Limited.

Description
This week we continued with our rehearsals, but now I´m starting to feel them quite repetitive. I really don´t feel like moving forward with my scene, it´s not getting better, no progress. I think this is because we are limited in terms of movement, i mean, the scene will eventually have movement but until we have the required design elements to see how the scene will really look when movement is implemented. Also, there are some problems on learning the script and have reactions while other characters are speaking, it seems as if they are saying things just for the sake of it and because of a purpose or a response. 

Analysis
Last week, I talked about how we started to work on pronunciations and intentions. Now, we have  that clear but now we need to focus on how we can give more dynamism to the scene, it´s still too boring. As I said before, maybe the lack of dynamism is because we are limited with the actions and although we have our intentions clearer now there is still a lack of involvement in the scene. I still don´t know what it is, but there is no energy, people are not learning their lines and I personally feel that sometimes It is not worth to put your 100% effort if nobody else does, I mean I am really trying to fully commit with my scene, but I hate the fact that other people don´t. Maybe its because of the different ages or different commitments to the theatre course, but I realise that if I am committed, I should spread my commitment rather than hide it. I am getting frustrated because of this lack of commitment and energy on the scene, and this causes me to have even less intentions of progressing, and I know this is totally incorrect and kind of not what i need to do but i am just being honest. So, this week I will use this frustration to get even more focus in my character; now, i want to focus in the expressionist way of becoming a character, and in order to do that, i need to concentrate in nothing else than my interior. Also, this week, I will be more committed to help Katty to direct the younger actors in the scene as they are the main people who tend to don´t know their lines or have low energy and I will turn mi stress into something positive and use it as a fuel to motivate myself and the other members of the scenes to commit fully to it. A good idea could be to start teaching them about the process of expressionist ways of becoming the character, because otherwise they will just try to imitate someone and not to bring out their inner thoughts and feelings, as maybe we are limiting them by not teaching them those things.

So, on Tuesday and Thursday, we continue to rehears the scene exploring different actions and ways of having more dynamism taking into account Roberto´s feedback from last Saturday. As I mentioned before, we had little progress, and I thought one of the main problems was that we needed the actual man in the scene in order to practice the ways he will say his lines and how will we respond to him. This thought changed on Saturday, as the actual man came to act to the scene, but other two actors from my scene were´t there, so the scene could´t have the dynamism we wanted to achieve when the man come to act, but we rather ended up doing exactly the same, limited scene. On Saturday, we also focus more on the lines between the father and the man and we decided that for this part we will just put light on them and the mother and the aunt. So, me and Ana Lucia worked a lot in terms of responses as we needed to have a reaction to the discussion between the father and the man. We explore our contrasts and decided that I will have fear to the father and the beginning and react by wanting to defend my son but knowing I can´t because of my personal fear to the father. Otherwise, Ana Lucia will be more like if the man deserves what he is getting and she is actually happy about it. But, there is a moment in which there is a turn in the speech and the man becomes the bad guy and the father acts kind of "innocent" and playing the victim and I get less scared and Ana Lucia starts getting mad as things are not going the way she wants. I think that our contrasts are working very effectively as she is all large and I am all twisted and distorted and it creates the effect of contrasts we want to achieve during the reality scenes. Moreover, I think that in order to create a dynamic active scene we have to rely on commitment and self energy as if we can´t have the movement we will actually have in the future, we need to have something that makes the scene more vivid, and we need to start with our attitudes and start to approach the expressionist ways of finding ourselves and start to become the character and the feelings rather than trying to imagine how our character will be and feel.


Connections
El Ultimo Ensayo: In this play we see how the real actors actually rehearse in real life as the performance is based on they real rehearsals. I can relate this week´s work to it as both show a rehearsal in which there is no progress and people don´t know what to do, when to do it and how! Also, they both create this atmosphere of frustration as everything is not organised and going the way I expected to. Also, there is a part of this play when energy suddenly rises and I think that is the effect we need to achieve in the parts off the scene when all the family is talking in order to have a clear contrast with the part of the discussion between the father and the son. 

Last Years Performances: Last year in Miss Alicia´s class, I have similar situations to this, in which half of the group performing a scene was committed to scene and half wasn´t. I remember we learnt how to work in team work and find a way of inspiring and motivate people in order to have a good performance. This helps me to understand that I need to use past experiences and learnings in order to learn and experience new things, after all, the things I learnt the past years do reflect on the process of making a scene now and I want to apply them in the rehearsals in order to achieve a progress in the scene and make the play work more efficiently.

German Expressionism: It will be more interesting to try to rehearse the way expressionists did rather than continue the conventional way of rehearsing, maybe that will help us more as actors and will help more in terms of directing an expressionist play too. So, the scene could actually progress if we don´t only try to follow the expressionist way of becoming a character but also the way of building a scene. 


Reflections
I realise that we should not let the limitations of the design elements to tear our work back, our scene has very interesting things, the aim is not to lose them. This week, I was so focused on be stressed about the scene not moving forward, that i didm´t get in touch with my character and I did not achieve the involvement I wanted, but now, I know that I can become the character and therefore become the feeling, it´s just a matter of opening yourself but closing it at the same time. You need to find the things you want to hide and keep for yourself and try to express them in the more exaggerated and openly way in order to get free of them. After all, german expressionist acting is used as a therapy, it allows you to find those things you are too scared to say and have the chance of saying them in pure euphemisms, without making a clear statement of your feelings or thoughts but having rather a more hidden way of saying it. As I said in my last entry, It allows you to express yourself from your inner soul, with people don´t even noticing you are as they are too lost in conventional "imitating" theatre. People themselves are limited, but the awesomest thing about this theatre is its not. So, by saying that our scene is limited, we are just limiting themselves in our way of seeing expressionist theatre, as it supposed to be exactly the opposite. The following week I will be just focused on me and my personal response to the process, as it is not something you need to understand or know, its something you need to learn and practice. But, even if i was limiting myself, now I know that its all about exploring and searching alternatives of achieving things in every single term of the theatre, so this week I will enter the rehearsals with a 101% commitment to it because its my responsibility for that scene to work and be awesome and it will be. 

When I say that we are limited am i limiting myself?  or am I just using it as an excuse? Will I be able to put on practice everything I have learnt? will that be even necessarily? is knowing and understanding even needed in this kind of practice? or I just need to experience and learn? am i already experiencing? am i already learning? is there an order to do them? If there is, why is it like that? will it create a different response from the audience? will it create a different response from my character? will it create a different response from myself?

To Miss Alicia, thanks for all the learning :)


xoxo

TheatreGirl

Why? When? How?

Description

This week we continue rehearsing for the school play. Right now, the directors are focusing on the first three scenes of the play, and as my scene is number 3 I needed to work hard this week. We did not have the script until saturday and now I am on the process of learning my lines in order to work better on the actual scene in the next rehearsal. This week I focus more on exploring ways of saying things and my intentions and objectives in the scene rather than still being stressed over finding a new character.

Analysis

Now that I have my characteristics clearer, I started to explore more within them. On Tuesday and Thursday we basically improvised the scene just to give us an idea of what is going to happen in that scene. The main intention the family has in the scene is to overwhelm the man in order to create the effect of him being a fraud and cause him to exploit. On Tuesday I was more clear in terms of knowing what I wanted and what I needed in order to make the scene work:

1. I had to open myself into the fact that character´s change is needed in order to make the play work.
2. I had to be more open to explore new ways of doing and saying things in order to break the conventional theatre conventions
3. I had to have a clear view of the purposes, intentions and objectives my character is going to have due to the line she is saying.

SO, I started to reflect on this objectives and I started by having clear that I am exploring how to be a nice and "good" creepy mom that can be angry but controls it in order to look nice and innocent. When I get to think how I will feel if I were in that position I conclude that I will also act nice, because I don´t like yelling at people. So then I started thinking that this is how I relate to my inner mother, I look at myself as an overprotective one as I have a little sister which I can relate to me as my daughter. When I found my mother essence I start working on my intentions in this scene; and I decided that as the aunt is kind of strict and evil I will be more liberal and nice but I will still act responsible and hard when its needed in order to give the play a more attractive contrast so that both characters are different visually and personally. The second day we rehearse the scene we got it better; we started to improvise new dialogues and we got to act the whole scene we created. This day was progressive as we have a clearer view of what we needed to do as last rehearsal we discuss our purposes, intentions and objectives as characters. We also started exploring new ways of saying and pronouncing our lines as the thing is to break traditional conventions in order to create a new man, so we have to explore how people will talk if this conventions did not exist. We agree that people will talk pronouncing every single letter of the word they are saying and we decide to explore the tonality and musicality we put on the words depending in our intentions. Finally, on Saturday we were given our script which helped a lot as now we know what actually is going to happen in our scene and we get the chance of trying different proposals on how we will say every line and with which actions. It was kind of difficult as we did not know the script by memory and we were focusing more on learning the words than actually build the scene. We then realised we needed to start working on our actions and how they will emphasise and create a bigger effect due to what we are saying. Personally, I used this session to continue to explore alternatives within my actions and ways of pronunciation and I started to use my legs and feet to give more dynamism to the scene because otherwise it will be to boring. We also see that we have to avoid large dramatic pauses because they also make the scene looks boring, but I think It was because we don´t knew the script, so I really believe next rehearsal we will advance and grow much more than we did on Saturday.

Connections

"Confesiones" : This demonstration of work showed a similar process to the one i am using and also connects to german expressionism. They allow you to use personal experiences and inner feelings to become a character, which is what I am aiming to achieve at the end of this process, not to play or imitate a character but to become it, which is the thing Ana did on her demonstration. 

"Proyección Privada": I liked the way the woman in this play treated her husband in a strict way but at the same time she acted as if she didn´t care about him. Also, she uses this condescending vocabulary that emphasises the incompetence of her husband. This is the kind of effect I want to achieve when I talk to my son after he tells me he has been fired from work as I want to create this nice creepy mother that also can react aggressive when needed.

"A matter of dissection" : Katty's character as a catholic woman who is in love with the dead guy. Her character was portrayed as pure and good and it will be very interesting to use this as an stimuli for my nice side when the man just arrives home. Also, her intentions that were to defend that man can be compare to my intentions that are also to protect my son and do everything for his own benefit. 

Reflections

This whole process of finding myself helped me to connect with my inner mother, but I am not getting the whole "becoming the feeling and the character" business. I can relate and feel the way my characters feel but i do not understand how do I get to become the feeling. While I was exploring the different ways of playing with intonations and pronunciation, I realise that the reason for trying how we will do certain things if we didn't have conventions is to break traditional views of the world and don´t limit ourselves to the things society has chosen. This process is allowing me to be free and break every "rule" I dream to break and express my pure thoughts and feelings from the soul. Also, this is making me doubt if my "pure" thoughts and feelings come from my soul or from society conventions? After all, society highly influence they way we think and I don´t know how we notice when an idea comes from yourself and when it comes from influences. Moreover, in order to be slightly strict in a creepy way I need to explore my deepest fears and dreams because this is a work that require to bring all your inner soul out as if it was your character´s soul, so i that way you can shout and "vomit" everything you feel and think without people knowing its actually your soul talking, they are too into the conventions of traditional theatre and they think you are "imitating" someone else. I really wish to see a positive response from the audience in the play, I wish they understand that we are the ones who are speaking and not the characters, but sometimes people are just to self-limited. And after searching and thinking and asking I still don´t know; how do I become a feeling?  When am I going to be able to become a feeling? And if I do, am I able to become the character? When I am saying that the character don´t speak but the person behind it does am I becoming the character? Or am I just realising how do I become the character? Am I able to become a feeling before I let it out? or can I become it even when it is hidden?  Why do i need to become something? will the audience even notice? will i notice?

xoxo

TheatreGirl.

New roads

Description

This week we continued with our practical work during the play rehearsals. This was a complicated week for me, specially because I had to kind of change my character. As we continue to present our german expressionism master classes, we end this week with more knowledge of this theatre and its conventions and we were able to use them in practical work. So, I'm not crazy anymore, now I´m a creepy nice mother, but my intentions and feelings are still there.

Analysis

Again, I will analyse the whole week´s practical process of creating this new character. On tuesday, I present my work with my crazy character and Roberto told me that now I needed to be a creepy nice mother. At first I was scared and a little mad because I had to start my work all over again, but now I am enjoying the creation of this new character.

I like the way the chameleon uses only his "fingers" to support all his
 body,  similar to what I want to achieve

I decided that I wanted to stay with  my stimuli of Gollum of the hobbit because I am still using the same physicality as before but I changed of animal to a chameleon because I think it will help me to find this balance and control over my body in order to achieve this body characterisation which involves putting all my weight into my fingers. As we can se, both of these stimulus have a balance of weight and their movements are very (control over body) which will help me to achieve the staccato movements i need.

I like Gollum´s physicality as it has deformities
and also this weight balance I want to explore

Moreover, when I first was asked to change my character´s voice speed and intonation I was freaking out. I get stressed because I wasn't able to improvise what Roberto was saying to me, I was kind of lost. I also needed to explore new ways of saying things trying different intonations in each word and having a clearer view of my character. Now I am getting to like this character as I think it gives me a large amount of possibilities to explore and also it is going to be more challenging as I need to portray anger, humiliation and dishonour (as my son is fired) but at the same time I have to be nice and good but in a creepy way. I want to try an option of having the son being condescended by the mother as I will be the "good" side of the family and the uncle will be the "bad" one.




I also want to explore the articulations of my hand´s fingers. I like the character Edgar from Frankenweenie as he have long thin fingers that have the kind of effect with articulation I want to achieve. I already talked with makeup production of the play to see the possibility of me having fake long and thin fingers to achieve a better effect on my deformities, and also to explore more in my physical level.

I like the way Edgar has this creepy thin and long fingers
that allow him to have this deform and bizarre
part of his body that I can use to have a better visual impact

Finally, I want to use this face expression as
I think it will have a powerful visual effect
in the stage and it combines the nice with the creepy so its perfect for my character. Maybe I could add a creepy smile or explore more alternatives towards the different emotions my character is going through.

In the end I worked on my intentions when saying each phrase and I started exploring more with my voice by finding different ways of saying a word by changing the intonation.


Connections

As my two last entries, firstly I want to connect my work to myself. I think that this new character is taking me to a more challenging road. As Roberto said the other day, "Its easy to play a crazy person" and I personally want a character that is challenging to myself, a character that needs an internal response and different ways of achieving the character´s intentions. I have my personality clear but I still want to explore the different intentions and reactions I could have over the plot´s dilemma and be able to judge which proposal will work more effectively on the play. In terms of acting, this character is very different to what I usually do, but in terms of identity, this character is very similar to me. I consider myself a very nice and good person, mostly innocent. If my son was fired from his job, the last thing I would do is shout at him, I would help him and give him my support and understanding but let him know that what happened was not excellent. So, by getting into this position it is easier to create this character. But, the tricky thing is, how am I supposed to play a character that needs to be good but needs to make feel her son miserable? Its just contradictory. But I know I can handle it and find a way to explore both feelings within my character.

Also, I want to connect this week´s work with german expressionism theatre. As I said in my last entry, german expressionism is all about finding your deepest fears and dreams and using them as the fuel to create a character. I think that one of my deepest fears and dreams is being a mom. Of course I want to be a mom some day, but I am also freaked by the idea of being a mother. This could be useful to explore my character as I could use my thoughts of this idea in order to create a mother. Moreover, in terms of acting, german expressionism also contains physiological exaggerations and staccato movements so I am exploring ways of moving my fingers, which are my physiological exaggeration, with staccato movements and learning how to express my inner feelings through movements and gestures.

Reflections

I am going to answer some of my last entry questions within my reflections for this one. First of all this week I learn that despite feeling stressed over having to change some of my characterisations, I have to learn to be more open towards explorations. I need to be able to find different possibilities and proposals in order to find out which characteristic will work more effectively on the play. Also, when I started to work with Ana Lucia (the uncle), I learned that german expressionism works with intensity. You have to have contrast in the scenes and bring out the most intense part in you, so you need to explore one of your limits and if it does not get into an intense point you explore your other one

"The search of harmony and forms is not as important as trying to achieve the highest expression intensity, both from the aesthetic point of view and according to idea and human critics." 

This quote refers to idea of having your highest expression of intensity and it reinforces my idea of exploring both limits of yourself until you achieve the intensity needed.

I also think that most of the questions I did to myself are starting to be answered. Now I am starting to relate to theatre as a therapy as every time I connect with my character I found new things about myself and I reflect on them as I try to find the similarities and differences between me and the character. In this case, everything comes from me but I also need to put myself in situations and reflect on how would i react. Furthermore I think that we always connect to our characters, even if you don't notice. Also, I have this feeling of getting in touch with your character, you get attached to it, that is why sometimes we get mad or stressed when we change of character, because in some way you are happy and attached to your current character, but as I said before, Is a challenge to explore a new character from your own emotions and experiences. And now i really believe that theatre is always a way of being yourself as you get to spend time with you ;)

BUT....are we always able to recognise that we are being ourselves? when you compare yourself with your character, you are learning from yourself? Are we able to find the differences and similarities between us and our character even though we have some parts in ourselves that even we don´t recognise? Intensity is achievable by feelings or thoughts? Do we always have a limit that is intense? Can someone be neutral within intensity? will that even be intensity? how do i know i´m getting into my deepest fears and dreams? how can i know when its deep enough? am i overreacting when i am stressed about the change of characteristics? Will I be able to achieve my desired effect? are this new roads going to work? If they do, will I notice? or do I depend on what people say to me? am i doing things right because i believe it or because people believe it?

xoxo

TheatreGirl.

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Acting or just being me?

Description

This week we continue working in the creation of our characters for the school play. It was very intense, as german expressionism acting requires to focus on your inner feelings rather than focusing in how you could act those feelings. In the end of the week I ended up with a character that reflects my crazy side as I want to explore a hidden side of me that I don´t usually show and I think it will be reflected interesting at the play. I don´t know why, but I ended up creating kind of a "crazy mother" and I really like where I am going with this character.

Analysis

I don´t really understand how am i supposed to analyse my progress on the rehearsals, so I will just analyse my character and the way I built it.

First of all, they set us an exercise to create an energy. We had to put that energy a colour, a place in our body, an animal and a texture. I came up with colour pink, then with a furry texture, and with the thought of a pink bear. Then, I started to translate this energy from my lower stomach to my hands and the pink bear ended up being a kind of reptile mixed with a dinosaur. I wanted to work with my articulations, specially in all my fingers and in my face, so I started walking in my tiptoes and exploring ways of moving my hand fingers while walking and also exploring different gestures and face expressions always having my eyes exaggeratedly open. Moreover, I started to try different samples of pitches and volume in order to create a voice for my character. I decided I wanted to use dobby from harry potter and gollum from the lord of the rings as my stimulis for my character because I think both of them use in a very successful way their articulations and have a similar way of walking to my character. Also, I think both characters characteristics will work in the play as they are kind of creepy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3-V_82VwQQ  What I want to use from dobby's character is its use of voice and part of his phisicallity. I like his face expressions and his pitch; I have a simillar voice but it will definitely help me to find more options for it and for my gestures. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFsUWX-_TGk Gollum will help me as I want to take from him the way he carries all his weight with his fingers, he don´t uses his palms or his whole feet to walk, just the fingers. Also, he has this expansion of his eyes that are very useful for this kind of theatre, and it makes Gollum to be very mysterious. I also want to use some of his mental inabilities as we can see that sometimes he starts talking to himself as he have two different souls inside him and I think it will be very interesting if a character of the play uses some of this mental disorders.

Connections 

I will start by connecting my character to myself. This are some of the characteristics I want to use for my character:

• mental illness
• madness
• instable
• don´t understand completely the situation she is in
• conflictive relationship with her son as she is crazy
• have changing moods and thoughts
• afraid of society as she thinks they will put her on a mental illness hospital

BUT, I want to explore even more and connect more to my inner feelings in order to achieve a better representation of a crazy mom, so, what i need to think now is, in which moments of my life I become crazy?

1. When my parents don´t understand me
2. When I get stressed over too much things to do and no time
3. When I want to do something and  don´t get to do it

So, I decided I want to use one of this and I know that number 2 and 3 are things that I can control, they depend on my will on doing them and organising myself, otherwise, number 1 doesn't depends on me, i just get crazy and that is it. I really get full of frustration and stress when my parents don´t agree with me, i just don´t understand why they always remain so closed into the different perspectives they could have, they just close themselves into new ways of thinking and acting. And the worst part is that usually my arguments are the right ones, but they can´t admit it and I have to accept that i am wrong or i end up getting punished. In conclusion, i decided to use this aspect to help me to find my real madness and achieve a dynamic character in the play and also I decided that I want to show how young generations feel that parents are crazy because they don´t have the same reasoning, which connects to my other connection............

GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM! In this type of theatre conflicts between generations is a theme extremely touched, is one of the main ones actually, and i believe that every character should explore the convections and themes of german expressionism in order to understand what you need to do. Furthermore, this idea of showing how young generations feel towards old generations reinforces the theme of clashes between generations. Also, my physicality has exaggerated movements and distorted gestures and articulations that are grotesque, but not funny, they really make you feel a creepy-I-don´t-want-to-look sensation. One of the main conventions in acting of german expressionism is the way in which actors use this theatre practice as a therapy. Actors need to find their deepest secrets and thoughts and explore their inner feelings in order to create their character because in german expressionism you are not an actor playing someone else, you are yourself showing how would you react if you were in that situation by using an experience in which you have felt in that way.

Reflections

I got to connect with myself and I started to reflect about myself. When I decided that in order to  explore my madness I will rely on how I feel when my parents don´t understand me I realised that they are not the only problem. I mean, if I know that I am right and they are wrong, what is the need of proving it? why is it that I need to have constant conflicts with them? to prove them what? and furthermore why do I need to prove them a thing at all? I think that sometimes my inner devil comes and get over me and I don´t know how to control it, because now I see that I am forgetting who is this all about. This is about me. My feelings, My thoughts, My opinions and My reactions. If I really want to prove my madness, I have to understand where does my real madness come from... and I actually do think it comes from my stress and from the fact that sometimes I feel that no one understands me, like literally no one, and then I start to feel alone and confused and I end up being depressed and sad because I start questioning myself if I would be ever understood...but i don´t know, sometimes when I think about how I feel I start thinking it is kind of superficial to feel that way, but it´s how I feel. It´s not like I could control it or something. And also, I constantly get into this battle with myself when I start to question my relationship with my parents. How do we know that we are behaving the way we should? Are there different ways of behaving as a son? and, if there are how do we know which one is the correct one? or does it depends on our parents?

so many questions, but not so many answers.....

I really expect that on my next blog entry I will be able to answers all the questions I have and I have many more:

Are we always supposed to connect in such a deep way with our characters? If we are, are we acting or just being ourselves? Is theatre a therapy always? can it help you to solve your problems? when theatre allows you to find something new about yourself, does it mean it helps you to accept it? what if theatre makes you find your negative side? will it be still useful to you? are we able to decide what aspects go to the negative side and which ones to the positive one? Is theatre a way to know yourself in every chance? when we act, we reflect? when we reflect, we learn? when we learn, are we growing? when i am acting, am i being me? 

xoxo

TheatreGirl.