Recently in Ellen Chery Category

Rehearsal

After weeks of rehearsal I have come to understand my character Helen  so well in fact I sometimes imitate her.  it is always an intense rehearsal for Andy And I as we always have to make sure that we avoid blocking each other.  Blocking is one of the many challenges we have faced so far in our scene rehearsals. A lot of movements  and switch in positions take place in this scene and a lack of focus to these smalls things can create very awkward moments on stage, for instance bumping into each other or having to decide which way to go. This is not something we want to happen on our final performance.  So our goal for this week was to try and get rid of any chances to blocking each other in the final performance. Things are presumably working out better than expected. A lot of effort and time is being invested into rehearsal and we feel ready to give a solid

Firstly, maintaining a smooth and close interaction with Andy was my focus, in order to make this scene work , we have to cooperate and make ourselves comfortable first.  There are points were things felt awkward  because we probably were not that much acquainted which each other therefore sharing ideas freely was a little a bit of a problem but after weeks of rehearsal we got a lot more familiar with one another and it worked out between us,  brainstorming our ideas is a lot more easier than it was.  Now we've accomplished that, there is a lot more interaction between the characters. It felt a little bit funny playing probably somewhere between a 14 and 15 year old, letting my guard down issues and playing a scene with Andy who is about 15 or 16 years old and having her be my senior in this scene. 

Another thing we worked on during our rehearsal was volume.  I am quiet by nature and that seemed to affect my performance during rehearsals in a lot of ways. I try to voice out my lines as loud and clear as possible but it's almost impossible to level out with Andy. She is very good with raising her voice loud and clear but cool. I thought I was ok until  the emotion, crazy and scary enough started to build around my chest, When we had to perform in front of Mr Newman. I was frightened that Andy's voice will overshadow mine and that nobody will hear what I was saying but  we both pulled it off even though my voice was still a little bit low, I needed to work on it. Luckily enough, Mr Newman helped us out by taking us outdoors to rehearse, we both stood on far ends  and we had to raise our voice up in order to hear each other to make sure we run the lines smoothly.

Lastly we focused on things like movements and positioning, this would allow for a better and smoother run of the scene and even an elaborated connection between the characters and audience. for instance Sarah goes into the kitchen to get a drink, Helen wonders about  the room figuring out that it would be  great idea to have the boys come over and have a drink with them in the posh and amazing dining room which kept her amazed the whole time. The moment Helen is alone in the dining room her sense of humor  reveals as she calls out to sarah and asks her whether the boys could come over.  Her excitement  over the fact that she Is hanging out with Sarah and that she being given the go ahead to have alcohol is overrated and this creates that hype she has we she is left alone in the room. 

                                                       Rehearsal

Getting into character Is really a challenging task for me. The  play is set in  a single dining room and Andy and I are playing a scene in it, which is the  Helen and Sarah scene. I am playing Helen and Andy is playing Sarah, who is a new friend of Helen, she is also new to Helen's school. However Helen's personality is opposite of Sarah's, they both have and live in different lifestyles . Helen is more of a calm and well-disciplined chick whereas Sarah is just the total opposite; perverse and lacks manner.  

However she is easily influenced by Sarah and she decides to have a drink with her friend although she has probably never drank alcohol before. Basically Helen is  taking a dip into Sarah's lifestyle just so she can be as cool as her. I really like my character a lot because I think her lifestyles reflects to mine as well for example our jittery behavior. Rehearsing with Andy the very first time was hilarious, I was confused about how I should act with this character. I read off of the book through the first week in drama class but as I read I was able to memorize some of the lines. This made it even easier for me to play Helen. I find it strange that this time I am not struggling to understand my character. This has been my first time partnering up with Andy, and to our advantage we were able to work on some of our blockings and challenge the objectives and super objectives of our characters distinctively.  Helen's objective is to experience drinking  alcohol for the first time and with Andy without getting caught by Andy's parents. Helen is influenced by Andy and hanging around with a senior is a big achievement for her therefore she makes it her priority and concern not to let Andy suspect or look at her as any uncool or young person of a sort. Throughout the scene Helen's concerns range from pleasing Andy and keeping up with the new lifestyle to making sure not to ruin their friendship. I believe this to be her super objective.

 Helen is somewhat humorous. She is very inexperienced in the whole badass, teenage, illegal lifestyle. Helen helps Sarah steal her parents liquor to drink undisturbed around the dining table. She practically is just a follower throughout the scene as well as  very vulnerable to accepting and saying yes to whatever Sarah asks her to do. I am really excited to play Helen and getting to know her a lot more is my goal before the final performance.

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.  

     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.  

       This week was a pretty long and interesting drama class. It is a class tradition to begin our class with a Warm Up; it was very enjoyable and relaxing. I really do enjoy the atmosphere that builds up when doing our Warm Up; this is because we all are focused and comfortable when we are on it. 

     Our task for the week was to practice our monologues. Grade eleven's and twelve's are performing scenes in the play "the crucibles". I am playing the character Elizabeth, in the play. This is a very challenging task for me because I have to adjust myself into her character. Elizabeth is a very emotional character who is pained by the fact that her husband was having an affair with their servant who is known as Abigail. The play gets a little more crucial and much interesting at the court scene.

     This week, I also learnt new drama terms, skills and ideas like "super objective and objective". The difficult part of the acting process is when you have to develop a scene and portray your own ideas into it. This is important because it allows the audience to see the different approaches actors or directors can take to develop a play to make it unique and outstanding from the original play itself.

     Overall, this week was successful and I am excited to perform it in front of my drama class!

                                                              Ghosts!

Ghosts is a play written by Henrik Ibsen and all members of the Upper School drama class, watched the production  in Toronto at a theatre known as; The (Yonge Centre for the Performing Arts,). It is a Soul pepper production, directed by Morris Panych and played by an amazing cast on November 18, 2011 which featured Diego Matamoros, Michelle Monteit, Nancy Palk, Gregory Prest and lastly Joseph ziegler.  Not only did the title grasp my attention but the opening and management of this production really took everything to another level. It was just a captivating performance.

This play reflected the pre-modern society, a very cultural society with Christian beliefs and norms.  The entire play revolved around darkness portraying a widow known as "Mrs Alvin" whose husband has left with nothing but with unbearable responsibilities. From The very old generation concept that women must marry men of a higher class drove this woman to marry her late husband, which she now regrets. The husband known as "Captain Alvin" ought to be the kind that less valued life because he never actually found happiness through his living. He was a drunkard, whose wife brought along little pleasure. He impregnated his own servant " Johanna" who gives birth to "Regina" and she is raised as a housemaid by her father's wife (The widow), but she is believed to be the daughter of "Jacob Engstrand" A carpenter who is married to her mother (The Late servant). The widow also has a son who goes by the name "Oswald Alvin" with her late husband, but the boy lives abroad and not with his mother. He knows little about his father. The two children "Oswald and Regina" grow up not knowing that they are siblings until at a later stage in their lives. The boy comes to visit the mother, there, he finds the priest known as "Pastor Manders" who unwillingly but thankfully helps reveal this dark secret, almost through the whole period of the play he addresses Mrs Alvin about morals and religion, I also find him as  the funniest character in the play.  The whole play is set to operate based on life force, both of the children speak of a life force within them.  Surprisingly enough the boy reveals some feeling of affection for the housemaid, who he has not come to know, is his sister. The intensity of this situation prevails up to the point that the boy's mother is forced to speak out the truth unexpectedly in the ending. The approach in which the characters took to demonstrate this scene was highly professional and satisfying. The gestures, acting, communication and clarity of the play brought me reminiscing to it, again and again.  It was profound, in effect, I found myself in a mixture of moods, at first, the mood tended to be calm, which later transformed to sadness and curiosity as I was tempt to know what would happen next. Also the theme tends to concentrate around death and religion. 

The actors in the play were just incredible. The strength and volume of their voices was so powerful, the words came out so clearly that I could even hear the syllables in every word spoken.  They manner in which they spoke reflected and well represented the time in which the story was written.  A part of the scene where the boy holds his mother tightly, surrounding each other's arms as if it was in real life, it felt so natural, that embrace even I felt the comfort and protection they experienced at that moment. I quickly found myself in the shadow of the housemaid, meaning I felt completely engaged with her character although it was just a play, I could feel that sadness and despair in her from the very moment she learnt the truth. Every individual fitted well into their character and occupied as much as they could which I really enjoyed.

All in all, the designers did well in portraying the setting of the play, which brought back old times, people dressed culturally and very formal. A lot of materials such as lace fabric and wood were used and I think it really brought us back to old times. People around that particular time also held very high morals and respected every member of the society. These are the times when men were inferior to women and when social status was used to assess every member in the society. The play as shown is based on class position beginning with the widow and her son who represent the upper class, the priest who belongs to the middle class, then the housemaid and the drunkard who belong to the lower class. As we can see, the play dealt with a lot of materialism too. The director and backstage members did a great job in the effects of lightning and sound, especially when the light was used to show the breakdown of fire in the orphanage and the way sound was used to portray very sad moments, in the opening and ending shifts of every scene in the story and how they made the sound of rain drops appear so real that I even thought It was actually raining. 

The play overall was very highly well presented with fantastic cast.  You could see how well it was practiced because not even a single mistake could have been in the process. The sound effects the settings where all just professional, the style of the play is realistic. No improvements as far as I am concerned are needed.

This week, drama warm up was pretty interesting. In the first five minutes of class we all settled and took our stance. In order to experience the effectiveness of the warm up everyone stands in their neutral positions, keeping legs few inches apart, loosely laying hands by our side. We do this to properly relax our whole body as well as pretending as we've been hooked from the sky and sort of suspending.

Tuesday warm up was very intense as Jessica took the lead. Each and every one of us where carried away by the attention we gave to our body, we stood in neutral position imagining that we are hooked to the sky from our heads. Next we moved on to the head stretch, it was very effective, although I couldn't see anyone but the just by observing the silence I was able to tell that everyone was so focused to their exercise. At that moment, I felt how my muscles were stretching, awakening every part of my body. Then we slowly move on to the head turns, which really much more is calming from there we slowly travel to other parts of our body and down to the legs still maintaining our neutral stance.  The way I my body get extremely active after the warm up. That laziness that always gets me in the morning totally disappears after drama class.

  Warm-up on Thursday, was also very thorough because we all kept an amount good focus, however people somehow got off track at some points, for example, during the arm turns I felt completely distracted and behind as our leader kept on going back and forth on some stretches that were already done, well she repeated some of them, she was confused so was I and some few others.  But later on we all followed on well, it was ok, we were able to figure out our ways, some others also led themselves and kept on track with the whole group.  I enjoyed it. I can't wait for next week warm up!

In order to be successful with my monologue, I have to put in more effort and more exaggeration into it. This month has been a very crazy and tight for me; I guess it has also impacted my ability to put in more effort. I have not fully prepared or facilitate myself for the monologue and it has ruined my capability of producing a well memorized one. I have also noticed that I always feel very uncomfortable whenever presenting my monologue.

In a monologue such as mine a lot of expressions and elaborations ought to be demanded. My character has to do with a lot of facial expression; communication nevertheless capturing the audience's sympathy is very well needed. The character I am playing is a heartbroken woman who is left in an isolated and remote area with her very ill brother and supportive husband. She walks in search for help, for her brother who is almost dying out of pain. I feel very connected to the story and I really want to give my best and make this monologue very captivating.

However, in order to do this, I have to adjust myself, the tone at which I speak needs to be much powerful and loud, my words have to come out clear and I have to be more focused on the character, prop up my lines and show more emotions.  If I practice these techniques and adjust myself by this end of this week, I think I would enjoy the character of Myra a lot more.  A lot of practice is needed but so far this week, I have seen some improvements and I will gladly take every opportunity to make this monologue a bundle more interesting to me and to my audience!

In this movie reveals the truth about teenage life and the struggles encountered in our transition to adulthood. It is clearly a good film, which presents 8 grammar school boys who all wish to enrol into oxford and Cambridge university but that can only be determined by the outcome of their exam results. However, there is conflict throughout the film as we find the two teachers often fighting for these boys devotions and therefore it turns out to be very funny to the audience instead as we watch.  One character that I enjoyed the most was Hector, he consistently argued about both art and history and how people tend to relate to it. He loves history and is very compassionate about it. Also we see these students as that very fund of discussing homosexuality and it seems they are very much comfortable about it.  Altogether I think it was a very educative movie with a good and impressive cast.