Technical Theatre 2

Today in Technical Theatre we prepared the theatre space for the induction performances which are happening next week, but the first thing we did was take a trip up the trap door! Pretty exciting, if a little scary.


Our job as a group was to move the scaffolding poles and rig some lights.
I worked with Elvina and Princess. Once the others had moved the scaffolding poles, with a little help from us because they're so heavy, it was our job to rig the lights.
We had to rig two Parnels onto each pole, one at head to mid height, the other at mid to shin height.
These side lights had to light the stage for dancers, so they were in zig zag formation.


We were able to rig the lights quite quickly because we learned how to do it in the first week, but we had a few issues with the G clamps being turned the wrong way, and the wing screws being too stiff. After a bit of jiggling them around with a wrench, we managed to get all of the lights rigged. Elvina, Princess and I did the four on stage left.


I find it nice and easy to rig lights, it's pretty straight forward, and we all picked it up quickly.
It was nice to go in today and have everybody get to work straight away because we all understood what we needed to do.


The course which I am on is acting, and next week for our induction performances we're doing short pieces of Greek theatre, as the practical element to our classical theatre unit.
For performing classical theatre, the lighting we'll need is just a general cover, not anything special!

Greek Theatre

Greek Theatre

Greek God Dionysus (Bacchus) Statue, a Roman copy of a Hellenistic original - Photo by Maicar Forlag

Greek Theatre originated in the city state of Athens, where it was first institutionalised as a festival called the Great Dionysia. The Great Dionysia was a religious festival made to honour the Greek god of wine, fertility and theatre, Dionysus. It was an annual festival and thought to have lasted for about five days, in an Athenian month called Elaphebolion (last half of March and first half of April).  

Most Greek theatre was written and produced between 500 and 300 B.C, and the main three playwrights were Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus.

Aristotle (384 – 322BC) was a Greek Philosopher whose views on physical science shaped scholars’ studies at the time and were held through the Renaissance until the introduction of Newtonian physics.

He taught Alexander the Great and was a student of Plato’s.  He is believed to have composed most of his works from 335 – 323 BC and as well as writing on physics and metaphysics also wrote on ethics, politics and the arts.

Aristotle’s view was that Greek comedy developed from song, komodia coming from the words Komos and ode meaning “revel” and “song”.  Comedy wasn’t taken seriously at first, compared to the tragedies which were well established. 

Aristophanes (448 – 380BC) believed producing comedies was one of the most difficult things to do.  His works include The Clouds (416BC), which Plato suggested contributed to the fate of philosopher, Socrates (trial and execution), and The Frogs (405BC), in which the God Dionysys (a god representing Man’s darker nature) features as a character ridiculously disguised as Hercules and who pokes fun at Phrynichus, a rival of Aristophanes.  Aristophanes apparently recreated the life of ancient Athens convincingly and was feared by contemporaries.  No figure was safe from ridicule whether they were political, religious etc.

Herodes Atticus Theatre

The plays were originally performed in theatre buildings called Theatrons, also known as “seeing places”. Theatrons were huge, some of them so large that they could seat around 14,000 people. They were semi-circular open air structures, built into sloping hillsides. 

The audience would sit in the terraced seating, made up of stone benches which had been carved out of the hillside.

Greek chorus in The Bacchai at the National Theatre. 

Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Greek plays were originally performed in a very different way to how we perform theatre these days. There would be no more than three or four main actors, including the protagonist and antagonist, and the rest of the cast were a chorus.

The chorus moved and spoke as a group, they were always deeply invested in the story, the characters and what was happening in the play, and they often interrupted the live action with song and dance. Every performer in the play would wear a mask, and the facial expression on the mask depended on the genre of the play itself. 

In comedies the masks would be seen to be smiling and joyous, but masks worn in tragedies would be representative of much more negative emotions, they would have pained and mournful expressions on them.

Greek theatre genres were comedy, satyr plays and tragedy. Most Greek tragedies are based on mythology or history dealing with themes of pride, love, loss, abuse of power and fate. 

The formula used in most Greek tragedy begins with a prologue.  Then the chorus introduce the paradox and introductions are made to the characters, to the mood and then the final scene is the exodus.

The themes and formula of Greek theatre are still relevant today as they dealt with investigating the world and human character.  Some modern day writing, for example the writers (David Simons and Ed Burns) of the recent television series The Wire, used Greek theatre themes.      

"Simon has acknowledged the influence on the series of ancient tragedians such as Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus. Like the Greek dramatists he shows humans enacting fates they cannot escape. As Simon put it in a 2007 interview with Nick Hornby, he lifted his thematic stance “wholesale” from the Greeks, aiming “to create doomed and fated protagonists who confront a rigged game and their own mortality. The idea that… we’re still fated by indifferent gods, feels to us antiquated and superstitious… But instead of the old gods, The Wire is a Greek tragedy in which the postmodern institutions are the Olympian forces."

Medea

Medea by Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys (painted 1866-68) and rejected for exhibition by the Royal Academy in 1868.

The script which I am working on for this assignment is an excerpt from the play Medea.

Medea was written and produced in 431 BC by the famous Greek playwright Euripides, and it is based on the Greek myth of Jason and Medea.

Set in the city state of Corinth, in front of the house of Jason and Medea, it follows the story of Medea taking revenge on Jason when he betrays her.

Here I have written a brief summary of the plot:

The story begins with Medea hearing the terrible news of her husband Jason’s betrayal.

He has arranged to abandon Medea and their two children in order to marry King Creon’s daughter, Princess Glauce, and Creon, fearing that Medea would seek revenge on them, has decided to exile Medea and the children from Corinth.

Medea is distraught and vows to be revenged upon them. She begs the king to allow her one more day in Corinth, claiming that she needs to make plans for where to take her children, and the king grants her wish; she is to have one final day in Corinth.

Aegeus, King of Athens, appears by chance in Corinth, and offers Medea sanctuary in his home city, if she will inform him of a way he can cure his sterility. Medea accepts his offer, and has now secured a safe haven for when she leaves Corinth.

With no further obstacles to prevent her from exacting revenge before she leaves, Medea uses her final day to carry out her plan.

She sends Princess Glauce a poisoned gown and coronet as a wedding gift.

The princess is killed by the poison, and so is King Creon, when he cradles his daughter’s dead body in grief.

As a final act of revenge against Jason, offstage, Medea murders their two sons.

She then appears in a chariot drawn by Chimeras, which was sent to her by the sun god, Helios, her grandfather. With her are the bodies of her dead children.

Medea then leaves Corinth in the chariot and heads for her promised sanctuary.

Fiona Shaw as Medea, Queen's Theatre, London 2001 - Photo by Tristram Kenton.

Themes 

This tragedy is a play which carries many themes, and I have decided to write about the ones which are, in my opinion, most relevant.

Betrayal and Revenge

These are two of the most prominent themes in the play, as it is Jason betraying Medea, and her feeling the need to exact revenge upon him that drives Medea to do everything she does.

It is so interesting to look at the acts of revenge on Medea’s part and compare them to the act of betrayal on Jason’s part.

Although Medea retaliates in such cruel ways and takes such drastic measures to be avenged upon Jason, you can’t help but ask if the way she reacted, was, at least in part, understandable.

Looking at the background of Medea’s story, the events that happened to her prior to what takes place in the play, you can sympathise with her more than you might otherwise. In the past, Medea actually betrayed her own family in order to help Jason. She killed her brother just to help Jason escape and then she ran away with him, fleeing from her home in the east and heading for Greece. That is when she and Jason settled in Corinth.

When you consider that Medea sacrificed everything and abandoned her home and family simply out of love for Jason, it makes what Jason does to her much more unforgivable. Whereas she was willing to do anything for him, he was willing to completely betray her for the sake of status. He arranges to marry Princess Glauce in order to be a royal, even though Medea effectively sacrificed her own royal standing for him.

So, it’s clear that Medea is greatly wronged by Jason, and you can understand why she feels the way that she does. She is betrayed, upset, abandoned, and afraid. We mustn’t forget that Medea is frightened. She has nowhere to go and no one to turn to. That is until King Aegeus shows up and offers her sanctuary, at least.

You can see why she would seek revenge, as she is in this emotional state, and doesn’t have much time left.

But the way in which she exacts her revenge is, to say the least, questionable.

She kills Glauce, who hasn’t done anything wrong, and who, due to the way that women were treated and their social standing at the time, quite possibly didn’t have much of a choice in the matter of marrying Jason. Glauce is, it would seem, innocent, and is used by Medea to hurt Jason. Medea disregards her as a person and uses her as a device, which is something that shows a great lack of empathy for her.

Medea also kills her children, and this is, I think the most horrific act on her part. The children are innocent, and having already lost their father, are to lose their mother too when she decides to kill them rather than protect them.

These acts of revenge, although her motive for committing them may be understandable, are unforgivable really.

In order to have “justice”, she has warped the very meaning of being just by murdering the innocent. Justice is another interesting theme in the play, actually.

My thoughts on it are below!

Justice

As so many Greek tragedies did, Medea posed the question; what is right and wrong, what is true justice?

“Justice” is very subjective, and when put into the context of this play, it can be greatly disputed. In my opinion, what Medea does, is not just.

Although it may feel just to her because she has hurt Jason, as he hurt her, if you look at the bigger picture, Medea’s actions can’t really be described as justified.

But the great thing about it is that everyone who sees or reads Medea will be left with questions and doubts in their mind. It gives you something to think about, it makes a great impact in the sense that you can’t really come to one simple conclusion about things like justice.

Medea is a great example of the way that Greek playwrights like Euripides really made their audience think.

Exile

An ancient vase painting of Medea escaping in her chariot. The bodies of her children are in the bottom right corner.

Exile is a strong theme within the play, also.

When Medea ran away from her home in the past, she basically exiled herself.

In a way, I find that almost foreshadowing of what happens to her in the play.

Earlier in life she had a choice and made her own decision, she left her home; she decided to exile herself from that place. But now, she finds herself exiled without a choice in the matter. She is helpless and someone else has made that decision for her. She’s being forced away, and it’s a very scary thing. The fact that she has cut herself off from the other place where she might have gone makes it even scarier to have to leave Corinth.

I mentioned fear before, and it’s something which is really helping me to get under the skin of the character.

I’m playing with that idea of fear and the different things which are frightening Medea in the play, I find that it’s helping me with my own portrayal of her, and I try to keep in mind that deep down she is afraid when I’m playing her in our scene. 

Love and Loss

The themes of love and loss are greatly featured in Medea.

Basically everything that Medea does is as a result of losing what she loves, after all.

As I discussed before, she left and lost her family and home out of love for Jason. It was love on which their lives in Corinth were built.

So when he betrays her and she is to lose everything that she holds dear, it’s terrifying and it renders her distraught.

People can really relate to this because everyone has people who they love, and even the thought of losing one of those people is awful.

I find that I can really draw on the idea of losing people I love to help develop my understanding of Medea’s character, and therefore portray her more aptly.

Because it’s something I can relate to, it makes it easier for me to put myself in her character’s shoes and really convey to the audience the emotions that she’s feeling.

Femininity and women

For me personally, the theme of femininity is one of the most important.

The play looks at the way in which women were treated and seen in the eyes of society at the time. Misogyny plays a large part in this play, and the way Medea behaves and reacts must be partly owed to how she’s been discriminated against.

In many ways Medea represents womanhood, and the issues which her gender faced in those times and still face to this day.

Medea is living in a male dominated, patriarchal society, and is punished throughout the play for being a woman. The society in which she lives gives way for Jason and Creon to disregard and maltreat Medea.

The way Medea is treated throughout the play is very sexist.

Medea is a clever woman, but rather than her intelligence being applauded or seen as positive, Creon and Jason actually see it as a cause to fear her. They demonise her; they think that her cleverness is dangerous. They don’t see it as a positive trait, as they would if she were a man, they see it as frightening and malicious for a woman to be intellectually equal, or superior to them.

An example of sexism in the play is when Medea is told that her fate is down to the way she behaved. She is told that, had she not been such a jealous, possessive woman, she would have been allowed to stay in Corinth. This is just Creon and Jason using the sexist notion of women being overly jealous and needy to their own advantage. They oppress Medea by reinforcing negative stereotypes of women.

Medea, being a woman, being so oppressed and limited by the world she lives in, is forced to use things like cunning to fight back against those who have wronged her.

The ordeals she faces as a character are made much more challenging because she’s a woman.

I find the theme of femininity and the struggle against an oppressive society in this play very compelling.

As sexism is something which is still so prominent in the world, I find it easy to relate to the sexism in the play. I use the anger, upset and frustration of struggling against the oppression of women as motivation in my job of portraying Medea’s character.

It’s something I feel so strongly about that I can really draw on it to immerse myself in the part. I can identify with Medea in terms of the struggles she faces due to sexism and misogyny, and I keep in mind my own frustration about those things when playing the part. 

It really helps me get into character and portray Medea more clearly.

Nina Kristofferson as Medea, Playhouse, Oxford, 2010. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Working on Medea 

As the story of Medea is so intense and mature, it has been quite a challenge to step up to the task of acting in it for our first assignment. Jerome and I have been doing a lot of research and analysis of the play, because it’s important for us to understand the script we’ve been given, and also our characters.

Once we’d learnt our lines, we spent some time thinking and talking about our characters’ objectives in the scene.

Medea’s objective is to get one more day in Corinth so that she can carry out revenge. Creon’s objective is to get rid of Medea. He wants to get her out of Corinth as quickly as possible because he fears her and what she may do.

We also looked at the thought processes of our characters in everything they said, and explored the idea of writing their thought processes under each line in the script. By doing this we would be able to concentrate more on each moment in the scene, and work on listening and reacting, rather than just saying line after line robotically.

The process of learning and understanding our script has been one of discovery. There’s always something new to work on, you can always develop your piece, and Jerome and I have been really thinking about the different ways in which we can improve our performance every time we’ve rehearsed.

Our job is to portray our characters as clearly as possible, and to immerse our audience in the situation in as little time as the few minutes our script allows. Rehearsing again and again to try and perfect different aspects of our piece is interesting, as it feels like every time we come back to work on it, there’s something more we can do.

We spent quite a while developing the physical elements of our performance. 
Although a lot of it came naturally once we knew our script, we also had to discuss the different movements and actions we thought would be suitable in our piece, and try them out.

It was a lot of experimenting, and not everything we tried stuck.

For instance, we had the idea that at one point in our scene, we could begin to circle one another as we delivered our lines, making it like a stand off. 
But this idea didn't stay that simple, we added to it as we went along. We put a prop in our scene, a stool, and decided that it was more striking for Jerome to be sitting on the stool while I circled him. By doing this instead of having us circle one another on equal footing, you got to see Creon being intimidated by Medea.

The stool was the only prop we used, but it ended up serving quite a few purposes.

I actually saw it as a bit of a prop for power play. You see, when Creon first entered the scene, I, Medea, was sitting on the stool, and Creon came up and leant on it, being condescending and seemingly powerful, mocking me. He had the upper hand, he was in the intimidating position, and it made him feel powerful.

But later on, when I circled him, the power had flipped, as he was the one being mocked, and you could see that change quite clearly I think. What could have been a simple prop ended up representing some quite significant aspects of our scene.

Over the course of our rehearsal process, we were given different bits of feedback from the group and from Rob.

Quite early on, Rob told me to work on a few things; staying grounded and still when delivering my monologue, engaging with the audience more and keeping my head up, and also developing my facial expressions. These were things I started working on right away to try and correct, and gradually, everything came together.

Almost as soon as we started working on our script, we were told by Rob and the other students that our emotions were very clear in the scene, and that we listened and reacted to one another nicely.

This was very positive feedback to receive, as we did feel like those things came quite naturally to us, and it was nice to hear that others thought so too.

The feedback we were given by fellow students and Rob was always really helpful, it was great to hear the opinions of others which could help us with our performance.

I found working on this script to be an exciting opportunity, and although sometimes it was a struggle to really fine tune our performance, I enjoyed every second of it. 

Below I have inserted two pictures of a sheet Rob gave us when we were first given our assignments, which we had to fill out about Greek theatre and Medea.

I also read the following chapter from “Psychoanalytic Theory of Greek Tragedy” by C. Fred Alford, published by Yale University Press (1992), and found it very interesting to read another insight into the character and the themes.

“Consider Medea.  She is scared to death, a point not always sufficiently appreciated.  She is frightened because she is isolated.  She has left her family in the east, and cannot return, having killed her brother to help Jason, her fiancé, escape.  Weak and vulnerable in a strange land, an outsider, on the margins, and thus especially dependent on her husband’s protection she fears the exile imposed on her, the humiliation it brings, and the weakness it forces her to confront.  “You have a refuge,” she says to Jason, “but I am helpless, faced with exile” (Medea 610).  Isolation, weakness, vulnerability, humiliation, exile – these are the terms she uses to characterize her situation.  All, of course, are death equivalents.  Through a horrible revenge she seeks to restore a sense of her own vitality and control – life equivalents.  Or, as Medea puts it immediately after confessing her plan to murder her children, “Nobody shall despise me or think me weak or passive” (800).

Why does she kill her children?  This was not her original plan, which was “to make corpses of three of my enemies, father and daughter and my own husband” (373).  Following Philip Slater, one might argue that because of the Greek system of weak and diluted marriage coupled with the subjection of women, she overly identifies her sons with Jason, her husband.  The primary reason she kills her children, however, is that she determines that their murder will hurt Jason more than would death itself, and Medea above all wishes to inflict the maximum pain, to counterbalance her own.  “How did they die?” she asks about Jason’s bride-to-be and her father.  “You would double my delight if they died in agony” (1130).  The question thus becomes how to inflict this pain on Jason.  To kill his children is worse than death because it means that nothing of him can continue after death.  He may take longer to die than if she had killed him herself, but he will be doubly dead.  Killing his children robs Jason of the chance to participate symbolically through them in the transcendent.  This theme is reinforced by the appearance of Aegeus, suffering over his childlessness, to whom Medea promises children if he will provide her with a haven (see 650ff).  Jason, on the other hand, will become a living corpse, who will “die without distinction” as Medea puts it (1386).  Medea need not kill Jason to destroy him.  She need only destroy his house and legacy (790).”

Sources I have used for research:

http://www.litcharts.com/lit/medea 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf9cDKqwhQw

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_ancient_Greece

http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/background/24c_p1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea_(play)
http://www.cwu.edu/~robinsos/ppages/resources/Theatre_History/Theahis_2.html
http://www.poemhunter.com/aristotle/biography/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/wire-greek-tragedy-optimism
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?ParagraphID=cui#1617

Drama: Week Three

Monday 22^nd September 2014

Today we did a warm up as usual, and some more tongue twisters.

We did some more work on pronouncing vowels and projecting our voices by using our diaphragm.

We played a game in pairs where you take it in turns to lead one another around by the nose. To do this, you place your index finger about six inches away from your partners face, and make slow, controlled movements with it. Your partner has to keep their nose at that same distance away from your finger constantly, and go wherever you lead.

This exercise requires a lot of concentration and teamwork. You need to be focused in order to follow your partner’s finger immediately it moves and maintain the correct distance between their finger and your nose. It requires teamwork, because if you don’t work together, you can’t get it right. You need to be as synchronised as possible. Making eye contact with your partner can help build a strong focus between the two of you. You also need to use your peripheral vision in this exercise and be aware of the space around you, so that you don’t crash into other people.

We did improvisations in groups of four. We were given two tasks to do in our groups. Firstly, we had to pick a film and do a freeze frame representing it. Then we had to do a short re-enactment of one scene from the same film. The film that my group chose to do was the Matrix.

We were also given our assignments on this day. We were put into pairs and each given a script, a short excerpt from a Greek play. I was put into a pair with Jerome, and  the script we were given was a scene from Eudipedes’ Medea. We were given some time to rehearse our script and familiarise ourselves with it before going home.

Tuesday 23^rd September 2014                                       

We started the day by doing a warm up and then doing some vocal work. We did tongue twisters, including “Red lorry, yellow leather, red leather, yellow lorry” and “Irish wristwatch, Swiss wristwatch”.

Then we had rehearsal time. Jerome and I worked on learning our lines and trying to familiarise ourselves with our parts and the scene, and we ran it quite a few times, giving one another feedback and developing ideas on how to perform the script.

Once we had spent some time rehearsing, we sat down and watched Didi and Brandon do their scene from Trojan Women. They then did an exercise for us all to watch in which they had to read out their script again, but do it in some different styles. At first they had to just speak their lines to one another as if it was a normal, toned down conversation, then they had to be flirtatious, and then they had to be drunk.

We had more rehearsal time after that, and then we each performed two minutes of our script to everyone else.  

Once we had finished doing practical work, we watched an interesting documentary on Greek theatre. 

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

We also wrote log books of everything we did on this day and on the previous Wednesday. 

Drama: Week Two

Monday 15^th – Tuesday 16th September 2014

We did more on articulation on these two days. It was nice to work on it because practice makes perfect, after all. We did more tongue twisters such as

 “Can Khan call Khartoum? If Khan can, can he call quickly?” and

“Thirty three thousand frying flying fish, frying.”

Obviously to say tongue twisters properly you have to articulate and make sure you pronounce every word and syllable clearly, but it also takes a lot of focus. It was fun, though.

We also read out a poem by Roger McGough called “Let Me Die a Young Man’s Death”.

We read out a line of the poem each, as we had done the previous week with Ozymandias.

Later on in the day, we worked further on improvisation.

We did an exercise called post cards. In this simple game, you split into groups of about four. Rob then gives us the name of a country, and we have about a minute to come up with a freeze frame which we think represents that country.

We also did an improvisation where you had to get into pairs and have a conversation, but part way through the conversation you have to act like you’ve just realised the other person has bad breath. We also had conversations in pairs where you had to act like you had a secret crush on the other person.

We played a similar improvisational game to one we did last week, where we performed an improv in pairs, with only an environment and one scripted line each to work with.

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.

Thursday 18^th September 2014
 

Unfortunately, I didn’t make more specific notes on this day, but we worked on more of the same stuff we had been doing over the past week and a half. 

Drama: Week One

The first week of our course was focused mainly on getting to know one another and learning to work together. We did a lot of drama games and improvisation to build our confidence and have fun as we got to know the course, tutors and other students.

Here is a brief rundown of each day:

Monday 8^th September 2014:

On the first day we did a lot of improvisation.

In blog and tutorial we set up our blogs and users on the college system.  

Tuesday 9^th September 2014:

We started the day by doing a basic warm up, and then focused on articulation and projection.

We practiced sounding out different vowels and consonants and worked on projecting our voices loudly without a glottal being audible.

To practice throwing our voices we did an exercise in which you imagine yourself throwing a bucket of water over a hill, at the same time as doing the corresponding action.

We also did some tongue twisters to develop our articulation.

After warming up our voices and bodies, we were each given a copy of a poem named Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe.

We took turns and read out a line of the poem each, trying to put into practice the vocal skills we had been working on. We also tried to portray emotion in our reading out of the poem, and it came together quite nicely.

We were also put into teams of about six and given a short quiz to do. This was enjoyable because it got people working together and showing their competitive sides a bit!

We did some improvisation as well.

We would go up into the performance space in pairs and improvise short pieces of drama. We were taught the importance of not blocking, and had to get used to the idea of going along with whatever the other person suggested in the improvisation. 

To add a little more interest to the improvisations, everybody wrote down an opening line and an emotion.

When you went up to do an improvisation, you picked out an emotion and opening line at random from the ones that everyone had written, and had to use them in the improvisation. We were also given an environment which our characters had to be in, and that made it more fun to play around with.

We also played an improvisation game called Goalie.

In the game, one actor stands on stage and takes on the role of the “goalie”.

People can volunteer to go up and start an improvisation, and the goalie has to go along with whatever that person’s idea is.

On this day, we also had the opportunity to watch some of the second years’ short pieces.

It was interesting and helpful to watch them perform.

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.

Thursday 11^th September 2014

We started the day by warming up and doing some voice exercises.

Then we learnt about subtext and objectives.

We did some improvisation then, keeping in mind what we had learnt about the objective and the subtext.

We worked in groups of four, and had to prepare and perform a four line long improvisation. We each had to choose one line and one line only from a selection we had been given, and then we built a scene surrounding those four lines.

Then we split up into pairs.

We were given three short scripts to choose from. We had to learn the lines from our chosen script and then improvise the rest of the scene ourselves.

Once we had prepared and rehearsed, we took it in turns to perform.  

Technical Theatre

Today in Technical Theatre, we learned how to rig and de-rig a light.

Here is what we learned about rigging the light:


1. The first thing you need to do is check that your lantern is fully equipped with all of the accessories it needs. For example, you should never use rig a lantern which doesn't have a safety chain attached.


2.Once you have made sure your lantern is fully prepared, take it with you to the lighting bar.


3. Place the lantern onto the bar and secure it by tightening the wing screw attached to the G Clamp.


4. Loop the safety chain around the bar, a few times if it is too long, and secure it back onto itself.


5. Focus and position the light so it points where you want. You can use the handle at the back of the light and the turning knob on the side to move it without touching the actual light.


6. On the top of the lantern you will find another wing screw. You can untighten this and it allows you to move the lantern during rigging and focusing, but then you must tighten it again to make sure that the lantern is secure.


7. Now you can plug the flex into the socket. If there is excess cable, you can wrap it loosely around the bar before plugging it in.


And this is what we learned about de-rigging the light:


You basically do the steps you just did, but in reverse.


1. Unplug the flex from the socket.


2. Take off the safety chain.


3. Untighten the wing screw and remove the lantern from the bar.

We were taught the names of different lights and what they do.

1. Fresnel: Fresnels are very commonly used lanterns. They provide a short edged beam of light, which you can adjust by moving the lamp.
2. Profile: Profiles can provide a very direct beam of light. You control the light in a profile by moving the lens. You can further control the light with gobos and iris's.
3. Flood: Floods can light large areas of the stage, but you can't control the beam of light from them.
4. Parcan: Parcans are like floods, but not as intense. The beam from the Parcan can be controlled using the lamp itself.
5. Follow spot: Follow spots are also very commonly used. The beam of light they provide is a circle which can focus on an actor and follow them around the stage.

We were also taught the names of some different accessories.

Barndoor
Gel frame
Safety Chain
Gobo
Iris
Gel
Shutters