Concentration

Description:

This week we rehearsed for the one act play, I understood how important concentration in rehearsals is.

Analysis:

Rehearsals require a lot of concentration. Many times actors have problems in life and is difficult to make them away. A character doesn’t have the same feelings than an actor. Although in theatre we SEE the character, and we don’t need their thoughts, if the actor things of something in the moment when is performing the character then all this transfers also in the physicality to the character. The character needs of full concentration to be complete. It’s not just how the character walks, the face expression and the voice. The character lines don’t come out of the bloom, when the character says something is because they have been thinking about, and when the character is in silence they still have a personality and have reactions, which might be not said but thought. These thoughts are the stimuli for the reaction showed in the physicality of the character. How it looks at another character, how his breathing change, how he moves…

This week I, as an actress, felt that concentration was more difficult to achieve that in other opportunities. This is why this week I understood the importance of this. As I couldn’t concentrate I found difficult to find my character when I didn’t said a line, and being in stage saying a line is much easier than being on it without saying something.

Connections:

Many times in school plays as actors aren’t professional and haven’t been trained by a long time, they haven’t developed concentration as professional actors. This I think is the reason that many kids, for example, in Shadow Queendom asked for lines, because they think that if they don’t talk the character they have isn’t important or they cannot develop a character. But the character rather on the lines it says (because that would be literature), relays on the intentions it have and how the actor conveys it to the character.

Reflection:

The intentions of a character comes from the thoughts of the character, and an actor needs to be fully concentrated to think as the character and no longer as the actor, so the intentions the character have don’t show the feelings from the actor, but rather the ones from the character. Now I wonder, until what extent can the actor think as the character, because the director will give you advices and you have to accept them not as the character but as the actor, and it may be the case that you are “in character” and you receive the direction. 

Music for a play....

Description:

My production task for the one act play is music and sound effects. This week I had to do a ppp for this.

Analysis:

The sound and music in a play needs to be coherent with it. You cannot put a track because it sounds good, or choose a certain sound effect because it’s cool. The music and sound has to have coherence with the concept of the play. At the beginning I really didn’t understand how music could follow a concept, but then I understand that different sounds will have different effects, different meanings. The rhythm should also transmit different sensations, and the instruments used also. So then I thought for example in the connections each sound had with the play, and if it didn’t then I looked for something more connected with the play. So then the concept for the play is “death at the center, life at the top”. This concept was difficult to apply it to music so I developed a different concept for the music, “suspense and rhythm” so then the sounds I looked for had to have some suspense, must be creepy… and as the instruments for the autopsy are metallic I developed this to found metallic sounds for the autopsy instruments.

The music for the ritual part is the most difficult for me. I imagine the ritual with “tribal” music, with drums for example, and I found some of this music, this linked to the concept as it has a lot of rhythm and it’s kind of mystical and this creates suspense in a way. The problem I have is that I don’t know if it is justifiable to have this kind of music because the music I had at the beginning is more “classic”, and as the mood in the play, although is black comedy, tends to be “sad” as there is a dead person and we are situated in a morgue I don’t know if its justifiable to use “tribal” music in a part of the play or if it breaks up with the concept and it would sound messy as different genders of music are being used.

Connections:

In the school plays the music used is always the same gender for each play, so for example in shadow queendom it was like classical but for down to earth it was like jazz, the instruments used where also the same.

In hebras for example the music used is played by gitar and although it changes of rhythm it is the same gender.

Reflection:

Although I could found some classical music from the same gender than the other music I propused I think that the tribal music for the ritual gives a different effect so then; can the mix of music genders be justified in a play?

One act play on the make

Description:

This week we start working on the one act play, we had some difficulties and had to change the game and start all again.

Analysis:

A proposal for a game is difficult to find, it must be something interesting and new… The game for the one act play seem to be very interesting, but I had my doubts about it in the beginning because of the limitations it gave, like face expression or not having characters face to face. I thought that as we had the game since the beginning the script could be done in a way that it all fit so the game could work. As we start rehearsing we realized that the game didn’t work, instead of connecting with the audience it create a barrier.

Ideas don’t have limitations but to become something true there are always limits and restrictions. The game as theory sound very good, it gave the possibility of a double character and it sound visually very interesting. The truth wasn’t like that, depending on the position of the audience the two sides of the actor’s face could be seen, but still this wasn’t the major problem. As some actors couldn’t see face to face each other, although they don’t directly talk to each other as there wasn’t a connection between the characters there wasn’t a connection between the audience either. I understood that if in the scene one character shows uninterested on what the other character says and ignore it, so will the audience.

The new game is simpler and this made the play lighter, we could relate each other more directly and this helps to keep a connection with the audience. The next thing we had to change was the script, when I wrote up my scene I stick up with the short lines to create dynamism, but while acting and reading the whole script I found the short lines and a story is not enough in a script. A script needs to have actions, and the big problem is that in the whole script the same actions were repeated. The characters repeated the same lines and didn’t add anything more into the scene. This repeating and repeating made the play boring. At the beginning I thought we had to complicate more the story to have something to tell but while actually improvising with the outline clear I understood that the script doesn’t only show the story, but the personality of each character. Then for the outline and plot of a play can be really simply and still each line of the script adds something as it shows something about the characters, builds up their personality.

Decisions on the game for a play gives the opportunity to explore different possibilities with space, time, characters, the forth wall, etc. but this choices also give limitations.

Doing the ritual scene was great fun. I love how theatrical this is. I think this scene is a great opportunity where I can apply the “segmentation exercises” I learned in the Grotowsky workshops. I think it also gives a great opportunity for the use of the space as different movements like “choreographies” can be made.

Connections:

The limitations the games remind me to the costs of creativity in shadow queendom. Because of the use of puppets and masks we had to face different limitations too, but the limitations we had in shadow queendom as the lack of face expression could be compensated with body expression in case of wearing a mask or with the movements of the body of the puppets and the intentions in the voice.

Reflection:

Short lines make the script work, but what about the long monologues, or the Greek theatre scripts, what makes them work? I think that for Greek theatre the long lines worked because of the audience, the audience as the words where very important, but what about the monologues? May it be because it’s just in a certain moment? And anyways what makes a script with long lines work? Or because of the audience at these times they will not work, as in “Mades Medus”?