Medea 19/09/18

For this lesson me and my group worked on our sequence of movements, making sure we are all in sequence.






feedback
still images needed more life
it was good when we all joined together at the end and came alive.
had a clear ending
good use of space
synchronised


I think when we have more time my group should just polish over the ending. This is because we have only just changed it a few moments before we performed. Also my group and I should go away and have a think about the characters intentions in terms of vocally and physically. This would help us take on the roles more convincingly


What have I learnt today?


Today Sharon mentioned the words minor and major and I had no idea what this meant in terms of devising a piece of work.
Also I learnt the impact of keeping the same amount of energy throughout a scene and not letting it drop just because the focus is off of you. This is a helpful skill because if you are dropping your energy then it is harder to come back into it instantly when the audiences focus is back on you. Also there is bound to be someone watching you.

Greek Theatre research

Greek Theatre 550BC-220BC

Greek theatre was the main art form in Greece at this time and it thrived within the city of Athens. Plays were performed at two different festivals in Athens, the City Dionysia and the Lenaia. These were religious festivities celebrated by the people in honour of the god Dionysis. 

Aeschylus 525BC-456BC

Sophocles 496BC-406BC

Euripides 484BC-407BC

Aristophanes 460BC-380BC

Phileman 368BC-263BC

Menander 342BC-291BC

Themes of Greek plays

Tragedy

Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles were the three main writers of tragedies. The word tragedy comes from the two words, tragos meaning goat and oide meaning song which is connected to the sacrifice of a goat to the god of Dionysus. Most tragedies follow the same plot line of a protagonist who is painted in a good light but commits a crime or does something bad but doesn't fully realise the consequences of their actions until it is to late. The protagonist has to conveyed in such a way so that when they commit their wrong doing the audience should feel pity and empathy towards them. A lot of Tragedies were based upon Greek mythology and

masks to represent gods

inspired by Greek mythology

sun=death

all before the sun goes down

catharsis, purged, emotionally drained, purified

tragic hero

Comedy

Old comedy- In this period of comedy (425BC-400BC) there was one clear master of the art and that was Aristophanes. We have 11 surviving comedy plays of his and so it is clear to see his style of writing. The basic plots of his plays are not so good but then again drama is better left to tragedies, people watched a comedy to laugh and he sure achieved that. He took a lot of his characters traits from political and intellectual figures and he mocked and attacked them. For example he wrote a play on the Peloponnesian Wars which the Athenian government was fighting in at them time. Aristophanes liked to use simple humour like sexual references to help make his plays light and enjoyable to watch.

Middle comedy- This period is after the death of Aristophanes and before the comedy of Menander covering 400BC-323BC, the Archanians, however no complete plays have survived. It is basically just a simpler form of old comedy keeping some factors but scraping the importance of many features Aristophanes used like the Chorus and the attacks on political/intellectual figures. The Archanians instead used exaggerated stock characters and so drew Comedy from this.

New comedy- This period of Comedy covers the time of 320BC-260BC and there was one clear leader, Menander. We know that other playwrights such as Philemon wrote the same kind of plays but no one as good as Menander. New comedy and middle comedy are very similar by both disregarding the chorus, attacks on high powered people and not using specific known people. However the way they differ is that new comedy focused around normal people living their everyday lives and playwrights drew their comedy from this. A way to imagine what this may look like is to think about the situation sit-coms we see on tv today.

Satyr 

A satyr is a mythical half goat, half human creature. 

Satyrs were performed short plays between the acts of tragedies and took the fun out of the characters. The actors would wear large phalluses for comedic effect. Not many of these plays have survived.

Antigone research

Antigone

characters

Antigone

Ismene, her sister

Kreon ruler of thebes

Soldier

Haimon Kreon's son

Teiresias prophet

Servant (messenger)

Eurydice Kreon's consort

Chorus of old men

Synopsis

This Tragedy follows the story of Antigone just after the death of her two brothers Polynikes and Eteokles, who killed each other fighting over the crown in the battle of Thebes. After they died in battle their uncle Creon took over as leader and decided to honour Eteokles death, but forbid anyone to bury the body of Polynikes. He said that if anyone tried to do so they will be stoned to death. This angered Antigone and she asked her only surviving sibling Ismene to help her bury their brother, but she was to afraid of the punishment that King Creon would oppose upon her if she did. The chorus tries to warn Creon that he should rethink he decision but he does not listen. A guard enters and tell Creon that someone has buried Polynikes but does not know who it was. This angers him and tells the guard that he better find out who did it or else die. The guard quickly returns with Antigone saying that he caught her trying to rebury Polynikes after wind blew the dirt off his body. She admits to her crime and says that Creon is the one in the wrong, that she would rather die than not bury her brother. Ismene enters and Creon questions her part in the crime which she falsely admits to, wanting to die alongside her sister. Antigone however will not let her share blame and gets angry with her sister. "don't lay claim to what you never touched". Creon decides he is going to kill both of them and locks them up. The kings son Haemon, Antigone's fiancé, at first agrees with his dads decision but still argues for Antigone's release saying the public supports her release. The chorus agrees with Haemon and tells Creon to listen to his son. Instead he calls his son a traitor for defending Antigone and tells him his fiancé Antigone will be sealed in a cave and starved to death. A prophet called Teiresias tries to change his mind. Teiresias says his decision will cost him a son and this makes Creon rethink seeing as he has never been wrong before. Creon agrees to release Antigone and bury Polynikes but before he gets a chance a messenger comes and tell the chorus that Antigone has hanged herself and Haemon found her body and took his own life as well. This is heard by Queen Eurydice which triggers her to go on and kill herself as well, cursing Creon for taking her only son away from her. Creon is overwhelmed with guilt at the end that he cannot even walk and has to get his guards to help him off stage.

When we were given our scripts, we were put into the groups we are going to be performing in. 

Antigone - Me

Ismene - Daniella

Creon - Ben

After being put into our groups we did a read through of the script thinking about the subtext of the lines and therefore what emotion to connect with. We then started to put it on its feet and moving actively with our lines to get a feel for how the characters would move and behave. 

We watched one pair perform their scene and with feedback we made them play around with it in front of us. 

-adding heavy emotion

-underplaying everything like it was a normal conversation

-imagining they are in a public place and not wanting people to hear their conversation

-underplaying the scene but keeping all the emotions

Medea research

Medea - Euripides 431BC

Characters

Medea
Jason
Kreon ruler of Corinth
Aegeus ruler of Athens
Nurse
Tutor
Servant
Children of Medea and Jason
Chorus of Women

Synopsis

The story follows the life of a woman called Medea who extracts her revenge on her un-loyal husband Jason who has just left her to marry the daughter of King Creon. Medea spends a lot of her time moping around in a pit of despair. Her nurse hears the news that Creon is planning on banishing Medea and her two sons but she keeps this information to herself and lets Medea find out the hard way. This is by King Creon visiting her house and telling her that she had to leave immediately because he is threatened that she might harm him or his daughter. Medea begs and is granted one more day before she has to leave. Jason tells Medea that he is only marrying the princess to help out their family and this sparks and argument between the two and when he leaves Medea decides that she is going to get revenge on him for leaving her. She talks Jason into convincing the princess to let her two sons stay in the palace and decides she will send gifts to bribe her but they would be poisonous to the touch. However before she does this she has an inner conflict on whether to actually go ahead with the plan, knowing that although her enemies will die so will her two sons. She decides to go ahead anyways. She sends her two sons off with some gifts to the princess and she accepts them but when she touches them she feels to effects of the poison and dies, followed by the king because he touched her dead corpse. A messenger comes to Medea telling her the news of the deaths and she is happy but Jason on the other hand is devastated and scared running around looking for his sons. While searching he finds Medea and asks her were his children are and she shows him the two dead corpses of their sons and tells him this was her revenge.

In class we are studying a modern adaptation of the play Medea written by Italian playwright Frank Rame which has been translated into more understandable dialect It was written to be performed by a singular woman but we are creating a piece of work with multiple people as an ensemble.

In our first lessons in with Sharon we started off with some vocal and physical warm ups just making some hums and such as we breathed out adding length and pitch changes to help open up our airways and wake up our chords. we also do this just to become aware of our breathing. we then played a game where we would walk around the space and then watching and playing off each other we would all try and stop as an ensemble. we played this a few times until we managed to do it almost instantly. This exercise really helps you start to work together as a group and not just individuals but relying on each other. Another activity we did is we were put together in groups of between 4-5 and had to pick a movement each, and then put them altogether, copying them in sync with the whole group. This exercise teaches us focus and teamwork as we have to all work together to make sure we are all in time and working as an ensemble.

We got split up into groups and each given a section of the modern adaption of Medea and given time to bring it to life by adding movement to the lines. When we performed it to the class we were given feedback. My groups feedback was that we had a good use of space, with a clear ending and all synchronised well with each other. However we should add more life to the still images at the beginning of our section and think about what our characters intensions are vocally and physically.
When we next rehearse we are going to work on polishing up the ending and making our movement sequences/paths more clear seeing as we only changed it last minute to make better use of the space. In this session I learnt what minor and major is and how it can be used effectively. For example at the end of the session we added two joining scenes together and we stood in the background of their scene and took on the role of minors.

Vocal workshop

Vocal Workshop

The voice is the most important tool for an actor, It lets us say our lines and is the first element for expression we have, sadly silent films went out of fashion in the late 1920's.
In our vocal workshop we focused on our dictation and pacing.

The exercise below helps you with making sure that you are dictating your words properly by focusing on the way they sound. When doing this though you need to make sure that you are speaking from your stomach and not your chest. You can check this by keeping one hand on your stomach and make sure when you breathe in it rises and then when you breathe out that it comes back in. Also you need to avoid glottal shots when holding out the pronunciation.

Consonants

• Ca, Ga
• Le, Ne, De, Te
• Ma, Pa, Ba, Baa

Vowels 

• Oo, Oh, Ore

When working on your articulation you need to make sure you are asking yourself the following questions;

1. Are you speaking clearly?
2. Have you put on a voice (forcing it)?
3. Are you moving the voice?

We also worked on dictation and pacing with some poems in our workshop, performing a few lines of them in our natural voices in front of the class. We had to do them naturally so that no one would go into the mode of how poetry is widely considered to be read, with a clear, upper-class accent. Because we did them in our own voices and not overplayed it was a lot harder to be truthful within the moment and had to embody the words and the lines we were saying.

The overall feedback that we were given by our tutor was that a lot of us were flat and monotone, giving each line equal weight. We need to have more energy throughout the lines and not be so inhibited meaning rushing to finish our lines by not pacing ourselves which in turn creates glottal shots in our voices. 

skills, fears and habits

When you are creating, rehearsing and performing material there are certain things that you need to be aware of to help and aid you in developing as an actor and not hold you back from reaching your full potential. These are qualities that me and my class will be working on throughout the duration of our course. They can be split up into 3 different categories of skills, fears and habits.

Skills
Confidence- Within yourself and your work. If you cannot get up in front in your class and be confident within your acting then how do you expect to make it in the industry. This is one of an actors biggest early blocks when it comes reaching their full potential.
Awareness- You have to be aware of the changing factors within yourself and your performances and become conscious of these so that you can change them at your choice. Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1938) worked around the idea of Psycho-physical awareness which focuses on the conflict between your inner body mind and your outer body. He taught that if you take care of your characters actions and they are in line with your given circumstances then the emotions naturally take care of themselves.
Imagination/Creativity-
Collaboration- Within our course we are going to be working in different groups and different people all the time and we need to learn how to blend all of our ideas together. This links into openness.
Discipline- If everybody in the class is well behaved, focused and ready to learn then less rehearsal time is wasted meaning more work can be developed. If people in the group are not concentrating then it pulls the attention of everybody else.
Openness- When devising a piece of material you should be open to everyone's ideas and give them all a go to see what works not matter what your initial thoughts are. You cannot be narrow minded when it comes to creating and developing. Also you need to be open to other peoples pieces of work and the way that they have interpreted certain things that you may not of thought of before. You need to remember everybody has a different way of working.
Voice- As an actor your voice is your most important and valuable tool. You need to make sure that you are looking after it with vocal warm ups and not straining it unnecessarily. The voice helps us embody the role and the lines we are saying.
Observation/Listening- You need to be able to respectively watch and observe other peoples work and explain what is working and what needs improving. This skill can help you in improving your own work by reflecting other peoples work onto yours regarding your feedback.

Fears 
Rejection- It is always on the back of our minds that some of the ideas we have in our heads might not sound as good out loud or people might not want to go with them but how will we ever know if we never say anything?
Getting it wrong- When performing our work we may forget our lines or say something wrong. the more we think about this then the more chance we actually have of tripping up somewhere because we are not fully focused. There is nothing bad with getting something wrong now and then and with every mistake there is a lesson to be learnt.
Fear of failure- When we are worried that we might not be as good as everyone else or  all it does is holds us back.

Habits
Being shy- this links into the skill of being confident. If you are shy about your work and go into a shell when developing your pieces then you will not get your ideas across and will always end up performing material you had no input in. This will make you feel disconnected to your character and will be a hardship in the long run.
Forcing emotions- This links into the skill of awareness. The basis of acting is actions not emotion and therefore you should not have to fore your emotions because if you follow all the right techniques then it should just flow naturally. When you force emotion it just comes off unnatural and its not convincing.
Puppet acting- this is when actors rely on the director or others around them to tell them all of their characters traits and don't think by themselves to take the initiative to develop the role.
Cheap laughs- When we are doing things such as improvisation it is very easy to say certain lines that we know will get a laugh out of an audience such as insults. As actors we should try and steer clear of these jokes and come up with fresh and original contents.