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.
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