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.