene we have been working on.

Our Country's Good is a play by Timberlake Wertenbaker, which is based on real events and set in the 1700s. The play explores the story of the people who were on the British Prison ships which deported convicts to Australia, and the different things that happen to them, including them all putting on a play. 

This which features heavily the themes of oppression and freedom, crime and punishment, justice and mercy, and quite predominantly, levels of "authority". 

Actually, there is a very interesting social dynamic in this play because of the way it centres around the different levels of authority, and even levels of class. Although the characters in the play are quite set apart by constructs such as these, some of them being convicts, some of them Captains and lieutenants, they all still find themselves mixed up in a mess of relationships which ultimately go against the boundaries put in place by their different "titles", if you like. 

For me as an actor, I find it fun to play about with themes such as these social constructs, as for me personally, it adds a lot of texture to my interpretation of the role I play. I also find it quite thrilling that this play explores the value of theatre, using the construct of a "play within a play", and this is another aspect of Wertenbaker's work which I find compelling.  

The Stanislavski theories we have been looking at so far:

Constantin Stanislavski 

• Given Circumstances: The facts you have about your character and the rest of the play, literally the circumstances in which everything is happening within the play.
• Emotional recall: Searching your own past for emotional triggers and sensations which can help to bring your character to life for you. .
• Through line: All the different aspects of your character's role and life, including everything that happens to them/that they do offstage.  
• Objectives: What your character is trying to achieve, what their goal is, what do they want or what are they trying to do?
• Magic if: What would I do if I was in this situation? 
• Actions: Quite simply how you achieve what you are trying to do. 
• Circles of Attention: Your awareness of the world around you, which starts with you onstage, and builds outwards. 
• Subtext: The real meaning beneath the words in the text, the actual motivation behind what the character is saying.  

Applying these theories to our work: 

So, after we were taught about the different theories, we were taught how to apply them to the work we are doing in class, and especially how to use and develop our own interpretation of these theories in the scenes we are doing from Our Country's Good.
The theories have shown me new ways to break down my personal barriers and new ways to work on pieces of drama, as I'm going to explore below!

Over the weeks we have been rehearsing our pieces, we've put these different theories into practise in numerous exercises, which I have found very helpful for developing my role in the play, Mary Brenham.
For example, we did one exercise which worked on the concept of emotional recall:
We sat with our eyes closed and were told to imagine as vividly as we could different senses; a pleasant smell and an unpleasant smell, a nice sight and a bad sight, something nice to touch and something not nice to touch. a positive sound and a negative sound, and a taste we like and a taste we don't. We had to think about how imagining these different sensations and using our own triggers to convey our emotions could help us in our scenes. I found this helped me a lot personally, because it can be easy for acting to look stunted if you are unable to empathise with the feelings of your character, and if you can use emotional recall onstage, it could be much more convincing and honest.

We looked at our objectives and actions in the scenes from pretty much the first moment we were given our scripts. 

I am in a group with Katy and Elvina. The three of us spent some time analysing our scene together, annotating our script and discussing what we believe our characters were trying to achieve and how they were going about achieving it.

Laura Dos Santos as Mary Brenham and Helen Bradbury
as Dabby Byrant in Octagon Theatre Bolton and
Out Of Joint's "Our Country's Good", 2012.
Photo by Robert Workman

My character Mary's objective in the scene is to get everyone to learn the lines for the play they are in, but she also wants desperately to keep the peace between Liz and Dabby, who are constantly bickering and fighting. 

I wrote underneath each of my lines an action, which all put together would ultimately make Mary's objective clear. For example, every time Liz makes an advance on Dabby, or Dabby tries to provoke Liz, I pull them apart, or perhaps shoot Dabby a look to signal she should stop. 

My character is somewhat caught inbetween the other two in the scene, and I found that quite fun to play around with. 

An exercise we did a few weeks ago really helped me to develop my understanding of the subtext in our scene, particularly in regard to the position that my character is in. 

In our groups, we were given about fifteen minutes to improvise a scene which could happen prior to the actual scene we are working on from the play. 

Katy, Elvina and I thought it would be productive for us to do a scene which centres around a similar social situation to the one in our piece. So, we decided that we would focus on the friction between Liz and Dabby, and the way that Mary is stuck in between them, trying her hardest to prevent arguments and bad feeling. 

I actually thought the process of making up our own scene between the characters did immense good for me in thinking in a more in-depth way about how Mary feels, and why her objective is what it is. 

Putting things into my own words and looking at an interpretation of a role which is more relatable to me made our scene much more accessible to me.

To further add to the clarity of the relationships between the three women, there is an actual physical fight in our scene. This was great to work on, and we spent one session choreographing it to precision so that it would run smoothly in the flow of the scene. 

As you can see clearly, a lot of Stanislavski's techniques were exceptionally interesting for me and helped me a lot, although I didn't find that I could apply some to my work as easily as others.

Something we are constantly told by Rob is to not "throw the baby out with the bath water", and I think this definitely applies here. The Stanislavski theories we have explored have given me a great insight into my own development as an actor, and my role in Our Country's Good, and I'll no doubt find myself using these techniques on numerous occasions in the future. 

Further work on our scene: 

As well as exploring Stanislavski's techniques and using them in our piece, there was additional work to be done on improving the cohesion of our scene. 

As much as we can rehearse in our group, there's only so much we can see from being onstage, and it's also important to hear what it looks like to an audience. This is one of the reasons I like the way our drama class give feedback to one another, and try to be as constructive as possible in our critiquing. 

Over the course of our rehearsals, we received a lot of feedback from our peers. 

Some of the feedback I was given personally was this: 

• Good physicality 
• Good diction 
• Work on projection 
• Add more "oomph" or sass to role
• Good at staying grounded 
• Work on emotions and facial expressions
• Put more energy into it 
• Perhaps play Mary a bit more annoying

Tips like this were really good to keep in mind when trying to improve my portrayal of Mary. 

Altogether, a combination of Stanislavski techniques, research into "Our Country's Good", and a lot of rehearsing, has come together to give me a well rounded understanding of the work that we have been doing for this last assignment. 

https://www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/files/downloads/2934/Our+Country%26%23039%3Bs+Good+Resource+Pack

http://www.outofjoint.co.uk/c/our-countrys-good

http://www.enotes.com/topics/our-countrys-good

http://www.kutheatre.com/03-04_season/OurCountry'sGoodDramaturg'.html

Storytelling

Recently our assignment in physical theatre was to tell the story of our chosen fairytale or myth.

The story I chose was Cinderella.

This is the original story: 

"Cinderella, a kind and thoughtful girl, lives with her cruel

stepsisters, Clorinda and Tisbe. They make her clean the

house, cook their meals, and sleep by the fireplace in the

cinders – which is why they call her “Cinderella.” One day,

while Cinderella works and her sisters tease her, a beggar

comes to the door asking for food. The stepsisters turn

him away in disgust, but Cinderella offers him something

to eat and drink. The beggar promises her good fortune in

return for her kindness, and soon, an invitation arrives – the

lonely Prince is throwing a ball in order to find a wife. The

excited stepsisters take the invitation, prepare for the ball,

and leave Cinderella alone at home to continue her work,

laughing when she asks to come along.

Tired and sad, Cinderella falls asleep by the fire. Her Fairy

Godmother appears, and with the help of a few spirits,

transforms the sleeping Cinderella into a beautiful Princess.

When she wakes up, Cinderella is delighted, but is afraid

her stepsisters will recognize her at the ball. The Fairy

Godmother gives her magic slippers, which will make her

unrecognizable, but warns her to be home by midnight, or

the spell will be broken.

Meanwhile, worried the ladies only want his power and

money, the Prince does not want to attend his own ball.

He and his page hatch a plan – they will trade clothing,

and disguised as a servant, the Prince will see who might

love him for himself. When the stepsisters arrive, they fight

over the page, who they think is the Prince, and ridicule the

Prince, who they think is a page. When Cinderella arrives,

the real Prince falls in love with her instantly, and they

dance and sing together. Soon, the clock strikes midnight,

and Cinderella remembers she must leave. As she rushes

out, one of her slippers falls off. The Prince sees it, and

decides to find Cinderella by searching for the owner of the

shoe.

When they return home, the stepsisters make fun of the

beautiful girl from the ball, pretending they humiliated her.

Soon, the Prince and the servant, still disguised as one

another, arrive in search of the owner of the shoe. The

stepsisters insist it is theirs, but of course it does not fit

them. Cinderella tries the shoe, and it fits her perfectly. The

Prince removes his disguise, revealing his true identity, and

declares his love for her. They agree to get married. The

kind Cinderella forgives her sisters’ cruelty." 

(http://files.coc.ca/studyguides/cinderellaschooltourstudyguidesynopsisfinal.pdf)

This is my adaptation of the story, edited down so it would only take one minute to tell: 

Once upon a time there was a kind young girl named Cinderella, who lived with her cruel step mother and step sisters. They always made Cinderella do all of the chores, sweeping, washing up, cooking dinner. She was miserable. 

One day, an invitation arrived to the Prince's ball, but of course, Cinderella wasn't allowed to go. Her stepsisters went to the ball and left her at home, sad and alone. Once they had left, a Fairy Godmother appeared. She gave Cinderella a beautiful gown and glass slippers, and told her she could go to the ball as long as she was home by midnight, because that's when she would turn back to her usual appearance. 

Cinderella went to the ball and met the Prince, and they danced all night long and fell in love immediately, because that's possible! But when the clock struck twelve, Cinderella had to run home, and she lost one of her shoes.

The next day, the Prince went around every house in the city, trying the shoe on different girls to try and find his true love. When Cinderella tried the shoe, it fit, and they realised they had found each other. They got married and lived happily ever after!

Rehearsal Diary: 

Wednesday 10^th September 2014:

This was the first day of lessons that we had with Sharon.

We started the day by warming up, and then we walked around the space in the room and had to freeze when we were instructed to by Sharon. This exercise made us more aware of and familiar with the space we were working in, and kept us on our toes, making us listen carefully in order to be able to freeze on time.

After we had warmed up, we split into pairs, and played a game where we had to mirror one another. We stood opposite one another and took turns to lead.

Whoever was leading had to do slow movements and gestures and their partner had to mirror them exactly and try to keep in time with them. The objective was to be so in sync with one another that if you looked at the pair you wouldn’t be able to tell who was leading.

We then worked on this further by going into groups of four, and doing a similar exercise, only this time, we had to stand in a line side by side, all facing the same direction. Again we took it in turns to take the lead, but it was trickier to keep in sync with more people, using only your peripheral vision to see what the others were doing.

This exercise built trust, teamwork and concentration.

After this, we split into pairs again. Now we had to tell our partner the story of our holiday. Once we had exchanged stories, we teamed up with another pair, and had to tell them one another’s stories.

We then had four different stories to work with, and we had to come up with a short piece of drama based on one or more of our holiday stories.

We had some time to prepare and rehearse our piece, and then we took it in turns to perform. We all gave each group feedback on their performance.

Our next task was to split into groups and make a spider diagram of everything we knew about physical theatre.

Once we had done this, we went back into our groups of four which we performed in. It was now our task to perform our piece again, only this time we couldn’t talk, we just had to use physical theatre to tell the story.

Again, we rehearsed for a while before performing for one another and giving and receiving feedback on the performances and the use of physical theatre in them.

The homework we were given for next week was to prepare a short story, true or false, based around an object. We would have to bring in the object next Wednesday and tell the story to the rest of the class.

Wednesday 17^th September 2014

We spent this entire day telling our stories based around an object to the rest of the group.

We told our stories, which could be either true or false, one by one, and presented the object our story revolved around to the other students. We then had to vote and guess whether we thought people’s stories were true or not, and we gave feedback to one another on our story telling skills.

This was my story:

Last year, during the summer, I was on a train journey from London to Penrith, which is a small town in Cumbria. It was quite a long journey, and whilst I was on the train, my phone ran out of battery and died. There was no wall socket to charge it in at my table, so there was nothing I could do.

In order to tell the time throughout the journey, I decided to get my little pink alarm clock out of my bag, and put it on the table. I had it with me because I take it wherever I go travelling, as my grandparents bought it for me quite a few years ago, so it means a lot to me.

The whole journey was fine, and when we got to Penrith station, I got my luggage and got off the train. But as I stood there on the platform, I realised that I had left the clock on the table. The train hadn’t pulled away yet, so I quickly got back on with my luggage, and went over to the table. I got my clock and made my way back down the carriage, but before I made it back off the train, the doors closed and we set off again!

I stayed on the train until the next stop, Carlisle station. While I waited to reach Carlisle, I called my mum and told her what had happened. She wasn’t very happy, but she left Penrith station, where she’d been waiting to pick me up when I got off the train, and she drove to collect me from Carlisle instead.

It was a bit of a messy situation, but at least I got my clock back!

The end.

This story wasn’t true, but the majority of the class guessed that it was. Some people saw the flaws in my story though, and worked out that it was a lie!

Some of the feedback I was given was as follows;

•  I needed to work on the structure of my story more, because I contradicted myself. After saying that my phone died on the train, I later said I used it to call my mum on the way to the next station. Oops…
•   The manner in which I told my story was convincing
•  The detail in my story was good

It was an interesting little project to work on, I really enjoyed it, and the constructive feedback I was given by the rest of the group was helpful.

Wednesday 24^th September 2014

Today we elaborated further on an exercise we did a few weeks ago.

What we had to do was each choose a fairytale or myth and think through the story of it in our minds so we were clear on the beginning, middle and end.

Then we paired up and told one another the story of our chosen fairytale or myth. I was in a pair with Nuray. She told me the story of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and I told her the story of Hansel and Gretel. Next, we joined together with another pair, and one by one we told our partner’s story to the other pair. The pair we joined together with was Katy and Brandon. Brandon’s story was Cinderella, and Katy’s story was Tangled, the Disney adaptation of Rapunzel.

Once we knew all four stories, we had to choose one of them. 

We chose Cinderella. Our task now was to prepare and rehearse a short performance of the story, summarised so it wasn't too long.

Each group then performed their story to the other students.

Later on in the day, we had to do our stories again, but this time we were only allowed to use physical theatre to tell the story. I feel that this exercise really helped me to develop my physical theatre skills. Not only did it make me consider different ways of presenting the story, but it also allowed me to put them into practice and get used to using physicality to act. I really enjoyed it.

Again, each group performed the new, physical theatre version of their story, and we all gave feedback to each group. 

This is the feedback which our group received:

• We portrayed our characters clearly
• We used our rehearsal time well, as it was well structured and rehearsed
•   Our transitions from scene to scene were smooth

Wednesday 1^st October 2014

Today we worked with Sharon, and she allowed us to have most of the lesson time for rehearsing our pieces. It was good to rehearse them in a different space and see what it was like doing it in another environment, even though it was only slightly different.

Jerome and I found it interesting to work in the dance studio, as we used the mirror to help us see our own piece and work on the staging.

We also did a bit of improvisation, playing a game which was influenced by our Greek Theatre. It was fun, and I always find improvisation helpful as it helps me to develop my flexibility as an actor.
It's also nice to do things like improvisation games because it gives us a chance to work as a team, which is always great.

Wednesday 5th November 2014 

Today we started working towards a storytelling assignment with Sharon. 

Once we had spent some time warming up, we were told to find a space in the room. We then had to think for a while and choose our favourite fairytale or myth, or one we knew the story of very clearly. 

Then we got into pairs, and were given the task of first telling our partner the story which we had chosen, and then telling it in the space of about one minute, using all the different storytelling techniques we knew of. 

I was in a pair with Nuray. The story she chose was Peter Pan, and the story I chose was Cinderella. 

We had to fill out some sheets which asked questions such as what is the brief synopsis of our story, and what are three key moments in it. Once we had filled those out and had a clearer idea of what we needed to include in our storytelling and how we were going to structure it, we started to rehearse, telling our stories to one another. 

Storytelling thought cloud 

We talked about the different aspects of our storytelling which we thought were important, referring back to a though cloud we had made about it, which can be seen here on the right. 

Nuray and I wanted to incorporate as many of these different techniques into our stories as possible. We discussed the different points in our stories at which we could put the techniques to use. 

We practised for one another, timing each other's pieces and deciding which parts we could edit down to make it fit the one minute limit.

I really wanted to keep my target audience in mind, as I think it's important to adapt your story so that it's appealing to the people actually watching it. 

I added humour to my story using sarcasm and a sort of tongue in cheek approach to telling my story to appeal to the "sarcastic teen" comedy which my generation relate to easily. For example, I said "the prince and Cinderella fell in love in about ten minutes, because that's possible!" to make a little commentary on the fantastical and somewhat implausible "love" stories we are told in fairytales. 

I used characterisation and physicality in my story when playing the parts of the different characters. For the evil step mother and step sisters, I hunched over and adopted mean facial expressions, over emphasising the physical connotations which come with "villains" to make it clearer that they are the antagonists in the story.

I used timid and sad body language when playing Cinderella at the start of the story, so you could see how she feels about the way she is treated, and for the Fairy Godmother, I made sure my facial expression was kind and my movements were flowing and strong, as I tried to convey her magical qualities through the way she moved.  

Because when you are focusing on these details in your story it can be easy to become to absorbed in your own little world, Nuray helped me to remember to make eye contact with the audience, and make sure I was projecting to them physically and vocally. 

It was great working on this with Nuray because she was able to give me honest feedback as to how I could improve different parts of my story. 

Once we had spent some time rehearsing our stories and giving direction to one another, it was time for the class to all come together again. 

About half of the class got the chance to practice performing their story for everyone else, so we could get tips and feedback from the group, and get more used to doing it in just that one minute. 

I got the chance to practice performing it for everyone, it was fun and I got some helpful and very positive feedback.

Wednesday 12th November 2014 

Today it was time to perform our fairytale or myth for our storytelling module. 

We were given the first class to add the final touches to our stories, rehearse them, and work with one another to get them down to that one minute time limit. I worked with Nuray again and we really went for it each time we rehearsed, trying to perfect as much as we could in our stories. 

I really wanted to make this a well rounded piece, so I used this last bit of time to focus on fine tuning the little parts of my story that I thought made it interesting. 

For the rest of the day, we each performed our pieces to the rest of the class and Sharon, and they were also all filmed. 

I felt that my performance went very well, and I made sure to put to use everything Nuray and I had been working on over the last couple of weeks. I got a positive response from the rest of the group, and I actually really enjoyed telling the story to them. 

Wednesday 19th November 2014 

Today we started looking at our next storytelling assignment, which is about stories from World War one. We looked at the whole concept of war and shared our ideas and opinions on it. 

We started  by standing in a circle and going around it one by one, saying one word we associated with war. After we had done this for a while, we split into pairs. 

We had to, as quickly as we could, do the same exercise, but one on one. 

Then we did it where we added an action with the word we said, and we did it in several different pairs. 

Next, we formed groups of about four, playing the "Yes, let's!" game, but with the war theme. 

We would go around the circle in our fours and each say a word along with an action about war, then everyone else would do the same. 

We continued to do this, joining other groups, until eventually the class was split into two large groups doing this exercise, and then we directed our words and actions at the other group as a whole, and it became very like a battle itself, with opposing sides. 

Then, we split into groups of only about four, and worked on short improvisations based around just one word we associated with war. 

I worked in a group with Amber, Mara and Didi. The word we chose was dictator, and we did an improvisation about how one girl who wanted to be in the Hitler Youth turned on her two friends who were against it, and how that conflict led to their demise, and resulted in one of the friends actually killing another. 

It was an intense story even though it was short. 

Everyone performed their improvisations for the group and we all gave feedback to one another.