Drama: Week Fifteen

Monday 19th January 2015

Today we went back to the start of the play, and real rehearsing began. No longer were we just blocking through stage directions and getting the basic stuff planned and done, we started to get to the more nitty gritty details.

I really enjoyed rehearsals today. The two scenes which I did were scene one, as Boatswain, and the first scene that Ariel is in. 

At the start of the play, I am the first person to enter the stage space. I set up the scene, laying a large circle of rope around the stage, surrounding what represents the island in the middle. Once I have done that, the Master enters, and the play properly begins. 

Rob made the decision that the Master and Boatswain would be played by Prospero and Ariel so that they, who essentially have control of the happenings in the play, are the ones to set everything up. I think this really works because you can clearly see that we are the ones manipulating the situation from the very start. 

Everything really kicks off when Alonso, Gonzalo and Antonio/Sebastian enter. 

We are all in the midst of the Tempest, and so are on a rocky ship, in this horrendous storm, fearing for our lives. This means, of course, that we really had to play up to that. Because it's such an intense situation and the emotions the characters are experiencing are extreme, Rob encouraged us to actually "ham it up", over act it to really get into the extremity of it all. We had to be stumbling all over the place, throwing ourselves about the stage as we clung on to dear life in the middle of the storm.

Of course there was some chuckling, and it did feel a bit embarrassing to do, but what's the point of being on that stage if you don't just throw yourself into it? 

It was a very rough scene to start with straight away because of this and also the fact that we have to shout our lines, as we will need to be battling to be heard through the mighty sound effects at this point. 

Some nice touches were added to this scene as we went along. When Boatswain and Antonio/Sebastian are arguing, we set up a nice visual dynamic which made the meaning of the lines more clear to follow, especially for an audience member. 

I go to centre stage and fall to my knees, exclaiming loudly about the howling cries of people aboard the ship, and Antonio/Sebastian approaches me. This is where I say "Yet again? What do you here? Shall we give o'er and drown? Have you a mind to sink?" and a brief argument between the two ensues. Tensions are obviously high at this point, so I thought that any rash things you would say in the heat of an argument would be even more unreasonably blurted out. I tried to play this, and found that it really helped me get into the emotions of what my character is saying.

My character also has the line "Cheerly, Good hearts! Out of our way, I say!" , which is originally directed at some mariners, essentially just a few extras in the scene. Because we only have a limited number of people in our cast, we aren't having characters like that, so we changed it to be that it is Stephano and Trinculo I am talking to. They come on, stumbling around, laughing about the situation and messing around, and it's because of this that I direct that line at them. 

For me, this was a nice addition, as the fact that Boatswain is frustrated with them has changed the way I might have otherwise played that line. I now use that anger and tension my character is feeling to put the emotion behind the line and really shout it at them. I like this because it adds to the very charged emotions rocking around in this scene, which I see as to be quite a metaphor for the storm itself. 

I think it's really important to convey the urgency and intensity of this scene, and the little details like this totally bring it to life for me. I like to be as immersed as I would be if I were actually in this situation, and using Stanislavski's "magic if" is given much more texture for me the more there is to work with in the scene. 

Act one scene two is actually one of my favourite scenes at the moment, the first scene that Ariel appears in. As I said, we worked on that today, and I found it interesting because I'm someone who can really get into the exposition, introducing the audience to the situation, and also the characters. This is the scene where you are shown the base relationship between Ariel and Prospero, and you are given background to why Ariel is working for Prospero. 

It's important to make these facts clear to the audience, and I don't find it a drag to set up the situation, I like to expose exactly what's going on and use my character's personal feelings about it all to add more to it. 

From the moment I enter the stage, especially since my entrance is accompanied with a line about how I am here to serve Prospero and to do all of his bidding, I wanted to show that eager side of Ariel. Eager to please and to do his duty to Prospero, and to impress him so that he can earn his liberty. 

I want my character to be full of energy and actually quite captivating in that first scene, to play on his dutiful lines. I felt that Sam and I played this scene off each other very well, and it was good to do it knowing my lines and having already blocked the simple staging. 

We could become more detailed about it and ultimately just act in the moment.
We did add a stage direction; part way through the conversation, Prospero crosses over the stage to down stage left, and I remain down stage right. This gives me reason to change where I am directing my lines and to address them out to the audience. I used this to display the mischievous happiness that I am feeling remembering and describing the work I have done. 

Rob suggested that in one of my lines, where I am describing the state of Ferdinand when I left him, that I almost childishly do an impression of him, mocking him and folding my arms grumpily.

My tone in the scene changes when I broach the subject of my freedom, what Prospero has promised me. 

This is where the dynamic changes from quite simple joy to the more opposing opinions the two characters have. 

I played it as at first, asking very politely, and continuing to argue my side in good grace, but the moment that I begin to talk to much perhaps "out of turn", I am effectively silenced by Prospero. 

He reminds me of what he freed me from and reasserts his position of being in charge. 

At this point, I again become submissive and gracious, no longer arguing. 

It does change again at that last moment before I exit however, as I am pleased to hear I shall be freed in two days time. 

I'm still looking at the initial development of my physicality as Ariel. At the moment I think I would like to present him as graceful and fair, but with that hint of mischievousness and fun. I've taken inspiration from a production of the Tempest I saw in 2013, with Colin Morgan as Ariel, and I would also like to play him in a similar way in which he is clearly not human, and is almost like an animal in his movements. I'm currently just playing around with all of this, it's interesting to explore. 

Scenes one and two were the only scenes I acted in today, and Jerome did Ariel's other scenes. 

I observed the scenes Jerome acted in, and there were not any things to make note of, except that for the song Ariel has as he brings Ferdinand to Miranda, Kas, Jerome and I need to get together and decide how we would like to do it.

Tuesday 20th January 2015

Today we continued to work our way through the script. I was not in the majority of the scenes we rehearsed today, only one in the afternoon. 

This was the scene where Trinculo and Stephano are tricked by Prospero and Ariel, and the two of them along with Caliban are chased offstage by a pack of rabid dogs created by Prospero's magic. 

Because in this scene I don't do much until summoning on the dogs, I spent my time on stage developing my physicality. I started injecting that animal vibe into Ariel as he watches everything patiently, and then lets hell break loose. 

At first I simply changed my posture, almost crouching more, trying to keep that pixie like elegance I'd like my character to have but also wanting to look a little more wild and less human. 

I had a lot of time to think about Ariel's thought process in this scene, and decided I want to just be calmly watching, not even too excited for what is about to happen, because I know it will happen soon enough.

Then, when the time comes, I run to centre stage and jump up onto the island, before letting out a loud growl. This is when the dogs, who will probably be played by musical theatre dance students, will rush onto the stage and chase off the three one by one. Today because we only had our own class to practice with, Jerome, Ryan, Jack, Kas and I stood in being the dogs.

There wasn't an awful lot to work on in this scene but the choreographing of the chase was quite fun, and it's nice to spend time getting used to just being my character onstage reacting, as Ariel often has scenes where he simply observes.

Wednesday 21st January 2015:

Today we actually managed to run finish the play from where we left off yesterday and then run through the whole thing again from start to finish, which was pretty cool. It was good seeing it all at once because somehow it made it make more sense in a way, and helped with putting together my character's role throughout the whole play, if that makes sense. 

We split the play up into different sections and kept switching between the groups as we ran through the whole thing. I actually ended up doing the scenes I had already done over the last couple of days. 

Again today I spent most of my time on stage working on my physicality and trying to decide exactly how I want to be, adding any elements I could. I was off book for a lot of today so it was easier for me to move around and practice how I actually want to present myself without having a script in my hand. Rob asked if I was doing certain postures etc on purpose and said that he thought they were good for Ariel. I'm going to continue developing it, and particularly I want to work on being more nimble, as Ariel is referred to after all as "dainty" and other things to that effect. 

I'm looking forward to getting the proper set to work with so I can experiment with it in different ways.