Michael Chekhov continued ….

In this lesson we continued to look at Michael Chekhov and his techniques and theories behind acting and we focused on how he creates a character. Furthermore we looked at how we could transfer these techniques to the development of our characters in “Our Countries Good.” 

Firstly we worked out what our characters Super Objective is for the whole play and what their aim is within the text and consequently what continues to drive them throughout the play. For my character I found that my Super Objective was to impose the English Law in Australia, as his purpose in the play as a judge is to enforce the law on the convicts and I think that this Super Objective is even more prominent as the characters have only just arrived in Australia so it is hugely important to enforce the British presents and society onto the people.  

We then developed this into Michael Chekhov’s psychological gesture. The psychological gesture is the embodiment of the characters Super Objective, for example if your super objective was to hide from the world you could physicalise this by curling into a ball on the fall and this would be your psychological gesture. I personally found that putting my characters Super Objective into a psychological gesture was quite difficult as it is a complex and more mental and logical than physical objective. I found that it was easier to break the objective down and I focused on to impose rather than what I was imposing, as this opened up more exploration for me physically. I found that my physicality became a lot harder and wider as if I was trying to stretch my presents as much as I could. I also felt more forceful within my physicality and that an inner strength was pouring out into my body and my presents. I found that I was very upright and that my eye focus was patrolling everywhere to show my ever forceful and imposing presents. Interestingly I also found out that the psychological gesture and taking my Super Objective into my body made me feel more masculine and helped me to get into my character and start to move as a high-powered man. I also found that this was really useful as the psychological gesture made me feel the strength and the desire in him to create and build a society; I think that this really opened up my mind to my characters mentality.  

We then moved onto the physical centre, this is where the characters energy generates from within their bodies. Also you look at what type of energy it is: grinding, floating, vibrating ect. Through exploration I found that I felt the strength of my character was coming from his chest and was being presented in an alpha male fashion. I think that the energy coming from his chest shows a type of power and strength coming from within him. I also through that the type of energy would be a grinding energy as it shows an intimidating, powerful and over-bearing element to him. I feel that this gives a masculine and imposing power to my character, which allowed him to fulfil his super objective and embodies the forceful power of Britain over Australia. We then put in a line of the dialogue and allowed the energy to be transferred into the characters voice. I found that this gave an added strength and stability to my voice giving it a forceful edge and again making it more masculine.

MICHAEL CHEKHOV

Fact File

·         Nephew of playwright Anton Chekhov

·         Born 28 yrs after Stanislavsky à trained under his practise, naturalism. à Grow up in Russian Revolution – Stalin thought his work was too experimental so he had to leave to Europe + America and started to direct a lot of Hollywood stars like Marilyn Monroe  

·         Wrote “To the Actor” – 1953 – invitation for actors to experiment of their own

·         His work was on the emphasis on imagination and movement

·         His dominant themes were atmosphere, actor’s creativity, physicalisation of inner experience.  

·         BIG DIFFERENCE between Mick and Stan – not using emotional memory – you can imagine to connect to character. – Physco physical technique – look at difference of characters. – Actors should understand whole play, like a director not just their part.

·         Thought actors objective should be about creating there part not from own experience

·         Actor should be able to work with the atmosphere of the play – use higher ego – creative self

·         Work + Spontaneity (Work + Play) – balance

·         Mystical and less systematic than Stan

·         Actors become “actor poets”

·         In my opinion Our Countries Good is a poem about the redemption of power of drama and arts.

Character physicality

This was an exercise where we explored the physical ways that people move and walk around and on the different planes, such as vertical and horizontal. We saw how these created and developed characters and if we could relate them to our characters in Our Countries Good.

The first plane we explored was vertical; when I took on this physicality I made sure that my body was very open but strong at the same time. I made sure that my posture was strong and straight and that my head was faced upwards. All these little adjustments created a really strong and poised character, it felt very masculine in my body and regimented because of this I thought that it was a really good base to start exploring my characters physicality as it’s a man in the army and it felt right within my body for him. Also it felt very sharp and focused within my body and that this could transfer to my characterisation vocally and mentally to impact on him as a whole.

The second plane we looked at was horizontal, this made my body become a lot looser and more free as it could turn and move around as it wished. I found that I became wider in my body and that my arms started to control my movement more than my spine. I found that this created a more curious character as I could turn and look around freely. Although this wasn’t correct for my character, I found that it created a state of exploration within characters and small moments this could be put into my character.

Lastly we explored going towards something then stopping and moving away. I found that this one was interesting to explore as I feel you had to create a mental state as well as physical for this one as there was something that was stopping you from going forward. This allowed me to connect to the movement more and to create a background to the character. I found that this created more troubled and conflicted characters and that this could be used for Liz.

Difference between my character and me

This exercise helped us to understand what separated us from our characters. Personally I think that this is really useful as it allows you to know where you stop and the character starts and to be able to see the character as a living individual and not a part of yourself, so that you don’t get attached but also i think it lets the character come to life more because you are seeing them as a real person. It also shows you what you need to work on to be able to embody that character. My differences:

·         Collins is male and very masculine

·         Very high status and have power within the society

·         A lot older with wisdom and age effecting him

·         Vertical character – v. Extreme to show character – I need to work on my physicality in the character to make him vertical as I am a mixture of horizontal and vertical

·         Intellectual – legal knowledge and book based intelligence where as I am more creatively clever

·         Very serious and conventional character – i am more playful and weird ect.  

·         Christian and I’m not religious

·         We are morally opposite – he’s Victorian = patriarchal, old fashioned, conservative where as I am more of a socialist/ equalist and he represents what I don’t like = one type of person controlling a varied society – white, middle class, middle aged man

·         He is a calm/collected character and quite secure in self where as I am more insecure and excitable

Why is my character in the play?  

This exercise allowed us to understand our characters purpose in the play and what they bring to the play as every character s a purpose and a reason to be there. I found this helpful as it allowed us to understand the importance of our character more and to then be able to bring this to their presents on the stage.

·         To show the legal side of the society

·         Represent an opinion on criminal at the time of the play

·         Act as a voice of reason and Phillips second hand and support

·         To provide an intellectual and informed opinion

Imagine

Lastly we did an exercise where we had to imagine our characters doing an action and visualise them in detail doing this. Then we began to ask our character questions like how do you sit? Or how do you read? And then see how they responded and imagine the answers to these questions to discover more about you character in a creative and freeing way. I found that this was a really enlightening exercise and that it opened me to a new way of creating characters and that actually it showed me many things about my character that I hadn’t expected to. For example I discovered my characters love of reading in his spare time and actually novels instead of non-fiction are better for him to get away from the world for a bit. It also allowed me to get a really clear image of him in my head and that I started to be able to see him as a person physically and mentally and not just as a character. I thought that this exercise really benefitted my characterisation and me as an actor and that I will defiantly use this and other Michael Chekhov techniques in the future as I felt that they worked really well for me personally.

Lesson 2

Mike Alfred’s continued

 

In this lesson we focused more on Given Circumstances and objects and how they can make a character or performance more naturalistic and so that the audience invest in it.  

The first exercise that we did was a mime exercise where we had to mine an activity such as ironing or doing your hair. When miming we had to really feel the weight, shape and texture of the objects that we were using for our activity. At first this took time to get into and used to and to really feel the objects that we are working with and making them realistic. Once I got into it I found that it was okay to do but I just had to keep concentration and consistency with what I am doing. We then had to create a person that we were doing this task for; why and our relationship with the person. For my mime I was cleaning my shoes, for my Dad because he won’t let me go out with them dirty. This completely defined the way that I approached the task and how physicality and manner, for example I was really annoyed because I didn’t like being told what I was doing, this made my movements really uncommitted and frustrated. This was really helpful and interesting to explore because it show how an objective like to clean can have some many different ways of being done and the other circumstances can really change what your doing and how this can tell a story to the audience and about the relationships and the characters without saying anything. This highlighted the importance of physicality and how expressive it can be and can connect to the audience through movement and facial expressions not just text.  

The exercise was then developed as an environmental element was added to the mime, for example my mime was situated outdoors in the bitter cold. This was really useful to explore because it showed how the environment can change or develop a mime as mine got a lot quicker because I wanted the task to be done as quickly as possible and got more and more frustrated by having to do the activity. This helped me to think off how acknowledging the environment can enhance the reality of the performance and although we would be on a stage indoors, taking the environment that the scene is set into consideration is really important to bring the audience in and to make them to believe in the situation and the play.  

We then did the same exercise but with a partner, again with out words and had to work together to do a task and then we put in the same given circumstances such as a shared objective, relationship, place and environment. This exercise allowed us to explore communication with another through bodies and expression without words and how a story and relationship between two people can be transferred to an audience through their physicality and distance and treatment of each other. We then both got given an individual objective; I found that this made it harder because we had to communicate something to another that may contrast with what their one is. However I think it shows the reality on stage of how you don’t always know what another person wants or is thinking and some characters may be completely different inside than others perceive them, so this was helpful to explore and learn to work with. We also related this to “Our Country’s Good” and how we could develop characters relationships through our bodies and how on stage we could communicate even if we don’t have many lines. It also opens up certain objectives that types of characters would have and made us begin to think about our characters own objectives.

Lesson 1

Mike Alfred’s

The first practitioner/director that we are looking at is Mike Alfred’s. He works in a Stanislavski manner, looking at and exploring naturalism in his pieces of theatre, because of this he focuses on the actors and their connection with the characters and being naturalistic in the performance. Consequently he uses given circumstances and objects to make the performances more realistic and believable.

In today’s lesson we focused on improvisation and how that can be used to develop a character and explore them in different circumstances so that we can understand how that they think and their mentality. The first exercise that we did was a quick improvisation game where in pairs we have to instantly come up with a relationship, place and activity and then improvise them and change to another improvisation when we heard a clap. This was a really useful game to play because it got us into the world of improvisation as we had to work with any situation and play it straight away with hesitation. Also because of the quick fire nature of the game it meant that we had to start to work on our instincts when improvising and become reliant on our natural reactions and not over think ideas or choices. This is really important for when acting in a naturalistic style as it helps you to tap into the characters instincts and to be able to act naturally as them and not other think every different choice.

We then extended this exercise by having a circle and one pair at a time going in and doing the same exercise and as an audience we were able to see if we were able to believe these situations and the characters. I think that this was really helpful because it stopped you from faking a connection on stage and actually allowed you to get into the characters so that you could work to find truth on stage. It was interesting to watch because as an audience you could feel the difference in atmosphere when it felt like the actors were not investing in their own given circumstances. As an actor this made me think about how exposing it is on stage, resulting in you having to be fully indulged and invested in the character and situation so that the audience is as well as they can feel when it isn’t right on stage. After doing some genetic situations we started to go into some that were related to “Our Country’s Good”. This allowed us to get into the zone of the play and to get to understand and know the characters, context and setting more and being more comfortable in a time that is so far from us. I think that improvisations are really helpful to get us more connected to the time so that when we are acting on stage we are natural and not uncomfortable in that time period.

Another improvisation exercise that we did is where one person in the pair decided the given circumstances, such as the relationship, setting and something that had happened. The person who doesn’t know the given circumstances has to go along with the improvisation trying to discover what has happened and who they are. For the person who doesn’t know what’s happened they have to balance trying to work out what is going on but acting along in the character that they are discovering more and more about. They have to be able to adapt and change naturally into the qualities that are being discovered and revealed about them. The key of the person who doesn’t know what they are doing is listening and understanding the “clues” that are being given. I think that this is really useful as acting is about really listening to the other characters and what they are offering you rather than simply saying your lines without any understanding of the relationship between the characters and the sub-plots that are being developed. For the person that has decided what the given circumstances are I think that it’s really important to act and be natural with the improvisation without constantly wanting to give clues and be really obvious with what is happening. I think that it was quite hard to be instinctual and natural while trying to communicate to another; however it was really helpful because on stage a lot of the time you have to do more than one thing and be in character but also think about staging and lines. On top of this on stage you may be saying one thing but communicating another with your body or your voice so it was helpful to get used to being concentrated on more than one thing but trying to be in the moment at the same time.