Evaluation.

12/06/2014
  I would say that in our performance, the things that went well were certain things such as the iron section. I liked this because it took a lot of working out and in the final performance it did go well. It worked well because I made a hurt noise (in the end!), I think it was because of the adrenaline and nerves when showing our audience what we had done. I sounded hurt in my opinion and this then looked a lot more realistic. I also liked the way that 'Jimmy' portrayed arrogance towards both the other characters, it shown more subtle emotion from the other characters but still looked real because in reality if someone was really that horrible about the most simple things, the reactions that we used were quite real. Finally, I liked the way that in the performance we did show real emotion between characters, especially between Cliff and Alison. We tried to express what was going on in their characters heads through emotion. The two characters worked with each other to help one another out, and in my opinion this was shown through their movements and speech.

  The performance went well for us, my favourite part was probably showing the relationship between my character and Cliff. This is because it was different, it worked well and was a very powerful and moving section of our piece. I have never performed anything like it, it was natural and I think it worked so well because me and Ryan are close friends in real life. This gave us the ability to take more risks with this and be more close to show the real relationship between the two characters. If we were not as close in real life, I doubt that it would have been such a good scene as we would have been more awkward and it wouldn't have looked natural either. For more details into the performance, I would say that it was good that we didn't make it into a soap opera, which could have been easily done for the piece that we selected. The piece that we selected was great because it shown different sides of different characters and I really enjoyed it.

  The things what didn't go too well in the performance was probably that it was quite rushed as a whole. It could have been slowed down slightly, I would say that some sections were quite rushed with lines being spoke fast, possibly with nerves. This wasn't too much of a big deal however because everything to me was still clear and natural, it just could have slowed down slightly to make it longer and give more time for the audience to react to what is going on at each moment. There were not many things that went very negative in my eyes, I think it was the best performance that we had performed over our rehearsals (which is obvious).

  If I were to approach our performance differently, I would simply change small things like when 'Jimmy' goes on with his big speech at me, I could have looked more annoyed at him, showing my anger towards him. For example, I could have got annoyed with the clothes that I was folding and sort of screwed them up so that they weren't neat as they were his clothes. However, I am glad that we didn't actually decide to do this because it could have came across over acted and not natural to the audience. I am glad that we kept it as subtle as we did, still showing emotion towards each other but being natural too.

  When performing, things that happened that I didn't expect or that surprised me was probably my 'scream' towards the burn from the iron. I did actually scream loud enough and at the right moment too (which I did struggle on, confidence wise). It came across to me like I was really in pain and probably to the audience looked like it too. I took on board what Daniel had said to me about it, to fall to the side so that the audience couldn't see that I didn't really get burnt and just make the painful noise really loudly. I tried to make it as natural as possible by using magic if to think about what it would be like if I really did just get burnt. This helped and I produced a loud painful noise at the right time. It also gave me adrenaline throughout the rest of the performance to perform with a lot of energy and show how hurt I was, especially at the break down phase when Cliff leaves the room and I say "Oh god." and just start to break down. If the real reaction from the hit and burn hadn't of happened, it probably would have looked fake and not real so this is why I am glad that it worked as well as it did in my opinion.
  Another thing that worked well that didn't usually work in rehearsals would be when in rehearsals I would throw a piece of Jimmy's clothing that I had just ironed to show how angry I was at him, I sometimes forgot to do that but in the performance I remembered. This made it look more dramatic but still natural, it also gave the audience a reason to feel sorry for Alison and not like her husband.
  Overall, it went really well and the general piece surprised me over rehearsals. We brought a lot more energy to it and applied everything that were told needed work on. It was very fiery and there was always something going on for the audience to intensely watch, whether it was the burn scene, the romantic scenes with Cliff, or the news of pregnancy, there was always something going on!

  Specific things that went well on my behalf would be mainly when Jimmy was going on, I know that I didn't over act it. I gave the subtle start at Cliff of annoyance, but carried on ironing like what would happen in this real life situation. I didn't really have to work too hard on this as it came natural to me, I know that I am not a theatre type person. I loved doing the natural piece because it felt so comfortable to me. It is my favourite things to do for me, this is why I think it worked so well and has probably been my best performance so far. Everything went too plan, and more. It carried the high energy that it needed without over doing it, the relationships with other characters worked well. Even if there were any small mistakes they were not noticed and blended quite well! I would say that specific things that I did well was remember small things that I forgot to do in rehearsals but did in the performance such as:
  - Remember to keep the iron with me when carrying the ironing before I get pushed and burnt.
  - Scream loud enough and realistically when burnt.
  - Didn't over react to Jimmy.
  - Kept a bond going with Cliff, but still kept a sort of distance to show that we couldn't have each other still.
  - When announcing pregnancy, I didn't make it like a soap opera.
  - I didn't do things dramatically, I toned it right down through most of it and only leapt out when it was needed (e.g. the burn and fall).

  Things that I would say specifically that didn't go too well for me would be when we first started the performance, my nerves kicked in and I got a dry mouth, so when I spoke for the first time it to me sounded really quiet and not how I wanted it too sound. This wasn't too big of a problem however because my confidence did return shortly after. Another thing that didn't go too well for me was I could of slowed down the scene with Cliff and dragged it out a bit longer. I felt that I did slightly rush it but it still worked and got the point across of their relationship. If I had of slowed it down a bit, I think that the audience would have been able to see more of our feelings. For example, when he grabs me and holds me when I try to walk away just before telling him that I am pregnant, if that section hadn't have been so rushed it could have flown a lot better. However it did still work and the audience understood their feelings towards each other and see the bond that they have together. Apart from little things like this, I would say that everything else went very well for us and we worked well together as a team for our performance.

Final rehearsals.

11/6/14

  Today was our final rehearsal. I feel that we are ready for our the performance and it should all go to plan well. The only thing that I would say that needs to happen tonight would be to get on learning my lines and working on perfecting them so I know them perfectly. In our final rehearsal today it did go really well, our only key things to work out was remembering some little lines and working on our final movements that we will use. For example, we carried on working on the very last part our scene. It has took so long to work on the movement for this part because we added it on at the end when we realized that the performance was too short and needed to be longer but it is okay now and we have sorted it easily. For this we decided that I should just pace around in anger when I am talking about how selfish Jimmy can be, then be embarrassed in front of Cliff, then slightly start to break down in front of Cliff and he can subtly comfort her and show her that she is safe. I really like this because it has worked out well and just in time for the performance!
  Jill had the idea of sitting in on other peoples performances as if it were their living room to see if it felt normal for you. I liked this idea and tried it out, I sat in on Beth, Chloe and Ryan's performance and I did feel comfortable sitting and watching them. They didn't look suddenly awkward or stop what they were doing, they just carried on and kept it up. They did really well! Lofty then sat and watched ours, his feedback was that it felt natural to him and he liked the relationship between Alison and Cliff. Jill also said that she liked that relationship because it felt real, she also liked the facial expressions and body language that we used too and made a note of that. Overall, the last rehearsal went great, I just need to keep up to date on my lines and make sure that they are clear for tomorrow's final performance.

Modern piece.

9/06/14

  I have evolved more into depth with my knowledge in 'emotion memory'. I have explored it in different ways and a lot more and added it into the piece too. If I had to put myself in the shoes of my character Alison I would be depressed, constantly wanting to shout out but knowing I can't and speak my mind but knowing that I would get shot down. It would be a very frustrating feeling overall and to relate to this using emotion memory I would think about a simple time of when I was younger and I wasn't aloud to 'back chat' to my dad. I know how frustrating it was because "one word and you'll go to bed"! So when I'm in my character it would still be natural because I would think about that and it would put me in the right mindset about who I am and what I am trying to portray too.

  Alison is trying to portray most of the time how annoyed she is at Jimmy (her husband). She is caught in a sort of love triangle with Jimmy and Cliff which obviously makes her more frustrated and more annoyed with her life. She is always bottling up her frustration and trying to keep her cool, this doesn't always go to plan however when she does shout at Jimmy and he see's a side to her that he hasn't experienced yet. I understand this sort of relationship, I have felt that frustration but then blown out at the person so I know how to apply this. I work hard on trying to show this, it is easy to do in a way but also can be quite tricky to still keep her content even when she is releasing the long bottled up anger because in reality she would still not shout too loud in case of the consequences. I know that it would be so annoying, it would drive you mad being in this situation! I would use a lot of the technique emotion memory for this because it would really help a lot in showing the audience how she is really feeling deep down.

  We watched a video of look back with Richard Burton playing Jimmy. I thought that he played the role great, but in my opinion he was too jokey with the other two and not harsh enough. I would of preferred it if he was not more 'shouty' but maybe more nasty. It's just not how I would of imagined Jimmy to act, this makes me think that it wasn't to natural. I didn't believe in the naturalism of it, the behavior description of Jimmy's character is not at all how he was portraying him. It wasn't very natural either in some things that they did, for example they moved around with no reason to and we all know that this wouldn't happen in real life. If it was me, I would have been a lot more stern but also would of not been so method in my acting. They were clearly trained in acting and you could see this, but it sort of ruined the naturalism so I didn't believe in their natural acting much.
  The good thing about this play is that it can be made played as a modern piece. I would say that the only thing that could be changed to make it more modern but be simple things like the paper being 'nine pence' to change it to 20p or something. But the majority of it is very modern so it could be played for a now a days performance. In class, the pieces that we have all selected don't have any of these olden day things in anyway, they are very modern and could be pulled off as if it were written last  week. I like this because it gives it more variety and in my opinion makes it a lot more interesting because it was written so long ago and could be used now.
  Also we shown the director what we had done so far and he helped us to improve some parts. We improved the fall (when Jimmy pushes Cliff into me) so that it looks more real and naturalistic. As a group we knew that this needed to be improved as it did look a bit too staged so we were looking for improvements. To make it better we simply decided that when I usually say "oh look out - it's more like a zoo everyday" that was too unrealistic, nobody would really say that so we just changed it to Alison walking and mumbling "it's more like a zoo everyday" which is good because it takes away the dramatic factor of the sentence and makes it more natural. We also made the push and fall better by deciding that it would be better if I made a scream when the iron falls on my arm and burns me. I am still perfecting this scream because I don't want it to be over dramatic but also not loud enough. I want the audience to hear the pain that I would be feeling so that they feel sorry for my character and the bond can continue with them. I will keep working on this and practicing so that I get it right! Hopefully this will work out right for the final performance and my efforts are shown.

Making changes.

5/06/2014

  When blocking in rehearsals, we decided that some things needed to be changed like when Alison tells Cliff that she is pregnant and our initial final idea was to have them both dancing around but then it crashing down in a fluster of the news, we thought that we should change this because it had already been done and we could go better. We thought that it might be better if we delay the reaction slowly, if there is an action for every line from the pair.

"Cliff-" (stand up)

"Um? What is it lovley?" (grabs her hand and pullls her closer to him to show the bond)

"Nothing." (pulling away from Cliff)

"I said: what is it?" (going behind her and holding her to show his real affections toward her)

"You see- I'm pregnant." (on the "you see" I would break away from his grasp and stand alone, then when I say "I'm pregnant" I would be stood sort of alone not being able to see Cliff's first reaction.)

  I think that this works well and a lot better than the other ideas because it does show the bond between the two and how close they both actually are. It also shows that they both are there for each other, they both clearly care for each other and will do anything to be around each other. The bond being broken by Alison twice also shows how she is the one not allowing this relationship, she breaks away from Cliff's help twice and really does try to be alone. Maybe these are her true feelings on the matter and she wants to show him. This is another reason of why I much prefer this idea to previous ideas, it goes into a lot more depth and in addition portrays to the audience the pain that they both are in just sometimes being around each other, knowing that they could have a better life this way

  Going back to the fall idea previous, we have actually been rehearsing without an iron just miming it (obviously we knew we couldn't do this in the final performance as it isn't naturalistic) but we finally got a real iron to work with. This was deffinatly a challenge for me because I had to workout how to fall with the real iron (not on for health and safety, just as a prop) and look like it really did burn me on the arm, and also to make sure that Cliff tends to the correct arm that the audience will see got burnt. I also have to try and make my burn reaction as real as I can and as I have never really been brutally burnt this will be hard. If I imagine it, the sound of pain would be like a screech, it would really hit the audience and make them truely believe that my character just got burnt by a hot, heavy object mallicously by her own supposodly caring husband. To make this all believable as it can have a great impact on the audience I am going to do some research into how to make this believable, try out some ideas and apply the best final idea to the scene.

  There was an idea of having the iron on to create steam as it would look real and be more natural we quickly realised that this wouldn't be possible, even if it was turned off straight away there would still be the fear of actually burning myself on the iron when I get pushed over (would be great for the 'real' reaction, not for my arm!) So finally we came to the conclusion of keeping it off but maybe when I fall I could really push it down on myself so that there is still real pain but not excrutiating. This would be a risk and we would have to try this out a few times but I am willing to do whatever it takes to make this section great because it is my favourite bit of the whole performance, it is so heated and shows for the first time this fiesty, real side of Alison and how she reacts to her husband and also Cliff in how he helps her out with her burn and also how he comforts her too.

  Again, progress is going really well with hardly any faults. I am really excited and confident in our piece, I expect that it will live upto our rehearsal standards and also push that making it ten times better! I know that when first rehearsing I shouted but when showing the director because of all the adrenaline everything came out much better, it looked more real and I was happy with the results that we had. Hopefully this will happen again but in the real performance and it all goes as smoothly as it has been going.

Alison.

  When researching into my character I took notes about her in general. She is from a privallged background, she most likely went to a boarding school (maybe this is why she went against her parents wishes of not marrying Jimmy, she would of been away from them for so long being taught how to be 'proper', she might of wanted to rebel against them from this). It was probably also an all girls school so when she got out that would have been one of her first few motives, to find a boy to date. She would have hardly ever interacted with a male and most go for the 'bad boy' so Jimmy really fitted that catagory, hated by the parents and treats her badly (quite clearly rebelling). However we see that because of all of this, Jimmy actually then resents her for being given everything on a silver spoon. She was brought up probably the opposite of how he was brought up and he is quite jealous of this and possibly confused as to how he then has her and maybe brings all this out in anger towards her. This to me shows exactly what type of people they all are, Alison did expect everything and now she is in the opposite situation she hates it and hates others because of it but mainly herself for acting the way she previously did.

Super objective

  This is what my character actually wants to achieve, what they want to have a result of by the end of the play. For Alison's super objective, I would say that there are many options of what she really wants:

1.) For her to be with Cliff with no hassle and to never see Jimmy again.

2.) For her parents to accept her husband and for him to act kindly in the way that he should towards her.

3.) For her to start a new life, leave everyone behind and just turn a new leaf.

However she does know that any of these decisons come with a lot of risks too. Option one's risk would be that Jimmy would obviously have a lot to say about this and possibly ask her to change her mind when he knows what he has done to her, feeling bad and begging for forgiveness. In this situation I can then imagine her to forget her super objective and stay with Jimmy, only for things to go back to normal or maybe worse and he could resent her more for this option. Option two would hardly ever happen, I would say that this is the biggest super objective that is most likely not to ever happen. Although Alison's father in a way accepts Jimmy and his daughters decision to marry him, her mother will probably never like him or her decision to be with him, let alone marry him. Option three could happen and has the biggest probability that it could actually happen, however I think that she knows that she would secretly miss her old life and end up going back. She would then have failed her super objective and just be back to square one. Overall I would say that her main super objective would be for her life to be a lot easier in every aspect that it is for her. She wants peace, she wants to be seen as an individual for once not just from one person and to be respected too. I doubt that this could happen but I would say that these are her super objectives, impossible or not!

  In the practical sessions of rehearsals, I would say that we are running quite smoothly. We are doing well and jelling as a group, we have changed and moved around a few things too, for example we were always struggling on how to portray the reveal of pregnancy in rehearsals. We came up with many ideas but none were really good enough for this important section. We had to think of something that wasn't soap opera and had realism, but was still captivating and eye catching. Throwing around ideas, we came up with me to walk away from Cliff and say it without looking at him in embarressment. This was quickly changed to more of a bigger movement, dragging it out and making it more powerful and real. We then thought it would be a good idea to have the two characters dancing like in the previous but with Alison instead of Jimmy showing what type of person Cliff is and also how he reacts with certain sitations. This would then lead to the news of pregnancy in such a fluster it would be a shock to the audience and also Cliff. This would get a reaction from the audience and make them think more about the characters and the situation that they are in, feeling more emotion for them and also have more of a final judgement on them all with how they deal with certain things.

  We then started to block the added on bit at the end of the performance that we needed to add in to make it the time that it needed to be of 10 minuites. When thinking about what to do here, most of it was really simple as it was just after Cliff had been told the news and how he was dealing with it but because he deals with it so calmly it was easy to block with simple actions and movements. We did also think about how Alison would react to his calmness, she would be embarressed in herself, confused at the lack of reaction and also maybe sad that a little bit of the bond between her and Cliff could have been jepadised with the lack of commitment from her, especially with this big news. In the end we came up with different things for different lines, such as when Cliff says straight after her telling him the big news he says "I'll need some scissors." This would leave Alison confused and slightly agitated with the lack of expression from Cliff. We then decided as a group that Cliff could be slightly different with his once crushed on Alison, he might feel slightly betrayed that he has warned her and now she has sort of gone against him. He might see that as mallicous just like how Jimmy is, but in the end he does bow down to his real feelings and try to eventually comfort her again. We have got some more blocking to do but for now this is what we have and with the time that we have left I have great confidence in the fact that we will add the bit on that we need to and it will run smoothly too.

Positivity and Criticism.

3/06/2014
  From the director's criticism, we need to add on some more to our piece because it only comes to 7 minutes when it should be 10 at least. To make this the length that it needs to be we are adding on half a page of script which should end fine. It also ends on a more even note, for example we ended it on the news of pregnancy, whereas when we carry on the script it ends with Cliff and Alison coming to a conclusion of that if there are no other options Alison will just have to accept it. This gives Cliff more time to process the news that he has just been told and also gives the audience time to see more reactions from the characters too.
  We also need to get an iron and an ironing board because when showing the director what we had done so far, he couldn't see the real fall that we do. This is when the two men and scrapping and Alison gets thrown on to the floor by Jimmy pushing Cliff into her. When this happens however I (Alison) will be carrying folded and ironed clothes to put away with the iron on top of the pile so that when she falls she also gets burnt from the iron. Using these real props makes the performance more realistic and natural which is how it should be.
  The positive feedback that my group received was that when Jimmy is going on about his problems and the worlds problems, it would be common to see the other characters making obvious gestures of annoyance towards him such as shrugging, rolling eyes, huffing, etc. but we didn't do this, we were more subtle and basically ignored him but still shown some signs of annoyance toward him too. This worked better for us because we knew that it had to be naturalistic and as a group we thought about if we were in this real situation how would we react and these were the answers because nobody in real life would be so dramatic realistically. More positive feedback that we received was that the relationships that we held were natural. They were realistic and shown easily because as a group we are close as individuals anyway so this was easy. All of the characters had a good relationship shown in how they should, for example when Alison is knocked over and burnt Cliff shouts at Jimmy and helps her up, Alison screams at Jimmy and then Cliff tries to joke with her to cheer her up and holds her. This would happen in real life with these types of characters. I thought that it was naturalistic and real, it shown the audience the real side of the characters like how they react with each other. Naturally Cliff would help Alison up and try to comfort her whilst Jimmy would just leave and act like he was in the right even if he wasn't. The only criticism said here however would be that Cliff should hold Alison just slightly longer. When we first put this together, we made it that he breaks away from her when she is saying that she wants to give up with love but the director's comments were that he should break away from her after he has said his speech to her about her being "too young and too lovely" to stop loving. In my opinion, this works a lot better because it keeps the relationship up with the pair and also shows that they have a tight bond together too. This also flows a lot better doing this because then it gives Alison a reason to leave Cliff's side, when she tells him that she is pregnant. It also shows that this news has really affected her because she wants to break away from the comfort. She wants to just get away from everybody and this will show to the audience too. It keeps the relationship shown too indicating that even though she is very close with Cliff and does tell him the news before anyone else, she is still afraid to get close to anyone obviously after getting close to Jimmy and that not really ending well for her.

  My characterisation has come along a lot more since just starting to rehearse. I have taken the director's notes into consideration and applied it when needed. I have improved my character a lot more too, I have given her more emotion to deal with. For example when we first started to research into our scene and just started to rehearse when I get thrown to the floor and burnt I used to get up quickly and just look really annoyed. Now we have improved this section by Alison staying on the floor and it's actually Cliff who helps her up in the end after shouting at Jimmy first but then quickly tending to her. Then she eventually gets up and screams in Jimmy's face for him to go away and throws a piece of clothing at him too. I really liked this improvement because it made the section a lot more dramatic and more naturalistic because it was sort of a in the heat of the moment thing. It shows a different side to Alison too, showing the audience that she isn't really how she comes across. She does have real emotions, she isn't just an object like she is to Jimmy. It shows more realistic emotion and brings a lot of adrenaline and energy to the section too.

  I have actually learnt new things about my character, for example when I first read the script I expected my character to be quiet and calm, keeping to herself and staying out of trouble. Now from rehearsing I can see that Alison can actually be fiesty and quite hot headed like her husband. Maybe this is the reason that she was attracted to him in the first place, Jimmy is possibly how she wants to apply herself. She is a reserved person but can when she wants be loud and get her point across to who she wants to. I wouldn't of known this without the rehearsals which has helped me a lot by going over how would she really feel in the situations she is in.

  When asking questions about my character I did ask why was she with Jimmy, what attracted her? and why does she not see that Cliff would be a lot better for her? I am trying to work to understand the context of the script too and also, more in depth about my role of Alison. Asking questions about everything helps me to understand a lot more about what is happening and in addition helps me to apply whatever is needed to the section of the script that we are performing and also how my character can develop more. My questions helped me to understand a lot more about what I am really doing too. It helped me work towards more goals on what to do in different sections and how to make my character more naturalistic and real. I asked myself questons too, such as how would I react in this exact situation? Would I leave the house? Would I stay and just get on with it? or would I think of another escape route? When questioning things like this I take many things into consideration too, like why exactly would I choose this option? I really like this part of being Alison, she is similar to me in the way that she just gets on with things but does blow out when everything is heated and brought to the surface. In the situations that I am put it as Alison I would act basically the same as she does which is in my opinion why it has been so easy to rememeber my lines for this and also act so quickly and have a very natural response to everything.

  One of my lines when I turn off the 'concert' and Jimmy looks at me fed up I say "really Jimmy, you're like a child." In real life I can imagine that I would say that if someone was acting up towards me. This is why I really understand how Alison is feeling 24/7. She is fed up but still keeps her cool until she needs to release any anger showing real emotion towards someone.

  For specific bits in our section I have annotated my script for example when we made changes to the section by addinng on more at the end I wrote on the script about this. Also I wrote on it about how I move around the room in various ways, I especially wrote about the fall that I do too when I get pushed over by the boys inn the fuss.

  I also talk a lot about the main bit of me and Cliff. When I tell him that I am pregnant with Jimmy's baby, I annotated how I would be feeling and the actions that I would take such as just before I tell him we are both really close and hugging, etc. but then when I tell him a change in behaviour is noticed between the two, but then in the end they do go back to each other but more out of Cliff's sympathy. When blocking this scene and annotating the script, I wrote that I would try and win back Cliff's sympathy and love towards my character when noticing the change. He walks away to get scissors for the bandage to cut it and I follow him round wherever he goes trying to sort of win him back. This will show the audience her real feelings, how she really feels toward Cliff and also how she reacts to not having pity. She gets confused at the no fuss attitude towards the news, this is probably because she is used to Jimmy having such big emotions and reactions towards everything. She then seems shocked when Cliff is so calm and normal. He does show sadness towards her because obviously she has in a way betrayed him. His love to her has been very clear and now she is pregnant to someone who doesn't treat her right and she knows it. I think he feels more sorry for my character than anger towards her, but maybe secretly wishes that it never happened or that he didn't ever fall for her in the first place.

  The emotions towards the involved characters are to Jimmy annoyance, sometimes hatred and dread. To Cliff it is more like a little crush and envy that he isn't in her situation and can do what he wants but will always be loved. The audience will pick up on this too, the relationships we hold as characters is very clear and this was also mentioned by the director. When things like the mallicous fall happens in the fault of Jimmy, the audience will be shocked but also expect it because they can see what Jimmy is really like from the start. He is a character that is not to be loved, maybe only when he shows his true colours and feels bad after the fall. He goes straight to his wife apologising and feeling sorry for her but the audience will also see that this is just an act and would be quickly cancelled out when he does something else in anger towards her. The audience would then feel sorry for Alison's life, she would feel angry however and not sorry for herself as she gets feisty and fights back to him. This in my opinion would shock the audience as this is the first time that they see this calm and contect character act this way. For the first time she shows actual dominance against the men and steals the attention from her forever agitating husband. I think most of the time the audience will feel the complete opposite for Alison in how she is actually feeling. She is good at hiding her emotions and clearing herself up very quickly. When she sends Jimmy away from her and also Cliff to get her soap for her burn she does have a break down moment for a second, but then when Cliff comes back she gets back to herself acting like nothing has happened. She only really does this once and it is when she is alone, this will show the audience how strong she is of a person and that she only closes down when she is alone because maybe she wants to be the strong one of the household and not show any fear or defeat incase her husband then dwells on this and makes it worse. If he see's any signs of insecurity or defeat he would easily pounce on it and take the person down fast. She has to always be on her guard and only gets a few seconds to loose herself for a moment but has to snap back quickly.

  To express these quickly changing emotions I would use the technique of 'emotion memory'. I would think of a time when I had to be in this situation, being stronger for somebody else. This could be when I had to comfort my friend, her mum was very ill but I had to stay completely positive for her as I knew that she was a strong person herself so if she cracked I would too. Staying strong for her wasn't easy at all as she was probably stronger than me at the time and I had a really close connection to the family too. I would use this when portraying Alison's emotions through emotion memory. This would then help me to show the audience that I really am that character and I would be believable too. I like using emotion memory for things like this because it is more naturalistic, however I would say that when using it it can take the focus away from my next line and make me completely forget where I am. This is because I get so focused on trying to bring back an emotion that has been sort of locked away that it takes time and I can't get it fast enough, then there is the problem of getting to caught up in it. If I unlock the memory I could easily not be able to snap back out of it like Alison would, so because of this I would prefer not to use this technique and instead just get into the motion of Alison and try and indicate her emotions as best I can.

  To claim higher marks on this performance I know what I need to do, as follows:

* Use my vocals and my clear movement to the best of my ability.

* Be totally assured in my character's motives and reasons for doing things.

* Be confident and clearly fluent.

* Be relaxed in my character and natural, like no one is watching and it is real life.

* Have commitment and a lot of focus towards the piece and also my character.

* If I do go into emotion memory, have a quick recovery.

This means that I will be using Stanavlaski's three step system. His style is to be calm, relaxed, focused and ready to do the performance. It is exactly how I should go about our piece, very real and natural. I enjoy using 'the system' because I think it should be how you should be in every performance, not just naturalisitic piece's. I would say that in whatever role you get you should always be calm and ready to perform in any circumstance. It helps with the naturalism of everything and makes everything a lot more real for the audience to see.

  In an earlier workshop we played a 'three chair game'. There were basically three chairs, the first made whoever sat in it act under played, more than natural just not really caring about whatever situation they have been given. The second chair was then if sat on the reaction of a soap opera, so still quite natural but with more of a drama element in it too. Finally the last chair was the most over the top, if sat on the person would have to act over hysterical about the situation they had been given. Crying, screaming, over the top laughing, these sort of emotions were valid on this chair but for example not on chair number one. For this performance I would say chair one would always be best, sometimes chair two would work but would need to be subtle and not all of the time. I think that this method is good to think about for Look back because it keeps a reminder in your head of how to react to things, not be over the top and always very neutral unless a bigger emotion is needed.

  If I had to think about what wouldn't be naturalistic, I would say when I say that I am pregnant, this could easily be turned into 'chair two', a soap drama. However I know that this is wrong for this type of performance so I dial it down a lot and in rehearsals I sort of whisper it in embarressment but so the audience will still be able to hear this big news. I know that I have to say this important line loud enough for the audience to hear because if not the rest of the piece wouldn't make sense to them and it is also so dramatic but does happen in real life in this bad sitation. It will be hard to not go soap opera with lines like this but I am sure my group is confident enough to not make small errors like this as it has to be real.

  Overall I would say that we are rehearsing really well so far, it is all going to plan and changes that need to be made and getting done. We are working at a great pace and we are taking comments into consideration from each other and also the director. We are taking notes that will hopefully improve and make the piece come along a lot smoother and also more real for the final performance.

Script blocking.

  From blocking, my group have come up with different scenarios for different parts of the scene that we are creating. For example, when we started blocking the very first section of our scene we had different views on what we should do. Ryan (playing Cliff) wanted Dan (playing Jimmy) to pace up and down whilst reading out his speech about women and how dreadful they are, but when looking into this we realised that it wouldn’t really be very natural for someone to just start moving around with no purpose so decided as a group to not go through with this idea. Then Dan had the idea of Jimmy to stay seated until a certain point, the point being when he leans over to Cliff being horrible and Cliff tells him to stop, that could be when Jimmy stands up because this would give him a purpose of movement and still be naturalistic. We then decided to go with this idea as it made sense and gave the audience something to look at too which to us made it more interesting.

  Another example of blocking that we have done would be when Cliff and Jimmy dance. There were many discussions about this particular scene, Ryan wanted to dance and then say his lines but I suggested a different idea of whilst they are dancing, every time they are facing the audience in their spin they could say their lines then. This then went a lot smoother and there were a lot less pauses too which was better. The final blocking that we did this day was for the two boys to dance around and then knock into Alison with a bump, then the actual fall that we do. This also had some different ideas of blocking, first we thought that Alison should be behind the ironing board and that is knocked into, sending her and Cliff flying and eventually her getting burnt. Once we blocked this, we all realised that it was too hidden. This big section of our piece that was very important to the whole thing was behind the ironing board so the audience wouldn’t get to see the reactions, pain or anything really. We then changed this many times,  trying to adjust it so that the audience would see the hit, but also that it would be realistic and not just put forward just for the audiences viewing. After thinking a lot about this as a group, we tried out many different ideas to try and fit the bill. We tried putting the ironing board slightly slanted (this didn’t look naturalistic however and would give away what was about to happen with the random slant), we also tried getting Cliff to tip over the ironing board into Alison showing the hit before falling (but the audience still wouldn’t clearly see the fall or reactions), etc. Eventually we scrapped all of the ideas and thought again. Instead of everything being so restricted to behind the ironing board, we thought maybe we could think of a reason for Alison to leave from behind her ‘station’. This question was easily answered with my idea of Alison finishing folding up her ironing and then for her to walk somewhere to put it all away with the iron on top, accidently then getting hit and burnt. This was the idea that finally did work, it was a natural movement, it flowed, it had purpose, and it gave the audience a very clear view of what was happening without ruining anything and giving away any hints of what is about to happen. I really liked this final idea because it would add to the drama, if Alison gets hit from the way that we have blocked it, it would mean that the ironed clothes would fly everywhere and the iron would fall onto her burning her too. This would defiantly bring more anger, not just from the malicious hit or the burn from the iron, but also from all of her hard work now being demolished. Stress would play a big part in this and it would put the audience on her side and would equal a bigger emotion.

  Up to now with blocking, we have nearly finished. I think just learning our lines would really help and then it will go a lot smoother and work a lot better. I feel very confident about where we are now with blocking, and I feel it will go very well in the real performance as rehearsals have gone so well for us

  The ‘units’ and ‘objectives’ play a big part in our blocking purposes too because we do have to explain to each other why we do things in our suggestions. For example if we didn’t ask why when blocking the first section when it was suggested for Jimmy to patrol around the room whilst speaking, we would of just gone through with it and the audience could have been confused as to why that happened. This is why using the units and objectives rule is helpful because without it nobody would ask why. For this section of blocking the thing that would have been asked would have been the ‘unit’, as it is the movement performed.

Character development

  So far, my character has changed significantly. For example when Alison used to just stay at her station, she now moves around a lot more and has more curiosity and emotion towards other characters. I feel my character has progressed a lot more from the start; I have tried to use more emotion in my words, when I say “I really don’t Cliff. I don’t think I can take much more. I think I feel rather sick.” When saying these lines, I have left more pauses for emphasis whereas at the start, I would just say it all in a panic but from playing around with a few ways of speech I thought that pauses would be more naturalistic and also sadder too. In addition, I have created Alison to be more of a strong women but not all of the time (sometimes she is quite weak especially with Jimmy), but overall she s now a lot more headstrong and can fend for herself. When the commotion of the fall happens, at first she was quite timid to me but from changing it up I have made her more dominant and annoyed at her husband. This to me creates a bigger impact for the audiences viewing and also shows another side of my character that is usually quite reserved and calm, but is now standing up for herself and is showing passion and anger. My character will eventually progress some more but for now I am happy with how it has developed already.

The system

  Since researching Stanislavsky’s system, I have tried to use the three parts (relaxation, concentration, imagination) in rehearsals of Look back. This has created more of an understanding for me because actually using it making it clearer for me. I have used the system in the following ways:

1.)    Relaxation – I relaxed my mind and body when reading lines through rehearsals, it made my words come out a lot more natural and clearer. It also looked more real and flowed a lot more too.

2.)    Concentration – By keeping focus on my character, I kept in the zone of Alison. This worked well for me because it made me have the same mindset as my character, which put me in her shoes and worked for a better rehearsal.

3.)    Imagination – Thinking about what it would be like to be my character, this also really worked for me because it put me in the mind of my character which worked better because it gave better reactions. For example, when I get hit by the boys and I imagine that I am Alison, it made me have a greater reaction to the hit which was more powerful to watch in my opinion.

This has developed my understanding of the system much better by applying it to my own character in rehearsals. I like using the system and I can see why many actors use it positively.

Word for the week: Motivation.

"a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way." (https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=motivation&meta=#hl=en&q=motivation+meaning&spell=1)

Emotional memory and Magic if

“The magic if - Questions to ask yourself about you character. E.G. If this happened what would I do. If I were my character what would happen in this circumstance. It is a way to get to the real and truthful objective for the character.” (https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090318150950AAnB8a0) Using ‘magic if’ you allow yourself to ask your own questions about if you would do something or not, and also why. You ask ‘what is really going on in my character’s head right now’ and then apply that feeling or emotion to your character’s performance. This works well because if you are the character then it comes across more natural to the audience and realistic too. You ask yourself “How would I react?” “What would I do?” “What emotion would I feel?” then with the answers, use them in the performance. For example, when Alison falls and hurts herself with the iron getting burnt I would ask myself them three questions and the answers would be:

“How would I react?” – I would probably scream and get annoyed if I knew it was malicious. I would be angry at whoever did it and seek help immediately.

“What would I do?” – I would seek help and run it under cold water, still in pain.

“What emotion would I feel?” – I would feel anger at whoever did it, pain from the burn, and moreover annoyance at myself for being in the wrong place at the wrong time really.

  A method of Stanislavsky’s, for emotional memory it is basically what would you do if you were in the same situation as your character. When doing this exercise, we shared stories with each other that had an impact on our lives. This could then be applied to any particular scene of Look back, using the same emotion as our situation but for our characters situation instead. My situation could be when I was younger; I was hit by a car when crossing a road with my bike. The emotion that went with this could be applied to the section of our scene where I get pushed over and burnt by the iron because I remember that my emotions at the time were confused but also quite unsteady. This in my opinion would work well with this situation because I would imagine that both reactions would be very similar, apart from the fact that Alison is a lot angrier than I was when I got hit by the car. This is because Jimmy’s action was malicious and my situation was not done on purpose.

  In Alison’s head, there is a lot of anger and hatred, but also calmness and stability. There are many situations that I have been in that I could apply here with this method of emotional memory, like when I tell Jimmy to “Stop shouting! You’ll have Miss Drury up here.” I could just think about a time when my younger cousins were being loud and my granddad was in bed so I had to tell them to be quite. Many simple things can apply to my situations as Alison, even as easy as that. ‘Emotional memory’ for me really works well; it creates a greater impact on the audience and makes you really believe that you are the character that you are.