Rehearsals so far

Orsino and Viola

Today and yesterday as a group we have rehearsed our final scene, and mine and Sav's scene.

On Monday we performed our scene to Andy and received really helpful feedback and have made changes to our scene, and it is now much stronger and more characterised.

And today as a whole group we spent the whole 3 hours working on our final scene, which needed tweaking, mainly the blocking, this now has made a massive improvement, and we all need to focus our energy on this scene.
Feedback from Andy Act 1 scene 5...

• Viola(cesario) needs to make Olivia fall in love with him MORE, I need to make Cesario more appealing to really show the audience why Olivia falls for him
• Cesario monologue..."make me a willow cabin" either needs to be really personal and almost whispered, as Viola is really thinking about Orsino when delivering this monologue, so I need to show the true emotions through this monologue, so instead of making it very big and jumping into the blocks, I will tone it down and maintain eye contact with Olivia throughout and really portray real love and almost desperation in this monologue
• Olivia to be more clear with her feelings for Cesario, Sav needs to portray more loving feelings towards me in our scene, we were told to TONE it down as Sav was being too obvious, and now we have been advised to show her feelings but in a more serious way and less comical. I feel this works very well and is what i wanted to do from the start
• Maria and Olivia need to be more comical at the beginning before I enter, and need to seem as though they are taking the mick out of all the men Orsino sends over to Olivia. And the two women should sit at opposite ends to each other, in order to cause Cesario more confusion and it gives me a better staging position for when I enter, instead of standing basically over Olivia. I like this idea as it makes more sense for me to be standing in between the two women and adds to the humour of the scene as it shows Cesario going back and forth between the two, trying to figure out who is who. Whereas, me standing closer to Sav, gives away straight away who is the lady of the house
• On the whole the scene is good, and the characterisation choices are good, but we just need to ENJOY the scene more. I personally enjoy this scene more every time as we still come up with new ideas and play around with them and see if they work. I want to take Viola's witty personality even further and see how far the two characters can push each other.

I feel Sav and I tried out various different methods of acting in this scene, we first decided to focus the main theme on comedy and to try it in a very comical way, this worked to an extent as it added to the playfulness and allowed us as actors to have fun in this scene and feel more comfortable with each other.But we were advised to tone the comedy down, mainly about Olivias feelings for Cesario, and I feel since toning it down we have focused more on what this scene REALLY means to both characters. There are much deeper feelings with both characters and we chose to explore these

Viola is very much in love with Orsino, and is reluctant to woo Olivia for him, and does not know what she is doing, as she is trying her hardest to act as a man and deliver the speech Orsino has prepared for Olivia, but she walks into a nightmare as the two women taunt her at the beginning, but Viola is very strong willed and is quick to make both women very aware she will not be taken for an idiot and asserts herself very strongly on her entrance. I feel this best shows Viola for who she is as soon as she enters the stage, and as this is my first scene playing Viola, I want the audience to know straight away that she is a strong character, and finds it humorous challenging Olivia.

She is essentially jealous of Olivia to begin with, but sees straight through her very quickly, and notices she is TOO proud to ever please Orsino,and I feel from this point, she no longer sees Olivia as a threat, and begins to have fun with her.

The speech "make me a willow cabin" she delivers to Olivia, about what SHE would do if she were Orsino, is really about Orsino. She is expressing her love for Orsino, and Olivia recognises this true passion and love within Cesario, and clearly mistakes this love for HERSELF, and has no idea Cesario is talking about someone else. This is the point were Olivia really falls greatly for Cesario, it has been building throughout the scene, she has been sizing Cesario up, and after this speech she is sold to him, as she sees Cesarios love and honesty, and compassion.

So I made the decision to change the way I deliver this monologue and to make it very personal to Olivia, and to maintain a very strong eye contact throughout, and steer away from making it comical, which is what I was doing before. I feel it is good that Sav and I have tried this scene using different interpretations as it has lead us to create our characters and to become more confident with this scene as we know it inside out, and we have learned what does not work from this,

My goal for this week running up to the show, is to rehearse this scene over and over with Sav and Sophie, and to focus mainly on my monologue as I feel this is a very important part to the scene as it when the audience will see genuine feelings from Cesario, and Olivia will be able to react to these feelings in a deeper way.

Act 5 Scene 1 WHOLE GROUP SCENE: 24.02.15 REHEARSALS

Today we ALL focused on the ending final scene which features all second years plus Stephen as Antonio

We went through the whole scene and made adjustments on the blocking, which is the main issue in this scene, I feel we all worked very hard and we have made huge improvements and the scene feels and looks much more balanced and we are making the most of the space, and no one is blocking any one any more, as this was an issue as well. We are rehearsing at our performance venue tomorrow all day, so I feel this scene will develop even further as we will be in the exact space.

Apart from the blocking, we focused on the reactions of the characters, as in this scene there are periods of times when not everyone is talking, so we made sure that EVERYONE is always listening and reacting to the other characters, as this is so important. Acting is not just speaking and moving, it is listening, facial expressions, reactions, even looks with your eyes. So we made sure everyone stays in character at all times and that everyone actually understands what is going on, because I feel at times some people do not fully understand what is going on or the meaning of what the characters are saying. We worked on queues, as some queues are very slow, and as this is the ending scene we want to keep the pace and energy UP as we are closing the show and want it to end with a bang, we do not want the audience and ourselves to lose focus and interest as it is nearing the end of the play.

I feel for myself, I want to work on my reactions to the other characters, and the relationship between Orsino and Viola. As she is so happy in this scene as she finally gets what she wants and reveals herself as a woman and Orsino falls completely in love with her. So I really want to portray the different stages of Viola in this scene and just how she develops and unravels herself to the characters and audience.I feel the main points for Viola in this scene are, reuniting with her twin brother, confessing her feelings for Orsino and being at peace with her life and new friends. 

We worked on the joining of the twins, Chloe and myself. And made some changes about how the two interact on stage, and we have made them much more intimate as they hold hands a lot more and are always close together, whereas before, we embraced during our conversation about our father, but after that we kind of drifted away from each other, and it is important to show the strength of the duality between the twins as this is the MAIN theme in the play, and usually in other Shakespeare plays,clearly linked to Shakespeare's twin children in real life.

Tomorrow in our rehearsals I am going to focus hard on the relationship between Orsino and Viola and Seb and Viola as these are the most important factors of the scene. And to portray my love for Orsino even more to the audience and to him.

10.02.15

In today's lesson Sav and I focused on our first scene together and performed this to the class at the end, we had a run through of all our scenes in chronological order, except for the ending scene as this scene is very long and we did not have time to run through this. We had not rehearsed our scene together for about 4 days, as we have all been focusing on our ending scene recently, so Sav and I spent the whole lesson rehearsing our scene. 
Notes from director 

• Take more pauses for more effect in lines 
• Work on staging 
• Make it bigger in cesario monologue 
• Great characterisation 
• Make Olivia more subtle- tone it down 
• Playfulness 
• We both fully understand the sub text and meaning of our lines 

This feedback was very positive and I feel really happy with how our scene is constantly developing. We need to focus on the staging and we have recieved notes on how to do this and what staging positions we should be in. We need to make the scene more central and not walk off into to the back or move around too much, I knew this would be the main feedback as we both realised that the staging was a bit scattered and was all over the place! We have focused so hard on our characterisation and character relationships and objectives, the blocking has kind of been over riden. But now we know that everyone feels our characterisation is good, we need to focus on the blocking and this is what we will do in our next rehearsals.
We were told that the characters should mainly always be at the front of the stage, especially Olivia, and we should not walk around too much, as it has no purpose in the scene. We will definitely listen to these notes and improve the blocking as it is so important and we want to feel comfortable on stage.
A personal target for myself from this feedback is to make my monologue even bigger, when I am telling Olivia what I would do if I were Orsino. I want to jump up onto the black block Olivia was sitting on when saying this monologue, and make my gestures really big and over the top, because Viola is kind of doing this on purpose to shock Olivia, and I want to show this to the audience. I will rehearse this with Sav next time we have rehearsals and probably over the half term as me and Sav live really close to each other.
I want to jump down from the block just before shouting "Olivia" as I do this I am going to grab Sav and shake her, in a comical way. I just want to have lots of energy for this monologue as it is an important monologue, and this definitely increases Olivia's infatuation for Viola. And also I really want to capture Olivia's response to this monologue as well, for example, Sav and I have tried out Olivia trying to stop Viola from shouting by Ssshing her and trying to pull her down from the block, and I feel this really works  as it is over the top and funny.
During our next rehearsal I really want to perfect the blocking, and try out different gestures for my monologue.  

4.2.15 Rehearsals

As a group, we all rehearsed and blocked our final scene, and at the end of the day, performed this to Andy, and we received helpful feedback from him on how to make it stronger. It was mainly about the blocking, as at some points we were all very crowded together and we were not making the most of the space, I feel this is partly because most of us are still using the script at some points, so we are all focusing on getting our lines right,and this is restricting us from being able to move about the space and focus on our physicality. 
We all need to focus on the blocking and the positioning of the characters in order to create a passionate and structured scene together.
Some of us had only rehearsed this scene once or twice, and we were missing characters which does not help, but we had people who helped fill in. 
I feel we need to step this scene up and come together and help each other.
My own personal goal is to learn all my lines for this scene by the start of next week, as the script restricts me from acting as well as I can. And we all need to focus much more, this scene is very long, especially when we stop and start every minute to block the scene, so I understand it does get tiring but this is one of the most important scenes in the play, so we need to focus and concentrate together.
I hope by the next rehearsal this scene improves, as I was quite worried today as it was just all over the place, and some people were fully on script which worries me as well.

My scene with Sav is looking really good and we have developed a really playful relationship between the two characters and I enjoy this scene so much, as the two characters have such banter with each other and Sav and I work well with each other and understand each others acting methods. My main aim for this scene is to just become stronger with Viola's physicality and to make sure we make the most of the space, which I feel we do, but we can always improve this.
I mainly want to focus on the final scene, as this scene is the one which definitely needs more rehearsing and attention.

5.02.15

Today's rehearsal I feel went really well and we have made massive improvements to our final scene. We all stayed behind for an extra 2 hours to rehearse and block the scene and we performed it to the 1st years and Andy at the end of the day.
We received positive feedback and on the whole the scene has improved massively from when we performed it on Friday. Mainly because we have thought very carefully about the blocking and stage positions, and most of us have become more familiar with our lines, however there all still a couple of people who are still fully on script, which needs to change as we are only 3 weeks away from our show! I am nearly there with all my lines, it is just the last few lines I need to learn, and I will set myself a target to learn these this weekend, as I feel I am much stronger and confident at the beginning and middle of the scene, as I know all my lines for this part, it is just the last section I need to learn as it is restricting me from performing 100 percent, and it feels annoying holding the script for prompts.

We ran through the scene and began by mainly focusing on the blocking, we went through it very carefully and made choices which have received very positive feedback. Our main issue was not using enough of the space and we were all slightly on top of each other throughout the whole scene, the scene itself is about 15-20 minutes long, so the blocking is very important. We now are much more spaced out around the stage, and have got the entrances and exits very sharp, we just need to keep rehearsing it and everyone needs to be off script before we can really begin to act to our best abilities.
Yunis and myself focused very hard on how our characters interact with each other from the beginning right to the end, again mainly focusing on the blocking of the characters. At the beginning we enter, and I stand staggered behind Yunis, so he is not blocking me any more, as this was a problem previously. And most of the scene I am quite close to Yunis, as Viola serves Orsino and is clearly very respectful of him. The part we have really improved is when Orsino learns from Olivia that the two of them have been together behind his back and that Olivia loves Cesario and not Orsino, Orsino becomes very angry as he feels deceived by the pair of them, particulalry Viola, who in actual fact has not done anything wrong, and she is completely confused and baffled throughout the whole scene as she receives so many accusations, which have all been because of Sebestian! 
Yunis and I made the decision to try out Orsino grabbing Viola and pushing her towards Olivia, as he is explaining how he would rather kill Cesario, his boy who he loves, than to see them together, and Viola is besotted with Orsino and will do anything for him, and as Orsino pushes Viola towards Olivia after saying "Come boy with me, my thoughts are ripe in mischief, i'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love, to spite a ravens heart within a dove..." and as Yunis pushes me towards Olivia, I ran after him pleading with him to stay, portraying desperation and love "And I most jocund, apt and willingly, to do you rest, a thousands deaths would die" Viola is saying here that she will do anything to make him happy, even if it means taking her life in order to save his pride. After showing this, we received good feedback and Andy said that Yunis should be even more physical with me and throw me to the floor and walking off just before I ran after him, this would be Yunis grabbing the back of my neck, and me throwing myself forward so it seems he has thrown me to the floor. I really like this idea and we will try this out in our next rehearsal. I feel it will show just how low Viola is feeling as she has already been accused of things she has not done, but I do not think she really cares about anything else, as long as Orsino is by her side. But in this moment, she can feel Orsino slipping away from her, and you really see her grovelling for him, which portrays her love, and she inevitably reveals this to Olivia in my next lines. I think the positioning for this is really good as I am standing in between Yunis and Sav, stuck in the middle of the two characters, and I really want to portray to the audience just how hard it is for Viola, as she has found herself within this love triangle, when all she really wants is Orsino to love her for the woman she is! 
I feel all the movements in this scene have been really carefully thought out and we worked well as a team to block this, and now I feel every move Viola makes is finding meaning, which was the main thing I was concerned about, as when we first rehearsed this scene, I found myself not knowing where to stand or what to do, but now I do not feel like that, I feel much more confident playing Viola as I know each move I make means something. 

The ending part of the scene when Viola and Seb are finally reunited is looking really good, as myself and Chloe walk towards each other very slowly, as if both in a trance as they cannot believe their eyes! It is effective, and we stare into each other eyes, and as we come closer together, both characters become more familiar and excited to be seeing each other. We received feedback from this, and Andy added that we should both fall to our knees, and hug each other, and as Seb stands to go and speak with Olivia, I will stay on my knees and wait for Orsino to come to me, as he says "Give me thy hand, and let me see thee in thy womans weeds" and then he will pick me up from the floor and we will embrace each other.

I am really happy with today's rehearsals, it was hard work getting the blocking together, but we received good feedback which I am pleased with, and I feel we can all take it further by rehearsing over and over as a group,as this scene is very important as it where everything is revealed and the characters come together, or break apart. When everyone is off script, this is when the scene will really develop, as i find it so hard to act to my best abilities when holding the script and I am sure everyone would agree with me. My goals for next rehearsal is to be off the script completely and to develop mine and Yunis' character relationship and find moments of tenderness between the two characters.

3.2.15

In today's lesson we worked on our text and the meaning of our speeches. We started with a focus exercise walking around the drama studio in sync with each other, 1 person, then 2 people, 3 then 4 and so on. We then included our characters text from the play individually as well as focusing on the 2 leaders in the room, who were the lead walkers using gestures and different movements which we all had to copy, as well as LISTENING to the person performing their text and that person had to as well FOLLOW the leader too, so we all had to have exceptional concentration and focus, as we were all doing 2-3 things at the same time. 

This exercise was inspired by Enrique Pardo "Bringing meaning to text" 

We repeated this exercise four times and I felt everytime we all got better and our concentration levels were higher. This exercise helped me to become much more familiar with my text, I know my lines for my scenes but it helped even more as I was multi tasking whilst performing my text as I was focusing on whoever I was following and projecting my voice to the room and to the other actors, we were asked to perform our lines NOT in our character, as we were avoiding characterisation and focusing more on the meaning of the text and bringing attention to ourselves and making sure we project. 
This exercise helped me to understand my characters speech in a different way, and I learned different ways to portray this to an audience, I was engaged to the MEANING of what Viola is saying, and was not just trying to get my lines right and project, which is also important, but I feel understanding the deep meaning of the text aids you to perform stronger.This is the speech I chose to use in this exercise....
"Most radiant, exquisite and un matchable beauty.....(she pauses and seems confused as she does not know which lady is the lady of the house)
I pray you tell me if you be the lady of the house...for I never saw her?
I would be loath to cast away my speech, for besides that it is excellently well penned, I have taken great pains to con it!
Good beauties, let me sustain no scorn, I am very compitible.....
Even to the least sinister usage!"

The exercise has helped me to find different ways to deliver this speech, as right at the beginning, Viola is performing a speech Orsino or herself has prepared for Olivia, but then she interrupts herself, by questioning to two women, as she is unaware who is who, as they both have black veils over their faces. And I feel adding a pause helps create effect, and will add to the confusion sense from Viola. And I also feel Viola should sound slightly annoyed on the third line of the monologue, as she is basically saying, she does not want to waste a perfectly thought out speech on the wrong lady of the house! And she is expressing how she has put in a lot of time and effort to write this speech. So when performing this, I want to seem slightly annoyed and impatient as she clearly wants to know who the lady of the house is, so she can get on with it!

We have began to look at our ending scene, which includes all of us second years, and Steven as Antonio. We read through the scene then discussed together the themes and how this scene should be portrayed to the audience, we asked ourselves questions like do we want the ending of the play to be comical? Do we want to end with all the characters in love and happy? Do we want to end the play portraying how some characters got what they desired by others fell victim to unrequited love? Do we want to end the play with a deep meaning to make the audience think?
Personally, for my character I feel Viola has got what she wanted and her desires have been met, as she was in love with Orsino, and has ended up with Orsino realising his love for her, and has asked her to marry him, or to be "her masters mistress" but in plays I have seen and the film, they end up marrying at Olivias house. And Viola has been re united with her long lost twin brother, Sebestian, so I feel Viola is very happy at the end of the play and feels her deceit as acting as a man has paid off greatly, and she achieved her objectives. Whereas, a few of the other characters like Olivia, Malvolio and Maria- their endings are questionable, as Olivia is originally in love with Cesario(Viola) and as she learns she is actually a woman, she must feel very let down and betrayed, but in the film she ends up with Sebestian anyway. We discussed how Status determines the characters endings as Orsino and Olivia are very powerful and rich, so at the end of the day they may not be as affected, as they have everything they want anyway, so it may not be a great concern as to who they will end up with.
The play will press on status very much, as the politics within the play are important, as it shows the different statuses of the character and we want to show this to the audience. I definitely want to portray the unrequited love at the end of the play, as it is sad when someone does not feel the same way in relationships, and this needs to be shown, as it is raw and real emotions, regardless of the status.

The classes views on how the characters are feeling in this scene and the themes of the characters