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.