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