Tag Archives: Acting

Performance Day Reflection

On reflection of the performance day, I would say we had a smooth running and organised day. The technical team (Larissa, Alex HS and I) along with the director were in the performance space for 9am ready to start. Luckily we had been in the theatre with some of the LPAC technicians the night before to hang the frames ready for performance day. This meant that we were already ahead in terms of our performance day schedule.

Here are some of the photos from throughout the night before and the day of the performance:

DSC05252 Centre stage

 

Here we are marking centre stage to get an idea of where the frames will hang ^

Preparing the bungee   Alex (the technician) and I are preparing the bungee chord and rope for the frames here.

Rigging the lights Discussing the lights Discussing the lights in relation the the frames (We rigged the above head spotlights at the same time as rigging the frames).

 

The Performance Day DSC05305 These are taken of the first walk through with the frames – taken on the night before the performance.

 

After rigging and focusing the lights, Larissa Oates, Alex Watson (who was cueing the show) and myself went up to the lighting box to start the cueing process. In total we had 92 LX cues in the script that needed to be programmed in chronological order, ready for a cue to cue, a full dress run through  and the actual performance.

After finishing programming the lights we broke for lunch ready to come back for a cue to cue. The cue to cue lighting did not go as well as planned as the blue wash didn’t programme on all the cues as intended. In saying this it was sorted out through liaison with the technical team ready for the full dress run through.

As a performer I felt the dress rehearsal went great, a few stumbles happened with lighting cues but apart from that all was well. The actual performance also went amazingly well, and we’ve had a great response from the audience both in person, and on our social media sites.

If I could do it all again to change anything, it would be the strength of some of the frames. One did snap mid performance, but I think I handled it well enough for the audience to notice but not know if it was on purpose or not. Little glitches to happen in performances that sometimes can’t be helped but overall I think we put on an entertaining show that matched what our manifesto said it would, and hopefully you’ll hear from STAMP Theatre again some time.

Thank you for reading,

Emma Huggins

 

Character Development: The Priest

The Priest is the very last character that Joseph K comes into contact with in the play. He is yet another bizarre character and I for one struggled with coming to terms with characterisations for him. The role of the priest was without doubt the hardest role for me; I found it much easier to be a part of the chorus as various roles than to become the priest. For me he was a character of the unknown, I didn’t know what I wanted from it and I wasn’t sure how to play it. Usually to create a grotesque character I would take influence from stereotypes and exaggerate it, like that of the guard and the ‘cheeky chappy’ police man. However when it came to the Priest I found it difficult to select a stereotype.

In our rendition of The Trial the Priest character had one long speech right at the end of the play. I found this speech very daunting as I didn’t want to end the play on a low note after such high energy levels. In contrast with my other character as Guard two,  the Priest had long winded speeches in contrast to short and snappy sentences, he was a man of the church who seemed to be calm and collected, unlike the hysterical Guard two, who was all over the place.

The clear distinction between characters is important when multi-rolling on stage. To create a different persona from the Priest to the Guard I gave him a hunched over walk, a calmer, older voice, and a different facial expression. With guidance from the Director I eventually found my feet in terms of characterisations. One of the main reasons I struggled with characterisation was due to the fact I found it extremely difficult to learn the big chunk of speech. In all my years of acting I have never had to learn a monologue and I tried various techniques to drill in the lines, and failed several times (though I did eventually get them).

In his writing Richard Jackson Harris comments on Helga and Tony Noice’s theory of learning lines. Harris tells us that the Noice’s discovered actors who make a connection of feeling and movement to a character are more likely to memorize their lines better than someone who does not make this connection. ‘Professional actors and students using these techniques had better verbatim memory for lines than those who tried to explicitly memorize the words’ (Harris, 2009, p. 54). This could be one of the reasons I struggled as the Priest did not get as much time spent on it as the guards did due to the fact it was at the end of the play in contrast to the guard at the beginning.

Works Cited: 

Harris, R. J. (2009). A cognitive psychology of mass communication (fifth ed.). New York: Routledge.

 

Thank you for reading,

 

Emma Huggins

Character Development: Guard Two

Upon our first read through of The Trial I knew I had never been involved in a play or performance that came across as bizarre as this one. The story and stage directions made little sense to me, leaving me feeling slightly nervous for the first rehearsal. We had discussed what practitioners we wanted to influence our work and it was decided that Brook would play a huge part in our influences, along with various styles of theatre including that of the Commedia dell’arte, and its larger than life characters.

From the offset, the idea of grotesque theatre has been applied to every scene within the play. Edward Braun states that ‘the grotesque mixes opposites, consciously creating harsh incongruity, playing entirely on its own originality’ (Braun, 1998, p. 68). That is true to our production in that the character of Joseph K is the complete opposite to the rest of the characters (such as the guards or Leni), and these characters are each entirely different to one and other, then as an audience you are bombarded with a clash of the chorus who are almost ridiculous. Each member of the chorus is similar, but still the opposite to K, creating this notion of the grotesque.

The chorus within the play carry huge responsibility in terms of keeping the grotesque manner throughout.  I have never been in a play where the invisible network between the ensemble members was so important. We were always working together to create a different environment for Joseph K and our audience, often exploiting synchronised movements or creating still, grotesque tablos and imagary for the audience. Jacques Lecoq, in his writing Theatre of Movement and Gesture speaks about a chorus, and states that ‘a chorus is a body, which moves organically like a living creature’ (Lecoq, 2006, p.109). In saying this he is referring to the invisible network created amongst the chorus members. This network allowed us to work together in synchronisation with one and other throughout the play.

Aside from the chorus, the first two ‘grotesque’ characters that are to interact with K are the Guards. From day one the Guards have been an ongoing project for Alex (Guard one) and I (Guard two), and the characterisation has developed and changed throughout the rehearsal process. The original direction we were heading for in terms of characterisation was the classical comedy double act with the ‘sharp-guy-and-idiot structure’ (Medhurst, 2007, p. 123). However after playing around with the characters and with great directional structure from Lucy, we came to the decision that both Guards needed to seem like they had some kind of authoritative status. Giving the guards a cockney accent and a “cheeky chappy” stance, the characters started to unfold.

Due to the fast paced structure of the Guard scene it was essential that we knew our own and each other’s lines inside out. Lucy (Director) gave us the instruction that it needed to seem like we were finishing off one and others sentences, so learning lines early on was imperative to the development of the guards.

Once we eventually had the right pace it became easier and easier to experiment more with the character of the Guards. Together Alex and I developed a walk for each guard, he swished, and I dipped; contrasting movements that worked well together.

Here is a video of the walk we first came up with together, without the contrasting movements.

We decided to alternate our walks as we weren’t always in sync, which wasn’t a bad thing at times, but often enough it was. With different walks it was much easier to focus on our own character development which then stemmed to the development of a double act.

 

Works Cited

Braun, E. (1998). Meyerhold A Revolution in Theatre. London: Methuen Drama.

Lecoq, J (2006). Theatre of Movement and Gesture. New York: Routledge.

Medhurst, A. (2007). A National Joke: Popular comedy and English cultural identities. New York: Routledge.

 

Thank you for reading,

 

Emma Huggins

Character development – Joseph K

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.

Working with the director.

With Joseph K being such a naturalistic character, it is easy for him to become lost in the foray of absurdity. It is important for me and for the play that the audience connect with Joseph K. He is the character whom they follow throughout the story; if there is no connection, the audience aren’t engaging with the piece. Me and Lucy sat down to discuss the sort of character we wanted our Joseph K to embody, and in what ways we wanted the audience to engage with him.

My main concern is trying to maintain a dramatic presence against such flamboyant characters that are found in the chorus, without slipping K into an unnatural demeanor. This starts mainly with the choices I make as an actor engaging with Joseph K. Bruce Miller states in The Scene Study Book (2010) that ‘actors must make choices for the characters they play, choices that get them closer to what their characters need’ (p. 146) my choices as Joseph K all lead to the conclusion of the play, where K’s emotional and physical capacity is exposed to the audience. Me and Lucy talked in depth about how we wanted our audience to react to K. We decided that the audience had to sympathise with K in order to come away from the play with any specific idea or feeling. If they fail to connect with K on any level then they merely fade away, just as the chorus do at the close of the show.

Director Lucy

Throughout the course of the play K has internal lines which, on reading, Berkoff seems to intend as K’s internals thoughts.  Me and Lucy thought it would be beneficial to explore these moments as asides; in the same way a Shakespearean or Restoration actor would engage with an audience to reveal his or her feelings, we decided that addressing the audience with K’s internal thoughts would generate an intimate response from an audience. They could share in K’s internal humors, ‘They look like tourists’ (Berkoff 1988, p. 14) and laugh with him, or share his fear. This intimacy is what forms the bond and stimulates the thoughts that generate throughout the piece; as the audience travel with K they will hopefully begin to contemplate their own trials and this only strengthens the bond k and the audience share. The main breakthrough for this came in act two of the play when K delivers a speech about preparing his case. The speech seems to be directed at a group of people who are assisting K in writing his defence. I thought that this moment should explore the intensity of K’s plight by sharing it with the audience, ‘we must banish from our minds any thought of my possible guilt. There is no such guilt.‘ (Berkoff 1988, p 49). The ‘we’ suggests that K and the audience are going to fight the law together. Lucy agreed with this choice suggesting me to find any other moments where I could strengthen the connection between audience and K.

 

Work Cited

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

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