Session Four

Week 5 – Tuesday 27th September

Key Terms

• Circles of Attention
• Emotion Memory
• Subtext

Bus Stop exercise

Combining imagination, Given Circumstances and What if,

A narration is given of scene in which you are standing at a bus stop, early in the morning on the way to a job interview.

You are chewing gum – what flavour is it?

You have a bag on your shoulder – how heavy is it?

You see a newspaper by your feet

You see a car on the other side of the road

You see a bus coming in the distance

What was your smallest circle of attention?  What was your largest?  What was in between?

Circles of attention or concentration provides the actor a means of maintaining and regaining focus as necessary and also to help provide the area to give attention when on stage.

“Solitude in public; using different circles of attention on stage to focus the attention on the stage: re-focus up on an object if attention is lost and create circles emanating around that object”

Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares

Neutral Text exercise – the W questions, subtext

Session Three

Week four - Tuesday 20th September

Key Terms

•                Super Objective

•                Objective

•                Units

Discussion what a Super Objective is: something the whole play is moving towards. What is the Super Objective of Romeo and Juliet?

Super-Objective, Objective exercise

1. Pick a point move towards it
2. Pick a person ‘A’ maintain awareness of them
3. Pick a second person ‘B’ maintain awareness of them, and A and picking a point.
4. Form an equilateral triangle with A, B and yourself.
5. Person A is your enemy – stay away from them.
6. Person B is your shield – keep them between yourself and A
7. Come to a group stop
8. Group stop, group start

What did each of the stages of the exercise help you understand about objectives?

In every scene a character has an objective – an aim to be achieved.   In working towards their objectives characters will invariably cross other characters who have their own objectives, using different strategies to achieve those objectives. 

Units

Means of dividing a scene into small sections in which a character or characters are interacting on one subject or thought. As the subject or thought changes so does the unit.

These can be as short as a line or word or as long a half a page or more. Each unit then has its own objective – as the units and objectives are linked it begins to create a through-line.

Session Two

Week Three - Tuesday 13th September


Recap of terms explored and discussed in the previous session


KEY TERMS OF THE SESSION

•                RELAXATION

•                IMAGINATION

•                MAGIC 'IF'

•                GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES

•                TEMPO-RHYTHM

Warm up - Frozen body, Relaxation exercise


Exploring and discussing the difference between tesnison and relaxation by tensing the whole body as if frozen. 

 “Muscular tautness interferes with inner emotional experience.  Muscles must be relaxed in order not to impede your actions”  Stanislavski

Imagination exercise 

The group individually use their imagination to visualise an 'object' they dislike, a creature, vegetable, insect. They are asked to do this with as much detail as possible: colour, texture, weight, size etc.

Without stating what it is individuals describe drawing on the visualisation they have created.

Other students guess what it is by the details of the description.  

“Establish truly and precisely details that are typical and the audience will have a sense of the whole, because of their special ability to imagine and complete in imagination what you have suggested.”

Stanislavski in Benedetti, 1989: 12

Magic If exercise

Students respond to a series of "What if" questions responding as truthfully as possible - how they believe they would respond. What if...: you found a £10 note, you saw your ex, you forgot your keys, you were running late, it started raining etc.

Students discussed the various responses different individuals made - how truthful/believable they were. 

“’ “if” acts as a lever to lift us out of the world of actuality into the realm of imagination”  Stanislavski

Given Circumstances exercise

Given Circumstances give the imagination, the 'magic if' a framework within which to work. Students explored this by observing others taking part in a scene set in a doctors waiting room. What are the given circumstances that exist in this scene? The scene is discussed in detail - body language, character choices, what might be happening in the scene for each character etc.

Tempo-rhythm was also discussed in relation to the scene as body language, gestures, movements give away the characters emotions, feelings. The tempo is the speed of the movement/action/activity the rhythm is the intensity of the movement.

 

Session One

Week Two - Tuesday 6th September

Warm up – Archetypes

What is an Archetype?

Archetypes: Hero, Damsel in Distress, Villain, Henchman (sidekick), Prince (not necessarily same as a hero).

Melodrama

What is melodrama? Create a criteria for melodrama

•                Loud voice

•                Exaggerated movement/gestures

•                Emotions are demonstrated physically

•                Facing the audience

•                Heightened emotional subject matter

In small groups create a short scene of melodrama, which incorporates features of the above.

Share and discuss some of these scenes.

Why might melodrama be unsatisfying to an audience?

What would be the opposite of melodrama as a style, what features would this have?

Melodrama often featured a ‘star’ actor who played the best part and who would receive a round of applause when stepping on stage.

Stanislavski found this style of performance unsatisfying and the nature of the ‘star-system’ and so his ideas (and those who shared these views) started to emerge.

Naturalism VS Realism

What might the term naturalism mean? What does it mean?

Create a ‘naturalistic’ scene – containing as much 'naturalistic' detail as possible.

Re stage the same scene as a piece of ‘realism’ – i.e. it shows what needs to be shown.

This was a movement in theatre and literature – Emile Zola’s Therese Raquin

5 minute version of the Cherry Orchard

What were the key events that different groups picked out?