Starting my character work

Over Easter Ben test us the task to find an animal that represented our character to help us with of physicality. This is called animalphism. I did this in term 1 at school and I found it really helpful to start exploring different ways of how I see my character. For Marcus I thought he should be because he loyal to Titus and is the mediator out of all of the other characters.  As there are many different types of dogs I started looking at different breads and I came across a Bernese Mountain Dog which I thought would be perfect because he is a big dog with strong that other respect. I think this is similar to the play Titus Andronicus because I think all the other character respect Marcus as he is Titus brother.

I found the Bernese Mountain Dog a good dog to start getting characters from. I watched these videos a number of times and analysed how the dog walked and reacted to situations.  Things things I found out I released where: 

they are light footed

there front legs and back legs both move at the same time one another. 

has a slight rythm to way they move

Is always looking around

Follows someone or something

has a deep strong powerful bark that gets attention 

cares about there young ones

After I anaylised the dog a couple of times I started act like a dog around my living room. I did this to fully committee to being a dog as much as I can. At first it was really weird (and uncomfortable) however I found it really interesting to play the extreme of the characteristic and explore how I can use theses elements. For example, when I started humanising the dog I started walking light footed and when my left leg went forward my left arm followed. I found this is interesting as I am naturally heavily footed and when I walk my opposite arm always follows. I did find this different to sustain and at times I did start to gain my natural walking past. This is something I can work on and try to develop more so it is feel natural when I am playing Marcus. In addition to this, the dog is always looking around this is something I think would be good for the character Marcus as I have said before he is the mediator in the group who doesn't want war or death. Finally, something I really struggled with was barking like the dog as the dogs bark is really low and powerful however I naturally have a higher pitch voice. My voice is always something I need to work on as I struggle to find it match my physically and to find the right vocal choice for the character. However as I know exactly what I want I can start to work on my voice. The exercise I think that would be helpful are breathing in for 10 and breathing on a loud r sound. Every time I do the R sound I need to change my pitch and tone to help me improve on my vocal colour.

Overall, I am really happy with progress I have made on my character and I can keep doing this by working out my actions, objectives and given circumstances and applying them to the play.

Haka Dance

Here are some examples for a Haka dance that Ben showed the class and one I found myself.

Lesson 2

On Wednesday Ben taught us the opening scene that starts the show. Ben called this the Hakka dance which is a traditional war dance that is performed before battle to show their power and to scare the opposition. In today’s society lots of rugby’s team like to use as a way to warm up. 

This is a rough map of the opening scene that I made after the lesson:

I personally love the opening scene and I think it will be amazing in the show. When the audience walk in we will be a lying down all squashed together with our eyes staring out to space. I like this because it is a strong image for the audience to walk into and creates the of theme of death which is a huge part of the play. Another element I like is when we are all moving around like magnets ( we called it) and Sybil ( who is playing Lavinia) is getting people out of the circle. This is a really simple transition but still looks really cool. Another part I really enjoyed was us doing the synced hand movements. As I am left handed I personally found this part quite difficult because Ben wanted it to always be done with our right arm however I eventually got the hang of it. Again, I think this bit worked really well because it was really simple and easy for us to be in time with each other (and it felt quite good to get some aggressive out) . The third part the movement worked well was when we came to a squat position, but with a flat back and we have to slap our thighs, chest and then our arms need to be in air.  This third part is at the end of the open scene which works really well because it’s as strong as the beginning and is kind of showing the audience that' the cast are neither a live of dead' because looked dead at the beginning.

For a first run though of this I think it went really well and we did so much work considering the time we had. Even though there were some elements that worked we do need to look more at the transitions. The ones I think we need to practice are when we are forming circle and when we are coming out of the circle to form a V shape. These are two big transitions that need to be a lot sharper and dynamic. I understand that these transition are hard however we need to make them look easy. The next part we need to work on is when we put the mud onto our faces. This bit can look really good however we just need to do it all at the same time for it work. This is an easy however with 18 of us doing it at the same time , it will be quite difficult. In my opinion what will make it quite easier is the mud part to have a sort ripple effect from front to back. As the cast are positioned in a huge V I think this will be easier as we only need to see what the people around us are doing and not what Katie is doing because the people at the back  of the V will find it hard to see especially.

Finally, I think the rehearsal went really well as the class listened and contributed to what Ben said and did which made the lesson go really fast and for us to get a lot done. I think the reason for this was because Ben gave us about 20 minutes to warm up which I think everyone found physically and mentally helpful. To improve people just need to come on time to lesson as some people were five minutes late.

 

First Lesson

On Tuesday , we did a rough run through of page 1 - 22. In my opinion the run through went better than I thought. However, before we did the run through we got to briefly meet the TTA team who is working with us on Titus Andronicus. It was nice to meet them as it is the first show at our college where we will be working with TTA.

After this, Ben taught us our warm up that we will do before we ever start rehearsing. Ben told the class to take our shoes off and to clean the whole space. He said the because we should treat the space like its sacridid  and special. Ben also briefly mentioned how this was inspired by Yoshi Oida who I know a little bit about as in year 11 Stuart Worden did an 2 hour yoga exercise that was amazing! Yoshi Oida is a theatre practitioner who believed in cleansing the space and through actors should meditate.  When we were tidying the room it made me realise how messy it actually was and as I never really look closely at the room enough to realise this. When the space was clean the class spread out and started rolling down the spine and moving our weight around with our hands. I closed my eyes while doing this which I think helped me experiment more with how I balanced my weight as I forget there were other people in the room. In addition to this, it made helped me to clear my mind as are I wasn't mentally choosing were to move I was physically moving.  With this part of the warm up I really enjoyed it as it made me physically and mentally warm up without feeling tired or drained but energised and ready to work.

The next part of the exercise was to do side- stretch. This is something I did with Ben in term 1 which I loved but hated at the same time ( if that makes sense). I loved it because of the purpose of the warm up is to control and embrace the pain,  however this is the same reason why I hate because it hurts so much! With the side stretch you have to stand in a warrior pose and lean left to right 8 times. On the 8th go you stop and go to floor in a sit up position and do one sit up. When you have done one sit up you tuck your right hand in and roll to the floor. When your on the floor you lift your arms and legs (in time with one another ) and hold. For this to work you have to look through your legs and just go with it. This is the part of the exercise that is the most effective for me as I am fighting the feeling to let go and give up. I find this interesting that this is the most effective part for me because it is the part that I hate the most. When Ben says we slowly place our arms and legs back to floor as slowly and controlled as we can. When we have done this we carefully do the child's yoga pose , turn our hands over and sit up with our spine slightly curved. Then when fill ready we can stand up. When I stood up it felt so weird because it felt like my body was shouting to stand up and not my brain. Like it was a subconscious decision coming my body and not my brain.  From doing this in term 1 I can definitely see an improvement on controlling my body and allowing a natural instinct to stand up.  The final part of the side-stretch is when everyone is standing Ben needs to shout 'ha' and when he does we instantly jump back into the warrior pose. and do the opposite side to what we began with.  Doing the side-stretch  a second time made my focus improve so much and the second time Ben said 'ha ' everyone instantly jump into a warrior pose.  Overall, I find the side stretch a really helpfully exercise that makes me physically ready.

 The next part of the warm up was to lie on the floor and just let my spines explore the floor. Then are arms, legs and the rest of our body. This was a new exercise that I had never done before and just helped me to stretch out my body as it felt quite sift from the side stretch. In addition to this, it just helped me explore new ways of how I can use my body. Again I had my eyes closed which I think did personally help me to react or copy or what other people are doing. To be honest , this is something that I sometimes do in exercise that if everyone is doing the same similar movement I will do it as well to make myself feel comfortable which is an effective way to warm up.


These are the three exercises that I found the most effective because it changed the way I felt and made me feel a bit more comfortable to do the the run though.

So, after this we did the run through of the show.  If I'm honest I really didn't want to do. The reason for this was because I wasn't confident on my lines at all. even though I knew the first half of them I didn't feel ready to not have a script in front of me. In addition to this, as a first run of the show you would just expect that the director that would allow the actors to have there script and Ben not allowing us was kind of scary.  However, doing a run for act 1 and 2 did actually helped me understand the play and my character Marcus so much more. For example , while I was learning my lines I didn't understand the intention of the line " O Titus , o, see what thou hast has done! In a bad quarrel slain a virtuous son! " however in the  run through something clicked in my brain and I understood that it was about Titus killing Mutius . In addition it made me realise how much character work I need to do and start actioning the scenes that I'm in and I don't have any lines in.  Overall , I think doing the run through was really helpful and I feel bad that I was quite negative about it at the beginning. Furthermore, I have learnt to trust Ben more as if we did just a sit down read through I wouldn't of found it that helpful compared to getting up on our feet and actually doing it.