Babysteps of the big production

Description:

This week we finished the first sketch of scene 5, which is the scene of the banquet. This scene is HUGE, so we need special focus to make it dynamic and entertaining.

Analysis:

In order to make this scene dynamic and avoid it to be eternal, we need to solve some of these problems:

• Actors don't know their lines----> don't know when to enter---> energy is lost

• As we are dividing the scene in both parts of the counterpoint, joining it is becoming difficult

• Actors forget the actions we marked on the last rehearsal

This is making me realise that this process is about commitment. If people show some commitment, this scene will be awesome. However, we also need to provide them with things such as the texts, remind them to read them and learn their entries and be more strict in the time of rehearsing.

One of the things that bothers me about this scene are the relationships. For example, Redwood and Mrs. Redwood need to have a relationship full of passion and partnership. The audience needs to understand that they are  parters in crime. That they are willing to do everything to succeed as long as they are together. I understand that the relationship between the actors must be forced, but they need to understand that in the moment they enter the stage, they are not themselves, they are characters. This will require actors to break personal issues and leave them aside, in ALL the cases, this is just an example. 

As a solution, we need to work more in their characterisation, or remind them to do it. This is why we need to have a clear process. I propose to use the normal acting process:

We need to make the actors ANALYSE the role. In order to do this, they need the script to determine some information about the character, and the other information must be created by themselves. Also, he must understand the RELATIONSHIPS with other character and define the character's OBJECTIVES for each scene. There is always an INTENTION, PURPOSE and SUBTEXT behind everything a character says on stage. In the case of character RELATIONSHIPS, the most important objective will be the use of SUBTEXT, as it is important to explore what each character us saying under the lines. This will work as long as the intonation changes, and it is used to indirectly establish a relationship between two characters. The use of SUBTEXT will rely upon unspoken thoughts going through the mind of the character  showing  the underlying emotional motivations for actions that could be psychological and emotional motivations.

It is also useful to determine the role in the whole play. For example, Joaquin's role throughout the whole play is to be the comic relief in every scene he appears as his character itself is funny. 

Connections:

Robert Cohen's theories:  Robert uses the term "relacom," referring to "relationship communication."He states that all communication has at least two dimensions: the content dimension of the message and the relationship dimension of the message. He refers to the fact that we not only say things, but we say them in particular ways and the WAY we say things often tends to develop, clarify, redefine a relationship. So, it is very important to explore different SUBTEXTS under the lines

Past school plays rehearsals: We can see that in last school plays we had never applied properly the process of acting, but we just rather let the actors characterise by their own. This has sense as they have already learned how to do characterisation, but if they know, why do we keep repeating the same things?

Reflections:

This makes me reflect upon the factor of EFFORT and COMMITMENT. Another thing that is annoying me VERY MUCH is the fact that there are actors missing rehearsals. I think that that is always an issue in the school play, and I understand but it is a BIG disadvantage as I realise that a scene doesn't work if all the actor are not present. The energy is lost, people are lost and don't know when to enter. However, apparently there is nothing we can do about it.  I just don't understand why is people not coming to rehearsals if they commit to come...

This leads me to question, until what extend its the actors commitment important for the play to be successful? and if they commit to assist the rehearsal, why they don't comply either with coming or learning the things we did when they were not here?

Reflecting...

Description

This past 2 weeks during rehearsal, I started to reflect upon how I am using my knowledge from last year to direct the School Play. I directed 2 scenes specifically, the scene of the witches, and the banquet scene.

Analysis

In scene 1 and scene 3, the idea was to create a creepy atmosphere. This is going to be useful as scene 1 is like a prologue that opens the play and scene 3 is the first direct contact between the witches and redwood. We are also trying to maintain the witches presence in some scenes to show that they are "controlling" the evilness.

The problems with this scene is that they still are too human to be witches. We started by giving them a base stimuli and working on their actions and gibberish, but I really think they don´t look as supernatural people. Well, most of them have a great physicality, but none of them has the face expression I hoped to see on the witches. The problem of them varying the body characterisation is that if one of them loses their characterisation, the whole energy and rhythm will be affected as the image you get from the scene will be misbalanced and will no longer give the effect we wanted to create.

In the case of the banquet, we practiced the parts of miming. At the beginning they didn´t know what actions to do and didn´t balance the space appropriately, so we needed to do an exercise were we dictated which actions to do separated in 3 different spaces. After this, they started to do more actions and balance the space, so the scene had much more dynamism.

However, when we told them they needed to start talking, they didn´t had much to say. I don´t know if they don´t understand what is the purpose of the scene and their character in that moment or if they just don´t have creativity to create lines. I think next rehearsal we should bring a bunch of possible lines and annotate what they create using the new lines as stimulus.

Connections

LAST YEAR´S SCHOOL PLAY: I remember my frustration while directing scene 5, we had the same problem of not having rhythm and lines were not said in a dynamic way. So, maybe I need to recap in my older posts and see how did I managed to solve those problems, as I concluded that last year´s knowledge will be reflected upon every director action I do in the school play.

OAP: In the OAP it was the same thing. We needed to do one scene each rehearsal so that the director could specifically work on our different problems. The main problem was our energy and how this changed. One day the energy was very high, other very low.

Reflections

I think that generally we are advancing in a great rhythm. We are just drafting scenes to adjust them later, but I still wonder....do we create the actors?

When I was reflecting upon my learning, I got to the conclusion that as normally directors in the school play give them a way of walking, a way of talking, actions, things to say, state their personality...then, who is the one who creates the character, the director or the actor?

if this is true, is it like this in every play? or just in school because we have different ages? are the actors just in charged of applying the character the director gives to them? to what extent do an actor explores by themselves? do actors are supposed to propose things for their character? or it is mandatory for the director to give something solid? or does it depends?

INCENDIOS

Description:

Last Sunday we went to the theatre to watch a play called "Incendios". The play included violent scenes and strong war-related themes that left us shaking until the next day. In this entry I would like to comment about this play´s scenery, lighting and sound effects. 

Analysis:

In this play, we could see an effective use of scenery. The scenery had four levels that were used in different moments of the play. I found really effective the fact that there were many doors and entries that help added rhythm to the play as actors could appear from different levels and different parts of the stage, which created dynamism. Also, the use of levels also helped to represent parallel scenes with the help of lighting, as there was needed to have a clear difference between the past and the present. Moreover, what of the most interesting things about this scenery is that it does´t have mayor changes, but rather use the same scenery to represent different settings. This was useful, as I want to achieve the same thing with the scenery of the school play, and it was good to see how the setting in this case, depended on the actors dialogues or the atmosphere created by the lights and sound effects. 

I also thought that the lighting and the sound effects were very effective as the lights could clearly represent what was happening at the present and what at the past by changing their colours. This is essential as there is a fluent change of time in this play as it revolves around Nawal Marwan´s story, and how their children try to make her last will after she died. This means lighting was useful as it helped the audience understand this aspect of the story in more detail. Also, the colours selected for the lights also helped. As the past had an opaque yellow colour and the present was more clear and white. Furthermore, the sound effects were also very effective throughout this play. As this play have various moments of war and accidents, the sound effects helped creating a mood of death and tragedy I´ve never felt before in a play. We could also see that although the visual images of the tragedies were terrible enough, the sound reinforced them and created an effect of strongness and fear to the audience.

Connections:

Proyeccion Privada: I can conect Incendios to Proyeccion Privada as the also had this change of lightning but between the scenes of reality and dreamlike scenes. Also, they had the same idea of having the same scenery all the time, just using the essential.

Falsarios: In this play we also had deaths and violent scenes, so I connect both plays in the area of themes. Also, both of them used the same type of acting as they had character decided to do something with an specific intention and goal. 

Grotowsky´s scenery: I think that as the scenery didn´t change and was used to represent many setting it could be connected to what grotowski says about theatre. However, the other elements were much more elaborated and didn´t follow this conventions, but I think that in the terms of scenery and lighting, this play will help us as another stimuli for the school play.

Reflections:

This play made me reflect on my own identity. It made me think about what mi ancestor may have been through and how sometimes you can judge the people of your own family without knowing their past. Also, I start thinking about the fact that sometimes it is necessary to include design elements in a play. This made me reflect upon the purpose for these conventions to be there. 

Until what extent does theatre works without design elements? Is it a convention that just helps the audience? Or does the actors feel different when having these elements around? How do you fully characterise your character without costumes or makeup? Does it depends on the actor? On how the director trains you? Why do theatre have different ways of being represented? Would it be more effective to have just one way? Or is it that what creates theatre itself?

IB Theatre Year Two, HERE WE GO!

Description

First of all, I have to confess. I did miss writing my learnings on theatre, I have not done it since last september (very irresponsible btw). However, I think I started with a pretty good attitude this year. So, this week we worked on the theatre practice we want to apply to this year´s school play, which is the poor theatre of Jerzy Grotowski. We did 2 sessions on practical exploration, and we individually read about his conventions and ideas in a worksheet miss alicia gave us. 

Analysis

The most important thing about this theatre practice is to know that grotowski placed the actor as a private individual, and that he tried to explore the actor´s relationship with the theatre in a new level. As he placed the actor of the core of the theatre practice, it was very important that each actor receives a training in which they can discover their physicality again, what he calls the memory of the body. Also, he had lots of corporals that help him with his concept of using your body until the point of exhaustion, 

but continue until you can´t longer feel it. 

Personally, the experience of having a personal training for this practice was a very unique and useful experience. Not only because it will help us to direct and show how things should be done in this theatre practice while directing the school play, but because it was more easy to understand Grotowski´s concepts once the practical work was done. I think that we achieve some of grotowski´s goals, as we connected with our bodies and found our limitations. Of course we didn´t have enough time to break them, but at least realising that in just two sessions was amazing. Also, we managed to work with some of his concepts, such as oppositions and contrasting movements. I really think that the most important learning outcome from this was how to connect with your body in a different way that allows you more control over it and more mental connection. 

Connections

Grotowski´s concepts: We worked a lot with the contrasting movements during the training. Also, we did some of his most famous positions such as the baby and the cat. Moreover, we worked as individuals, one of the main things on his concepts.

Previous physical trainings: This training was very similar to german expressionism. This is because both depended very much on the expulsion of things in order to act. Also, both depended in physical work that exhaust you. 

YOGA: Grotowski´s trainings connect with yoga as you connect with your body mentally and physically. I think it is amazing how these two things can help you to have that much control over your body, or at least help you to find the capacity of it.

Reflection

Grotowski asked himself a lot: what makes theatre unique? an he thought of his own answer; THE ACTOR, as he thought he was the only one who can give us the spiritual and mythic experiences we seek. This make me think; is not just the fact that theatre itself is unique, but that every theatre practice is unique too. Even if they come from another practice, every single them have their uniqueness.

Which makes me wonder,

Is theatre unique for everyone? does every director have a diferent opinion on theatre? why? If all directors asked themselves about it, will everyone state the actor as the core? or will someone say something is more important? is it really necessary to have a real person acting to call it theatre? why different theatre practices test different conventions? why is theatre not the same thing globally? why does each person give it a different meaning? does theatre has a meaning? do you need to understand theatre to define it? could an outside perspective be the same as an internal perspective? or does experience limits you less? 

Every process has a different ending...

Description

This week we had the performance of the One Act Play festival. On Tuesday we had our final rehearsal and on Wednesday we performed. Then, on Friday we got our final feedback and now we are getting ready to perform two more times for two promotions at school. In general, the audience was happy and satisfied, but we know it could have been much more better.

Analysis

On wednesday, Roberto asked us to put the 3 things we think that are important to consider before we get to perform. I wrote:

1. Having clear what you want to get from this experience
2. Considering the quantity of the effort on the process 
3. Have fun, enjoying what you are doing 

We discuss these points and basically what I want to get from this experience is to learn about theatre by the creation of a play. The number 2 basically focuses on giving it all on stage to prove that all the effort was worth it. And number 3 its very important actually because if you don´t have fun you can´t play with your scene or with your character. Especially in this play, I realised that characters are a variable element of all the plays as they change and evolve in a process of searching. It is also important to play with your lines and explore ways of saying them and incorporating actions and face expressions to it. 

Now I would like to summarise the feedback Roberto and miss Alicia gave us on Friday

Miss Alicia´s feedback:

• Good understanding of the audience, we got into a dialogue between the actors and the audience as we waited until they finished laughing in order for them to react
• Good use of english---> better than other OAPs (clear language, understandable)
• Characterisation: "we weren´t us, we were the characters"and this was mantained
• The style characteristics were seen clearly
• First scene: clear information that makes audience understand that the play is backwards
• 2nd scene: we play with the scene and begin with high energy
• In my case, my intentions were too repetitive and flat 
• For miss alicia, the movements in the cliche phrases part make the essence of the phrases get lost
• 3rd scene: no urgency from berlinda---> no rhythm
• Eduardo dropping lines, loss of energy
• The technique of off stage talking was perfect and shows a developed skill 
• The ending could have been a little stronger, like in the novels

Robbie´s feedback:

• Use the next performance to do it better
• No rhythm throughout the whole play
• No reactions
• Make-up----->horrible issue :((( we didn´t rehearse with it (my fault)
• Low light in the theatre

The main things I pick up from both feedbacks are 

1. the lack or loss of rhythm
2. my intentions (repetitive issue)
3. the make-up disaster

This are the things that affected me the most, mainly because they depend on me. The thing with rhythm was that we had a lot of rehearsals, and the rhythm varies depending on the energy you put in eacc performance. I think that the main think that stopped the rhythm was the fact that people laughed and we stopped until they finished laughing. On one hand, that was a positive thing as we establish a dialogue with the audience. But, on the other hand, we were working with fast and dynamic reactions and responses so I think that was the base of the scene´s rhythm and to me it was damaged by this "pauses" Maybe we felt it that way because it was the first time for all of us that we performed with this pauses.

When it comes to the repetitive issue of my intentions I know that its my fault because I realised how important were the intentions too late. I mean, in the end I did read the script and find the appropriate intention for each line but the thing is I did it too late to start exploring ways of saying the lines in order to show the intention. 

Finally, the huge make-up disaster. The audience comments about this are were actually positive. People told me that the facial lines were seen as real as in real life and many people thought nathalie actually got a haircut. The problem was we didn´t rehearse with the make-up on, so we didn´t know how the actions were be affected by it in each case. Also, we had to solve this problems almost the same day of the OAP. However, I still have 3 more chances to make it right, even just to prove how would some things like the mother long nails will look. This will serve me as a lesson, so that it never happens again and it helped me to learn and realise how important is one part of the design of a play.

When I start thinking about why people have certain opinions about our OAP, the most interest part is that we know the whole process of it. For example, I know that our language and pronunciation were better than other years because later this year we worked with german expressionism, so we practice language exaggeration and pronunciation. Then, I think the phrases thing was because we added in the end so we didn´t rehearse and reinforce how the actions will me implemented with the phrases. I also came up with a thought after miss alicia told us that the end needed to be more like in novels, with more impact and letting the audience with curiosity as when an episode ends. The thing is that usually the audience reacts like that in novels because they don´t know what will happen in the next episode, but in this case, as the order is backwards, the audience already knows what is going to happen in the last scene so the intrigue is lost. We were also asked to loos at ourselves and see how we´ve changed during the whole process, and at least for me its a lot. I mean, I didn´t reach the peak I wanted to reache, but comparing it to how we started, I ended much better and learned a lot about melodrama and the practical and technical aspects of a play. 

Connections

GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM: the base of this theatre practice helped us to understand melodrama as we learned how to work with exaggerated voice, faces, bodies everything! which is actually very similar to melodrama. This is why people notice a difference on our pronunciation, because we had been previously "trained" by GE.

THE BOSS PERFORMANCE LAST YEAR: this was a situation in which I felt the same way that now. I didn´t have clear intentions and when I found them it was too late. Now I now the importance of having them and the next time I will start from that point.

DOWN TO EARTH: I felt the same way that in my DTE scene as I worked with Nathalie in both of them. I have noticed that Nathalie and I have a very strong acting chemistry! We have a level of trust and we have fun acting together, so usually ideas just burst out of our heads. For example, in the third scene I think that was one of the problems, I noticed that renzo and ana lucia have more chemistry together than with eduardo so I felt he was kind of "ignored" in terms of reactions and relationships. 

Reflections

The main thing I had reflected upon is that it is very interesting how the audience just looks at one side of the coin. It´s like the iceberg theory, the audience just see the top while we get to see the whole bottom. I found it amazing, my aunt asked me the other day "and how did you get to the plot and everything" and I start thinking on our process of creation and I can say that it actually came out of nowhere, we started with an idea, then change it, then create the inverted game, the decide on the pyramid structure, then the fact of a family being involved and just like that the plot started to born. 

It was also very interesting, the fact that some people didn´t even understand it was backwards but they still liked it anyway. And, the fact that they laughed in the moments we didn´t expect them too and didn´t laugh in the moments we expect them to. I think that one of the most amazing things about theatre is to question and explore the relationship with the audience, because in the end, the art is for them to stop, watch, and think. 

Why did people enjoy it even thou they didn´t understand? Every art has different audiences? How do you target an exact type of audience? what was our target? do people really think when watching theatre? or do they go just to have a good time? do the audience also think they have a relationship with the audience? why do we often think that we could do it better? for an actor, is there ever a point when you say "I´m satisfied with what I did"? or is theatre an endless cycle where you always want more from yourself?

This is just the beginning ....

Description

This week we focused on rehearsing the One Act Play paying attention to the little details in each scene. This will be important as we are not doing the play in chronological order, so we need to figure out what needs to change in the stage of the play in parallel to time. Also, we pay special attention to the last scene, as Ana Lucia had some trouble finding a character and Renzo just figured out his final characterisation. It was very interesting to watch this as it makes me think of the difficulties of acting and I also had a few problems which I hope will be solved this week.

Analysis

Basically, the things worked this week made me realise that I need to research about melodrama, as I would not understand why i am doing the things i am asked to do and maybe that its what I need to solve the problems of my scene.

The facts I found about this theatre practice were

• IR refers to a DRAMATIC work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions
• It may refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them.
•  OLD MELODRAMA had always a hero, a heroine, a villain and a villian´s sidekick
• HOWEVER, we are working with modern melodrama--> basically trying to imitate latin novels

This basically makes me think on how much do we know about melodrama and our purposes. What is it? make people laugh? prove something? try another theatre practice? make fun of tv novels? the problem is that we don´t know. This is why, I am trying to give it a personal meaning. I think it is partially exploring a theatre practice and partially to try to get to the audience emotions through the exaggeration. Also, we can see that it is very interesting the fact of trying to appeal to the people emotions through the exaggeration of normal and daily events. The question is, HOW does exaggeration allow us to get to an emotional state? and WHY? I think its basically the rule of considering ridiculous. When people watch the exaggeration of a normal event, it is a tendency for them to see it comical, and the most interesting thing is that very often, people end up laughing of the things they actually do. Its as if we are letting people see how ridiculous they look when they exaggerate something or just make them think on their reactions. 

Moreover, I found it very useful to see how the other scenes rehearsed, as it teached me some technical aspects and let me open my critical thinking. It was very interesting to see how the scene of diego evolve and got better. I also found useful the fact that we are often changing actions and lines in every scene as you start understanding why are they not working or why the new ones work better. Also, its important to remember that we need to start checking the rhythm of the play, as melodramas are often of high dynamism and energetic as the whole body need to express your character´s whole internal state.....literally body language. This is very difficult for me as I still don´t feel my character´s vibe. I am having trouble on letting my body flow as I´m still too tense. My other problem is the looking. I just don´t have a still look and I need to focus more on that, this is basically concentration as I know that sometimes I lose my look when I am thinking on the next line or the next action. 

Connections

ROMPER LA PIEL: this makes me think on the time when I started to rehearse for the school play. I remember I built a whole character and then they asked me to change it. I literally wanted to die as I spent like 3 weeks creating a character just to start from 0. This is like my actual case, as I have this feeling of not having a CLEAR character which I almost feel like part of me. I need to let my body and mind flow with the character and instead of bringing my frustration in, bring it OUT.

EL ULTIMO ENSAYO: This also reminds me of the actual situation as I can connect the feeling of not having rehearsals the way they are planned. I think we are not giving the OAP enough importance or we haven´t realise that we are acting in almost 1 week so first of all before trying to polish the play we need to CHANGE OUR ATTITUDE

CONFESIONES: I connect this to my personal involvement in the OAP as this week I started thinking in own experiences that I have similar to this; like fighting with my mom or thinking on my mom´s attitude that annoys me so that I can start using it with Nathalie. I also did start having fun while playing my character, until I started to feel the pressure of not having a CLEAR character

Reflection 

This made me reflect on how we always do the things just for the sake of it or because the director tell us to do it. But, how often do you sit and start thinking on the reasons for your actions. Why is your character doing those actions? Do they help the play? Do they create an effect on the audience?

probably YES, and you don´t even know. 

The key thing is to understand the "why" of everything we are doing in order to believe in what we are doing. Personally, I think that every action needs a purpose and a response, and both link together as your purpose is to generate a certain response. Dynamism is also a part that made me reflect on how we need to prepare physically and mentally to have the energy a melodrama need, while trying to incorporate your personal rhythm to it. 

Why does exaggeration appeals to the audience emotions? how? is this always essential in melodramas? do professional actresses also have this kind of problems? how do we agree on a purpose? on a desired effect?

we are running in circles every rehearsal thinking we are near of ending it....but this is just the beginning ;)

THIS IS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!!

Description

We are back from holidays and ready to start rehearsing for the one act play! This week we started with characterisation and basically having clear our intentions in each line we say. My scene was practiced in three rehearsals this week. This was very useful for me as I know that my scene is starting with the right energy, this is why nathalie and me need to focus and put more effort to it as we are starting with 40% of the melodrama we need in our scene.

Analysis

Getting to act this scene is very fun, but I still can´t flow with the melodrama thing. I don´t know whyyyy!! its as if my body was blocked from exaggerations and big movements and when I try to make them they seem forced, at least for me. Maybe I need to start relaxing my muscles with warming up or something like that. OR maybe its because I still don´t see my character, I only have the basics of a mother who is angry with her daughter and talks with a "high society" voice.

On friday, we did an exercise on creating our own biography, and it was very complicated as it forced you to create your personal life story in the second you got asked a question. This helped me to recognise and choose what is my relationship with everyone in my family and it goes like this:

SPENCER ALEXIS II (husband) : I think he is not useful, he just go to the gym all day long, no time for me, he just talks to Berlinda to make him shakes, OUR RELATIONSHIP IS DOOMED

SPENCER ALEXIS III (son): I JUST LOVE HIM!!! He is my favorite son, as I hate my daughter, this is basically because of appearances, I love my son because he is beautiful and the mother will have a certain favouritism to him.

CAROLINE ELIZABETH SHANIQUA (daughter): HATE HER. Feel that she will never accomplish anything, and if she does is because people want something from her. When my sons fight, it will always be her fault. I dont like her because she is ugly

GRANPA ALPHIE (dad): I don´t have a touchy relationship with my dad, I make my husband take of him as he is the one who pays everything in my house so my family needs to take care of him until he dies.

BERLINDA JONES (the maid): MY WORST ENEMY IN THE HOUSE. Always fight with her an we accuse each other of doing things, I hate her as she cooks amazing and I want that. So, my own family hates my food but love hers.

So, by having more clear my relationships with the characters, I can understand why am i like that with them. In the end, ill only share a scene with Nathalie (CES) but that doesnt mean i dont need to have a clear relationship with the rest. Basically i also need to understand my intentions of everything I tell to my daughter....most of the times I use a pitty or anger tone with her. Tones are very important when exploring intentions as a single change in your tone can change completely the meaning of what you want to say.

I also wonder, why the need of exaggerating everything? how melodrama can work in that work? Its very interesting to think how taking things to an extreme can have a humorous connotation. Its quite weird to see how taking something that isn´t THAT serious as something SUPERARCHIMEGAULTRA- SERIOUS can cause comedy.

Connections

Maria La Del Barrio: I remember when I first watched and episode from MLDB and I couldn´t stop laughing. It was sooooo funny and they were talking about serious situations but its just as if you can´t take them seriously because of their face expressions and tones.

CHILDHOOD!!: When I was younger I remember playing with my sister and my cousins to act. We used to play that they were the students and I was the "funny" teacher. I used to put exaggerated make-up and do grotesque faces that would make them laugh until they were blue! It was very funny and pleasant and It´s simillar to the effect we are trying to give to the audience

SCHOOL PLAYS: The whole process of creating a play is so similar but yet so different to the process we experienced in school plays. The main difference is that we are a cast of 6 actors that are in charged of production and part of the script writing. It´s our play, we create it  and we produce it. It adds more pressure on you as the results of it will go directly to you. However, this also motivate us to do it excellent as we expend awesome results from this OAP as we are trying to change the rhythm of traditional newton´s OAPs

Reflection

This week, while reflecting on what we have done, I reflect on my actual learning on the subject theatrically and how that connects to my practical work. Basically, the thing is that know I reflect upon my characters as I see them in a different way. I am starting to notice that now I am more analytical with myself when building a character as I can FEEL when I have a character and when I don´t, which makes think of the possibility of having being the character vs. trying to be a character. I am starting to notice how my movements don´t flow with my characters energy, they seem to forced and tight.

ALSO, I start reflecting on until what extend do outer states affect inner states, I always have this feeling, that i am not 100% my character until I perform it with a costume, make-up and everything. I don´t know why but it affects me and my acting, as if I feel that in that moment, I am not me any more, I am the character. Perhaps it´s because you are not dressed as yourself and when you look at the audience you know THIS IS IT. So, I was wondering....

Until what extend do design elements help acting? why do i have this feeling? is it unprofessional to have it? how do you know when you ARE the character? are there ways to adapt you body to a theatre practice? am I wrong when I say I can´t? maybe i´m not trying enough? how do intentions and relations affect the rhythm of a play? if there was a very small change in the play will it be completely different? why?