love and information- unit 8

Love and information

My initial thought on the current play given, love and information were various. From reading the whole play I gathered it to be very exciting to take part in different plays in one. I did some research on the British playwright, Caryl Churchill who made the 7 section play for intent for the order to be non linear. First readings of the play were really intense as my whole group were trying to already gain ideas for what they could imagine scenes to be like. As a group we picked scenes that we all liked personally and acted it them out to feel more comfortable.

My rehearsal process was very smooth and understanding. When working in a big group you have to be very open to constructive criticism, since i was in 5 different scenes, i had to be five different characters without change in costume only in my physicality and vocal expression. I know that helped my performance to be up to standard. Churchill made this a kaleidoscopic play, so we made it more into a futuristic type of theme as she gave us the choice of what order and what type of story we would like each scene to represent. She always had a spoke through her plays about social and political issues of present day.


While doing research on the plays she wrote, i realised she had a certain way of saying things in English but sometimes some words would be missing but you still knew what she meant by it. i believe she is trying to say that everything doesn't have to make sense to actually make sense. As long as you know what type of story you are trying to pervade, people will understand regardless, she gave us freedom in the way we performed her play.

Character analysis

Wife - This scene, we decided it was going to be 2 people who were married lesbians and one of them suffers from dementia at a young age, throughout the scene im trying to make her remember that i am her wife. I tell her memories we have had by using my voice to show how desperate i am for her to remember me that it hurts. Towards the ending she is tired of my pleading and curses me. The end leaves everyone shocked because my characters suddenly laughs evilly, leaving the audience thinking weather anything i said was true or not.

My characters motive (Stacy) from the beginning was to get through to her wife and make her believe what she was saying was true but it was left for the audience to believe if i was her true wife or just a phoney. by touching my "wife" im trying to build a spark of emotion for her to understand me deeper. My character was a lost human being and wanted to change her life by making wronging into right knowing fully well i was obsessed with the fact of being left alone and that scared me. For example when touching my wife, i was gentle but held my grip for long, my eye contact was stuck to hers to show i had been waiting for this for years.

The child who didn't know fear - This was the first scene i picked in the play as i immediately related this to myself as i love taking risking and trying not to be afraid of anything that comes my way. When Reading through it my initial response was to make it mine as it was a monologue. I told my peers since there was more than one person in the scene, i got 3 other people to mime the other children while i would talk in different ways and pitches to show we were children and to think out the box. this idea was put into consideration but in the end we decided to follow the way Churchill made it to build a sense of eeriness.

 I picked my soft lighting and darkness around the summer spot light as my character was a teacher telling school children a scary story and that's how my character felt at the moment. Going deeper into the scene i became different children who knew what fear was. I felt like the teacher was the child who didn't fear except. My characters motive was to tell a story to create fear in the children hearts. For example when talking about how it feels like a shiver, i shivered to show that even now its effecting me and to make sure the children felt it as well. Creating a more believable story to the audience.

God & God's voice - This scene was one of my favourites as i got to be a realistic hologram from the future who hears the voice of god, originally god and god's voice were two separate plays which we decided to make into one as they are both very similar and we knew we could make it work, which we successfully did. My teacher who was my partner in this scene, questions me as he is very doubtful in the beginning until he asks me question back and fourth until i start to get annoyed as how can someone question the voice of god. My character gets overly obsessed with the fact i believe i can hear god and no one will believe me because i am a hologram.

The lighting is two different coloured spotlights, mine being blue to create a futuristic atmosphere while my other peer had a normal dark yellow lighting. This also conveys that we our opposites to each other in the mind and personality wise as well. My characters objective was to make people hear what i have heard to save myself from believing that maybe i am truly mad. My patience is very short towards the end of the scene, for example when he start to ask me stupid questions, i rub my head and give shorted reply as i see it's not getting to his head.

The wedding video - this was a very short scene so i don't think i should talk about it much. We are a big family watching my one of my relatives wedding video. Lighting used here was a whitish bright colour to show how happy hearten and blinded by joy everyone was that day.

Macbeth performance.

Final rehearsals 

our final rehearsals where one of the biggest highlights of the whole rehearsal process, we pushed and pushed and succeeded! During rehearsals we spoke about our costumes,focus,staying in role etc. When speaking about staying in role, we spoke about how " the show must go on" and how breaking out of character ruins the flow and momentum of the performance. I was tested on this in the murderer scene. While fighting, my wig fell to the ground and this had never happened to me before. At this point so many thoughts were going through my head, i knew that if i came out of character now and lost the flow, it would not only effect me but my group members as well. So being an actor i acted like nothing happened and used the anger that i had messed up into the anger that Duncan's son had fled.

we gave roles to each person to make the process easier and faster. This made everything run smoothly even though we were all very nervous for our first dress rehearsal which was also our first run through, not stopping from top to bottom. i believed rehearsals went very well and really boosted our fading confidence, that we then regained. Building my character was fun as i could make my 3 different characters contrasting to each other.

 Technical rehearsals 

These rehearsals were the hardest as you can't control the tech from upstairs, sometimes lighting does not come on Que, honestly all sorts happen but i think as a group we made it work well and we were definitely in sync with the tech group. On a personal level i know i worked very well when it came to building my character and using the lighting and sound to my favour. When in the apparition scene i had to use a voice over which i mimed too and it looked like i was actually possessed. i honestly enjoyed working with the tech teams,we got to tell them all our ideas which they just made into reality, which really brought the performance together.

Eyes of the audience 

When sitting in the audience and watching other groups perform there were highlighted moments to me. Everyone actually looked like they were having fun while acting and owning the stage. Lighting also made key moments even better as it reflected the mood or atmosphere of the scene. you could also tell when someone was thinking of their line which made some parts of the play to waver, but eventually they would become one with their character. Some people also looked down quite a lot or moved around, showing that they nervous or thinking. Being part of the audience also means that everyone else could see it. One thing that really stood out is how all groups broke the 4th wall and got the audience involved, making them anxious for whats to come next. Most times when i would act or have a big line i would look mostly at the audience so they never got bored and felt like they were as well in the performance.

Skills i have learnt

Being an actor means there are endless skills to use in performances and rehearsals. During Macbeth i gained more skills because i was also in a big group. i also realised that i gain quite a lot of skills from other class members in and out my group. for example, the first group that performed because i was also in there group filling in for a sick group member, i learnt that i should think out the box and not always stick to the same old things. This is a skill because if you can bring ideas to the table it will be very hard for you to work with other people. I have also learnt to be very resilient, as because even when my group felt low and no one had faith we pushed through by trying to keep our heads up and not loosing our characters and using them in our day to day life to work on them. or staying at college till late hours to make sure a scene is how it should be.

Contributions i made

The Macbeth performance was one where us student had to help ourselves, and stop relying on teachers to give us answers and tips. One thing i did was bring in my own costume for the murder and doctor. While being the murderer i wore a long coat that reached my ankles and had my hair tied up to show we were clearly up to no good. Then being being the Doctor, i wore a white school shirt and white jeans and no shoes, to show that i was a homely doctor and clearly professional . When being the witch i messed up my hair and put on black makeup and stained it with water to look like i had been crying and to show that i was clearly not alright. This helped a lot to convey my characters point the audience as they would know i was a witch. I also filled in for the first group as one team member was sick and i knew there lines, this was hard as i didn't feel prepared as they had taught me a fight scene in 5 mins and we never went over it again, When it came down to show time, it all came naturally and i believed i had tried my best to fill in. I also helped with each groups makeup and provided my own makeup to help toward each play. I helped people in other groups who had the same lines as me but didn't quite know all there lines, we went through it over until they felt they were ready to proceed. I believe i tried my best to make performances better for everyone as lots of things happened in the process of rehearsing and losing props or costume.

One thing i learnt overall is that confidence changes a performance completely and i believed each person had that even when we were all nervous everyone was confident that nothing bad would happened and the show would go on and that;s one thing i will take forward into the next production as well as my articulation which i improved on when told.

Macbeth group. Everything we have been doing for the whole month.

As a group we have been working hard towards learning our lines and learning how to use our physicality in all scenes. I was put in the Pink company with about 8 other people, working in a big group is slightly different than working in groups of 3. Bigger groups means more dedication as there is way more lines and work, we were given our are main roles to play but also other roles that were not given a person to play was meant to be sorted out by us students. I think that was the hardest part  as not everyone wanted more lines added to what they were already learning and the lack of time to learn them. I was then also given Murderer 2 as another character to make my own even if it was not that big of a role.

I believe this has been the hardest play to make work as my group lacked motivation to work to there best, but in acting we most always work as the show most go on. So even if Macbeth has been hard and proved difficult, as a group we have worked well with each other to know that our Macbeth will be a success. Working with different people in the group really gives you a range of insight and honestly it has helped so much, from different way to learn lines to using projection to its fullest when acting has been topics i and my groups often talk about. Given certain roles to people in our group has been very helpful because it gives us different view on who works well with who. Learning lines with characters who i have more scenes with like the other witches is better for me than whole group working as being a witch means i'm never really alone, so i do believe i had to have the witches on lock down before i could move on and have my doctor role on lock down as well. It's proved to be an efficient way to work and because of the lack of time we have it's been a fast way to getting everything done on time.

Breaking down scenes have helped so much as it's easier for me to work and process everything. I also think that because most of Macbeth is all rhythms and riddles it's been a mighty advantage because everything makes sense when saying it. My collaboration with other students in my group has been smooth as most people in my group I have worked with before meaning that we mostly already know how we work with each other. One thing that we did with our supply teacher that really helped was improvisation along the same words of our lines. it reminded me that acting is also fun and not always just work. What we did was say our lines but not 100% correctly so instead we just improvised them and went along, this showed me that Macbeth is a complex play and does not have to be boring just because it was made by Shakespeare. Really it's more fun and easy to learn and we can make the play our own while bringing it to life. We moved around like witches and spoke as if we were drunk, our teacher told us to act as if we were actually witches and imagine what kind of witch we wanted to be. We decided to act like homeless witches with ragged clothes and messy hair and honestly just look like we had lost ourselves in life problems with no solution.

Broken heart theatre. 

In our last lesson with the theatre it was completely different that what we would normally do, few lessons back what we were doing was writing duos over an argument that would occur between the two. i didn't have a partner so i wrote a duo for myself and worked on it every Thursday, i think we did this to improve our writing skills and to put ourselves in the shoes of a writer or even director. When doing this i had lots of ideas and fun because making your own work means you know everything that's bound to happen so you can make it as wild or lonely as you want. i believe the hardest part was picking what the story line would be based on and what would make your play distinctively different than any other play. Questions like "what's the story twist" or "why did this happen for the character to act this way" were going to be answered. That's the fun in writing that since it's your own work you can make it anything you want, so really my imagination was running wild. I still haven't finished as i have been focusing mainly on Macbeth but the duos are not allowed to be long so i know i'll be finished soon.

Back to our last lesson we were told to sit down and then when called on with another person we had to answer a question back with another question but in different tones and with each question we were meant to get angrier and louder each time, using our intonation and diction to make what we were saying loud with clarity. The use of repetition helped a lot to show that one word can be used and said in so many ranges and clearly being said differently means that your intention are not the same. This kind of work we do I believe improves my acting so i know range and always keep the audience awake and not bored on the one monotone we use for the whole play. It also shows me things and habits to avoid like looking at the floor when talking as when looking at your peers it helps to make the scene bound back and forth keeping the scenes energy till finished.

Macbeth part 2 

This term has been one of the Hardest terms since i started this college and honestly it has proven to me that even when things don't go to plan we still have to work our best to make sure that the show most go on. Right now my group is working well and following targets given to us,building my character has been the most work because researching Macbeth and my Characters has really helped to build them, knowing how they act and why they do what they do. Each characters is there in the play for a reason regardless of how big the role is or there part to play in the Macbeth. I have built my Character by using all my skills that o have learnt from these past months by using my voice,body and movement. All these skills proves successful when playing my given characters. I love making the play my own while playing around with scenes and making each line different than another. I think that working in a big group means less time on certain scenes with people you work with mostly, this means we have to always work outside lesson time to make them work out.

Coming to an end, the work i and my group have put in hopefully becomes a success as we only have 2 weeks left. Costume is also a great factor in making a performance which my group has talked about, we will be wearing most likely our own clothes but our own clothes made for our character or what we know they would have worn. So far rehearsal has been very helpful as every new method we bring it works for each of our benefit and i hope it continues to help us to become better and deepened our skills and knowledge. What i have learnt this term is that even when under the weather my class seems to always overcome our fears and unmotivated selves to become the greater that what we would originally planned.





                             

Macbeth summary/Character analysis                        Sunday 13th January 2019

Through out the Shakespearean times Macbeth has been known to be one of the most complex and darkest plays Shakespeare has ever written. That's why when given the play, I knew to make the best out of the characters given and really bring the play to life. Macbeth is a very up beat play and there is never really a dull moment when acting it. Macbeth was a Scottish general serving the King of Scotland, he was told one day a prophecy from a trio of witches that he will become king. Then consumed by the ambition of misleading of his wife, he decides to take matters into his own hand by killing everyone is his path to the throne, that he so badly desires. By killing the king, his best friend in battle and many others, him and his sickly wife are both over taken by guilt and paranoia. Sadly leading to his wife's death which makes him takes life changing decisions. In the end he killed from the hands of his enemy in battle. 

As you can see Macbeth is such and amazing and interesting play, so playing around with my group on the play will hopefully be a success in the long run. I believe that Macbeth will hopefully be one of my strongest performances because I understand how much a piece of given information can lead you do to bad things to get what one wants. Pride filled his head and was instantly the death of him. You can also tell that women in the play is the main reason into why Macbeth ended up dead or even thinking bad thoughts to begin with. The witches played with his mind and because one prophecy came true he believed the second telling also had to be true. Now telling his wife out of advise, she mislead him with cruel word, calling him "not a man" if he doesn't do everything possible to get the throne. In the end the real lesson was whatever you sow you must reap.

Character summary

Witch 2 : I was given witch 2 as one of my characters i would talk about her alone but you cannot really do that when the witches come and go as a trio. So i'll be talking about the witches in general. Throughout the play the witches are refer-erred to as the weird sisters as they do not even look like woman as they have beards and all sorts. compared to words from other characters in the play the witches words seem almost mocking or even comical. They are clearly the most dangerous in the play as they are the only super natural element in the play while the others are merely a threat. We are all left wondering if the witches are truly giving true fate or toying with human life. Becoming one of the witches means I need to know my background on them and know my words as they are always speaking in riddles, meaning the audience perhaps might not understand. But if i use my physicality well to show what I mean it will be much easier. Playing a witch means I cannot really show what i mean because everything I say is what you will believe or not believe. The witches are such mysteries to anyone but themselves and that's why it's going to be very interesting playing one of them.

Servant :   The Servant is a very small role in Macbeth but still holds a role. The servant brought news to Lady Macbeth that Macbeth and Duncan were on there way. But as many servants he or she is pale with fear most times but even more so when he is too announce the invasion and the size of the English army. Playing the servant will be a very big contrast to my persona as I am quite out going and talkative while the servant would normally only talk on demand and has no ego to boast about or anyone to talk to. I know becoming the servant will hopefully challenge me to be quick in movement and always attentive when called upon.

Doctor : The Doctor has a lot of significance when it comes to explaining Lady Macbeth's guilt and how much it's really eating her up, to the point that she even kills herself. The Doctor himself sees the extent of Lady M's sleep walking and talking about how she knows of the murder of Duncan and Ban quo which she really setup. the only thing that The Doctor can really do is watch Lady M till he started seeing her bad habits and guilt that weighed her down. He can also can be seen as a guardian against the evil that has been plotted in her mind. He is there to take care of her and make sure no hard comes her way. This is quite ironic as all she has done is bring harm and death to others. Becoming the Doctor will be fun as i get to play such different characters and being someone who can be seen as one of the only positive characters in the play could bring  a new light to such  a dark piece. Only that i can't save Lady M as darkness and death has become her friends even if she didn't get blood on her hands, there is surely blood on her soul.

Shakespeare  initial responses         4th of December 2018


I believe Shakespeare is an eye opener to all types of reality and fiction, all his work always comes from raw built up emotions from his life experiences and others. Yes, sometimes Shakespeare is not all fun and games but when you go behind closed doors and really dig deep into research as to why a play was made and the intentions behind it. When acting Shakespeare plays I find it fun as with that I  can make the play my own and it really highlights specific traits when acting. Shakespeare is somewhat exaggerated in order to emphasis the piece and it's morals.