The first scene I will explore further is the scene when the second couple in the play arrive (the black couple) I want this scene to have an intense vibe. I want the emotion in the air to be clear that things are going to happen in this house. The actors on stage will not give off this vibe or emotion but the house, sound and stage design itself will. I will have pleasant but still unsettling piano music playing when they arrive. Hopeless by: Myuu would be perfect, at least the first 1:30 minutes of it.
The second scene is when Russ says that he won't protect or support a community that didn't try to save his son. This scene must be in my eyes a powerful moment. I want Russ to scream it in pure anger. As if Karl should have known that from the. start before he even asked Russ to not sell the house. Russ should be deeply disrespected by Karl for even asking him to do anything for him. So the scene will show Russ's deep deep pain from losing his son. As mentioned before I want Russ's son to be the most likable character on stage. He saw war and does not bother with racism and other pointless fights and pickles like it. And he takes his own life which I want the audience to be extremely affected by. I want the audience to see it coming but still, be affected by it. Back to Russ's scene, when he says 'I WON'T SUPPORT A COMMUNITY THAT DIDN'T TRY TO SAVE MY SON' I want everyone to feel it, it has to come from a deep place of hatred for the community. Karl will pause, and simply walk out of the house leaving Russ all fired up and ready to fight anything that comes in his way.
onsdag 8 april 2020
måndag 17 februari 2020
Collaborative debriefing
For our collaborative Me and Olivia have come up with some great ideas and concepts! After about a week of ideas back and forth, discussions, agreements, and disagreements, we have come to a final standing. For the collaborative piece, we will focus on the conceptual theory of nihilism and existentialism. We will set up small and big scenarios to show how each side takes on life and how they behave. (These are going to be to fictional characters representing the two sides soo nothing that the characters do is set in stone, it is merely going to be our interpretation of how a nihilist and an existentialist could react and behave on a magnified scale) We will have them set up on a very small stage, we want to make the experience to be very intimate and intense for the audience. Something that would be very hard and difficult to set up if we have a piece play out on a larger stage. The reasoning for having a small stage is also due to how the movements are going to be very small. The props are also going to be small. So the Audience has to be right there with us to be able to see what we want them to see. What we know for sure is that we are going to have a Newton Crattle as a ground zero for the moment. It will be placed center stage and the true meaning of it we are still discussing.
fredag 7 februari 2020
Overall pitch, Directors notebook
For this project I have chosen to work with the play Clybourne park (2009) by Bruce Norris.
The play takes place in the same house and the 2 acts are split up with the first act taking place in 1959 and the second act in 2009. The first act very much focused on how biased many in the white community at the time were against the black community. What interests me is Russ and Bevs son Kenneth who takes his own life after coming back from the Korean war, he is such an interesting character I feel and I really want to showcase him as being “better” than his parents in those few scenes that he has. And when we get any flashbacks of Kenneth I want him to be the most likeable person of all the characters. The Reason for this is because I want to throw in a little more connection between the audience and Russ & Bev. When Karl tries to convince Russ of not selling the house to a family just because they are black I want Russ to have multiple motives as to why he won't do what Karl says. And when he says that he won't “protect” a community that didn’t try to save his son I want it to be a really powerful moment. Then there is the racist aspects of the play, I want all of these to be highlighted but not as hate, as fear. Racism is just people being scared, and I want it to show. Characters that show themself to be very openly racist, the audience must be able to see through their “confident-hate” and see them for what they really are, scared. The second act is going to follow along with the same themes as the first act, I might still add a few more focal points after I have studied the script further and in more detail.
måndag 16 december 2019
Research on English Renaissance Theatre
English Renaissance theatre is considered to be the period between the years 1562 - 1642, Also known as Elizabethan theatre and is mostly known by plays of writers and directors like; William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson. In the early days of theatre in England the practice of theatre was prohibited in London, so all plays took place and were performed outside of the city unlike the London we all know in today's day and age. Almost all of the performances were like a circus in the sense that they were constantly on the move from town to town. Only getting paid after the performance by those who enjoyed it. All of this changed when the first successful theatre opened in London in 1576 “The Theatre” The theatre was very much in likeness to the colosseum in Rome but was way smaller and could only host around 1000 people. The theatre was open and plays were only performed during the day. This forced the actors to be larger than life, meaning that they had to portray and really show what was going on to an unreal extent. For example; If the characters were whispering they had to do so in a very loud manner of fashion, or if they enter a dark room they had to point out the fact that is was dark “OH! It is so dark in here I can’t find you!” even if it was broad daylight and everyone could see everyone. It was the spark that England needed to begin the play and theatre culture that we know today. And sometime around the early 1590’s William Shakespeare started releasing his plays for the public to see and what he did changed theatrical plays forever. He combined Tragedies and comedies into “Tragic-Comedy” This was the start of Theatre as we know it today, multiple elements and conventions that made you feel different emotions and think different thoughts.
The plays were built up in a certain way, there were still certain characters just like almost every play before. There was always a King, A princess of some sort, a Leading male character who searches for love and the clown. The convention in English renaissance theatre I will be focusing on is the ‘clown/fool/jester’ The clown in all of these plays always seems to be the most simple one but is always the most clever, mischievous, evil or helpful. The character could always be a platform to turn the plot around, he was always unpredictable or could make things worse or better for any of the characters to get what he wanted. The clown was almost always on the “Kings” side (take The 12th night by William Shakespeare for example) In that play the clown “Feste” is the voice for the play's most important themes. Yet he could fit in and morph into any group to get what he wanted. The clown was the only character with an unclear goal in almost all of these renaissance place, he could also switch is goals multiple times throughout the course of the play. While the other characters usually followed along with the main plotline. He was always the wisest yet the funniest and the crowd depended on him for entertainment.
tisdag 5 november 2019
söndag 3 november 2019
Official first draft, Solo project
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mJpf4oL-cXQeWVoLskhh1UZP_UrkowbpPNO8y8h4G64/edit?usp=sharing
fredag 1 november 2019
Solo Performance Reflection
Over the course of working on my solo project I learned and refined a lot of my acting and some directing techniques. I studied Stanislavkis methods of acting with strong emotions and how to make everything more believable. And putting all of his methods into my character was so much fun, especially the magic if. This method makes you imagine how your character would react to certain situations. This is a great way to find out more about your characters: habits, feelings, emotions, mindset, values and thinking process. So preparing when I was preparing for my solo performance during the entire previous week I would go about my day as usual and when something interesting happened or was said I would of course react or think as myself but then i would always backtrack and think “ what would Ed have said or done in the same situation” This is a great way to connect to a character and it really helped me connect to mine.
So when performance day finally came around I felt really prepared to express all of Ed’s emotions to my best abilities. And I was really pleased with the way things turned out in the end. The performance went great and I felt really into the character and based on the response from the audience during the talkback I could confirm that my connection to the character could be seen on stage as well. I was also so happy to hear so many different people notice my commitment to the character and how they liked what I did with my performance. Something that was a bit of a challenge at first was finding a way to show Ed’s darker side to the audience without anyone else on stage. So I decided not to SHOW it at all, but let the audience hear it instead. I started the performance by screaming and smashing thing backstage with headlights on stage. This instantly grabbed everyone's attention (basing this on what was said during the talkback) and made everyone interested in what was going on and why it was happening. Then I come out of the backstage door in the far back and breakdown right by the door. I decided to do this to give the audience even more time to be confused and make them want an explanation. But also to show the audience that it is not something that my character is used to doing or likes doing (getting mad, beating up his child, ect.) Then I started Ed’s monologue from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the nighttime. The monologue takes place right after Christopher (Ed’s son) finds letters from his to be believed dead mother. And it went great, the Only thing I wish I had done different would have been to slow the performance down a bit so that I could have had more time to show a bit more variety of emotions such as pure sadness. This would have helped even further to show Ed’s good side. And also showing how deeply sorry he is for lying to his son.
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