Greek Tragedy Week 3

To begin this week, we looked at what we thought were
the most significant scenes in the play, instead of saying
what they were we drew 5 pictures of the main scenes
that make up our play. I drew a bath with a dead body
inside. This is the beginning scene and really sets the
play in motion. It represents Clytemnestra killing her
husband in the bath, I think this is the scene with the
most significance out of the whole play because
without it Orestes would not have a motive to kill his
mother and therefore the people of the city (chorus)
would not be begging for him and his sister's blood. I
showed the chorus by putting Tinderios on top of a block
with all the chorus members surrounding him with notepads in their hands. I drew a gravestone as death is a theme in the play and it could represent anybody who died. I also drew Clytemnestra with a sword going towards her heart and Orestes jumping off the cliff with Helen and Menelous' baby, Hermione.

Developing the Chorus

We later played a game that involved a master, a servant and an under servant, the master would ask for something then the servant would tell the under servant and then they would get the item they required. I think this game helped us grasp the meaning of the different status', i.e. the master is high, while the under servant is low. This helped me decide whether I wanted my character as a high status or low. I picked high, as it matches my word that I picked to describe my personality; mischievous.

Other's Point of View on the Chorus

The National Theatre did the play 'Antigone' and modernised it like we did, but they made their chorus as business workers, as the play was set in an office. The actors in the chorus said that the chorus presented a community, however there was arguments in the chorus as individuals had different opinions. They said that the chorus is a body who speak together but doesn't think together - they have independent thoughts.This is useful to know as in the beginning I thought that the chorus all had the same opinions, as they are all hoping to achieve the same thing - getting the best stroy however, now I know that they are individuals, the idea of the chorus members in our play of Blood and light makes more sense, because I picture it as if the members of the chorus are all competing against each other for the best story.

Blocking Scenes

We blocked a scene where the chorus (journalists) were posing as mourners at King Agamemnon's grave, we all had a line each. My line is, "Sleepers awoke and lay in terror." I tried saying that line in many different ways. For example, one of the times I said it excitedly, this showed that I was eager to tell the story and made it seem more bigger than it actually was. I didn't think this one suited me and my line so I tried saying it a different way, e.g. really exaggerated as if I was telling a child a bedtime story, dragging out some words - like "lay". I decided that I liked that one but didn't do the exaggeration as full on, as I added more mocking undertones to suit my own individual character in the chorus. After we all did the lines we all decided on different ways of coming in. I came in running and hiding behind a chair to show the mischevious side of my character but unfortunately the way the chair would be placed on stage would make it unlikely for me to be able to get behind it, so instead we all decided to run in and speak our lines standing. We did this to show the urgency in the story we're telling and bringing energy to the scene.

Greek Tragedy Week 2

This week's main focus was on the chorus and how we could develop scenes that the chorus were in, during our Theatre Context class we looked out how we could take our idea of having the chorus as journalists and how we could take some of the scenes in "Oresteia" and how we could make them more contempry through our chorus. So for the first excerise we had to think of a topic or a event that has appeared in recent news which could be controversial,we then had to act it out to our peers. This was so the audience could engage with the subject and start having a opinion and get involved in the drama with each side just like the chorus would in our greek play.
　
We then thought about who was influential in our society today and came up with Celebrities, The Media, Mps and the Government. This was so that we could see that we are being influenced by what we see everyday and by other people which we could use in the play as the journalists (chorus) have to influence and deceive the other characters in the play. We also looked at the character of Helen and which celebrity would suit her. We all said at least one female celebrity each and the top two was Miley Cyrus and Kate Middleton. Miley because she has been on the news very recently and is now quite a stuck up person which suits the character of Helen and Kate Middleton because she is a princess now and she is protected just like Helen was. Helen was protected from all the people who wanted her to suffer for causing the war, while Kate is protected from all the journalists and on lookers.

Themes

The main themes we focused on for the play 'Orestes' was: forgiveness, honour, viloence and revenge. From these themes we looked at which part of the play they related to. I think forgiveness is an ongoing theme all through out the play, as each character is asking someone for forgiveness. For example Clytemnestra begging her son Orestes for forgiveness for the horrible crime she commited by killing her husband. Honour related to Electra and Orestes killing their mother for killing their father. Violent and revenge relate to all the killings and the people who wanted to avenge the victims. For example Clytemnestra killed her husband and her daughter Electra

Blocking the first scene

We started blocking the first scene of blood and light, and tried to include the persona of being a journalist so their was the idea of us having individual journalist poses whilst the killing of Agamemnon was happening to show that the journalist where always watching and finding out about the event. We all did different moves but came together to show us as one. My movement was covering half my face with my hand to show my michevious side by looking at what was going on and trying not to get caught. Then I would change to my professional mode with my notepad and pen taking notes down on what's happening.

Working together as the Chorus

For the Chorus we looked at words that the Chorus say and how we could emphasise these words with movements and sounds. We would say the words together in a different way, whether it was singing them, whispering them, saying it fast or slow ect. And then we looked at movements, two of the words we used for movement was Death and Justice. I had the idea of everyone whispering Death one at a time and dropping to the ground, while two people stood over them shouting Justice to show the meaning of the actions.

Staging

We looked at different types of staging these are a few of them: a Proscenium Arch stage, In The Round, and Traverse Staging.

We did an exercise for The Round stage; we treated it as if we were on a circle that was balancing on the point in the middle, so when another person jumps in you would have to move to balance out the circle, no matter how many people come in to the circle you have to keep it balanced.

      

The image on the left is a Proscenium Arch stage, this is a very simple actors on the stage and the audience in front watching what's happening, this is also known as end on staging, where your audience is lower than the stage.

The image in the middle is a In The Round style of staging, this is where your audience sit all around you and the acting is centred in the middle, this creates more of an intimate feeling for your audience.

The image on the right is a style called Traverse Staging, your audience sit either side of what looks like a cat walk, and they will not only watch you, but they can see the other audience members reaction.

Greek Tragedy Week 1

This new project I'm doing is all about Greek theatre, Greek Tragedy to be more precise. The play that I am studying and performing is Orestes from the Oresteia by Euripides.Over the past weeks before I started the project I've been doing essays on Greek theatre to help me increase my knowledge on not only Greek theatre but the play itself.

Casting Process

Before we started the real rehearsal lessons on the project we did casting for the parts, because there was too many of us Karen (who was doing the casting) split the lead roles, which were Orestes and Electra; brother and sister and the 'hereos' of the play. The roles were split into four seperate roles in different parts of the play. The four roles of Electra was the different stages of her emotions. Electra 1 is numb, as she's the one who witnessed her mother and lover killing her father. Electra 2 is grief, as she's now mourning her father. The last two Electra's were pretty similar, but Electra 4 is more sinister as it's the end of her journey and all of these horrible events have happened to her making her feel no emotion and withdrawn from all of humanity.

The character I preferred to play in the beginning was the mother, Clytemnestra as I felt her character would challenge me the most but instead I was cast as one of the main chorus members, who will be in the chorus throughout the play. After reading all of the chorus scenes and finding out that the chorus plays a huge role in the play I feel like the chorus would challenge me more than any other role I could have gotten, as the chorus members are going to be portrayed as journalist with Tyndareous the newspaper editor to give a modern twist to the play. So I'm really making this character my own, creating my character profile, i.e. my character's name, my background, my personality and where I want to go in the future.

Knowing Your Character

During our first lesson on the project we got into groups or pairs that we thought our character fitted into, for example the chorus and Tyndareos would go together as they are always together and want to achieve the same thing; getting the best story for their magazines/articles. Then I went into a group and we picked one pose from a word that best shows my character. I picked the word mischevious. I showed this by turning my back to the audience and looking over my right shoulder, with a little smirk on my face and my eyebrow lifted up to make it look like I'm challenging you to write a better article than me. Then I had to do a second pose but this time I stood straight, with my head held high to give off the feeling of power, but still keeping the mischevious smirk on my face. One question we were asked was, 'if you had to make a statue of your character what material would you use?' For my chorus member I picked marble, as marble is strong but not unbreakable, showing that I could be destroyed no matter how much power I have at that moment. Some other people that played the chorus chose stone as you are toying with people's lives you have to be stone cold and not show any of your emotions, such as guilt.

Group Exercises

One of the excercises we did as a group was about working and moving together as one. We moved around the space and copied the leader who would be the person at the front if we changed direction the leader would automatically change, I think this showed us how difficult it is to all be in sync without looking directly at the leader, but once we had gotten the hang of it, it worked really well and felt powerful.

Another excercise we did was called Chair objectives. This is were we used the chair to show our emotion physically towards another character. E.g. blame and protect, forgive and punish. I came up with the word Persistant, as we are the journalists and they never stop until they get what they want. And the other word we used was Deceit as journalist twist the truth and decieve to make their article interesting enough to get published. We did a number of movements to show us trying to get to Tyndareous first to give him the story. Some of the moves we did was standing up on the chair and blocking the other journalist out and the other journalist kneeling on the chair but sticking their arm out to stop the person from passing to get closer to the gossip going on.

Starting the Scenes

For the final part of week one, we worked on two scenes, one where Tyndareos and Electra 3 were arguing about what was to happen to her and her brother after they had killed their mother, with this one we had the chorus choosing sides depending on what we thought was right and what was wrong by either listening in closer, ignoring them or even literally walking to the side to back them up. We all had to go to both sides at least once to show the audience that what they're both saying is logical in their own way and that the journalists have to get both sides of the story.

Our second scene was with Electra 1 and Helen (Clytemnestra's Sister) in this scene Helen has returned home to find out her sister is dead and so she goes straight to see Electra and questions her, the chorus in this scene were like rats running about checking their surroundings, but also being there for Helen if she needed something like her slaves. Showing the chorus as journalists and looking for clues to write about.

Conclusion

This week proved challenging because we were thrown into a new play and Greek theatre is not as easy as contemporary theatre is, as there's just so much elements you don't know about. However, I so far am enjoying this challenge of a type of theatre that I have not yet done before and am looking forward to learning more not only about the play itself but also about the type of theatre that it lies within.

Week 3 Additions

The 'Circle' scene would be the best example to show the group progress this week as we all worked together positively and enthusiastically. As I mentioned before somebody came up with the idea to form a circle around Christina (me) and somebody else came up with the idea of spinning after every person has said their piece. The reason we did this was to make it look more interesting and to show that inside Christina's head all her thoughts are literally twirling around and confusing her. We came up with this idea by linking it to the idea of Christina being ill; mental health. She hears voices in her head but all the voices are actually her; showing that the only thing stopping her from doing something that she wants or becoming who she wants to be is herself.

We showed this scene to the other group and their feedback was all positive. They loved how we added in the spinning transition. They said it made it look more effective and interesting. We asked them how it made them feel and they all agreed that it gave them chills when they heard some of the things that the characters said. For example, "You are a waste of space and a waste of time." It brought out strong emotions that they didn't expect to feel. It felt good hearing this as it showed us that we were going on the right track as we didn't know how to get the emotions of Christina across to the audience. But this scene proved to be effective as we achieved the response we wanted.

Week 4 Additions

How some decisions were made

The 'Hospital' scene was really made in the week before the performance. The reason we came up with this scene was because we feared the piece wouldn't make sense without it. Our piece is all in the character Christina's mind and the only way we felt we could show this was by showing the audience that Christina was in a coma. How we came up with the idea was by linking it to the real woman in the painting; "Christina's World". The woman in the painting was diagnosed with a deadly infectious disease caused by a virus that spreads from person to person invading the brain and spinal cord; this is called Polio. Although our Christina has not got Polio we still used the idea of her being in a critical condition to show her being lost in her own mind.

Coming up with the last scene was hard, as we had all the idea for it but we didn't know how to develop it. We finally decided on showing the audience that although Christina may be happy now, she still questions whether or not she's entirely free. How we came up with this idea was exactly the same as the other idea; by linking it to the painting but this time for an entirely different reason. For this scene instead of going into the back story of the painting we looked at the painting and interpreted how we all thought she felt in the painting. We all interpreted it as although Christina showed that she had strong will and determination she still wasn't completely free to do everything she wanted as her disability stopped her and how that would effect her state, whether that be physical or mental. The last line Christina says in our piece was "Am I Free?" and all of us whispering "Wake up, Christina." To show that whatever happens next in her life is her decision as she wakes up from the coma.