LESSON ONE - 6|3|13 - 'Berkoff's Physical Movement Workshop'

After finishing 'The Pillowman' and very naturalistic piece that can use many of Stanislavsky's acting methods, we are now going to look at the contrasting practitioner 'Steven Berkoff' and use one of his scripts to create a short 15 minute performance.

For the first lesson after doing Pillowman, we were told that this was a contrast to naturalistic movements. Where Stanislavsky has realistic gestures and movements, we were going to focus on the extreme of robotic movements.

The first exercise we did was in pairs and we had to re-enact setting up and eating a meal in synchrony. Working with Ciara we decided to follow the process and make are arm movements follow the rigid pattern of raising the elbow first then lifting the hand to place cutlery and drinks. This creates a jerky effect and is also easier to mimic each other as we only had a short amount of time to do this. This is very different to a naturalistic way of setting out a table because the robotic effect allows an image for the audience to interpret and is more aesthetically interesting to watch as the most simplest task is performed in a more visually pleasing way.

The second activity was adding words with movement. We were explained that every movement must express the correct feeling and emotion. In Berkoff's work we are removing any sign of subtext and everything had to be defined. We were told to create a conflict scenario that lasted about 30 seconds to 1 minute. We had to say the thoughts or words whilst actions were being performed. We also had to keep the robotic movement. My partner was Jake, we started off with him punching me, all the movement that we did was actually done with about a metre between us, and there was no actually physical contact between either of us during any part. Whilst doing the punch shouted 'jaw' to show his thought was of his aim. I said 'shock' to highlight this was unexpected. I returned a slap to Jake whilst spitting the word 'twat' to emphasise that the feeling my character had negative feelings towards Jake. Then he acted out reaching for my hair, and I showed the reaction and made bitter noises of pain. I received feedback that this part was too naturalistic, even if it was the reaction without contact, and I understand that the movement or sound I had made could've been more direct with the pain I was feeling. 

The final activity we had to do was to create a piece of movement that could be looped, working in a group of four. It had to resemble a gang. Working with Kelly, Jake and Chris. We made a sharp robotic walk that went forward 3 steps before squatting down on count 4, by using counts were able to create a systematic pattern that made it easier for everyone to follow and getting a slicker performance. Once squatted we pretended to grab and sniff some dirt, this could be a sign that we are a gang defending territory, we then turned and sat down so are bodies were facing the opposite direction and in a position that was easy for us to stand up and start the movement again.

Although this was all we had time to create within the lesson it was great to see the potential to add some dialogue about being in a gang whilst keeping the systematic movement, or even making it into a canon movement and have a series of intertwining monologues. Even if we just had a script and read it, having the piece of movement that's not naturalistic we are able to a more visually dynamic performance that is more entertaining rather than connecting the emotions to the audience. 

'The Pillowman' 26&27|2|13. - 'Final Performance'

After the performance the Tupolski's were asked a number of questions about our final decisions on how we carried through our characters. I feel this response will be a better explanation for some of the final choices I made about my character and where some alterations were made to specific parts or lines in the play. 

LESSON EIGHTEEN. - 18&19|2|13 - 'The Pillowman' - 'Half Term Rehearsals.'

In the half term holidays, a week before the final performance, we went into school to make the more intricate changes to previous blocking idea's, that allowed us to add more depth into the performance. Me and Emily then logged on a video the changes that we made in the first act.

We then did an undirected run through for the first time of the play. There were some points of weakness due to remembering the changes and having a long day. But overall I think we managed to give the performance more depth and gave us an idea of the fluidity and pace it should be running at. It also gave us a chance to see where certain tones worked and where they didn't work depending on the sections that were surrounding them, allowing us to think further where a different tone should be used and which parts needed to be practised more.

LESSON SEVENTEEN. 6|2|13. 'The Pillowman - Photo's'

Today we were dealing with some promotional side of 'The Pillowman'. We wanted to take a around 25 - 50 pictures that could be used as a poster as well as projected onto the wall. To do this, we decided that we would go through the most dynamic parts of the script to take photo's. This would also allow us to think more about our facial expressions which we could then transfer to the final performance.

I really like this image that we took, I like how Katurian seems sad - almost confused and how I'm not really paying attention, with a blank expression. This portrays how the characters are within the first scene. With Tupolski being fairly dismissive to Katurian's fear and Katurian still being confused on why she is there. This would be good for the poster, because the audience would want to find out more of the performance and why my character looks displeased or blank whilst Kelly is fiddling with her hands making her seem nervous. It raises questions such as 'why is she nervous?' 'what has she done?' when in fact she doesn't know what she's done. 

I really like these two images of the siblings Katurian and Michal. It's showing the moment just before Katurian smothers Michal with the pillow to save him the horror and torture and execution at the hands of the police. In the second picture you can slightly see the bitterness of the choice Katurian is making to kill her own brother in one of the most humane ways possible. Although I really like this image, for a promotional picture, I think it gives away too much of the story and would give the audience a hint to who is going to die before even seeing the play. 

LESSON FIFTEEN. 23|1|13. 'The Pillowman - Cut's to the Script'

Me and Jake (Ariel from Cast Two) decided to make a video explaining where certain cuts were, why and how that effects the story.

LESSON FOURTEEN. 16|1|13. 'Stanislavski'

We started off the lesson by entering into a atmospheric low lit room, our usual space so we felt comfortable and relaxed. We had a member of the SLT (Senior Leadership Team) in to watch us in the lesson. We completely forgot this fact so it did not effect our performance. 

We were told we were going to be looking at the practitioner Stanislavsky and focusing on his method of 'Emotional Memory', to see if we could apply the practice to our character to add depth to our character and think about the feelings and conscience thoughts they might have throughout the script.  Me and Jake had a discussion on how this workshop related to our characters and what parts we found the most useful.

Stanislavsky. 

When working on a naturalistic performance, Stanislavsky is the most recommended practitioner to look at because if not all, but most of his methods focus in on how to get the most realistic performance out of you.

'Emotional Memory' is my most familiar use of Stanislavsky and is a great way to manipulate your own feelings to give your characters feelings more truth. Although, Stanislavsky did reject emotional memory in favour for 'Method of Physical Actions' which has soon become to be known as 'Method Acting'. Even so, emotional memory was a basic part of the method acting.

Emotional memory makes an actor regenerate the 'feelings' experienced in a certain memory and are then used to in the current acting situation in order to fill out the performance with human depth.

There are limitations to emotional memory, as Stanislavsky found - it became to exhausting for actors and could create a state where they cannot release the memory they regenerated and therefore giving an inaccurate performance. There is also the problem of not being able to think of the memory quickly enough and the right surroundings to bring up that emotion if you were already on stage. I feel that this is the most relatable limitation for our performance of 'The Pillowman' because we were on stage for a long period of time where the mood or tone of the scene would change between lines, this meant it was hard to apply this method because there was not enough time to recall the memory and portray that emotion, especially when I hadn't had many memories where I felt that much hate to someone. This is where we could apply another one of Stanislavsky's methods.

'What If?' was set up by Stanislavsky to give the actor a chance to portray an honest character. This method connects the actor to the character giving them a chance to ask 'what if I was in this situation?' This allows the actor to actually think like the characters, rather than impersonating them because as an actor you enable yourself to identify parts of the character you can link yourself too.

Just like emotional memory, there are restrictions with this method. The main one I found was actually trying to think what I would do as my character. My character is very deep and it took me a while to understand why she/he said a lot of the things they said. But to help me think why she might think certain things towards each character, such as the hate - anger - annoyance, I could use the 'what if?' style of thinking to help me understand those thoughts, and then carry out the feeling from that. There were certain points in the script where Tupolski's thoughts were focused on a different part of her 'plan' or 'running order' to how she wanted the investigation to go. This is where we used yet another method of Stanislavsky.

'Units and Objectives' is when you split the script up into specific parts or 'beats' such as walking into a room, sitting down, picking up a ringing phone. These are all separate actions, although, objectives don't have to be based completely on actions but arguments or emotion. The unit of a script is what can help establish the objective for the actors character. Each character in the scripts unit's and objectives will be fairly different depending on when their emotion and motive changes. So I used the section of Tupolski's 'plan' of the interrogation to base how my emotions and body language would be. I would think of the purpose behind everything she was telling Katurian so I had a more accurate way of delivering the lines.

LESSON THIRTEEN. 9|1|13. 'The Pillowman'

We are now working on the last act of the script, where Katurian returns from murdering her brother and is now confessing on the terms that her stories will be kept safe after her death. The audience have scene Michal confess to murdering of the three children, and now know that Katurian is innocent of the child murders. Obviously, Tupolski and Ariel are unaware of this fact, and still want to brutally murder Katurian.

I read out the confession stood DSL as if I'm proof reading it. I break of the proof reading tone when addressing Katurian about pinning her brothers murder on her, and emphasis 'that' to show she is disgusted with Katurian's actions. The second time I break out of proof reading I'm directing my speech to Emily, and I say it in a angry and confused tone before bluntly saying 'Yeah, you really showed it' to Katurian. The exchange of 'write quicker' between Ariel and Tupolski shows how the relationship is still a little on edge and Tupolski does well to avoid conflict. They are both angry at Katurian but now have a definite reason to kill her, as she murdered her brother. This means I can only see Katurian as a sick person and the hatred only grows stronger. 

At the moment, I'm struggling with finding the correct tone for this line. I'm stood, a metre or so away from Katurian's side whilst she is writing. I must show how I think she's a sick twisted woman. I think if I say it through my teeth but clear enough to hear, it could get a decent tone that would allow the audience to understand the point of hatred Tupolski has towards Katurian.

I re-enter the room after Ariel and Katurian have been alone on stage, and spoke about Katurian's past life that has relevance to Ariel. Tupolski goes straight back to teasing Ariel from this point on until virtually the end of the play. I do this by relaxing my body language and tone which contrasts from Emily, creating humour in the mix match of tension. This also leaves Katurian in the middle of two bickering police members, even though she is about to be killed.

   He Tupolski lets out the big secret of Ariel's past which explains to the audience why Ariel has been so violent towards Katurian throughout the investigation. Ariel sounds a lot like a moaning child in her lines, so my reactions are the folding arms, rolling eyes to show how I think she's being pathetic. I then use this to my own advantage to clear the case up and finish doing what I intended to do without letting Ariel torture her. This shows the audience how Ariel as at the top of her rage, and just wants to get the case over with so she can leave the case shared with Tupolski. It also provides a bit of humour for the audience in the serious situation because Tupolski does not care about what Ariel is saying and would rather follow on with the plan she had.
   I change my positioning (crouched and stood) to correspond with who I am talking to, I also change my tone from formal or monotone when talking to Katurian, to informative with a hint of sarcasm whilst talking to Ariel to continue to wind her up. On the last question I raise my voice to exaggerate the gruesome actions of Michal. This builds up the tension throughout the whole section which takes the audience from feeling calm to uncertain.