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