February 2012 Archives

This past week we did some work on Stanislavski's Emotion Memory. Emotion Memory is a technique where you recall upon a time in your life when you experienced similar emotions or events and the character you are portraying. This is a useful technique because it can help make a performance look more real and the character you are portraying more believable. Often your character will be dealing with a circumstance or event which you have never experienced yourself, so instead you must find a situation you have experienced similar emotions as the character. For example; say you have to do a scene where your character just witnessed the death of a loved one; hopefully you have never been in that situation before, so you instead think about how you felt when your pet goldfish died maybe. Recalled memories are useful to use as a base for your performance in order to make it more realistic and help you further develop your character. This was difficult for me to do at first because I have never been married, had an adulterous husband on trial about to be hung, been pregnant, accused of witchcraft or any of the things going on in our scene. I realized I had to break it down into individual emotions such as; fear, love or concern. By focusing on one emotion at a time it was easier to draw on my own experiences. With working on Emotion Memory I feel out scene now has more emotional depth to it. 

The scene that Jeff and I are working on from The Crucible is the final scene between Elizabeth and John Proctor. It is a very dramatic scene full of subtext. John Proctor has been in jail for three months and has not seen his pregnant wife Elizabeth. John has been put in jail in because of the witch trials going on in Salem. Elizabeth was also suspected of witchcraft but as she is pregnant will not be tried at least until the child is born. Prior to the witch trials John had committed adultery and Elizabeth had found out, as you can imagine this created all kinds of conflict between husband and wife.  These circumstances, along with the fact that John will probably be hanged shortly, cause a lot of tension in the scene and add a lot of subtext. When performing it is important to thoroughly examine subtext in order to fully portray the character and their emotions at that given time. Without putting thought into what the character really means behind their words, the scene is flat and unbelievable. To help us with this, we looked at Objectives and Super Objectives. Determining that Elizabeth's Super Objective was to reconcile her love with her husband and proctors was to gain his wife's forgiveness, whereas their objectives change multiple times throughout the scene, from concern for the children, to each other and their community. So far our scene is coming along nicely, however we do plan to meet at lunches to work a bit more on getting the full emotions out of the text.

It's been another week and Andie and I only had one more rehearsal time. I feel a little nervous at this point but I'm going to talk to Andie and see if we can practice someday at lunch. The lines are solid in my head but the accent is still weak, but that isn't really important anymore. Though I would still like to perform with the accent because it's awkward to talk about living back in Italy without the accent. For now I think we just need to put in more practice for the scene to be good.

            In class on Tuesday we did an exercise where you put a verb next to your line that describes what the line does to who you are talking to. Both Andie and I found it very difficult, especially on one-word lines. We still managed to do it and the result was very interesting. Having to think about the lines made you think about why the character was saying them. This also led us to some of the sub-text of the scene.

            At the beginning especially, there is a lot of sub-text. Catherine asks if Rodolpho is hungry and he responds by saying: "not for anything to eat". This combined with the fact that they exit the stage in the direction of the bedrooms at the end of the scene makes it very clear what he means. But at the same time he wants to sort out whatever it is that is bothering Catherine. He then tries to recover conversation by explaining that he has $300 to try and show her that things could be okay. The beginning of the scene has a lot of sub-text that can be hard to convey, but Andie and I think we can do it.

            The other thing that I've done is starting to mark in pauses and emphasis in the scene booklet. I find that I have to think about how I say the lines normally and if it makes sense that way. There were a few spots where I changed my mind about a pause but for the most part the way I say something works and I just write it in.

            Those are the things that I've noticed since last week. The scene work is going well, I just think that Andie and I need more rehearsal time, but we'll work that out. 

Nervousness seems to be the plague of all those who go out into public. The cure is often a healthy dose of indifference, but within a species that has its very reproductive foundations rooted within the practice of strict judgment it is difficult to fool one's self into believing that others truly don't care. We are left trying to convince ourselves that we're great, but again, society has taught us to be humble, and praising ourselves within our minds goes against not only the societal norm but the years and years of self esteem conditioning that various companies put us through in an effort to attract us to their products.  This past week of rehearsal reached its precipice when the time came for an evaluation of line memorization, something that I can honestly say that I was not prepared for, nor was my partner. It was apparent that the other groups were suffering from the same sort of stage fright that we were. Whenever Mr. Newman would enter the room all acting progress would seemingly come to a halt as we all stopped and tried to think about how we should look and how we should be acting. It was really quite entertaining to watch while simultaneously being quite terrifying to be in the same room as. For us grade twelve's, last Thursday's class was our last opportunity to have a mark put in for our university grades, so the pressure in that particular moment was amplified even more so. It's quite funny to think about the situation really. You are worried about doing well and by worrying about doing well you consequently end up doing worse and thus your fears are confirmed. It's a terrible endless cycle, one that I think we've all suffered from inside and outside of drama.  The fear of making mistakes causes us to make mistakes. It's the regret, and knowing that that regret will stick with us for a long time. When writing articles for the Aquiline, I don't like to tell people that they are weak, spoiled, or take things for granted. Perhaps they do, perhaps they don't. Everyone has of issues that plague them, but one thing that they all have in common is regret. Thinking about the past is one of the easiest ways to bring yourself down, because it is always the horrible stuff we remember the most (stupid brain). Whenever I end up in the lower school hallway I am reminded of the total bliss and lust for life that small children have. That is what I'm going to teach; to keep their lust for life, to not by force themselves to live up to other role models, but to look forward to their own adventure. You are not Gandhi, you are not Mother Theresa, and you are not Craig Kilberger. You will never be. And that's an amazing thought! You are your own master, and you can walk down any road you like! Ask yourself: "What keeps me from doing exactly what I want to?" The most likely answer is: "Myself." What you have done in the past will only hurt you if you do it again. Make sure to tell yourself what you will never do again, and then tell yourself what you will do. Form your resolve, but base it upon your own courage and independence. Be honest with both yourself and those you love. Don't try to live up to others, but make your own adventure. Regret is only good for telling yourself what you will never do again. Once you know which things you will never do again, regret turns into wisdom, and wisdom builds character.

When we were told that we would be doing scenes from The Crucible, I will admit that I was a little disappointed. I am not usually a fan of tragedy, and as I said in my previous journal, I am not a big fan of The Crucible as a play. But when scenes were given out, and groups were formed, I began to get a little more excited about my scene.

It took me a little longer than everybody else to memorize my lines (due to neglect) but when I finally did, I found that our scene ran quite smoothly. We are still in the rehearsal process and trying to work out the staging for our scene. It is much more difficult than I imagined. I appreciate what Mr. Newman does ever year for the play. It is certainly hard. Anyways, while we were in the midst of practicing, Mr. Newman decided to mark us based on our lines rehearsal as opposed to regular line tests that he usually does (which are terrifying). I liked the idea, but at the same time I felt that he came in to watch only the scene where I had a million lines, and where I was still a little foggy on my exact lines. I guess he knew which scene he needed to watch. But anyway, as a result I did quite poorly on my line test. Which means that My overall Drama average will be quite low. But I think I know how I can improve it....

            I think that I will be able to improve my Drama Mark in two areas: rehearsal and performance. We have been fairly focused during rehearsals (thank you Jessica) and I think that if I really work on my lines and get absorbed into the character of Elizabeth that I could do quite well.

            I cant wait to perform. It will be great!

 

Drama class has been very interesting for the past few weeks. Filled with rehearsal and read-throughs of a very widely known Arthur Miller play (you really enjoy his plays, don't you Mr. Newman?). The Crucible is slightly disturbing, both in its story and in its characters. Arthur Miller is very good at making his characters out to be realistic, and their interactions are very believable.

In The Crucible, I find that the majority of the characters are fairly unlikable, and at many points within the play, I wanted to stop reading. This goes back to my issues as a child when I would not be able to sit through Disney films such as the Lion King and Snow White because I couldn't take the conflict. This play is literally chalked full of conflict. To the brim. That is why while doing a read through, I couldn't help but hate what was happening to the characters, hate the ignorance of the townspeople and hate the evil intentions of Abigail. There are a lot of antagonists in this play. Between the evil characters of Danforth, Hale and Abigail this play was very upsetting.

Some nice things about the Crucible are its excellent plot (however upsetting it may be) and its dynamic characters. I didn't like what the characters were doing, but based on their backgrounds I could understand why they were doing it. I also liked the way that although there was a sad ending, John Proctor didn't die in vain, and seemed to die a somewhat heroic death.

Over all, In the Crucible Arthur Miller weaves a detailed web making some interesting insights into human nature. This play is the result of a genius playwright and I did somewhat enjoy it ( even though I had a hard time with all the conflict). I cant wait to see how my rendition of Elizabeth Proctor will turn out. 

As the weeks pass by, rehearsals get more productive. Last week, I was really more comfortable with my lines and more familiarized with it because I did not need to get help from the script. We did a couple of rehearsals and each time we repeated our scene I realized a stronger character of Elizabeth in me. However it was a little frightening having Mr. Newman around, his presence always affects us because we would always want to put up our best and please him. Of course! We had to, he is assessing us and marks will be recorded at the end of the day. Both I and Rory however still find difficulties in performing when we have to look at each other straight through the eyes; this is the very intimidating and awkward moment during rehearsals. Also, I find it very useful taking notes whenever we perform a line. These notes direct me to what gesture or position I should make. Stage directions are very confusing when you have your lines memorized because someone like me would always be thinking of what line to say next and that really gets me distracted and in most parts I easily tend to forget about the settings or actions that follow.  

Drama Journal #7

         As I predicted last week, this week was all about the prompt book.  One of the exercises that we did in class today was an activity to determine the underlying actions and emotions in each one of our lines.  This forced me to look deeper into the character of John Proctor, and what he was really trying to achieve with each line, and how each of his lines was affecting the characters around him.  Some of these lines were very easy, but when I looked back and saw that 7/10 of my lines were "I question you" I realized I had a problem.  I was being too superficial.  I erased my work and started again.  Slowly, each of the lines except for two of them became clear to me, and not only did it allow me to dramatize John Proctor more accurately, but it allowed me to dissect each of John Proctor's actions, and understand why he did what he did.

         Prompt books have usually just annoyed me in the past, but I realized in class today just how much they help me.  Jessica was gone the last class, so Bella and I just ran lines with no actions.  This left me a little foggy this morning as to which actions we had picked out before.  Luckily, I had written most of them down on the sides of my prompt book, so I picked them back up again fairly quickly.

         The last thing I wanted to comment on was how Mr. Newman changed the normal one on one line test into more of a rehearsal grade.  This was both good and bad for me.  The good: it allowed me and my group to have a more productive work period that class, and was obviously less stressful.  Now the downside to this was that I am usually not prepared for the one on one line tests, but I had it down cold this time.  I was looking forward to getting as high of a grade as possible for just straight line memorization.

         In conclusion, this week in drama was spent mostly working on prompt books, but our scene is really coming together as the date for the performance is getting closer.  While doing the prompt books, the exercise that Mr. Newman threw at us was challenging, but also very interesting and helpful at the same time, and I am looking forward to finding out if he has anything else like that to help us further deepen our understandings of our characters.

Drama Journal #6

This week in drama class we rehearsed our scenes from The Crucible. Working with Bella and Jessica was really productive, because when we focused on being dramatic with our voices and memorizing lines, we really got a lot done.

One of the biggest challenges for me this week was working on my accent.  Bella and Jessica both have an idea of what kind of voice they are going to use for their performance, but as of right now, I'm not sure how to play John Proctor.  I have been thinking of many different possibilities such as a lower class southern accent, my normal voice, and maybe a Boston accent, although that last one is hard for me.

Another problem that I ran into is one that I am familiar with.  I remember last year I had problems deciding what to write in my promptbook, and this year is no exception for me.  I look at Jeff's prompt book, and notice how much more writing he has in his, and I can't help but worry a little bit.  I will have to get working on it really hard next week with my group, and see if I can do a better one than I did in grade 10.

Overall, I love the group I am in this year, and I am happy with the scene that we have chosen.  It is a scene with a lot of emotion and John Proctor is an interesting character for me to play, because he is a very different person compared to myself.  If I can get the prompt book and my voice nailed down for next week, then our group will be right on track for the date of the performance, and I am looking forward to presenting our scene!

 

         My group and I have only had two rehearsals since my last journal was written, one being the day we had to memorize our script. I was quite apprehensive going into this class because my nerves sometimes get the best of me when reciting my lines. Luckily, Mr. Newman changed the line test to a more casual reciting with our groups. This took the pressure off because it wasn't as one-on-one as memorization tests have been in the past. In our second rehearsal class we were given an exercise that required everyone to identify the underlying emotion of their line using the guideline "I _______ You". For example, if my line revealed something shocking or surprising, I would use "I Horrify You", or if the underlying meaning implied adoration I would use "I Love You". This exercise was given to us as actors so we could deliver each and every line with its true meaning and to ensure every reaction would be in context. The next couple of rehearsals will be used to mark up our prompt books to ensure we have every movement and action copied down. Recording the blocking in our prompt books will help us with the flow of our scene because as we run through we are discovering awkward positioning that can now be easily avoided. This class time will also give us an opportunity to perfect or scene and lines, however, if need be, we will use lunch time or after school to rehearse. 

I think that John is a very interesting character. He is both among the most noble characters in the play (Pretty much one of the only good guys, along with Elizabeth, some of the farmers, and depending on your view of him, Hale [He does try to save people near the end, and wants them to lie simply to save their life rather than to root out witches and such]) but at the same time is technically responsible for all the deaths in the story, most likely several orphans and widows, and all because he wouldn't not sleep with his maid. And even then he is angry at his wife for even mentioning it despite the fact that it's causing what amounts to the execution of at least half a dozen innocent people. But in all truth it's Abigail's fault. I also don't know how John would react to certain things; do to my not every having been a Puritan Farmer in Salem during the witch hunt, or a Puritan Farmer in Salem, or a Puritan Farmer, or a Puritan, actually. I might have some basis if he was younger, lived in Ontario, and wasn't a farmer. On another note, does Cheever actually appear in the play? I forget what he did if he actually appears. Considering John's record of getting people to help him (His first maid had an affair with him, and that led to this whole incident. His second maid ended up saying he was trying to get her to lie to the court that there was no witchcraft, and got John accused of witchcraft, an accusation that ended with his death.) Cheever probably ended up being the executioner that hanged John or something.

I think the scene I have to do (First part of the Act 2, until Mary Warren comes in) is rather interesting (I use the term I think, or some variation on it [I thought, etc.], a lot when starting my drama journals, don't I?). However, Elizabeth is a bit too suspicious of John (Though I don't have much experience being a Puritan farmer's wife whose husband had cheated on her, obviously), as she thinks he may be up to no good with Abigail despite the fact that she should know that it takes a while to seed a field as big as their field, and John gives a completely logical reason for why he doesn't immediately run out the door and tell everyone that Abigail is a liar (The reason being that he doesn't have any witnesses that can confirm Abigail's confession, and considering the fact that he is trying to be nice to his wife, he has a legitimate reason for having lied to her about other people being there). I do think the tension between them is conveyed well by the lines and the stage directions, such as John adding things to the stew without Elizabeth knowing, him talking about how he wants her to be happy in the same scene that has him later arguing with her and pretty much calling her a suspicious and heartless person. Also, how can something have a purple smell? I can understand an orange smell, since oranges actually are a fruit, and they are orange, but not purple. As well, why would a small amount of salt make a soup taste better? Is John a smoker? Or just a jerk that can't stand admitting something he didn't make is good?

Scene Work

Before we picked our scenes I was really excited because I really wanted to be one of the Italian characters (even though they are both men). Unfortunately I can't play a man so I got Catherine's part. I am doing the scene where Catherine and Beatrice's are discussing about Catherine's future and her marriage with Rodolpho. Of course the challenge was to memorize the lines but now the biggest difficulty I'm having is figuring out how I'm going to say my lines. I slowly started to realize that I could act it out in many ways; my first approach was playing them in a way that suggests that I had no idea about my uncle's secret love for me. But then I thought to my self maybe through this conversation with my aunt I should show some sing that I am slowly becoming aware of it. Another thing Lizzie and I need to wok on is the set up of the scene and the movement. As it is now it's a little awkward because I am supposed to be coming into the room with Rodolpho but we are trying different ways of doing it and hopefully we will find one that works. We are slowing identifying parts in the scene where we can have some movement. Working with Lizzie has been a lot of fun even though she has a more serious character to play. In many ways it fits her personality if I was in a situation like that she would have the same argument as Beatrice.

Original Reaction of the play A View from the Bridge

 

Originally I was excited with the play especially when I found out that some of the characters were Italian. The play has an interesting story but I have to admit the first read through wasn't as exciting as I expected. Once I thought about what was happening in the play and the reactions of character in situations it somehow became much more interesting and I wanted to see what would happen next. The play took a path I didn't expect, I never thought that Eddie would be in love with Catherine and Beatrice would know about it. I also liked how in the play we see the aspect of an unwanted marriage, it makes it exciting to see if Rodolpho and Catherine will get married or not. Along with this we also have the anxiety of finding out if Rodolpho and Marco will get caught and be sent back to Italy. Something I didn't like about the play is it's ending. Killing someone in a play or movie to me just seems like an easy way to end the story. It would be interesting to see if Eddie would go to the marriage or maybe they didn't get married because Catherine thought it wasn't right. Over all I really like it and I am excited to act out a part of the play and I'm hoping ill get Rodolphos or Marcos part.

I think that the Crucible is an interesting play. The way it shows how a situation can spiral out of control simply due to peoples wants causing them to turn on each other is rather interesting, and very chilling. For instance, despite the Rebecca Nurse being viewed as good and kind, another woman accuses her simply because she is jealous of Rebecca, and tells Hale that it is Rebecca's fault that she had a bunch of miscarriages. Eventually it spirals so out of control that even Hale, who is considered the expert on witchcraft, can't convince anyone to stop. As well, it is rather interesting to see how easy it is to convince someone that something is really happening, for example, Abigail convincing the girls to accuse people and pretend that they are being cursed. On the other hand, it is rather annoying, as the whole thing comes down to the main conflict being between a farmer and some idiotic teenage girl who hasn't a single intelligent idea and can't understand basic logic, such as, the guy isn't going to marry you if you get his wife executed for witchcraft, you fool. Kind of undermines the story when the entire plot is set in motion by stupidity. If you haven't guessed by now, I think that Abigail is a terrible villain. At least the other people accusing people of witchcraft simply for their own personal gain have reasons that actually would work, such as, I want that guy's farm, and if he's dead, I can just take it, or, I hate this person, so why not try and get them executed? Those reasons are logical, and can work. They may be driven by greed, completely immoral, and disgusting reasons, but at least the accusers are actually thinking, and don't remind me of Bella from Twilight. The play is helped by having more villains than Abigail, and by Procter being a generally intelligent protagonist (Yes, he could have immediately gone and said that Abigail had told him that there was no witchcraft, and while Elizabeth suggests that it is only because he loves Abigail that he doesn't go, I agree with the reason he gives, that no one is going to believe him if he says "The girl you all think is great and is helping to root out witchcraft is a liar, and I know this because she told me a few days ago while me and her where alone in a room with no other witnesses to her confession that there was no witchcraft!". Yes, these people do somewhat believe in things such as witchcraft and such, but they usually require some form of proof.). Hale is another character I like, as he isn't a villain, despite being the man in charge of finding signs of witchcraft. He changes, from being completely devoted to helping Paris and others find witches at the beginning, to thinking that some people are being wrongly accused, to wanting people to confess not because he wants to root out witches, but because he knows that others will execute them, and he doesn't want any more blood spilt at the end. In the end, the good parts out weight the bad parts, and I think it is a rather good play. One last thing, at the part when Abigail and the other girls are pretending to be possessed by Mary Warren and are saying the same things she says, if I were Mary, I would probably prove they are faking it by saying something they wouldn't think I would say, such as "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers" or something along those lines.

A week into rehearsing our scenes and we had only one rehearsal. But even though there hasn't been much actual time to rehearse, Andie and I have been very productive. We have a generic plan of movement and are almost off book.

Because there is a lot of emotion between the two characters, we put in a lot of movement to make it seem more natural. There is also movement built in like the embrace at the end or how they move away from each other and then back. The movement is the aspect of the scene that we probably have to work on most right now. Getting the movements that we put in seem natural is the next step for future rehearsals.

When it comes to lines, I know that I have mine memorized and Andie is pretty close. The hard part is saying the lines in an accent. My Italian accent is mostly there, but I lose it sometimes. For me, I think I just need more practice speaking with the accent and the same thing probably goes for Andie.

Other than the accents, and getting the movement right, our scene is going well and even with only one practice we seem to have a feel for it. It will be nice to have more time than one isolated class to work on our scene.

I'm not sure how much I have to say on the topic of our scenes, most of what I had to say I said last week. So basically, the scene is going well but there are still some things Andie and I have to work on.

This week we were given a challenge; to use past emotions as a way to make your emotions in the scene more realistic. This was an excellent challenge for me because I have felt jealousy and anger before, but never in a way that Beatrice has experienced. To tell you the truth, it was really a very hard exercise. The amount of emotions that B was feeling, and the level at which those emotions were at, were hard to replicate. I had to take different situations in my life where I felt those emotions and knit them together, and sometimes I would have to imagine myself in her situation to get the emotions right. 

 

     This week has been a little tough for me; my partner Rory and I have not contributed much time into acting out our scene together. So it I was a little rough in the process of getting familiar with each other's character. However most of my lines are down, it took about a week to get my lines memorized.  

      Having known my lines by heart is one of the most amazing feelings during rehearsal. It gives me the time to think enough of my character and the privilege to understand my character's physical characteristics and emotional state. Whenever I read (Elizabeth's line) my character, I am able to pick a meaning of my own and connect it to her intentions behind each line. To be successful with this and get a desirable mark, then, one must be able to fully evaluate the context of the scene and the context one is working in. I have some ideas for our scene and I cannot wait to share it on our next rehearsal.

 Warm up this week has been very fun with the grade 10's back again from their trip nevertheless we always keep the focus going. Warm up is always a good way of starting our drama class, it gets everyone's energy flowing.  

Last week essentially consisted of the implantation of the techniques that I mentioned in the previous journal, the idea of line memorization before practice being the main one. While this idea seems to work out quite nicely on paper, in practice, and within the circumstances of our scene, I've come to the conclusion that it probably wasn't the best approach. When time is of the essence, one simply can't afford to memorize both their lines and the lines of their partner, even though doing makes the actual performance and practice of a scene run a more smoothly. With both Robin and I struggling to perform not only in drama but in our other courses as well, the added load of memorizing both sets of lines was apparently too much for our abilities, or at least our current amount of sleep. One can really come to understand why there are professional actors, after experiencing the work load and the pressure of university applications these past few weeks. When it comes to drama lines, the fact that you can literally work on them forever often forces me to do my other finite work first. But even when I do get this done, my mind simply isn't at ease, and I find myself unable to focus on the dramatic task at hand. It is hard to be John Proctor while also worrying whether McGill actually got my application, or the university of Toronto accidently misinterpreted my interests as strictly being in the agrarian variety. When it comes to professional actors, obviously they're going to be able to put on a stellar performance, because they've barely got anything on their minds other than the performance. It takes a stout mind, a devoted mind, to be able to dedicate one's entire self to a character for even just a moment. This imaginary individual's problems seem trivial and are in fact, imaginary compared to our, so of course our own emotions, are own experiences and problems are going to leak into our consciousness and cause internal mental conflicts. However, I suppose this can sometimes be a good thing. If we have our own problems, are own struggles and issues, and their emotional content leaks into that of our performance, than perhaps, as Stanislavski suggests, we can work from emotional memory to put on a more believable and realistic representation of the character. So really, in a way, it all comes down to a conflict of interest. You want to have emotional experiences and memories to draw on when you are performing, but at the same time you don't want any of your own emotional baggage to drift in front of the character you are trying to portray. So in the end, I suppose what it comes down to is discovering whether or not you have the necessary life experience to draw on and create a believable performance. You hear all the time about actors purposely putting themselves through the same experiences of the characters that their playing. Christian Bale, in the movie The Machinist, lost a ridiculous amount of weight, and only ate something along the lines of an apple a day for year to prepare himself for the role. Other infamous instances of this would be the entire cast of Platoon going through what to them mostly seemed like actual military experience. Whether this is the most efficient approach, or whether the actors should simply just learn how to act is another question, but I can certainly understand both the incentives of the directors and of the actors to gain experience to draw on for an accurate portrayal of an event. This is probably one of the reasons why good science fiction and fantasy films are hard to come by. It is hard to accurately portray a sensation without ever having felt it before. This is probably why science so often recreates dramatic happenings of the past within a science fiction environment. Political turmoil, fear of the unknown, things that humans are actually quite familiar with, seem to be the center of attention in the science fiction world. It is when directors and authors truly want to do something that has never been done before that the difficulty in acting comes in, and you either end up with a masterpiece or with something so cheesy it could be classified as a crime against humanity.

          I think I can speak for my group when I say that we made little to no progress on our scene this past week. It is very difficult to memorize lines in class, and it was evident that we didn't spend enough time outside of school to make up for that lost time. Memorizing lines is definitely the most challenging step in the process of creating a scene because when you're learning the lines, you sometimes don't clearly understand their context. This is what tends to happen with me - especially with The Crucible.

            Before each rehearsal period, I take a quick look over our rubric titled Senior Level Rehearsal Process Rubric to ensure my group and I are fulfilling the requirements to get a level 4 in all aspects. Beginning with the Warm-up & Preparation - to get a level 4 in this section, our group must have completed a focused warm-up and must bring new ideas and contributions to every rehearsal session. Next, Line Study - a level 4 requires our group to have all our lines memorized by the specified date, which will allow for plenty of time for acting rehearsals. Next, Character Study - to receive a level 4 in this section, my group members and I must understand our characters very thoroughly (objectives and super objectives) because this will help with our understanding of the entire play and subsequent performance. Next, Physical Character, Blocking and Staging - when it comes time to figure out the blocking of our scene, our group must have an understanding of where blocking is necessary and in addition, in what ways costumes and set will contribute to our overall performance to receive a level 4 grade. And finally, Group Skills - our group must always support one another and work together to overcome obstacles to receive a level 4. If Jacob, Bella and I fulfill every one of these requirements on a daily basis, our marks will truly reflect the quality of the work we put into these rehearsal periods. 

          In past drama classes I've been exposed to Stanislavski's system many times. This system requires actors to portray believable emotion in their performances and acts as a method for actors to create realistic characters on stage. While we read through The Crucible by Arthur Miller, I began to identify with the character Mary Warren. As I read her lines I felt her emotion and believed that if I were to play her in our production, I would be able to effectively portray this emotion in real life. The seniors of our class (Grade 11's and 12's) were split into 3 groups. Feeling this strong connection to Mary Warren, I picked a scene where she expressed a lot of emotion and had a lot of lines. At the time I was confident I could handle copious amounts of memorizing, however, when I later looked back at the scene I chose, I doubted my abilities.

            Another aspect of Stanislavski's system is the use of objectives and super objectives. An objective is what a character wants at that exact moment in the scene, while the super objective serves as an overall goal in the play as a whole. However, these two aspects of his system can never contradict one another. This play, for me, was quite hard to understand, therefore determining Mary's super objective proved somewhat difficult. I have concluded that Mary Warren's super objective is that she wants to do the right thing but, at the same time, doesn't want to get in trouble. Throughout our chosen scene, Mary's objectives always seem to have others in mind. For example, when she tells Proctor that his wife had been accused, she shares that she herself defended Goody Proctor, which resulted in the court dismissing the accusation against her.

            Next week we will move on to the memorization stage of the rehearsal process, which makes me anxious. I have a lot on the go and memorization is a hard process when your mind is trying to multi-task a number of things. However, I will try my best to overcome these obstacles, as lines are the most crucial aspect of perfecting scene work. 

Constantin Sergeyevich Stanislavsky was born in Moscow in 1863 and has had a profound effect on the process of acting today.  He began acting at the age of 14 in his family's theatrical group.  As he honed his craft, he began to believe that for the theatre to be truly meaningful, acting had to move beyond a simple external representation into deeper psychological and emotional realms.  The Stanislavsky System, also known as "the method," states that an actor's main responsibility is to be believed, to be authentic, to be truthful, as opposed to simply being recognizable or understood.

After reading about Stanislavski in our textbook, I began to try many of his principles and ideas about acting, into my own performance and practice strategies.  I focused more on making my acting believable and more realistic, by using the "Magic If".  This involved pretending that I was John Procter, and wondering how I would react to the different situations that he goes through.  We have done this in the past, but I never really found it to be very effective because I had trouble believing what I was playing and pretending that it was real.  This time however, I really focused on it.  I felt like I took it to the next level and I found it really helped me to understand John Procter more, and this in turn, made him an easier character to play.

Another aspect of Stanislavsky's acting system is the use of objectives.  This is what the character wants and is trying to achieve.  This was very important in helping me, because when I was reading through the play for the first time, I found myself sometimes confused as to why John Procter was doing what he does.  After I examined some sections of the play, it all came together and I realized that his overall objective is to patch things up with Elizabeth, and keep his family from falling apart.  When things were put into context for me, they made a lot more sense.

In conclusion, after learning about Stanislavsky's system of acting, and implementing his techniques into my practice methods, I found that it has really helped me understand and empathize with the characters I am playing, or perhaps more accurately, the characters I am becoming.  I found these strategies much more helpful for me than they have been in the past, as I began to understand them at a deeper level.  I can't wait to implement them into more drama activities, including, hopefully, next year's production.

This week was mostly spent selecting the scene, getting the lines together that needed to be memorized, and organizing and assigning the groups. Not much actual dramatic progress was made, unfortunately. I made the suggestion to Robin that we don't come together and read the scene until we have our lines at least somewhat memorized. Quite obviously she was confused at this, so I elaborated and told her of the technique we talked about in the play, about how practice is rendered useless if the actors don't know their lines, and on top of that added that in order to avoid mental and emotional stagnation we should leave the more dynamic aspect of the scene, the acting, for later. Unfortunately, it turns out that this upcoming Friday is in fact, the due date for memorization, which I have to say is a bit frightening, considering the fact that the Poetry-In-Voice competition is taking place on the exact same day. Things, at least in terms of memorizing, seem a bit cramped, but it's nothing I can't handle. I've certainly dealt with a much more ridiculous load of work before. Anyways, when it comes to Stanivslaski's technique of discerning between the character's super-objective and current objective, I find that the funny thing is, is that these sort of dissections that were meant for drama, in reality, are applicable to a vast array of actual life circumstances. It's a pattern that I am coming across increasingly more often. My current objective is to get this actor's diary uploaded and my super objective is to pass school and get into a university, and my super-super-objective is to live a happy life, and beyond that, well who knows? There are so many different methods when it comes to trying to get an actor to act realistically. There are so many different warm ups, methods and orders of practicing, of voice training, but what really, when it comes down to it, you just want the actor to pretend that it's real. For some reason we put barriers up, we try to break it down into easy steps, but the core question that the entire profession is built upon is "if you with these exact set of circumstances, how would you, with the same incentives as the character, behave?" It makes it sound really easy doesn't it? I suppose the fact that it isn't easy is why there are so many different methods for attaining a believable performance. If I were to create my own system, it would probably be a combination of a bunch of different ideas and philosophies. Beyond the super objective, I would have Nietzsche's will to power, Schopenhauer's will to love, and above those two I would have Freud's will to pleasure. But that seems to be the problem with acting. In acting, we are displaying emotions. Emotions are not based on logic. They're irrational. That's why they're emotions. Because we lack the physical happenings to provoke the emotions within ourselves, displaying a completely irrational set of actions on a stage is quite obviously, hard to do. We always seem to find ourselves sitting down and reading these plays and pieces of literature and thinking about well, if he or she had just done this or that then everything would have worked out fine. There's an axe murderer right behind the dumb blonde, why doesn't she turn around? As soon as an individual has acquired foresight, as soon as they know how things are going to turn out, their behaviour changes. Therefore, by being an actor, it is almost impossible to act as if you don't know the upcoming consequences of your words and actions, and of the words and actions of your fellow actors. It reminds of a thing a lot of directors like to do. In Star Wars, the true identity of Luke's father was only revealed to the cast moments before, and how in Alien, the infamous "chest-burster" scene was as much as a surprise to the actors as it was to the characters. It seems that directors have picked up on this little actor's paradox, and have tried to alleviate its side effects by keeping their plots a secret. It certainly is an interesting technique, but quite obviously a risky one. One can not know how to act if one does not know what Stanivlaski would call the "given circumstances," and receiving this information mid-performance can force the actor into a response of their own instead of one of their character's. I think when we examine the experiences of our improve unit, new information introduced while the piece is actually in motion can actually bring the action to a standstill. It would take highly trained, disciplined individuals to be able manage such suggestions in the midst of a performance. Hopefully, drama class will help us get to that level.