16th September

16^th  September

In todays lesson to start preparing for the Cherry Orchard assessment in week 8 we started to look at the Laban Efforts

We started to look at this method as it will help us start to create a character and a sense of what our character in the show would be like. It is only used as a starting methods it also helped us to see what little differences in the body can impact in the scene as we showed the class a piece that we had made in pairs.

We were provided a sheet of movement and sequences that would help for example a punch comes from strong weight it’s sudden in time and direct in direction. We were then asked to explore these different movements and walk round the room developing characters and exploring ways to move in these forms. I found the exercise useful to me as an actor as I was not thinking of the weight or direction of the character so early on in the process and it made me think of how different characters in The Cherry Orchard would be like.

We were then given the scenes that we will be performing in for the assessment and told to get into the groups of people in the scene. I was in three different groups so I did find it a bit of a challenge to get round and have an in depth look at the scene but in each group we started by just reading through the scene and exploring each character just by their speech to start off with.

I got the character of Gayev he seems to be very distracted by a mental game of pool in his head that he blurts out in lines some of the time he also does not have much respect for the lower class and finding meaning for his lines was sometimes hard as he never thinks what he says he just says them.

Group 4 start on page 311 and we are discussing selling the orchard to help with money. Throughout my scene I am mostly giving opinions on different situations for example the fact having the railway is a good thing in town or the line either he goes, or I do.

Group 7 we start on page 336 and this is just when the orchard has been sold and we are going through different emotions. This scene I am emotional shown through my first stage directions with his right he is wiping away his tears or me saying I’m horribly tired, finding excuses to leave so I just go to bed instead.

Group 9 we start on page 348 and this is the last scene and we are just leaving the house to go to the train station. I am much more caring n the last seen as I worry about my sister and call for her a lot to make sure she’s ok. I also say my friends my dear good friends leaving this house forever can I stand silent can I refrain from saying a word of farewell.

If I did not understand parts of the script I highlighted them to research and look more into when I was at home.

Me and Michael then worked with each other to decide what we thought this character was like as a person and his relationships with other characters and also the super objectives of this character.

Together we found out that throughout the play Gayev mostly will agree with his sister Ravensky

It also seems to have some conflict with yasha throughout the show. Most of his objective are to : agree, be successful , inform, tell , entertain  we found out he is very opinionated and sometimes comes off as rude to other people  but his super objective we both decided was that he wished to look after his family

We started to look at these questions of what people say about my character

What my character says about other people and what he says about himself.

It really helped me by looking at opinions on himself and others towards him or his attitude to others all this research is on my character profile which will be published soon. As an actor the process helped me to make descions on how I should play my character and in the next couple weeks how my character should react on stage.

To the end of the lesson we in character groups were told to come up with a sequence of movements for our character to perform together Michael and I decided to show the business side of his character and stressed and at work I think once it was all put together with other characters it looked ok but the stage looked to cramped and people were too much standing near each other it may look nicer with more space between people.