Category Archives: Acting

Character Developmet and Evaluation – Leni and The Chorus

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” Drama is primarily about action, not emotion. And the characters you play do not exist outside the pages of the script they spring from. Therefore, an allegiance to character rather than the story contained in the script is the misguided loyalty. It is first and foremost your obligation to help tell the playwright’s story rather than your character’s. That means you have to understand the mechanics of the script provided by the playwrigfht and, from that, make your own storytelling contribution before you engage in any practiacal scene work.” ( Miller 1995, p.1).

When our Director made the pulnitmate decision for us to perform Berkoff’s adaption of Kafkas’s ‘The Trial’, it was clear from the beginning this was going to be both challenging and like nothing else i had ever performed in before. Right from the first read through I  was immediately drawn to the complexity of the play, and how distinctly different each and every character was and the work that was going to be needed to reach the standards Berkoff intended his characters to reach.

     One of the most challenging , yet enjoyable parts of the process was the formation of the Chorus, who are a fundamental part of the play.  They link each scene together and show the audience the distinct contrast between the normality of Joseph K and their absurdness. Right from our first rehearsal our Directer Lucy got us to sit in our beginning positions and one by one we created our grotesque persona’s. “The grotesques are close to caricature. They have the same relationship to everyday life that can be seen in humorous drawings. They never deal with feelings or with psychology, but only with social functions.” (Leoq 2002, p 125).  Through exercises such as facial and physical warm ups, we were able to gain confidence and maturity in creating these grotesque persona’s which carried the story through  song , dance and sound scapes, and by narrating us through the story of Joseph K’s struggle. Physically the production was also very demanding as the pace needed to be fast moving and precise , so to be eating healthy , exercising regularly and leading a healthy lifestyle was something i chose to incorporate also to try and give as much physicality and energy as required.

With the creation of my character Leni, this came from an original idea from Lucy pictured this character to be, which was then development and practiced over time. When i originally read about this character i could not get my head around what her motifs and character was really about as one moment she seemed calm and collected, and the next crazy and wild! After some discussion with Lucy and bringing this character to life however, it soon began to make sense. I thoroughly enjoyed bringing this character to life, and as each rehearsal happened, I began to feel more and more comfortable with this part and began to have fun with it. Her wide eyed, childish behavior was even more developed when we began to do runs in costume as i then could exaggerate this character further by the use of my long skirt and a defined walk.  The relationship of her character with Joseph K was also interesting to develop overtime as it was for the other characters also. Each character Joseph K met with was a different scenario. with him becoming more and more distressed as the play goes on.

A useful game we played at the beginning of our rehearsal was to stand up individually and create a freeze frame of one of the characters within the play. This was both useful and interesting as we were able to see how clear and obvious the characters we all created were and if they could be exaggerated any further.

As an Actress i have thoroughly enjoyed partaking in this production and have never felt like a company has worked so hard both physically mentally and emotionally.

Word Count -623

Works Cited

Lecoq J-(2002)  The Moving Body- Teaching Creative Theatre -Methuen Publishing Limited

Miller B-(1995) The Scene Study Book = Roadmap to Sucess – Methuen Publishing Limited

Joseph K – The dog of the law.

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This is a reflection of my experience playing Joseph K. My idea of this man has changed drastically since February (see previous post). Joseph K is the Everyman, he is a business man whose life is stuck in a monotonous rut. The course of the play is about his journey to defend his name. However, post-show, it feels like there is more. There is a depth to Joseph K that I could have never touched on at the start of the process.  Now, The Trial is more about the degradation of Joseph K and his sanity; as opposed to him finding out his crime.

Now, at the close of the show, I see him as an empty shell. A man used to inhabit his body but that man has become so beaten and destroyed by the journey he has taken that he is defeated. I felt the final speech by K in the play summed up the transition that occurs; from man, to dog of the law.

‘There must be some arguments in my favour that have been overlooked. Wait! Where is my judge? Whom I have never seen. Where is the highest court, which I have never entered? Will someone help me? I hold out my hands. Like…a…dog.’

(Berkoff 1988, p. 69)

By the end of the play, K has become this dog of the law. Berkoff implements the transition in those final lines; K starts arguing against his accusers until succumbing to the system. He deteriorates to the point of helplessness. For me I had little pity for K at the start of this process, but over the course of the three months, I began to grow this sense of sympathy for him.  This pity changed the delivery of those last few lines for me. It was no longer a man crying for help. This man needed help or he would reach his destruction.

The loneliness K feels at the close of the play was accentuated by the lack of chorus. For the first time they left the space and left K pleading to the audience. The lines above aren’t the lines I actually spoke, for me what I was saying was what I felt Joseph K would be saying, only on writing this post have I realised that I was incorrect. The holding out of K’s hands was to the audience and only them, for they were the only ones remaining to witness this end. The end of what is implied to be this man’s life.

Work Cited.

Berkoff, S. (1988) The Trial, Metamorphosis, In The Penal Colony, London: Gurnsey Press co. Ltd.

Character Development: Guard One

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Throughout the process of making The Trial, all of the characters have grown immensely. Perhaps two of the characters who have grown the most are the Guards. Guard One (played by me) and Guard Two (played by Emma) were two of the very first characters that were looked at in the rehearsal process. The Guards enter at the start of the play and are the first characters that Joseph K meets. They come into his room, inform him of his arrest and begin to search through his things. We began by playing the guards as London police officer type characters with cockney accents. Lucy explained that she saw the guards as the kind of characters who believe they are important but in reality don’t really know what they are doing. So we tried to take this into account when performing the scene. Since the guard scene is the first one in the play it was important that the pace was set for the rest of the piece. So we kept the speed quite quick, saying our lines so that they would roll into each others. This also helped increase Joseph K’s confusion at the situation he’d found himself in.

The Guard’s scene ends as the Inspector (played by Larissa) arrives, originally Lucy wanted to keep us on the stage through most of the Inspectors scene which would show that we are all operating under the same authority. At first we improvised silent discussion whilst listening to Joseph K and the Inspector. This silent mockery of Joseph K helped us increase the sense that the guards were a sort of comedy double act.  As rehearsals went on Lucy decided to cut this and have us exit when the Inspector enters. She explained that we distracted from the Inspectors scene, which explained some important things to K and the audience. The interaction that we had standing at the back in the Inspectors scene needed to be included within our scene, so that we appeared to function as a unit, which increases the idea of the guards being a comedy double act.

This actually made the scene a lot more difficult as we had less time in which to establish our characters, especially as the scene was meant to be very speedy. But making the scene more challenging seemed to help us to make it better, as we had less time we had to exaggerate everything more, so the guards characteristics became heightened and we became more cocky. We spent a whole session working on the physicality of our characters and developing a different walk for each character. My walk involved me leaning from side to side when I moved as well as moving my feet out away from my body. I defiantly took some influence from Monty Python’s ‘Ministry of Silly Walks’ sketch. This walk helped my character develop a kind of arrogance which was reflected in the way that I spoke to Joseph K. In this session we also looked at facial expressions, I decided that by raising my lower lip and one eye-brow I could adopt a kind of accusing face.

Thanks for reading, Alex

 

Character Development: The Laundress and The Chorus

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“Definition of good acting: acting that is believable while telling the best possible story that serves the script” (Miller, 2010, p. 1).

Using the Theatre of the Grotesque and Commedia Dell’arte as major influences for our characterisations, a clear portrayal of storyline can easily be lost underneath the absurdity and exaggeration of these genres. To overcome this, a clear set of character objectives must be employed to give reason to the abnormal physicalisation and vocalisation of these non-naturalistic characters.

The Chorus

The chorus, displaying non-naturalistic tendency, are difficult to create realistic objectives for. As Thomas comments these “stage characters are essentially “action-figures”, that is, artificial objects designed to carry out certain actions, not real human beings. In realistic and classic plays characters perform actions based on plausible human behaviour, but in non-realistic plays they perform actions based primarily on an idea” (2009, p. 191). These actions are in aid of creating the world in which Joseph K resides, for instance, the creation of a telephone and a bed by means of prop, physicality and voice. These actions must be clear in the mind of all members of the chorus to avoid confusion in the absurdity of our chosen genres. However as Thomas also comments; “plausible human behaviour is not neglected or ignored, of course; otherwise the play would be arbitrary and incomprehensible” (2009, p. 191). Huld’s assistants, for example, hold the grotesque facial expressions and exaggerated physicality, but keep human characteristics. As this character, my objective was to follow and record Huld’s movements whilst simultaneously creating a visual spectacle through an invisible network of choreography. The purpose of the chorus is to primarily create the people and objects in the world surrounding Joseph K. Underlying this is the aim to produce a clever and innovative manifestation of theatre reflecting STAMP Theatre’s mission statement. These chorus characters may not be fully developed, however bring together elements of the Theatre of the Grotesque and Commedia dell’arte to provide entertainment;

“Characters in non-realistic plays are each unique in the way they embody the main idea. They may explain themselves or not, and even if they attempt to do so the conclusion may be elusive and ambiguous. Moreover, the characters are not “fully developed” as in realistic and classic plays. Character and idea are a single entity, a mutual embodiment of the play’s special world” (Thomas, 2009, p. 193).

The Laundress

When undertaking the process from the written word to the stage, Chubbuck asserts that it can be useful to create an inner monologue; “an “actual dialogue” (2004, p. 172) creating “a linear and comprehensive inner story” (2004, p.172). With Berkoff’s work, however, especially with the character of the Laundress, the inner dialogue is presented with the written word itself. With the non-naturalistic characters, unlike naturalistic human tendencies, the Laundress purposefully asserts her objectives and states her intentions. This provides a very simple process in discovering the character’s wants and needs. Within ‘The Trial’, characters other than Joseph K, are not supplied with detailed given circumstances, due to their non-naturalistic and absurd personalities. However, our characters must still have objectives to follow. I created a super-objective for The Laundress, providing reason for her actions on the stage; “this is an overarching ‘want’ which drives the character’s overall behaviour at this point in his [/her] life” (Elsam, 2006, p. 149).

The super-objective for my scene was as follows;

“I want to use Joseph K to free me from my current circumstances within the Law Courts by any means possible.”

This allowed me to produce a performance that primarily focused on storytelling for the Laundress’ scene, aiding in the chaos and absurdity that Joseph K finds himself enveloped in.

In addition, my vocalisation and physicalisation needed to reflect the chosen genres of our theatre company; Theatre of the Absurd, Grotesque and Commedia dell’arte to a certain extent. My director wanted my character to be rough and earthy, and we believed a cockney accent portrayed this well. As we developed my physicalisation, using large hip movements and a slumped, rugged posture, I found that my vocalisation and emotion changed and developed simultaneously. This reinforced Bruder’s idea that “every physical action will give rise to an emotional condition” (Bruder et al, 1986, p. 72). I was happy to develop my character in this way, using physicalisation to tell the story of ‘The Trial’ whilst reflecting our chosen genres. Elsam reiterates; “If you build a performance from predetermined emotions, your acting will become generalised, predictable, and unresponsive to the other actors” (Elsam, 2006, p. 120). This was an effective way of creating something unpredictable and innovative to reflect our company manifesto and hopefully a successful piece of theatre.

 

Works Cited

Bruder, Melissa et al (1986) A Practical Handbook for the Actor, New York: Random House.

Chubbuck, Ivana (2004) The Power of the Actor, London; Penguin Group.

Elsam, Paul (2006) Acting Characters, London: A&C Black.

Miller, Bruce (2010) The Scene Study Book, Milwaukee: Limelight Editions.

Thomas, James (2009) Script Analysis, Oxford: Elsevier.

 

 

Character development – Joseph K

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With the show only six weeks away I want to make sure that I am doing enough to mould Joseph K into a believable and likeable character. As Miller suggests, ‘characters are most effectively created by playing their actions rather than their emotions’ (2010, p. 2); to prevent the script from going stale, I wanted to sit down once again with the play and re-action my lines. The process was more effective this time as I had been able to work with the characters in the scenes and so could develop a fresh and honest approach to some of the lines.’By approaching your work in this manner, the script can help you do clearer, more exciting, and more believable work’ (ibid.). Back to my post about creating an emotional response from the audience, it is imperative that they believe the story of Joseph K.

It is easy to slap an emotion on to the surface of the lines, but I have to breathe every word and take in every intention in order to have a fully formed intention and character development. This will help to achieve the character’s goals, as well as those of the actor and director. By working through my lines in this manner I begin to further develop the understanding and meaning of the lines and the play as a whole. It allows me to further understand Joseph K’s journey and hopefully it will give the audience the needed insight into the life of Joseph K.

Work Cited

Miller, B. (2010) The Scene Study Book: Roadmap To Success, Milwaukee: Limelight Editions.