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.