Commedia D'ell Arte

COMMEDIA D'ELL ARTE

In todays lesson we learned about Commedia D'ell Arte, which originates from Italy. It first came around in the 1600's and Shakespeare was very influenced by it.
Our teacher bought in some leather hand made masks from Venice. Every character in Commedia wore masks, and each mask has its own personal character.

The characters are:
Magnifico- the man with the most power, he is in charge
The first actress/actor- these people do not wear masks, and they are very Shakesperian, they are mysterious and are normally widowed, and do not explain why, which adds an element of evil to their characters

Pantelone- He is an older man, who has a liking for women and money. He is quite creepy and is always wanting something
The Doctor- He is on the same status level as Pantelone, but although he is a doctor, he is actually very stupid. He is always talking about things he knows and methods and stories, but he understands nothing the other characters talk about and he never really holds a conversation with any of them.
Columbina- One of the only FEMALE parts, she never wears a mask and is a maid, but she is clever, witty and smart and all the males fancy her, she is always busy doing something but hears and knows everything. She is cunning and nosey
Brighella- He is a servant, but he is the higher status servant, he tells the other servant what to do and is very serious at all times. He is quite dark and mysterious
Harlequino- He is the other servant, he is of low status and loves to dance around. He is very silly and comical. He is always forgetting to do things and is very funny.
Zanni- This means " servant" in Italian. These people are the lowest of status and are below Harlequino and Brighella.

All the characters in Commedia are all motivated by Money, Sex, Love, Food and Drink. They are always after something and are constantly thinking of ways to trick the other characters into getting what they want. They are all very credulous and cunning, always motivated by a force.
The main theme is Masters and Servants. It is all about status, the different status characters all have their own way of moving, talking and communicating. The masters are very bold and upright, whilst the Zanni are very low and lead with their noses, they move like birds, very fast but clumsy, like pigeons. And the masters move like eagles, very precise and carefully. You can tell the different statuses straightaway by the way they move.
The acting in Commedia is VERY dramatic, everything is always so over the top and is the complete opposite of Naturalistic acting. If they are sad, they are falling on the floor wanting to kill themselves and if they are happy they are jumping around screaming and shouting. It is all so extreme, and I can imagine it is very tiring for the actors!
I really enjoyed beginning Commedia, as it allows you to just let go and be ridiculous, but it looks really good, the more over the top you are the better. It bought everyone out of their comfort zones, but I did not feel embarrassed or self concsious whilst doing this as it is so playful and fun, you just let go completely and it looks really good. It is very physical as well, so beginning this has helped me a lot with acting with my body. It is a great start to Shakespeare, as he was very influenced by Commedia and Shakesperian acting is also very physical and dramatic.
Video of Commedia we watched

25.11.14

Twelfth Night(What you will)

In todays lesson we watched the BBC 1996 Adaption of Twelfth Night, directed by Trevor Nunn. Which featured Ben Kingsley and Helana Bonam Carter.
I really enjoyed this film and found it very funny throughout, it has a strong storyline but I feel it was very lighthearted throughout, which made it more enjoyable to watch. I found it relatively easy to understand, but at some points it could get a little confusing, mainly about who is in love with who! 
Orsino is in love with Olivia
Olivia is in love with Cezario(who is actually Viola)
Viola is in love with Orsino
Sebastian is in love with Olivia(towards the end of the film)
Malvolio is in love with Olivia
Toby Belche is in love with Maria(and she is too)
Andrew Aguecheek is in love with Olivia
Antonio is in love with Sebestian
The love is mutual between  very few of the characters, as most of the love is unrequited, and of course the love between the TWINS, Viola and Sebestian is unconditional. The main theme in this play is quite clearly, LOVE. And all the different types of love, Shakespeare explores how different people react to love and what is does to them. 

The one character who interested me the most was FESTE The Clown. He is Olivias "fool" which entitles him to act and say what he likes as he is employed by Lady Olivia, who has very high status.
He is such an odd character, he is almost like the narrator, and he sees and heres everything. He knows everybodies secrets, and speaks his mind openly, he is the only character that is allowed to bad mouth Olivia and Orsino, without getting into a lot of trouble. I feel because he is seen as the clown, people do not really care what he has to say, and he has some sort of status in a way as he gets away with a lot of bad things he says and does. 
At one point in the film I thought Feste was in love with Olivia, but then I changed my mind as he mocks Olivia throughout the film, and he is almost like an annoying younger brother who will not leave her alone. But I was wrong thinking he was in love with her as the way he acted around her was not the same as how Orsino or "Cezario" acted. And he never appeared jealous of all the male interest she has, I think he found it very amusing actually. He also moves between Olivia and Orsinos households, in Orsinos household he is there to supply music and to entertain the guests, mainly the drunks who are "Toby Belch and Andrew" who are constantly drunk throughout the whole play, much to Malvolio's disgust, who is a Puritian and is very serious about everything and has a lot of respect for Olivia. Feste is very wise, but sometimes I thought he was just making a fool out of everyone. At the end of the film, it ends with Feste singing a love song, in a way I feel he is sad as no one loves him and he too does not love anyone. He ends all on his own, whilst everyone else is coupled up, apart from Antonio, who does not play a big role in the performance. I feel Feste characteristics change a lot in this film, as in some parts he is very serious and grown up, and in other parts he is a joker, an idiot and mocks everyone. In my opinion, he should either be one or the other.

The questions I have to ask about this adaption of Twelfth night are..

• Why was Mariah not confronted about forging Lady Olivias handwriting? She got away with it too easily and I was unclear at the end of where she had gone
• Why was no one angry at the fact Cezario was not a man but infact a woman? Orsino did not even seem that annoyed about it.

19.11.14

In today's lesson we started our next assignment, which is Shakespeare.
We began by reading a scene from "A Midsummers nights dream" together. It is a scene between Demetrius and Helena in the woods, Helena is declaring her unrequited love for Demetrius, and he is making it very clear to her that he is in love with someone else, Hermia and is not interested in her any more and wants her to stop pursuing him.

• Demetrius. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. 
  Where is Lysander and fair Hermia? 
  The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me. 565
  Thou told'st me they were stolen unto this wood;
  And here am I, and wode within this wood,
  Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
  Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.

• Helena. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant; 570
  But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
  Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw,
  And I shall have no power to follow you.

• Demetrius. Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?
  Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth 575
  Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?

   The two lines I have highlighted are the main lines we used in our exercises. We were put into pairs and one person was Demetrius and the other was Helena. We would say the lines in different ways to each other, using different emotions and different actions. The first time we did this it was just using the text, no movement or physicality involved. I was paired with Sav and we played around with it, we would use sarcasm, anger, sadness, bitterness, indifference and mania as all our different emotions. It was fun to play around with the different ways of expressing the lines we were given and it was very playful, it allowed me and Sav to have fun with each other and mess around with the different ways we could portray the emotions, I was playing Helena, and I interpreted her line as she is calling him hard hearted, or cold hearted and she is constantly drawn to him, she is attracted to him and even though he says he does not love her, she is still drawn into him and cannot cut her emotions for him. I prefer Demetrius' line as it is more strong and to the point, he is telling her I do not love you, so stop trying with me, stop trying to make me love you. This line has more impact, it is brutal. But it does not have to be said in a nasty way, you can be upset that you do not love someone any more, maybe he wants to love her but he just does not. The line itself is very hard, but that does not mean it has to be said in a hard way. He could be very upset with the fact that he no longer is in love with her.

    We also did this exercise with NO talking, we were mouthing the lines but expressing our emotions through body language and actions. This exercise helped me to express acting through my movement, and I felt Sav and I did this very well. We swapped over so I was saying Demetrius' line, and I expressed this through a lot of pacing, holding my head in my hands, sitting on the floor, shaking Sav, pushing Sav and walking away from her. I was showing distress and anger and upset through my actions and not my words. And I will use this in the near future when we start rehearsing for Twelfth Night.

 

Another exercise we did in different pairs, was slightly different but we were still using the same lines. We would stand opposite each other with a distance between us, and say the lines at each other, and move towards each other or back from each other. We would use touching in one exercise, so we would always have to be touching each other, using hands mainly, holding the other persons arm, face, head, leg, waist.  And in another exercise when saying the lines, one of us would have to be wanting eye contact and the other completely avoiding it. Demetrius would avoid eye contact at all costs and Helena would be demanding eye contact. I was playing Demetrius and avoiding eye contact was very hard, as I was paired with Chloe, and she demanding eye contact but coming very close to my face and following me around, it is so difficult to avoid eye contact when acting, but I have learned something new from this.

The last part of the exercise was with another pair, I was paired with Greta. And would have to perform a few verses from the scene, one playing Dem and one playing Helena. I was playing Helena, we were given a script and had to perform these lines to each other, we were told not to act too much, but to use gestures throughout. So whenever we said YOU we had to gesture to the other person, and when we said I we pointed to ourselves, and when were talking about something else we would gesture outwards, and anything to do with love or feelings we would gesture to our hearts.

• Demetrius. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
  Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
  The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me. 565
  Thou told'st me they were stolen unto this wood;
  And here am I, and wode within this wood,
  Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
  Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.

• Helena. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant; 570
  But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
  Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw,
  And I shall have no power to follow you.

• Demetrius. Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?
  Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth 575
  Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?

This is the scene we performed to the class, and I found this interesting as it was not so much to do with our acting ability it was more to do with gestures and our physical ability. It was hard sometimes to keep remembering to gesture every time I said I or YOU. But it has helped me to start learning how we are going to have to act when doing Shakespeare. It is very physical and involves a lot of hand gestures, but the acting is easier, as Shakespeare helps you know how to say something as he writes this in his verses, he makes it very clear how the characters are feeling and how you should act it. He is always helping you in his words, which I have learned and I am really looking forward to start Tweflth Night and I am beginning to study the play now.